Felix and Giegerich ESDP and Ontological Security

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From NATO to ESDP: A Social

Constructivist Analysis of German
Strategic Adjustment after the End of
the Cold War
a
Felix Berenskoetter & Bastian Giegerich

a
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, UK

Published online: 27 Aug 2010.
To cite this article: Felix Berenskoetter & Bastian Giegerich (2010) From NATO to ESDP: A Social
Constructivist Analysis of German Strategic Adjustment after the End of the Cold War, Security
Studies, 19:3, 407-452, DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2010.505128
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From NATO to ESDP:

A Social Constructivist Analysis of German
Strategic Adjustment after the End
of the Cold War
FELIX BERENSKOETTER AND BASTIAN GIEGERICH
This article addresses the question why Germany invested in what

became the European Unions Security and Defense Policy (ESDP),
a potential competitor to NATO. In addition to highlighting Germanys role in the development of ESDP, the paper offers a social
constructivist explanation for this investment based on the concepts of friendship, estrangement, and emancipation. It develops
the argument that (1) states gain ontological security by investing
in international institutions to negotiate and pursue ideas of order
with friends; (2) deep and enduring dissonance between friends
signifies a process of estrangement and poses a threat to ontological
security; and (3) if states cannot restore resonance with the old
friend-institution configuration, they choose a strategy of emancipation by investing in an alternative. Applied to an analysis of
Felix Berenskoetter is Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Oriental and

African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
Bastian Giegerich is the Research Fellow for European security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, UK.
A first version of this article was presented at the Fifth Pan-European Conference of
the ECPR Standing Group of International Relations, The Hague, September 2004. Subsequent
presentations were made at conferences hosted by UACES, Oxford, 2005; ISA, San Diego, 2006;
CEEISA, Tartu, 2006; BISA, Cork, 2006; and at Dartmouth College. We are grateful for many
valuable comments and questions received on those occasions. Particular thanks goes to
Ed Rhodes, Dan Kelemen, Jolyon Howorth, Harald Mueller, Gunther Hellmann, Ingo Peters,
David Bosold, Daryl Press, numerous anonymous reviewers, the editors of Security Studies,
and to the experts and officials who agreed to be interviewed. Felix Berenskoetter would like
to acknowledge the financial support received by the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC), the LSEs Department of International Relations, and the John Sloan Dickey Center for
International Understanding.
407
408
F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich
German strategic adjustments between 1990 and 2009 in the context of U.S.-led interventions in Iraq, the Balkans, and Afghanistan,
the article suggests that Germany invested in ESDP to offset enduring dissonance with the United States and NATO about appropriate
mandate, missions, and means, with France and ESDP emerging
as a suitable alternative. With this, the article offers valuable insights into the parameters guiding German security policy and the
structure of transatlantic relations and also provides a theoretical
alternative to the realist balancing proposition.
Since the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, member states of the European Union (EU)
increased cooperation in the realm of foreign and security policy within the
formal framework of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and its
intrinsic component the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), established in 1999.1 The emergence of CFSP/ESDP is noteworthy because it occurred
in a densely institutionalized environment that for decades had been dominated by NATO and because the representation of ESDP as the long-awaited
European effort to share NATOs burden does not quite fit. ESDP manifests a
shift away from earlier ideas of a European caucus within NATO to an institution with the ambition to be independent from the Atlantic Alliance. Even
initially skeptical observers note that ESDP has become a latent competitor of
NATO, challenging NATOs monopoly as the provider of European security.2 If
this challenge turns out to be successful, it would overhaul Europes security
architecture and reduce the influence of the United States within the same,
thereby significantly reconfiguring the structure of transatlantic relations.3
Any assessment of CFSP/ESDP must take into account that the institution is
a compromise between EU member states that often differ in their views on
its function and overall purpose, differences that become visible again in the
1 With the Lisbon Treaty entering into force in December 2009 the name changed again to Common
Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). For an overview, see Jolyon Howorth, Security and Defense Policy in
the European Union, (London: Palgrave, 2007).
2 Helga Haftendorn, Das Atlantische Buendnis in der Anpassungskrise (Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft
und Politik, February, 2005), 22. See also Jolyon Howorth, ESDP and NATO: Wedlock or Deadlock?
Cooperation and Conflict, 38, no. 3 (2003): 23554; Mark Webber et al., The Governance of European
Security, Review of International Studies 30, no. 1 (2004): 326; Judy Dempsey, EU and NATO bound in a
perilous rivalry, New York Times/International Herald Tribune, 4 October 2006; Hanna Ojanen, The EU
and NATO: Two Competing Models for a Common Defence Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies 44,
no. 1 (2006): 5776. Stephanie Hofmann, Overlapping Institutions in the Realm of International Security:
The Case of NATO and ESDP, Perspectives on Politics 7, no. 1 (2009): 4552.
3 Francois Heisbourg and Roger de Wijk, Is the fundamental nature of the transatlantic security
relationship changing? NATO Review 49, no. 1 (2001): 1519; Robert Hunter The European Security and
Defense Policy: NATOs Companion or Competitor? (Santa Monica: Rand, 2002); Barry Posen, ESDP and the
structure of world power, International Spectator 39, no. 1 (2004): 517.
From NATO to ESDP
409
implementation process.4 This article focuses on Germanys motivation to

invest in CFSP/ESDP. Although possessing only one voice among many in the
EUs policy-making process, Germany is one of the big three in Europes
security architecture, with France and the UK being the other two. Indeed,
given its size and wealth, Germany could be seen as the core state shaping
the European region.5 It certainly played an active role in the development
of CFSP/ESDP: over the years German governments invested in this institution
by (co-)sponsoring initiatives defining the scope of common action, building
up multilateral troop formations for use by the EU, increasing cooperation in
intelligence and defense industries, dissolving the Western European Union
(WEU) into the EU, establishing planning and decision-making structures, and
supporting ESDP missions.6 Because this investment occurred during a period
whenwith the end of the Cold WarGermany allegedly enjoyed an increase in security and was deeply integrated into NATO, the question arises
why German governments deemed it necessary to invest in a new European security institution exclusive of NATO. What did Germany hope to gain
through CFSP/ESDP that NATO did not already offer?
Scholarship in European integration, IR theory, and German foreign policy has yet to come to terms with this question. By emphasizing the German
role in the development of CFSP/ESDP, this article fills a gap in existing intergovernmental and neofunctionalist accounts of European integration, which
tend to portray ESDP either as a Franco-British initiative or as an inevitable
result of European integration. By describing German agency in this process,
the article also corrects the continuity frame dominating analyses of German
foreign policy since 1990 that stresses a commitment to multilateralism yet
fails to address that this commitment is conditional.7 In highlighting the latter,
4 Bastian Giegerich, European Security and Strategic Culture: National Responses to the EUs Security
and Defence Policy (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006).
5 See, for instance, Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions. Asia and Europe in the American
Imperium (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).
6 We define investment as the mobilization of significant political capital to influence the formulation of strategic goals as well as the establishment and reform of organizational elements or practical
use of the same. It does not refer to financial investments in military capabilities on the national level, as
these may be used for either institution (NATO, ESDP, or indeed any). For work describing parts of this investment, see John S. Duffield, World Power Forsaken (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Charles
A. Kupchan, In Defence of European Defence, Survival 42, no. 2 (2000): 1632; Wolfgang Wagner, Die
Konstruktion einer Europaischen
Aussenpolitik (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2002); Franz-Josef Meiers,
Germanys Defence Choices, Survival 47, no. 1 (2005): 15366; Wolfram Hilz, Europas Verhindertes
Fuehrungstrio (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2005).
7 Thomas Berger, Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan, in The Culture of
National Security, ed. Peter Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 31745; Thomas
Banchoff, German Identity and European Integration, European Journal of International Relations 5,
no. 3 (1999): 25989; Duffield, World Power Forsaken; Volker Rittberger, ed., German Foreign Policy
sinceUnification (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001); Franz-Josef Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern?
(Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2006). For work questioning the continuity frame, see Gunther Hellman, Sag beim Abschied leise servus, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 43, no. 3 (2002): 498507; Gunther
Hellman et al., De-Europeanization by Default? Foreign Policy Analysis 1, no. 1 (2005): 14364; Regina
410
we argue that challenges to these conditions from within NATO, specifically

from the United States, motivated successive governments to undertake a
strategic adjustment from NATO to CFSP/ESDP. As such, it holds that explaining
German investment in CFSP/ESDP requires an understanding of why NATOs attraction diminished and suggests that dominant approaches in IR theory have
significant shortcomings in providing such understanding. As outlined below, institutionalist approaches suffer from a dependency bias unsuitable to
explain why NATO ceased to satisfy German security interests. Realist attempts
to portray this investment as a balancing act against the United States are
unconvincing because CFSP/ESDP was designed neither to militarily balance
nor to constrain the United States. We also note weaknesses in explanations
attributing German behavior to a fear of abandonment or a fear of entrapment by the United States and in NATO. While recognizing the broader utility
of these two concepts, they must be integrated into a coherent theoretical
argument of what it means for states to be secure and, by extension, what
ESDP is for.
This article offers such an argument through social constructivist reasoning. Building on work that emphasizes the link between identity and security,
we contend that states invest in international security institutions because
they enable states to gain (and sustain) ontological security by negotiating
a shared sense of international order with friends. Correspondingly, states
will invest in an alternative institution if, first, there is enduring dissonance
between friends about the guiding principles for building orderwhat we
call a process of estrangementand if, second, alternative relationships
are available in which ontological security can be maintained more effectively through a new institutionwhat we call a strategy of emancipation.
Relying on evidence from a range of primary and secondary sources, the
article empirically traces this reasoning through the two decades following
the end of the Cold War. Starting from the view that the United States fulfilled
the function as Germanys friend in NATO during the Cold War, it examines
how U.S. expectations about the use of force challenged German ideas of
order in the context of the 1991 Gulf War and the engagements in Bosnia,
Kosovo, and Afghanistan. The article looks at the effect this had on German
ontological security and assesses the German reaction oscillating between
adaptation within NATO and emancipation through CFSP/ESDP. The basic argument put forward is that enduring dissonance with the United States and
within NATO prompted German governments to invest in CFSP/ESDP as an alternative forum where, in cooperation with France, domestic adjustment of
Karp, Identities and Structural Change since the End of the Cold War, International Politics 40 (2003):
52758; Steve F. Szabo, Der Rubikon ist u berschritten, Internationale Politik (January 2006): 8695; Anja
Dalgaard-Nielsen, Germany Pacifism, and Peace Enforcement (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2006); and some of the contributions in Germanys Uncertain Power, ed. Hanns W. Maull (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
From NATO to ESDP
411
principles guiding the use of force could be embedded in an idea of international order that conformed to Germanys identity as a Civilian Power. In
that sense, we suggest that the strategic adjustment from NATO to CFSP/ESDP
allowed German identity to maintain continuity through change.8
By emphasizing the importance of international friendship and exploring processes of disassociation from a social constructivist perspective, this
article provides a theoretical alternative to the realist bandwagoning and
balancing propositions. On the practical side, the account of German objectives behind CFSP/ESDP presented here will enhance an understanding of the
forces shaping European security institutions and help evaluate the current
state, and possible pathways, of transatlantic relations. The article is divided
into four parts. The first outlines the shortcomings of existing theoretical
approaches by asserting that the logical thrust of each theory is unsuitable
for making sense of the case at hand. The second part develops the theoretical argument of interstate friendship and emancipation. The third part
demonstrates the arguments plausibility through a detailed case study of
exploratory nature.9 As such, the empirical study of German investment in
CFSP/ESDP occurs through a single analytical frame, aiming to present what
John Ruggie calls a configurative narrative with results that are verisimilar
and believable to others looking over the same events.10 The conclusion
summarizes the main findings and outlines some implications.
SHORTCOMINGS OF EXISTING THEORETICAL APPROACHES

