Research Papers

With eight military missions undertaken since 2003, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has established itself as a relevant tool in the European Union’s foreign policy. However, those missions were, more often than not, small and not particularly demanding. More than a lack of capacity, it has been the lack of political will, associated with an uneasy relationship with NATO, which has dictated the EU’s limited involvement in the military field. Either as a cause or as a consequence, the EU lacks a coherent strategy that determines when and where to intervene, and with what purpose. In short, it lacks a political ethics of intervention that is both in tune with its ambitions of global actorness. By focusing on political realism, particularly on authors such as Hans Morgenthau, that accepted both the importance of military power and the perils associated with its use, this paper attempts to discuss the possibility of defining a realist ethics of military intervention that could be applied to the EU and thus help to answer one of the most important questions concerning its international activity: when should the EU intervene militarily?