Łukasz Szmalec
European Military Capabilities. History, Assessment, Practice and Perspectives [View PDF]
ABSTRACT
The last decade was marked by the European growing ambition of an active role in the security sphere inter alia increasingly important role as an actor in crisis response missions. Taking into account conclusions coming from the last European Council session, the article analyses a progress that has been made in the development of European military capabilities essential to conducting independent full-scale out of area operations since the foundations of the ESDP. Attention will be given to the efforts undertaken to generate such capabilities at the EU level, their results and the challenges ahead. On the basis of these considerations the Author believes that ten years of the CSDP (former ESDP) have brought a few and above all only minor successes. As Zbigniew Brzezinski aptly pointed out: “Europe remains a junior geopolitical partner to the United States in the semi unified West”.
Keywords: European military capabilities, CSDP, out of area capabilities, European Union