Between Revolution and Path Dependency
Scholars of European integration tend to ignore Germanys role when explaining CFSP/ESDP. The standard intergovernmental perspective highlights the
1998 St. Malo agreement between France and Britain as the beginning of serious European security and defense cooperation. Although St. Malo is an
important benchmark, the focus on this agreement and its portrayal as a
revolution fails to capture that ESDP is part of a process of increasing cooperation in foreign and security policy among EU member states and is blind to
Germanys contribution to this process. This blind spot is supported by the
prevailing view among analysts that the security policy of unified Germany
was marked by unconditional multilateralism supporting anything European
and by diplomacy aimed primarily at balancing European and Atlanticist
projects. As a consequence, when it comes to the development of CFSP/ESDP,
8 Thomas Risse, Kontinuitaet durch Wandel. Eine neue deutsche Aussenpolitik? Aus Politik und
Zeitgeschichte B11 (8 March 2004): 2431.
9 John Gerring, Case Study Research (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 39.
10 John G. Ruggie, What makes the world hang together? International Organization 52, no. 4
(1998): 94.
412
Germanys role is reduced to a mediator between France and the UK, guided
by the primary aim of furthering European integration as such.11
The neofunctionalist perspective is unsatisfactory because it downplays
state agency and, instead, portrays CFSP/ESDP as the outcome of a pathdependent process driven by supranational actors and institutional spill-over,
catching up with integration in economic, judicial, and social realms.12 Yet
governments are generally eager to maintain their decision-making autonomy when establishing security and defense policy; therefore, it is necessary
to understand CFSP/ESDP as the result of negotiations between member states
rather than an inevitable product of integrationist dynamics. Moreover, the
neofunctionalist view brushes over the fact that CFSP was set up with the
1992 Maastricht treaty as a new institutional arrangement that moved the EU
into a realm previously reserved for NATO.13 Though the idea of a security
institution can be traced back to the European Community (EC) in the 1950s
and although the WEU and European Political Cooperation (EPC) mechanisms
provided institutional assets that could be built upon, German leaders resisted French overtures to organize European defense cooperation outside
NATO throughout the Cold War. Neofunctionalist logic cannot explain why
German policy makers embraced the idea after unification.
The problem of path dependency also bedevils the institutionalist approach, this time in favor of NATO. Institutionalist logic would suggest that
German governments invested in a new institution (CFSP/ESDP) because they
considered the existing one (NATO) inefficient in satisfying German security
interests.14 The problem is that the meaning of inefficiency is notoriously
vague and ultimately depends on how security interests are defined. Although institutionalist theory does not address this question beyond making
general utilitarian assumptions, literature from within this camp maintains
that NATO successfully adapted to the post-Cold War environment and was
able to satisfy new security demands, including Germanys demand for creating stability in Central and Eastern Europe.15 Even if the latter was not
11
This view is predominant in Berger, Norms, Identity and National Security; Banchoff, German
Identity; Duffield, World Power Forsaken; Maull, Civilian Power?; Rittberger, Germany foreign policy;
Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern?; Barry Posen, European Union Security and Defense Policy: Response to
Unipolarity? Security Studies 15, no. 2 (2006): 14986.
12 Simon Duke, The Elusive Quest for European Security (New York: St. Martins Press, 2000); Michael
E. Smith, Europes Foreign and Security Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). The classic
treatment explicitly brackets off the realm of foreign and security policy from the spill-over process. Ernst
B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958).
13 Christopher Hill and Karen E. Smith, eds., European Foreign Policy: Key Documents (London:
Routledge, 2000), 152.
14 Here we address the utilitarian or neoliberal version of the institutionalist argument. The sociological version is outlined further below. For diverse institutionalist approaches in IR, see Andreas
Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, Theories of International Regimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
15 Celeste Wallander and Robert O. Keohane, Risk, Threat, and Security Institutions, in Imperfect
Unions: security institutions over time and space, ed. Helga Haftendorn, Robert O. Keohane, and Celeste
From NATO to ESDP
413
part of NATOs original task catalogue, sunk-cost logic holds that costs of institutional reform are often considered lower than the start-up costs for a
new institution; hence, institutions may even survive times of inefficiency.16
Given Germanys deep integration in NATO and the latters purported ability to
adapt and deal with new challenges, the institutionalist approach is ill suited
to explain investment in a new and potentially competing institution.17
A Balancing Act?
The weakness of the above explanations is not merely that their logical
thrust renders them unsuitable for making sense of German investment in
CFSP/ESDP as an alternative to NATO. Missing from them is a consideration of
the role that the United States plays within these institutions and how this
affects Germanys strategic considerations. This perspective is championed
by realists.
Structural realism portrays German investment in CFSP/ESDP as a reaction
to unipolarity, that is, an attempt to balance the hegemonic position of the
United States following the end of the Cold War. This argument is based
on the familiar assumption that states situated in an anarchical environment feel threatened by other states possessing greater military capabilities
and therefore respond by building up domestic military capabilities (internal
balancing) or forming alliances (external balancing).18 Investment in international institutions is seen as a mere epiphenomenon of such balancing
acts. Although the distribution of relative military capabilities allows for a
depiction of the post-Cold War world as unipolarwith the United States
acting as the polethe weakness of this argument is that German investment in CFSP/ESDP cannot reasonably be portrayed as a hard-balancing act
directed against the United States.19 A case in point is Barry Posens suggestion that European investment in ESDP is a weak form of hard balancing
A. Wallander (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 2147; Celeste Wallander, Institutional assets
and adaptability: NATO after the Cold War, International Organization 54, no. 4 (2000): 70535; David
A. Lake, Entangling Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
16 Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 100ff; Robert
O. Keohane and Lisa Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory, International Security 20, no. 1
(1995): 3951.
17 Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann, After the Cold War: international
institutions and state strategies in Europe, 19891991 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993);
Helga Haftendorn, Coming of Age (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). It is thus not surprising that
studies explaining the development of CFSP/ESDP through institutionalist reasoning exclude NATO from their
analysis. See Wagner, Die Konstruktion; Michael E. Smith, Europes Foreign and Security Policy.
18 Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979); Kenneth Waltz,
Structural Realism after the Cold War, International Security 25, no. 1 (2000): 542.
19 Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and
the Challenge in the Age of Primacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). See also the Special
Issue, World Politics 61, no. 1 (January 2009).
414
against U.S. hegemony, which collapses under the qualifications built into it.20
Posens rudimentary reading of ESDP as an alliance in the making stands
alongside an acknowledgment that Europeans do not consider the United
States a military threat.21 He not only concedes that Britain actually may be
bandwagoning with the United States.22 In his rather brief discussion of the
German position, Posen also is unable to accommodate the fact that German
governments, despite their support for CFSP/ESDP, did not increase military
expenditures and never intended to establish a military alliance capable of
competing with the United States. Posen tries to square the circle by suggesting that Europeans nevertheless find U.S. power problematic because it makes
Washington an unreliable partner who might be unwilling to provide local
services.23 Although this avenue is worth exploring, it is not evident from
a structural realist perspective what these services are and why an alliance
partners increase in power necessarily decreases its reliability. To say that
Europeans were seeking strategic autonomy24 and independence from the
United States does not make for a balancing argument that, by definition,
must identify a motive directed against something. From within the logic of
structural realism, what it means for states to balance against unreliability or
how Germany gained autonomy by becoming entangled in CFSP/ESDP is not
clear.
Attributing investment in CFSP/ESDP to a desire for soft balancing, that is,
an attempt to constrain U.S. power through diplomatic pressure and multilateral institutions, is even less plausible.25 The EU already provides Germany
with economic leverage vis-`a-vis the United States, so it is not clear why
ESDP would be needed as an additional lever, let alone how it could fulfill
this function with the United States being a non-member. To argue, as Galia
Press-Barnathan does, that CFSP/ESDP is meant to function as a pact of restraint on the United States from within NATO fails to take into account that
ESDP is designed not as a component of NATO but rather an outside entity
that aims to be independent from it.26 Furthermore, even if one purpose of
CFSP/ESDP is to assist and strengthen international bodies such as the UN, it is
20
Posen, ESDP, 7; Posen, Response to Unipolarity? 164.

Note that accepting U.S. power as non-threatening poses a significant theoretical problem for
structural realism as it strips the theory of the ability to explain why states would balance at all. Stephen
Walts argument that states balance threats rather than power is at odds with the structural realist
assumption that states (should) react to future uncertainty with skepticism about the intentions of others
and, hence, consider power threatening. Stephen M. Walt, Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1987).
22 Posen, Response to Unipolarity? 168.
23 Ibid., 159.
24 Ibid., 164.
25 T.V. Paul, Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy, International Security 30, no. 1 (2005): 4671.
For a critique, see also Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, Hard Times for Soft Balancing,
International Security 30, no. 1 (2005): 91ff.; Howorth, Security and Defense Policy, 47.
26 Press-Barnathan, Managing the Hegemon.
21
From NATO to ESDP
415
a stretch to say that the primary reason for doing so would be to constrain
the United States. This last point highlights the larger problem underlying all
balancing arguments, namely their tendency to see the primary function of
CFSP/ESDP as directed against the United States. Without downplaying the role
of the latter in the configuration of German security policy, a better picture
may be gained by thinking more carefully about what CFSP/ESDP is for.
Insurance against Abandonment and Entrapment?

