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This title was first published in 2001. Kosovo: From Crisis to Crisis deals with the main features of the most recent crisis, leading up to operation Allied Force. It provides an excellent analysis of all major aspects of NATO’s intervention and it discusses the current problems with the implementation of the settlement. Until recently, Kosovo was a rather unknown territory in a far-away corner of Europe. The Serbian-Albanian armed conflict, NATO's intervention and the following struggle by the international community to rebuild this area has turned Kosovo into terra cognita for diplomats, politicians, the military, aid workers and the public. Essential reading for political scientists with special interest in ethnic and conflict studies.

ABSTRACT. It was the aim of this paper to ask three authors from different backgrounds how they saw the connections between two notions, strategic autonomy and European preference, and the European Defence Fund (EDF), the European Commission initiative currently submitted to the European Council and the European Parliament for approval. These three authors were chosen for their diverse origins. The first of them, Vincenzo Camporini, vice-president of the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), was successively Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force and of the Italian Defence General Staff. He expresses the military man’s point of view. The second, Dick Zandee, is Senior Research Fellow at the Dutch Clingendael Institute. Lastly, Keith Hartley is a British economist at the university of York who has worked for many years on the defence industry. It would inevitably be reductive to synthesize their arguments: their viewpoints are also those of individuals, not of representatives of institutions. And yet a number of general lines of argument emerge. Though Vincenzo Camporini stresses that Europeans’ efforts should contribute to strengthening the European pillar of NATO and that the European Union will still have to depend on some NATO resources going forward, he nonetheless takes the view that there is a recurrent capability shortfall on the Europeans’ part and that a certain level of strategic autonomy is required to enable constructive dialogue to take place within the alliance. For that reason, Europeans must make their own contributions, including with regard to the most demanding scenarios.He refers, for example, to satellite surveillance capabilities as a way of acquiring autonomy in this field, of target identification capabilities and different enablers such as airborne early warning aircraft with tactical command and control capabilities, as well as precision guided munitions. Lastly, General Camporini takes the view that the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) is a building block of that strategic autonomy and that the European Defence Fund can reinforce it, provided that states strive toward the reconciliation of their operational needs in the way that is required to develop cooperation and help strengthen the EDTIB.Dick Zandee and Keith Hartley both question the very notion of strategic autonomy. As Zandee sees it, it is inadequately defined from a political standpoint, for want of a definition of common interests and a common security and foreign policy. He does, however, note that the EU Global Strategy has defined a number of shared interests. These have to be promoted and defended by using all available EU instruments in a ‘joined up’ approach. The EU’s military instrument, however, lacks credibility. Therefore, EU strategic autonomy is very much dependent on developing credible military forces to back up the joined up approach.Lastly, he takes the view that Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) might actually lead to a broader definition of strategic autonomy for the countries who will be part of it, assuming they will develop capabilities to enable them to conduct the high-end missions of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).Lastly, Keith Hartley wonders about the cost of this strategic autonomy. He sees it as necessarily having a cost. Vincenzo Camporini also takes the view that defence funding will have to be increased if the aim is to build this strategic autonomy. Hartley deplores the absence of measuring tools relating to the cost of this strategic autonomy itself, to the concept which isn’t defined at the EU level—an analysis he shares with Dick Zandee—and also to the positive effect of strategic autonomy, which cannot be assessed either in terms of the defence of EU interests or in economic or employment terms.Overall, though no one challenges the basis of the European Union and its member states’ thinking on strategic autonomy or the resolve to develop such autonomy, the difficulty of defining the scope of that strategic autonomy represents a handicap when it comes to assessing how this relates to the European Defence Fund. For Keith Hartley, European preference is undoubtedly a way to acquire that strategic autonomy, while the European Defence Fund is mainly, as he sees it, a way for Europeans to achieve more efficient defence spending. In Vincenzo Camporini’s view, the European Defence Fund ought to be mainly directed at financing the equipment required for developing the EU’s strategic autonomy, which itself would lead to European preference in this field. As Jean-Pierre Maulny sees it, the European Defence Fund creates by its very nature a European preference, since its aim—particularly with the European Defence Industrial Development Programme—is to develop the EDTIB within the framework of the EU’s industrial policy instruments. For that reason, the eligible entities can only be European. It is, however, necessary to reconcile this principle with the need not to close down cooperation on armaments with other countries, so as to take advantage of the most high-performance equipment. In doing so, two conditions must nonetheless be respected: non-European economic entities must not be able to receive monies from the European Defence Fund, and EU member states, together with the companies that participate in such cooperation, must have control of the technologies developed with EU funds. Lastly, Jean-Pierre Maulny takes the view that priority funding must be given to the most strategic capacities through the European Defence Fund, particularly in the case of the member states that will join PESCO, this being necessary to develop the EU’s strategic autonomy

The Russian invasion in Ukraine has fundamentally changed the security environment in Europe. Member states as well as the EU and NATO have responded to the new challenges posed by Russia’s aggression, resulting in decisions that were deemed unthinkable before, such as the Finnish and Swedish application for NATO membership. Defence budgets have been further increased and the number of Allied countries realising NATO’s 2 percent GDP target on defence is growing. With defence budgets on the rise, there is an increasing risk of countries seeking national solutions to European capability shortfalls. Multinational defence cooperation is the tool to prevent this from happening and defence specialisation should become an important element in strengthening European military capabilities.

This report explores the possible role of the JEF in hybrid conflicts and how cooperation in the JEF can be attained. The first chapter addresses the role of military forces in responding to hybrid threats and what the JEF has realised in this context so far. Particular attention will be given to the challenges of but also the opportunities for connecting military activities with those of non-military actors. The second chapter focusses on the roles of NATO and the EU in the hybrid domain and how the JEF could relate to the efforts of these international organisations. The potential impact of the future NATO membership of Finland and Sweden – both JEF Participating Nations – is also addressed. The third chapter zooms in on the potential of the JEF’s role and functions in the hybrid domain and how this should be implemented. The growing political character of the JEF cooperation is also addressed. The report ends with a list of conclusions and recommendations for the Netherlands.

This Policy Brief addresses specialisation in security and defence from the perspective of the ‘Team Europe’ approach of distributing tasks and operating with varying coalitions of European countries in order to make the EU (and in this case also NATO) more effective. It presents a model of structuring European armed forces in specialised groups – an idea that has been proposed in a Clingendael report published earlier this year. First, the Policy Brief lays out the playing field by explaining the model of European capability groups. Next, several options for European capability groups will be proposed. It concludes with listing the implications for the Netherlands.

This Policy brief assesses the scope for a closer coordination and synchronisation of the defence policies, planning and investment of the European countries in order to contribute to open strategic autonomy. First, the author provides an overview of the recent EU initiatives and how these relate to the efforts of the member states. Next, the question of what the member states should do to increase cross-border defence cooperation in terms of decision-making, budget cycles and defence planning will be addressed. The subsequent section assesses how the hurdles to moving from national to multinational defence planning and investment can best be overcome. The final section points to the way forward, including suggestions on the specific role that the Netherlands can play in enhancing European collaboration in defence programmes.