Not all realists emphasize balancing. Hegemonic stability theory, for instance,
holds that weaker states bandwagon because they think they benefit from
the hegemon maintaining international order. Although the theory has little
to say about why states would deviate from the institutional arrangements
put in place by a healthy hegemon, this approach has an advantage in that
it is not compelled to frame deviation as balancing.27 Neoclassical realists
adopt the angle of hegemonic stability theory and, in combination with the
alliance literature, offer some useful pointers for reading German investment
into CFSP/ESDP as a reaction to U.S. hegemony. Taking up Posens observation
that many Europeans do not like the way the United States addresses [security] problems, these scholars suggest that disagreements within NATO about
the conditions for the use of force leads to fears of abandonment or fears
of entrapment.28 The fear of abandonment argument holds that Europeans
(Germans) were concerned about U.S. withdrawal from Europe after the end
of the Cold War, rendering them vulnerable to new threats and making it
necessary to provide for their own security. Conversely, the fear of entrapment argument suggests Europeans were concerned about being dragged,
due to their alliance commitments . . . into conflicts in which they have no
direct stake.29
Both arguments provide useful hints, but they also contain conceptual
and empirical weaknesses when applied to the case at hand. Most importantly, what exactly is meant by U.S. withdrawal and its implications for European or, for that matter, German security is not clear. There were no serious
American plans to abandon NATO or to question the validity of Article Five
of the North Atlantic Treaty nor have proponents of this argument presented
27
In his classic statement, Gilpin associates change in cooperative relationships with the decline of
hegemonic power, Robert Gilpin War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983). According to realists U.S. hegemony over the period of investigation is not in decline, Brooks
and Wohlforth, World out of Balance.
28 Posen, Response to Unipolarity? 151; Galia Press-Barnathan, Managing the Hegemon: NATO
under Unipolarity, Security Studies 15, no. 2 (2006): 275; Brooks and Wohlforth, Soft Balancing. The
fear of entrapment and abandonment arguments come from Glenn H. Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1997), 180ff. See also Olaf Theiler, Die NATO im Umbruch (Baden-Baden: Nomos,
2003); Howorth, Security and Defense Policy, 52ff.
29 Press-Barnathan, Managing the Hegemon, 280.
416
evidence that this scenario dominated the calculations of German policy

makers.30 There is also little evidence that a reduction of American troops in
Europe after the end of the Cold War was perceived by German policy makers as negatively affecting the countrys security.31 Scholars citing the fear of
abandonment generally point to (initial) U.S. reluctance to intervene in the
Balkans in the 1990s and the assessment in Washington that the conflicts in
the former Republic of Yugoslavia did not pose a threat to U.S. national security. This is taken as an example for the broader argument that there is no
consensus among NATO members over post-Cold War threats, leading to disagreements over when the Alliance should get involved in non-Article Five
missions. The resulting strategic uncertainty among allies generates both
fear of abandonment and fear of entrapment among Europeans: in addition
to being concerned that Washington might block NATO involvement when
Europeans perceive a security challenge, Europeans also are wary of having
to support an American response to a threat they do not see.32 Hence, they
invest in CFSP/ESDP as an alternative.
Although this argument sounds intuitively promising, proponents offer
neither a coherent account of those diverging threat perceptions nor an
explanation of how they translate into institutional preferences. For instance,
Press-Barnathan merely suggests that threat perceptions differ in geographic
scope, namely global (United States) versus regional (Europeans), an
observation based on Robert Kagans view that such differences are a result
of a gap in military capabilities.33 Leaving aside the problematic normative
undertone of this argument, namely that only militarily strong states see the
world and its threats clearly, the suggestion that actors would perceive the
same threats if they had the same capabilities and would then act through
the same institution is difficult to uphold empirically. For example, military
capabilities do not explain why European states varied in their assessments
30 Press-Barnathan simply asserts, without specifying, that at the end of the Cold War there was
among all major allies a clear increase in the perceived likelihood of American abandonment. PressBarnathan, Managing the Hegemon, 287.
31 According to one poll, in 1990 a majority of Germans (54 percent) felt that German security could
be guaranteed without American troops stationed in the country. See Mary N. Hampton, NATO, Germany,
and the United States: Creating Positive Identity in Trans-Atlantia, Security Studies 8, nos. 23 (199899):
260.
32 Brooks and Wohlforth, Soft Balancing; Posen, Response to Unipolarity?; Press-Barnathan, Managing the Hegemon, 286. See also Henry R. Nau Iraq and Previous Transatlantic Crises: Divided by
Threat, Not Institutions or Values in The End of the West: Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order, ed.
Jeffrey Anderson, G. John Ikenberry, and Thomas Risse (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 82110.
33 The notion that great powers have global interests and small powers have local interests builds
on Kagans psychology of the weak argument. Robert Kagan, Paradise and Power: America and Europe
in the New World Order (London: Atlantic Books, 2003). Press-Barnathan notes that ideology matters
yet neglects this point in her discussion. Press-Barnathan, Managing the Hegemon, 277. For a good
argument that threat perception is linked to ideology, see Mark L. Haas, Ideology and Alliances: British
and French External Balancing Decisions in the 1930s, Security Studies 12, no. 4 (Summer 2003): 3479.
See also David L. Rousseau, Identifying Threats and Threatening Identities (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2006).
From NATO to ESDP
417
of the threat posed by Iraq in 2002 or how they decided whether or not
to participate in the U.S.-led invasion. Nor does the distribution of military
capabilities among Europeans correlate with varying support for ESDP or NATO.
In the German case, low military spending also does not necessarily limit the
geographical scope of engagement, as exemplified by growing Bundeswehr
involvement outside the European region through the UN, NATO, or ESDP.34
It is not only that threat perceptions are too volatile and complex to
be reduced to a function of military capabilities; more importantly, threat
perceptions do not dictate a certain response. Allies may agree on a threat
but disagree on how to deal with it. Conversely, they may differ in their
threat assessments yet still decide to cooperate, whether out of alliance solidarity or for other expected benefits. In either case, one could expect allies
to try and negotiate a reasonable compromise or come to agree on a division of labor. This would seem to apply particularly to the case at hand,
with a strong line of scholarship arguing that NATO provides its members with
mechanisms of consultation, enabling them to reduce uncertainty, avoid misunderstandings, and overcome disagreements.35 So even if German policy
makers thought they were unable to anticipate how the United States would
judge and respond to certain events, this does not explain why they supported the development of an institution outside NATO unless one can show,
from a German perspective, that NATOs mechanisms failed to reduce strategic
uncertainty and that CFSP/ESDP succeeded.
Doing so would require thinking more carefully about what CFSP/ESDP is
supposed to protect Germany from. Analytically conflating the threat perception motive with the fear of abandonment or entrapment motive under the
heading strategic uncertainty not only ends up with the United States as the
only visible, albeit indirect, threat. It also leaves open what exactly is being
abandoned or entrapped. Indeed, it is this question about the referent object, which necessarily underpins every conception of threat that exposes the
core weakness of realist the argument.36 For realists, the referent object is the
Weberian state, defined as a community holding the monopoly over the legitimate use of force within a certain territory. Yet this perspective is not very
helpful in the case at hand because German policy makers solely concerned
about territorial integrity should have been satisfied with NATOs function as
a deterrent. Arguably, this was indeed the case: the 1994 White Paper of
the Ministry of Defense states that Germanys territorial integrity . . . is not
existentially threatened in the foreseeable future, an assessment repeated
34
Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern?; Dalgaard-Nielsen, Germany, Pacifism and Peace Enforcement.

Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1995); Wallander and Keohane, Security Institutions, 29; Wallander, NATO after the Cold War; Theiler,
Die NATO im Umbruch.
36 David Baldwin, The Concept of Security, Review of International Studies 23 (1997): 526.
35
418
in 2000.37 This suggests that policy makers in Bonn (later Berlin) were motivated by something other than concern for Germanys physical security
when they invested in CFSP/ESDP.
The bottom line, then, is that dominant theories miss or misrepresent
core elements of this crucial strategic choice, as summarized in Table 1.
Notwithstanding copious scholarship steeped in these theories, we are still
left with the questions what, from a German perspective, CFSP/ESDP was for
and why NATO was unable to protect it.
ONTOLOGICAL SECURITY THROUGH FRIENDSHIP

The following offers an answer to the question above by presenting a social
constructivist reading of what it means for a state to be secure grounded
in a social ontology of friendship. This serves as the basis for explaining
why German governments have come to perceive the United States as, what
Posen calls, an uncomfortable partner within NATO and how CFSP/ESDP is
alleviating this situation. The argument starts from the insight that security
interests are defined by actors who respond to cultural factors, that is,
by governments that take into account parameters of national identity.38
It rests on the assumption that states are primarily driven by a will-tomanifest-identity that is, they seek to generate and maintain a stable sense
of Self, or what some IR scholars following Anthony Giddens call ontological
security.39 Like most IR theories, an ontological security perspective assumes
that uncertainty conditions the behavior of states. Its analytical value lies in
highlighting that uncertainty motivates societies to set up certain structures
of meaning across space and time, which provide cognitive and emotional
stability, and to develop and protect such structures salient to ontological
security.40
37 Weissbuch, Zur Sicherheit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und zur Lage und Zukunft der Bundeswehr (Bonn: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 1994), 23; Giegerich, European Security, 129.
38 Peter. J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press,
1996), 2. For an overview of discussions on identity in IR, see Felix Berenskoetter, Identity in International
Relations, in The International Studies Encyclopedia, ed. Robert Denemark (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,
2010).
39 On will-to-manifest-identity, see Rodney B. Hall, National Collective Identity (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999). See also Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1991); Bill McSweeney, Security, Identity and Interests (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999); Brent J. Steele, Ontological security and the power of self-identity, Review of International
Studies 31 (2005): 51940; Jennifer Mitzen, Ontological Security in World Politics, European Journal of
International Relations 12, no. 3 (2006): 34170.
40 An ontological security perspective accepts that states are rational, self-interested actors. It merely
shifts analytical attention, with the consideration of self in front of interest, and suggests that gains
and losses of security are evaluated according to what sustains, or undermines, a certain identity. See
also Steele, Ontological security, 529; Mitzen, Ontological Security in World Politics, 345.
419
Instrument for hard balancing U.S. power (purpose:

deterrence)
Instrument for soft balancing U.S. power (purpose:
constrain United States by entangling it in
multilateral commitments)
Defection from United States as declining hegemon

and NATO as its institutional tool
Insurance against abandonment by or entrapment

in U.S.-dominated NATO because of diverging
threat perceptions
Result of socialization process: interaction through

European institutions creates collective identity
among members, leading to security community
and institutional loyalty
Structural Realism
Hegemonic Stability
Theory
Alliance Theory
Social
Constructivism
below.
inefficient: does not satisfy German security

interest; CFSP/ESDP more efficient
Discussed
NATO
Neoliberal
Institutionalism
CFSP/ESDP)
result of spill-over from economic realm,

encouraged by supranational actors
CFSP/ESDP
Argument (for German investment in
Neofunctionalism
Theory
TABLE 1 Weaknesses of Existing Theories

Weaknesses
hegemony not in decline during period of investigation
Indeterminate about which institution supports stronger

socialization process (EU or NATO); if anything Germany
should favor NATO security community
Socialization bias: no argument for why states may become
dissatisfied with existing social bonds/institutional
arrangement
Lack of concrete evidence; threat assessments do not

determine response/institutional preference; NATO
possesses mechanisms for compromise
U.S.
Germany does not consider United States a threat; CFSP/ESDP

not a military alliance, purpose not deterrence
CFSP/ESDP designed to allow autonomy from NATO, not to
constrain United States
Indeterminate about meaning of security interests and,

hence, efficiency
Path dependency bias: sunk costs should make NATO reform
preferable option; NATO allegedly adapted successfully to
post-Cold War environment
No argument for why CFSP/ESDP might be more efficient
Path dependency bias: cannot account for intergovernmental

nature of CFSP/ESDP and for timing of German investment
Focus on European integration process ignores NATO
420
Constructivist literature commonly suggests that meaning is given by an

idea of order made up of basic principlesnorms and valuesmanifesting
what is deemed normal or good behavior. An idea of order lays out a certain
logic of appropriateness that functions as a guide for policy makers and
as a marker by which society judges policies acceptable and, hence, is both
enabling and constraining.41 This logic is embedded in a biographical narrative giving meaning to the past and allowing for an orientation toward the
future by anchoring those basic principles in pertinent lessons and desirable
visions.42 To be sure, conceptions of the parameters of national identity tend
to be contested domestically, expressed in debates over the precise meaning
or relative weight of basic principles.43 Any interpretation, however, must be
embedded in a coherent narrative which bestows the state with a distinctive,
or authentic, sense of Self. The narrative gaining hegemony in the domestic debate and represented by the government forms part of what James
Rosenau calls a states essential structures, necessary to its existence as a
recognizable entity over space and time.44
Although narratives are discursive constructs, the basic principles they
emphasize are affirmed through corresponding practices. Given that a core
feature of the state is the monopoly over the legitimate use of force, formulating and adhering to principles guiding when and how force should be
usedforming a states strategic culture is central to a states ontological
security.45 This article focuses on norms defining the appropriateness of mandate, type of mission, and balance of means. As defined here, a mandate is
a political authorization to identify threats and respond with action accordingly. Thus, it necessarily includes a restatement of the desirable order and
lends legitimacy to the instruments mobilized for its protection. In doing so,
mandates may also specify missions and means. The type of mission refers
to both geographical reach and the kind of activities (defensive or offensive,
limited or broad, and so on). It is closely linked to understandings about
appropriate means, in particular the balance between military and civilian
instruments. Conceptions of appropriate mandate, missions, and means are
41 James G. March and Johann P. Olsen, The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders,
International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 94369.
42 Erik Ringmar, On the Ontological Status of the State, European Journal of International Relations
2, no. 4 (1 December 1996): 43966; Janice Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics (New York:
Routledge, 2005); Brent J. Steele, Ontological Security in International Relations (London: Routledge,
2008).
43 Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism and identity: A dangerous liaison, European Journal of International Relations 8, no. 2 (2000): 31548; Ted Hopf, Social Construction of International Politics (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2002).
44 James Rosenau, The Study of Political Adaptation (London: Pinter, 1981), 3. For a discussion of
the hegemonic idea, taken from Gramsci, see Rousseau, Identifying Threats.
45 On strategic culture, see Colin S. Gray, Strategic Culture as Context: The First Generation of Theory
Strikes Back, Review of International Studies 25, no. 1 (1999): 4969; Christoph Meyer, Convergence
Towards a European Strategic Culture? European Journal of International Relations 11, no. 4 (2005):
423549.
From NATO to ESDP
421
laid out in strategic doctrines and confirmed in practice during crises. In the
context of the argument presented here, crises are situations in which the
government decides to frame a certain event as a challenge, to its idea of order, and presents an appropriate response intended to safeguard the same.
This follows Jutta Weldess contention that crises are social constructions
that are forged by state officials in the course of producing and reproducing state identity.46 Hence, events do not pose an objective challenge but
are securitized and given meaning within the idea of international order to
which the state ascribes. In defining and responding to such crises, or what
Brent Steele calls critical situations, governments make concrete decisions
about mandate, missions, and means in line with the narrative of the state
and by doing so, make a decision about who they are.47 In other words,
crises are opportunities to manifest ontological security.
A standard insight of the identity literature is that stable conceptions
of Self derive not only from domestic (internal) but also international (external) sources. Hence, salient ideas of order are generated and maintained
not in isolation but are defined intersubjectively through relations with significant others.48 On the question of what makes a significant Other, IR
literature offers three answers: the enemy, the rival, and the friend.49 Most
work emphasizes the first option, focusing on how state identities are sustained through exclusion and by depicting Others as enemies.50 However,
there is no logical, let alone empirical, reason to emphasize enmity (or
rivalry) over friendship. Indeed, if one combines the insights that states
seek belonging and recognition with the assumption that they seek positive securitysecurity primarily defined as being for rather than against
somethinga strong case can be made for the relevance of friendship.51
46 Jutta Weldes, The Cultural Production of Crises: U.S. Identity and Missiles in Cuba, in Cultures
of Insecurity: states, communities, and the production of danger, ed. Jutta Weldes et al. (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1999): 37.
47 Steele, Ontological security, 537. Thus, we suggest that ontological security relies on more than
discursive constructs, as favored by those relying on linguistic philosophy (see Bially Mattern, Ordering
International Politics) or routine practices in everyday life, as suggested by those following Giddens (see
Mitzen, Ontological Security in World Politics).
48 Hall, National Collective Identity; Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); McSweeney, Security, Identity and Interests; Katzenstein,
The Culture of National Security, 59.
49 Wendt, Social Theory.
50 See, for instance, David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, rev. ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); Jonathan Mercer Anarchy
and identity, International Organization 49, no. 2 (1995): 22952; Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Weldes, The Cultural Production of Crises. On the
Other as a rival, see Mitzen, Ontological Security.
51 Erik Ringmar The International Politics of Recognition, in The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations, ed. T. Lindemann and E. Ringmar (Boulder: Paradigm, forthcoming); Paul Roe The
value of positive security, Review of International Studies 34, no. 4 (2008): 77794. Thus, in the reading
put forward here, identity does not primarily rely on an ingroup vs. outgroup dynamic of differentiation
as emphasized by Mercer, Anarchy and identity; Rousseau, Identifying Threats.
422
Following this route, we adopt the view that states obtain ontological security by identifying with something or someone, by embedding their particular
narratives in a shared vision of international order with other states identified
as friends. More specifically, we assume that states seek relationships with
other states that recognize each others basic principles as valid parameters
for normal behavior and recognize each others activities as contributing to
building a shared international order. For that to be the case, respective ideas
of order must resonate with each other.52 Resonance does not come naturally but is established and reaffirmed in negotiation over international order.
This is a process involving compromise and adjustment. Governments must
work as norm entrepreneurs in a two-level discourse: negotiating ideas
of order externally with the friend and internally with their domestic constituency.53 Importantly, in these negotiations, including in crisis situations,
friends regard each other as equals and expect to be treated as such by
allowing one another sufficient voice opportunity.54 They consider each
others contribution as adequate and respect national caveats even when
their relationship is characterized by stark inequalities in terms of military
capabilities, for instance. As such, friendship is characterized by a unique
logic of reciprocity that cannot be grasped in utilitarian terms.55
The argument put forward here focuses on how friends use international security institutions, understood as formal organizations rather than
informal regimes, as platforms. Generally put, international institutions function as social environments in which friends seek to establish and maintain
resonance between domestic and international ideas of order.56 They do
so in four ways. First, institutions provide a formal setting for consultation
and joint decision making where friends can discuss ideas of order and
find a mutually beneficial compromise. Second, they function as a repository for agreed ideas of international order manifested in official documents
and serve as placeholders for expected practices and contributions. As such,
international institutions function, thirdly, as symbolic representations of a
52 On resonance, see Martin Marcussen et al., Constructing Europe? Journal of European Public
Policy 6, no. 4 (1999): 61433; Rodger A. Payne, Persuasion, Frames, and Norm Construction, European
Journal of International Relations 7, no. 1 (2001): 3761; Antje Wiener, Contested Compliance. Interventions on Normative Structure of World Politics, European Journal of International Relations 10, no.
2 (2004): 189234.
53 Jeffrey T. Checkel, Ideas and International Political Change (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1997); Harald Mueller, Arguing, Bargaining and All That, European Journal of International Relations
10, no. 3 (2008): 395436.
54 Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970);
Thomas Risse, Lets Argue!: Communicative Action in World Politics, International Organization 54,
no. 1 (Winter 2000): 139.
55 For a more extensive conceptual discussion of these aspects and the friendship perspective applied
here, see Felix Berenskoetter, Friends, there are no friends? An intimate Reframing of the International,
Millennium 35, no. 3 (2007): 64776.
56 Alastair Ian Johnston, Treating International Institutions as Social Environments, International
Studies Quarterly 45, no. 4 (2001): 487515.
From NATO to ESDP
423
particular idea of international order. Finally, friends use institutions to enhance their agenda-setting power in building international order and bind
others to this project.57 With principles about the use of force being salient
markers for ontological security, international security institutions are of particular importance because they manifest understandings of appropriate mandate, missions, and means in shared strategic doctrines and serve as a vehicle
for common action during crises, indeed helping to form an agreement on the
nature of the crisis in the first place. It is helpful if the institutions have formal
voice-enhancing mechanisms, such as rotating chairs, guaranteed veto rights,
or small membership, but our argument hinges not so much on the design
of the institution but how friends make use of it. In the same vein, although
institutions do function as anxiety-stabilizing mechanisms, their ability to fulfill this function depends on the vitality of the friendship negotiated through
them.58
Processes of Estrangement and Emancipation

The friendship angle outlined above differs from most constructivist literature that treats institutions as chief socializing agents, and, thereby, tends
to emphasize the power of international institutions in shaping identities, interests, and behavior of the members.59 According to this view, also found in
the literature on security communities, interaction within a certain institution
leads over time to the internalization of social norms and the strengthening
of collective identity amongst members.60 The problem with this argument
is that it suffers from the same path dependency characterizing the neofunctionalist and utilitarian institutionalist approaches mentioned earlier. Its
logical thrust is at best indeterminate about which institution (NATO, EC, CSCE)
contains stronger socialization mechanisms and, if anything, would suggest
that NATOs dominance in the security realm shaped German identity in favor
of the Atlantic Alliance.61 Moreover, its socialization bias leaves little space
for reasons about why cooperation may break down and why an institution
might cease to be attractive to its members. Thus, this standard constructivist
57 Thus, to say that friends build and sustain order through an international institution does not
imply the reverse that all members of this institution are friends, at least not in the sense used here.
58 Richard Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003),
326.
59 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, International norm dynamics and political change,
International Organization 52 (Autumn 1998): 902.
60 Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds., Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Wendt, Social Theory; Thomas Risse, Neofunctionalism, European Identity, and
the puzzles of European Integration, Journal of European Public Policy 12, no. 2 (2005): 291309. For
an overview of socialization arguments and more sophisticated accounts, see Johnston, International
Institutions, Special Issue of International Organization (2005).
61 See, however, Fr
ederic Merand, Pierre Bourdieu and the Birth of European Security and Defense
Policy, Security Studies 19, no. 2 (2010).
424
frame provides little analytical leverage for explaining German investment in

CFSP/ESDP.62
What is needed, then, is an argument about the limits of socialization
and the weakening of social and institutional bonds. Such an argument is
presented here in terms of processes of estrangement and emancipation.63
We define estrangement as a process of deep and enduring dissonance
about ideas of order among friendly states. Similar to what Kratochwil calls
a norm collision, dissonance is a disagreement over what accounts for
normal behavior.64 It signifies that friends do not recognize each others
practices as adequate contributions to building and sustaining international
order. Dissonance is deep if disagreements challenge basic principles about
the use of force. It becomes visible in disputes over how to make use
of the shared institution during negotiations of strategic doctrines and in
aforementioned crises, that is, when friends expect each other to follow
through with their commitment when evaluating and handling of events.65
Such dissonance among friends is problematic because shared ideas of order
become questioned, and embedded state narratives become destabilized,
generating an acute form of disorientation.66 As such, dissonance can pose
a threat to ontological security.67 If not rectified, it puts friends onto a path of
estrangement where the relationship and the international institution cease
to function as anxiety-stabilizing mechanisms and, instead, become sources
of ontological insecurity.68
62
This is reflected in the constructivists silence over why a state deeply integrated in NATO would
invest in an alternative. For a similar critique, see Ronald R. Krebs, The Limits of Alliance: Conflict,
Cooperation, and Collective Identity, in The Real and the Ideal: Essays on International Relations in
Honor of Richard H. Ullman, ed. Anthony Lake and David Ochmanek (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2001), 20736. The socialization bias is also found in constructivist analyses of U.S.-German relations. See
Hampton, NATO, Germany, and the United States.
63 These two notions regularly surface in analysis of German-U.S. disagreements yet without being
integrated into a substantial theoretical frame. See Harald Mueller and Thomas Risse-Kappen, Origins of
Estrangement: The Peace Movement and the Changed Image of America in West Germany, International
Security 12, no. 1 (1987): 5288; Tuomas Forsberg, German Foreign Policy and the War on Iraq: AntiAmericanism, Pacifism or Emancipation? Security Dialogue 36, no. 2 (2005): 21331.
64 Friedrich Kratochwil, How do norms matter? in The Role of Law in International Politics, ed.
Michael Beyers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3568; Sonia Cardenas, Norm Collision: Explaining the Effects of International Human Rights Pressure on State Behavior, International Studies Review
6, no. 2 (2004): 21332; Wiener, Contested Compliance.
65 The perception that the friend is unwilling to do so or expects support for a mission violating
this order could be read as generating a fear of abandonment or entrapment, respectively. We decided
against incorporating these terms into our argument to avoid possible confusion with the typology of
estrangement, adaptation, and emancipation.
66 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 27.
67 This is akin to an identity crisis. For classic treatments in social psychology, see Leon Festinger,
A theory of cognitive dissonance (Evanston: Row Peterson, 1957), esp. chap. 4; Erik H. Erikson Identity:
Youth and Crisis (1968; repr., New York: W.W. Norton, 1995).
68 Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics, 57; Jef Huysmans, Security! What do you mean?
European Journal of International Relations 4, no. 2 (1998): 22655. How deep or enduring dissonance
From NATO to ESDP
425
Crudely put, affected states can respond by pursuing a strategy of either

adaptation or emancipation.69 Both are rational strategies aimed at restoring
resonance with a friend without having to abandon domestically valued
principles; and both are social processes that contain an element of change
and continuity on the domestic and the international levels. It is useful to
differentiate analytically between the micro-dynamic taking place in reaction
to a particular crisis and the macro-dynamic laying out how the relationship
unfolds over the long term.
Adaptation is defined here as a states attempt to restore resonance
with the friend through the existing institutional arrangement. It focuses
on preserving the relationship and is assumed to be the default strategy.70
Although conservative in that sense, adaptation also entails an element of
change as it requires domestic adjustments intended to meet external (the
friends) expectations about appropriate mandate, missions, and means. Such
adjustments can be brought about through a reinterpretation of historical
lessons as long as the coherence of the states narrative is maintained.71
This is a politically costly move that governments need to justify vis-`a-vis
their domestic constituency by portraying it as necessary to maintain the
friendship bond and to safeguard the shared international order. In turn, the
government will expect the friend to recognize the domestic adjustment as a
valuable contribution and to reciprocate in negotiations about international
order. The friend, however, may consider adjustment efforts as insufficient
or take them for granted. The friend may thus be unwilling to engage in
negotiations about adaptation, making it appear as the norm setter and
expecting the other to follow.72 When the (expected) follower is asked to
change domestic ideas of order beyond acceptable limits73 and feels it has
been given an insufficient voice opportunity within the common international
institution, estrangement deepens. States experiencing such a process (or
fearing to embark on it) will pursue a strategy of emancipation.
Emancipation is defined here as investment in an alternative friendship
and a corresponding institution with whom and through which a shared idea
of international order resonating with domestic principles can be negotiated.
Its aim is to find a friend-institution configuration that demands less domestic
adjustment or, rather, to locate where such adjustments are recognized and
reciprocated by the friend. Thus, with the overall goal seeking to preserve
must be to generate ontological insecurity cannot be specified in the abstract, as the meaning of depth
and endurance can only be discerned through hermeneutical analysis of a particular relationship.
69 For a more nuanced discussion laying out more than two strategies, see Jennifer Todd, Social
transformation, collective categories, and identity change, Theory and Society 34 (2005): 42963.
70 Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics.
71 Thus, the term adjustment is used here for the domestic process of changing basic principles
and corresponds to internalization. See Johnston, International Institutions. Adaptation designates
mutual willingness among friends to negotiate change about the shared idea of international order.
72 Wiener, Contested Compliance.
73 Rosenau, Political Adaptation, 3.
426
a sense of authenticity, emancipation does not imply an absolute chasm

a radical discontinuity in which everything is left behind.74 Rather, it is a
conservative-creative process. Also, in its macro-dynamic, emancipation does
not need to follow a strict sequential logic in which affected states pursue
an exclusive strategy of adaptation until a tipping point arrives, after which
the state is fixed on emancipation. Said differently, we do not make an
argument about thresholds and sudden changes, which in any case are
difficult to specify theoretically, but support the view that change occurs
slowly.75 In a series of micro-dynamics, a state may pursue strategies of
adaptation and emancipation simultaneously, gradually investing more in
one than in another. After all, setting up a new institution is costly and
negotiating resonance with a new friend takes time, and until it is tested
during crises, there is no way to know whether the alternative configuration
is more suitable for sustaining ontological security. Until satisfied that this is
the case, the state will keep its options open, aided by the fact that there is no
formal requirement forcing a choice between memberships in one institution
or the other. Moreover, as noted earlier, societies are not homogenous and
the value of and faith in certain relationships may be contested domestically.
There may be disagreements about the degree, speed, and character of
the emancipation process, with some parties more willing to further the
processes and others more willing to give the old friendship another chance.
Depending on the representation of such perspectives in government, these
views will affect state strategies accordingly.
In the broader picture, negotiations with an old friend through the
shared institution and investment in a new friend-institution configuration
are not mutually exclusive processes and can have the appearance of forum shopping.76 That said, the phenomenon of multiple friendships (or
multiple identities) has its limits. As noted earlier, an authentic sense of
Self requires coherence in states narratives, and so although we may have
a diversity of relatively discrete selves, there needs to be . . . a continuing
theme.77 Hence, although the process of emancipation is not irreversible, a
state cannot forever invest equally in alternative configurations supporting
74
Ernesto Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996), 2.

On the difficulty of specifying thresholds and changes theoretically, see Gunther Hellmann, Inevitable Decline versus Predestined Stability: Disciplinary Explanations of the Evolving Transatlantic
Order in The End of the West?: Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order, ed. Jeffrey Anderson, G. John
Ikenberry, and Thomas Risse (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 46.
76 The notion of forum shopping is taken from Robert Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and
Interdependence, 2nd ed. (Boston: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1989), 33. See also Marc L. Busch
Overlapping Institutions, Forum Shopping, and Dispute Settlement in International Trade, International
Organization 61, no. 4 (2007). Thanks to Stephanie Hofmann and Rafael Biermann for alerting us to that
label.
77 Michael Hogg and Graham Vaughan, Social Psychology, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall, 2002), 125.
75
From NATO to ESDP
427
potentially conflicting ideas of international order but will rank relationships

and institutions according to the degree of resonance they allow for.
Applied to the case at hand, the theoretical frame developed above
suggests that Germanys motivation to invest into CFSP/ESDP is an emancipatory move undertaken to maintain ontological security. Tracing this process
involves three basic steps. First, it is necessary to identify causes for ontological insecurity, namely deep and enduring dissonance with a friend in
NATO. Second, there need to be signs of German ontological insecurity as a
result, that is, a destabilization, of what is considered the authentic German
narrative or, at least, evidence that the stability is perceived to be threatened.
Third, the analysis must link these concerns to investment strategies aimed
at regaining resonance through adaptation (within NATO) or emancipation
(through CFSP/ESDP) with an alternative friend.
CASE STUDY: FROM NATO TO ESDP

The Bonn Republic: NATO Rules
Following the Second World War, what became West German identity was
renegotiated to a large degree with the United States, the most significant
Other, and through NATO, the primary institutional forum for upholding the
shared idea of a Western order. Close American ties and the Atlantic Alliance
enabled a positive redefinition of Germany as a state within the West.78 This
provided a defeated and disgraced society with a ladder out of the morass
and provided an answer to the German question, manifesting a new sense
of ontological security.79
Apart from enabling Germany to gain the status of a liberal democracy,
the U.S.-NATO configuration allowed the Bonn Republic to position itself as a
state cherishing multilateralism and high restrictions on the use of military
force, which fostered a new narrative of Germany as a Civilian Power.80
In this narrative, the mandate question could never seriously arise, as the
countrys semi-sovereign status meant that German military action was inconceivable without American consent. The Bundeswehr was deeply integrated
into NATO, and the mandate for using it de facto lay in Brussels and, ultimately, in Washington. This multilateral context was not simply an external
dictate but a domestic commitment to avoid a Sonderweg (special path).
78
Hampton, NATO, Germany and the United States.

Timothy G. Ash, In Europes Name (New York: Random House, 1993), 21; Dirk Verheyen, The
German Question (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999).
80 Hanns W. Maull, Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers, Foreign Affairs 69, no. 5 (Winter
1990/1991); Hanns W. Maull, Zivilmacht: Die Konzeption und ihre sicherheitspolitische Relevanz, in
Sicherheitspolitik Deutschlands, ed. W. Heydrich, et al. (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1993), 77186; Berger,
Norms, Identity, and National Security; Duffield, World Power Forsaken. Note this label suggests that
the use of military force is significantly curtailed, not excluded. See Hans W. Maull, Germany and the
Use of Force: Still a Civilian Power? Survival 42, no. 2 (2000): 5680.
79
428
The mission was similarly straightforward. Germanys role in Western strategic scenarios to hold off a potential Soviet attack with a massive conventional
army resonated domestically with Articles 26 and 87a of the Basic Law for
the Federal Republic of Germany that allowed the use of the military only
for defensive purposes and explicitly denounced the right to attack. Finally,
with regard to the balance of means, the consensus on mandate and mission
solved the contradiction between the German trading state, active in checkbook diplomacy and development policy, and the fact that the Bundeswehr
became the largest conventional army in Western Europe.81 The Cold War
period saw many domestic debates about the appropriate course of action,
but the Civilian Power narrative based on these principlesmultilateralismNATO control over the Bundeswehr, a strictly defensive mission, the primacy
of civilian meanswas shared across the political spectrum and considered
central to German identity, forming new markers of authenticity. In the same
vein, despite a number of tensions between Bonn and Washington, German
governments throughout the Cold War were eager to maintain recognition
as a good NATO ally.82
With the end of the Cold War, this configuration got into trouble. In what
follows, we argue that enduring German-American dissonance about the
terms of building international order through NATO (signifying estrangement)
led to German investment in CFSP/ESDP (signifying emancipation). Specifically, we show that U.S. expectations challenged German understandings of
appropriate mandate, missions, and means in the context of interventions
in the Gulf, the Balkans and Afghanistan; we also contend that this dissonance generated ontological insecurity in Germany. As an emotional state of
heightened anxiety is difficult to observe, we rely on a variety of rhetorical
indicators found in official speeches and policy documents, supplemented
by background interviews with government officials.83 Specifically, we regard policy makers concerns about a reemergence of the German question,
isolation, a loss of recognition, and about Germany being thrust on a Sonderweg as evidence of fear of losing pertinent external bonds. Furthermore,
we take intense domestic debates about Germanys historical responsibility
and key lessons and, thus, concerns of violating norms constituting the Civilian Power narrative as indicators for internal destabilization of ontological
security. Finally, we trace how German efforts to adjust ideas of order domestically and regain stability did not succeed in gaining voice and restoring
81
On the notion of Germany as a trading state, see Volker Rittberger, Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland eine Weltmacht? Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (19 January 1990): 17.
82 Elisabeth Sherwood, Allies in Crisis: Meeting Global Challenges to Western Security (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1990); Nau, Previous Transatlantic Crises; Haftendorn, Coming of Age.
83 Note that realists rarely, if ever, give evidence of the alleged fear (the emotional condition) states
have when facing, more powerful states.
From NATO to ESDP
429
resonance with the U.S.-NATO configuration, and we suggest that German governments were more successful in negotiating mandate, missions, and means
close to Germanys authentic sense of Self with France through CFSP/ESDP.84
Iraq: Exposing Dissonance

The process leading to German unification in October 1990 was characterized by remarkably close German-American cooperation that affirmed the
friendship and the importance of NATO. Chancellor Helmut Kohl described
President George H. W. Bush as the most important ally . . . capable of real
friendship and considered NATO in addition to close ties to the United States
as the central stabilizing factors for unified Germany.85 However, within
the intimacy of the Bonn-Washington nexus, the questions of what role a
unified Germany would take on in the Atlantic Alliance and how it would
contribute to building the post-Cold War order were not addressed, allowing
room for diverging expectations.86
The Kohl government fostered a narrative of continuity of the Bonn Republic. Despite or, rather, because Germany expanded materially with unification and because of the uneasiness this generated amongst Germanys
neighbors, the government sought to prevent a re-opening of the German
question. Thus Kohl promised his NATO colleagues in December 1989 that
there would be no German special path and government officials constantly
repeated the German commitment to continuity.87 In turn, the Kohl government expected to further strengthen NATOs political dimension, that is, its
function as a forum for dialogue and cooperation in the spirit of the 1967
Harmel Report.88 The Bush administration entertained a continuity narrative
of a different sort. While avoiding triumphalist rhetoric, the administration
saw the United States as having won the Cold War, proving the superiority of liberal economic and political ideas of order. As such, the unipolar
moment confirmed the narrative of U.S. leadership in building a Western
order, including a re-ordering of Europe through NATO.89 For Bush, unified
84
The United States and France were consistently ranked as having the biggest influence on shaping
German security policy by the policy makers and officials interviewed for this research. This is not to
deny that states played a role, too.
85 Helmut Kohl, Ich wollte Deutschlands Einheit, with K. Dieckmann and R. Reuth (Berlin: Ullstein,
1996), 185; Henrik Bering, Helmut Kohl (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1999), 14. See also Philip
D. Zelikov and Condoleezza Rice, Germany unified and Europe transformed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1995), 120ff.; Robert Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War
(Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997), 99.
86 On the Bonn-Washington nexus, see Hutchings, American Diplomacy, 109.
87 Kohl, Deutschlands Einheit, 188; Duffield, World Power Forsaken, 66; Ash, In Europes Name.
88 Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Erinnerungen (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1995), 787.
89 Charles Krauthammer, The lonely superpower, The New Republic, 29 July 1991.
430
Germany, whose absorption of the GDR made it a vivid example of the superiority of Western ideas of order, was to be a partner in leadership.90
The 1991 Gulf War exposed the tension between these two continuity
narratives and revealed how U.S. expectations stood in conflict with the principles of the Bonn Republic. In Washington, how the United States should
respond to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait also begged the questions of what a
post-Cold War order should look like and what its maintenance entails. This
prompted President Bush, on 11 September 1990, to declare a New World
Order, echoing familiar traits of U.S. liberal internationalism with the promise
of reviving the U.N. Security Council as a forum for debating and enforcing
international order. Standing up against Iraqs attempt to annex Kuwait was
declared a great test to uphold principles of self-determination and state
sovereignty on a global scale.91 The U.S. decision to respond militarily was
swift, and by the end of October over two hundred thousand U.S. troops
were stationed in Saudi Arabia and over half a million deployed throughout
the region by January 1991.92
The U.S. expectation for alliance support challenged German decision
makers on all three counts: an offensive military mission in a geographical location for which the Civilian Power identity did not even provide the
possibility of a mandate. The cross-party consensus was that domestic constitutional constraints restricted the German security space to NATO territory
and that Bundeswehr out-of-area engagement was therefore illegitimate.93
This was in line with the Bonn Republic narrative according to which offensive military action was not part of normality. Underscored by massive
anti-war protests across the country, the prevailing view was that war was
not an acceptable means of politics; foreign policy was to remain Friedenspolitik (peace policy).94 Thus, the Kohl government stressed the need for
a diplomatic solution. While condemning Iraqs actions as a breach of international law and supporting the use of sanctions, it refused to openly share
political responsibility for the military option.95
90
Hutchings, American Diplomacy, 20.

Ibid., 145; Sophie Van Hoonacker, The Bush Administration (19891993) and the development of
a European security identity (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001).
92 Andrew Bennett, Joseph Lepgold, and Danny Unger, Burden-Sharing in the Gulf War, International Organisation 48, no. 1 (1994), 50.
93 Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 11/221, Bonn, 23 August 1990, 1746869; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 12/3, Bonn, 17 January 1991; Genscher, Erinnerungen, 901. The government was
even reluctant to dispatch a small number of Bundeswehr jets to Turkey, a NATO ally. Bennett et al.,
Burden-Sharing, 66.
94 Berger, Norms, Identity, and National Security; Duffield, World Power Forsaken; Karl Lamers,
interview, Morgen, 23 March 1991, repr. in German foreign and defence policy after unification, ed.
Lothar Gutjahr (London: Pinter, 1992), 20708; Klaus Kinkel, interview, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 19 May
1992; Genscher, Erinnerungen, 907; Duffield, World Power Forsaken; Maja Zehfuss Constructivism and
identity: A dangerous liaison, European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 3 (2001): 31548; Meiers,
Zu neuen Ufern? 249.
95 Bennett et al, Burden-Sharing; Hellmann, Von Normalisierung und Militarisierung.
91
From NATO to ESDP
431
The dissonance between the Civilian Power principles of the Bonn Republic and U.S. expectations meant that domestic and international sources of
German ontological security were at odds and thus posed a dilemma for the
Kohl government. Supporting military intervention would have destabilized
the identity of the Bonn Republic, yet so did opposing Desert Storm because
that would cast doubt over German commitment to build a New World Order
with the United States and, hence, its commitment to the German-American
friendship. In Washington, the German refusal to lend political support to
Desert Storm and take on responsibilities for leadership was seen as a lack
of solidarity and unappreciative of U.S. support in the unification process.96 It
was strongly criticized and left the Bush administration very disenchanted;
it even raised questions about Germanys commitment to the transatlantic
relationship.97 This posed a threat to Germanys ontological security, as captured in the concern voiced by members of the government that opposing
the Gulf War was turning Germany into an unreliable ally and was leading
it into isolation and (back) on an ill-fated special path.98
The Kohl government worked hard to alleviate the tensions and, hence,
to avert this threat. Against widespread domestic demands to halt military
operations, Kohl and Defense Minister Volker Ruhe argued in the Bundestag
that the operation was backed by a UN resolution and aimed at restoring
international law.99 Behind closed doors, they agreed to U.S. requests to
cover some of the costs arising from the war, with payments amounting
to DM 18 billion, more than one-third of Germanys annual defense budget
and over half of which went directly to Washington.100 The government
also agreed to conduct some humanitarian and mine-clearing missions in
the region after the war. However, these actions only superficially covered
the cracks in the Bonn-Washington nexus. Aside from the fact that some
in the Bush administration considered these contributions as coming too
little, too late,101 the large question mark behind the Buendnisfaehigkeit of
unified Germany in the New World Order remained. In the words of Karl
Lamers, influential foreign policy spokesperson for the Christian Democrats,
the Iraq experience triggered, a catharsis in thinking.102 As Ruhe put it, in a
96
Max Otte, A rising middle power? with J. Crewe (New York: St. Martins Press, 2000), 94.
Jim Hoagland, German Wobbling Puts the Trans-Atlantic Partnership at Risk, International Herald Tribune, 30 January 1991; B. Fehr, Amerika ist u ber die deutsche Haltung im Golfkrieg enttauscht,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 January 1991; Hutchings, American Diplomacy.
98 Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 12/5, Bonn, 30 January 1991, 90B; Deutscher Bundestag,
Plenarprotokoll 12/6, Bonn, 31 January 1991; Senior government official, interview with Felix Berenskoetter, Freiburg, 27 December 2001.
99 Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 12/3, Bonn, 17 January 1991. See also previous note.
100 Bennett et al., Burden-Sharing, 67; Otte, A Rising Middle Power? 93. For an argument that the
payment was motivated by German fear of U.S. abandonment, see Bennett et al., Burden-Sharing, 67.
101 Catherine McArdle Kelleher, U.S. Policy toward Europe, in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Search for a
New Role, ed. Robert J. Art and S. Seyom Brown (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 275.
102 Karl Lamers, Golfkrieg hat eine Katharsis im Denken bewirkt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
2 May 1991.
97
432
new reality where war . . . has returned as an instrument of politics, Iraq had
cast a bright light on the need to redefine united Germanys international
role to reconfirm its status as a reliable Western ally.103 Doing so without
abandoning the Civilian Power identity posed a formidable challenge, as
captured in Lamerss remark that without forgetting its history, Germany
must become as normal as possible.104
German Adjustment and Forum Shopping

The pledge by the Kohl government to take on more international responsibility was meant as a signal to core allies that Germany was willing to
adjust.105 The government worked toward this aim on two levels. On the
domestic level, it pushed for adjustments of norms defining appropriate
mandate, missions, and means. On the international level, it sought to embed this shift in a negotiation for a shared understanding of international
order through an international institution.
The most pressing task was to establish the very possibility for mandating out of [NATO] area engagement, defining the scope of acceptable
missions and means in its current. During the debate over the Gulf War,
the Kohl government had maintained already that the Basic Law did not
rule out Bundeswehr participation within (certain) international institutions.
By contributing non-combat personnel to UN peacekeeping missions, such
as in Somalia in 1993, it gradually pushed the limits of the Bonn Republic
and provoked a domestic constitutional debate.106 In a series of rulings, the
Federal Supreme Court supported the governments agenda, culminating in
a landmark decision in July 1994 that removed the legal obstacles for out of
area engagement. The Court ruled that such missions were in harmony with
the constitution as long as they took place within the framework of systems
of collective security strictly bound to the preservation of peace, which,
technically speaking, included the UN, NATO, WEU, and CSCE.107 Moreover, missions had to be approved by a simple majority of the Bundestag, making
the parliament a site for co-mandating Bundeswehr practices.108 Once the
Court had opened the door for out of area missions, government officials
103 Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 12/6, Bonn, 31 January 1991, 12/6, 161A-B, 137C-D; Volker
Ruhe, speech, Command Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg, Germany, 16 December 1992, in
German Foreign and Defense Policy after Unification, ed. Lothar Gutjahr (London: Pinter, 1992), 21114.
104 Karl Lamers, quoted in Jeffrey Anderson and J. B. Goodman, Mars or Minerva? A United Germany
in a Post-Cold War Europe, in After the Cold War, 48.
105 Michael Kreile, Verantwortung und Interesse in der deutschen Aussen- und Sicherheitspolitik,
Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 5 (1996): 4.
106 Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern, 268; Dalgaard-Nielsen, Peace Enforcement, 61.
107 For a detailed legal-political analysis, see Sabine Jaberg, Systeme kollektiver Sicherheit in und fuer
Europa in Theorie, Praxis und Entwurf (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1996).
108 Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern? 275.
From NATO to ESDP
433
were eager to make domestic assurances that the door could not be opened
too widely. They toned down Germanys global commitment and, implicitly
or explicitly, supported the idea of a European Peace Order built through
civilian means and conflict prevention missions in the European region. Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkels comment that normalcy does not mean to send
German soldiers to all the hot spots worldwide was echoed in the 1994
White Paper that states the primary goal of German security policy was the
political formation [Gestaltung] of peace in the near and expanded periphery
of Germany.109
Anticipating the Courts ruling, the Kohl government went forum shopping to assess which institution was most suitable for negotiating a shared international order in resonance with domestic principles of mandate, missions,
and means.110 Conditions were favorable as all four relevant institutionsUN,
NATO, (W)EU, and CSCEwere undergoing reform efforts. In line with Bushs
notion of a New World Order and the hope for a revival of the UN, the
German government advocated the importance of international law and the
UN as a promising forum for negotiating international order. Partly due to
its symbolic status as representing the world community and in light of the
Agenda for Peace laid out by the Secretary General, the UN was considered
a desirable mandating body, and the government launched a bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council. To demonstrate its commitment to the
UN, Germany supported the idea of UN peacekeeping, understood as not
involving combat but engaging in mediation between conflicting parties in
the role of a neutral third.111 Participation in such missions thus would not
require the militarization of German security policy and was compatible with
the Civilian Power narrative.112
Prior to the Gulf War, Kohl confirmed the U.S. position that NATO was
to remain the dominant institution in Europe.113 And NATOs new strategic
concept, signed at the 1991 Rome summit, resonated with German ideas of
order as it emphasized the political dimension of NATO, the importance of
preventive diplomacy, and the role of the UN and the Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) as mandating bodies. This appeared to
109 Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Die neue Europaeische Friedensordnung, Europa Archiv 15 (1990):
47378; Kohl, Deutschlands Einheit, 189; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 12/240, Bonn, 22 July
1994, 17430B; Weissbuch, Zur Sicherheit, 43; Volker Ruehe, speech, 32nd Munich Conference on Security
Policy, Munich, Germany, 4 February 1995.
110 For a different interpretation suggesting that German officials pursued a strategy of interlocking
institutions (propagated by the United States), see Anderson and Goodman, Mars or Minerva? in After
the Cold War, 39ff.
111 Christian Tomuschat, Deutschland und die Vereinten Nationen, in Deutschlands neue Aussenpolitik. Band 3, ed. Karl Kaiser and Joachim Krause (Muenchen: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996), 18.
112 Volker Ruehe, Verteidigungspolitische Richtlinien (Bonn: Bundesministerium der Verteidigung,
26 November 1992); Oliver Thraenert, Aspekte Deutscher Sicherheitspolitik in den Neunziger Jahren (Bonn:
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 1993).
113 Hutchings, American Diplomacy, 279.
434
signal U.S. willingness to adapt. However, Germanys defection from the Gulf
War coalition limited its voice in the negotiations and prompted complaints
about unilateral decision making, nationalization of NATO, and Germanys
downgrade to a second-class member.114 The Rome document also contained
some elements that did not resonate with the Bonn Republic. It noted that
NATOs strategic horizon was not limited to Europe but must take account of
the global context and that members could . . . be called upon to contribute
to global stability, preparing the ground for the 1992 Oslo agreement that
adopted the possibility of out-of-area missions authorized by the UN Security
Council.115 The emphasis on a UN mandate served as an important check on
potential NATO missions, yet the continued primacy of military capabilities
gained new significance with the doctrinal shift toward power projection,
pushed forward by the U.S. military and largely sidetracking the political
debate.116
Bonn enjoyed significant agenda setting power in the efforts to reform
the CSCE and the EC. Indeed, according to one observer, here the Germans
were the movers and shapers.117 With substantial backing by France, Kohl
and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher were particularly enthusiastic
about revitalizing CSCE in November 1990 with the Charter of Paris. The
charters commitment to build and maintain a European Peace Order along
with CSCEs record of bridging the East-West divide through dialogue, civilian
contacts, and the promotion of human rights resonated strongly with German
ideas of missions and means.118 The government called for regular meetings
of CSCE foreign and defense ministers and the establishment of a permanent
council, advocated a new form of crisis management through the creation
of the CSCEs Conflict Prevention Centre, and supported the idea of CSCE as
a mandating body for peacekeeping operations.119 Whereas the majority
in the Bush administration considered CSCE a feckless debating club and
an unwieldy forum, limiting its support mainly to rhetoric, in Germany,
the view that CSCE might become an alternative to NATO for building a new
European order was not uncommon.120
114 Jan. W. Honig, Renationalization of Western European Defense, Security Studies (Fall 1992):
12238; Thraenert, Aspekte Deutscher Sicherheitspolitik.
115 NATO, Rome Declaration on Peace and Cooperation, Brussels, 8 November 1991, 12, 41.
116 Kori Schake, NATO after the Cold War, 19911996, Contemporary European History 7, no. 3
(1998): 379408.
117 Elisabeth Pond, Germany in the New Europe, Foreign Affairs 71 (1991): 125.
118 Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 11/236, Bonn, 22 November 1990, 1886368; 1889395;
Richard E. Rupp and Mary M. McKenzie, The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe:
Institutional Reform and Political Reality, in The Promise and Reality of European Security Cooperation,
ed. Mary M. McKenzie and Peter H. Loedel (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), 128; Ingo Peters, The OSCE and
German Policy: A Study in How Institutions Matter, in Imperfect Unions, 195221.
119 Duffield, World Power Forsaken, 116; Genscher, Erinnerungen, 759.
120 On the Bush administrations reaction to CSCE, see Hutchings, American Diplomacy, 156; Zelikow
and Rice Germany Unified, 251. For the German view of CSCE, see Lothar Gutjahr, German foreign and
defence policy after unification (London: Pinter, 1994); Otte, A rising middle power?
From NATO to ESDP
435
Negotiations over EC reforms culminating in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty

laid the seeds for an emancipatory move. Kohl had drawn strong links
between the process of German unification and the project of European
integration, a commitment anchored in the revised preamble and Article 23
of the Basic Law.121 The fact that the EC had also been given the label of
a Civilian Power hinted at its potential for discussing mandate, missions,
and means in line with the Bonn Republic narrative. Germany paired up
with France to develop a security component within the new institutional
structure of the EU, and their joint initiative from December 1990 led to the
creation of CFSP.122 To underscore their commitment, the two governments
also took up earlier attempts to revive the WEU and declared its integration
into the EU a long-term goal; they furthermore agreed to build up a GermanFranco multinational corps answerable to the EU (the Euro Corps). During
the 1992 German presidency, WEU members agreed on the scope of WEU
missions to encompass humanitarian and rescue tasks; peacekeeping tasks;
tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking.123
Although the last task did not comply with the Civilian Power narrative and
although Germany did not quite agree with France on how these investments
related to NATO, the two governments converged in their determination to
build a shared European order and recognized each other as equals in the
negotiations over the same.
That the German-Franco investments in the WEU and EU were laying the
groundwork for a potential alternative to NATO was recognized in Washington.124 The Bush administration strongly protested against such ambitions,
generating immediate reassurance from Kohl that Germany remained committed to NATO as the primary security institution in Europe and that investments in (W)EU were contributions to strengthen the European pillar of NATO.
To stress this commitment, Kohl agreed to have the Euro Corps employed
under NATO and lobbied for the establishment of a European Security and
Defense Identity (ESDI) within NATO to increase the European voice in debating missions and means.125
121
Ash, In Europes Name; Genscher, Erinnerungen; Banchoff, German Identity; The Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Germany (Wuerzburg: Jurisprudenzia, 2002).
122 On the French motivation to invest in CFSP, see Robert Ladrech, Redefining Grandeur: France
and European Security after the Cold War, in The Promise and Reality, 85100; Sten Rynning, Changing
Military Doctrine: Presidents and Military Power in Fifth Republic France, 19582000 (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2002), 142; Schake, NATO after the Cold War.
123 Western European Union, Petersberg Declaration, Council of Ministers, Bonn, 19 June 1992.
124 Hutchings, American Diplomacy, 27781.
125 Carsten Tams, The Functions of a European Security and Defense Identity and its Institutional
Form, in Imperfect Unions; Emil J. Kirchner, NATO or WEU? in Uneasy Allies: British-German relations
and European integration since 1945, ed. Klaus Larres with Elizabeth Meehan (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 184203; Theiler, Die NATO im Umbruch, 184ff.
436
Bosnia: Signs of Estrangement

The conflict in Bosnia from 1991 to 1995 provided the stage for the Kohl
government to push through domestic adjustments and to test the viability
of the institutions named above for stabilizing the Bonn Republic within a
European Peace Order. Together with other Western European governments,
Germany framed the conflict as a crisis that tested the pacifying power of
European institutions.126 Bosnia presented an opportunity to confirm the viability of civilian means and, together with France, Germany placed considerable effort into mobilizing CSCE and EC/EU diplomacy and setting up sanctions
through the WEU. When these efforts showed no impact, Bonn lobbied for
UN involvement, leading to the 1992 Geneva conference, Vance-Owen diplomacy, and arms embargos against Belgrade. Yet neither these efforts nor the
November 1993 CFSP initiative by Kinkel and his French counterpart Alain
Juppe for an EU Action Plan had significant effect. German hopes for a diplomatic solution were laid to rest when UN personnel were unable to protect
safe havens and prevent mass killings in Srebrenica in July 1995.127
Thus, the events in Bosnia exposed the limits of building a European
Peace Order with civilian means and came to pose a significant challenge to
the Bonn Republic narrative. After the Federal Court had cleared the legal
hurdle, the Kohl government would most assuredly need to follow through
and support a looming military intervention. Eager to keep the decision away
from the general German elections in October 1994, Kohl turned down initial
requests by UN and NATO for Bundeswehr involvement; and in his reelection
speech in November, he reiterated that Germanys adjustment to new international responsibilities would not mean militarization.128 Yet in summer 1995,
on the back of an intense and highly emotional domestic debate, the government secured a narrow Bundestag approval to support the UN-authorized and
U.S.-led air campaign through NATO with non-combat forces.129 This practical
adjustment of domestic principles destabilized the Bonn Republic narrative;
however, the Kohl government deemed participation necessary to avert an
even greater threat to the countrys ontological security posed by an opposition to the NATO campaign. The government echoed the Federal Court that a
lack of German support in the mission would lead to a loss of confidence in
Buendnisfaehigkeit and increase doubts about Germanys reliability amongst
Western partners who, the government argued, supported the idea of building a European Peace Order. Hence, not supporting the mission would
126
Simon Nutall, European Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 200ff.; Lene
Hansen, Security as Practice (London: Routledge, 2006).
127 Hilz, Europas Verhindertes Fuehrungstrio, 25556; Genscher, Erinnerungen; Meiers, Germanys
Defence Choices.
128 Helmut Kohl, Regierungserklaerung des Bundeskanzlers, in Bulletin der Bundesregierung no.
108 (24 November 1994); Meiers, Germanys Defence Choices, 27782.
129 More precisely, political restrictions on the use of Bundeswehr jets were so high that they were
de facto excluded from any combat engagements. Meiers, Germanys Defence Choices, 287.
From NATO to ESDP
437
contribute to the fragmentation of Europe both in the Balkans and among EU

members. Furthermore, noting signs of genocide in Bosnia, opposition to a
mission averting the atrocities would betray Germanys historical responsibility of preventing another Auschwitz. In other words, opposition to NATOs
mission would question German commitment to building a European Peace
Order and undermine the moral credibility of the Bonn Republic, thereby
again raising the specter of German isolation and ill-fated special paths.130
Balancing NATO and CFSP

The reinterpretation of German historical lessons, prioritizing never again
genocide over never again war allowed maintaining the coherence of
the Bonn Republic narrative, yet the adjustment needed to be embedded
in a suitable friendship and a corresponding institutional frame. Both CSCE
and the UN had lost much of their appeal. In addition to their unsatisfactory
performance in the Bosnian conflict, there was little hope for revitalizing
these institutions with the United States. As noted earlier, Washington did
not consider CSCE as a viable institution for building international order, and
its support for UN peacekeeping missions all but disappeared following the
1993 debacle in Somalia. In addition, the German campaign for a permanent
seat on the Security Council had failed. The intervention in Bosnia seemingly
affirmed NATOs relevance, but it also confirmed dissonance with U.S. ideas
of order and lack of voice opportunity for Germany, raising doubts in Bonn
about the attraction of the U.S.-NATO configuration.
The Bush administration had decided not to get involved in Bosnia and,
against previous assurances that the United States shares Europes neighborhood, declared the Balkans as peripheral to its agenda of building a
post-Cold War world.131 In addition, Washington was reluctant to support,
and at times even obstructed, German initiatives like UN involvement, the
Vance-Owen Peace Plan, the EU Action Plan and excluded Germany from
talks for a Joint Action Programme in May 1993.132 When the Clinton administration changed course and agreed to get NATO involved, the emphasis on
130 Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 12/240, Bonn, 22 July 1994; Duffield, World Power Forsaken; Meiers, Germanys Defence Choices, 28291; Dalgaard-Nielsen, Peace Enforcement, chap. 4.
Notably, these arguments were also made by Joschka Fischer, one of the leaders of the Green Party.
Joschka Fischer, Die pazifische Position ueberdenken, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 August 1995.
On the spectre of fragmentation, or Balkanization, see also Weissbuch, Zur Sicherheit, 23, 27, 30; Claus
Leggewie, Europa beginnt in Sarajevo, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (Bonn: Bundeszentrale fuer Politische Bildung, 1993); Karl Lamers, Strengthening the Hard Core, in The Question of Europe, ed. Peter
Gowan and Perry Anderson (London: Verso, 1994), 10416; SPD, Politik, Aussen- und Sicherheitspolitik
der SPD, Parteitag, 1417 November 1995.
131 James Baker, quoted in Nuttall, European Foreign Policy, 62; Hutchings, American Diplomacy,
308; Van Hoonacker, The Bush Administration; Hansen, Security as Practice, 105ff., 136.
132 T. Paulsen, Die Yugoslawienpolitik der USA, 19891994 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995); David
Owen, Balkan Odyssey (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995), 179.
438
diplomacy and the sanctions favored by the Kohl government were trumped
by the U.S. approach to lift (the sanctions) and strike (from the air). Europeans were sidelined by Richard Holbrookes shuttle diplomacy and in
negotiations leading to the Dayton Peace Agreement. German policy makers
also criticized the U.S. peace-building approach through NATOs Implementation Forceto which Bonn contributed four thousand troopswhen the
United States rejected UN oversight of civilian relief efforts and planned to
rearm the Bosnian army, thus seemingly supporting practices which sustained a militarized environment.133 All this raised concerns in Bonn that the
kind of international order imagined in Washington might not be compatible
with German understanding of appropriate missions and means. Given the
political risk taken in opening the door for Bundeswehr out of area engagement, the Kohl government became worried that it might lend support to a
NATO mission, the course and conduct of which it could not influence, yet
which might come to violate domestic principles.134
Against this backdrop, German policy makers shifted their attention to
CFSP and France as possible alternatives for sustaining the Bonn Republic.
The fact that Bosnia also exposed the EUs capability-expectations gap was
not surprising given that CFSP was in its infancy.135 What mattered was its
perceived potential. Already when Germany held the EU presidency in 1994
there was a cross-party consensus in Bonn to strengthen CFSP. The central
security objectives listed in the 1994 White Paper ties German security to
the process of European integration, and the reelected Kohl government
voiced support for the development of an independent European security
and defense identity.136 An influential position paper issued by the Christian
Democrats in September 1994 called for closer cooperation with France and
improving CFSPs capacity for effective action, explicitly noting this would
constitute an indispensable factor in endowing the EU [Germany] with an
identity of its own.137 The paper even goes so far as to suggest that the
USA can no longer play its traditional role and that Germanys relations with
France are now the yardstick by which to measure its sense of belonging
to the Wests community of shared political and cultural values.138 This was
accompanied by a number of high-level affirmations of the French-German
special relationship in the summer of 1994, symbolized by the participation
of German Eurocorps units in the 14 July parade in Paris. In preparation
133 Despite U.S.-NATO Tensions, Troops Get Ready for Bosnia, New York Times, 30 November 1995;
Stephane Levebvre and Ben Lombardi, Germany and Peace Enforcement: Participating in IFOR, European
Security 5, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 56465.
134 Hilz, Europas Verhindertes Fuehrungstrio, 31112.
135 Christopher Hill, The Capability-Expectation Gap, Journal of Common Market Studies 31, no. 3
(1993): 30528.
136 Weissbuch, Zur Sicherheit, 42; CDU/CSU/FDP, Koalitionsvertrag, Bonn, 21 November 1994.
137 Lamers, Strengthening the Hard Core, 113.
138 Ibid., 112.
From NATO to ESDP
439
for negotiations on EU treaty revisions, German officials emphasized the

importance of cooperating with France to provide the EU with the ability to
take credible and clear foreign security and defense policy positions.139
These emancipatory moves raised concerns among Atlanticists that the
government was undermining Germanys own Western identity and Western
order as a whole.140 Yet the forewords by Kohl and Ruhe for the 1994 White
Paper exemplify that the government was pursuing strategies of both adaptation and emancipation. The government welcomed NATOs Combined Joint
Task Forces (CJTF) that would make U.S. assets available for WEU operations on
the basis of consultations in the North Atlantic Council, and it campaigned
for equal-partner status within NATO by strengthening ESDI at the 1996 Berlin
summit.141 At the same time, in preparation for the 1996 EU treaty revisions,
the Kohl government relied on France to continue to drive forward the idea
of establishing the (W)EU as a potential alternative forum in which parameters
for mandates, means, and missions could be debated, while resisting French
attempts to duplicate operational structures.142 This dual strategy allowed
Bonn to keep its options open, but it did not contribute to the stability of
the German narrative as debates about Germanys position in Europe and a
possible cultural fissure with the United States continued.143
Kosovo: Shifting Towards Emancipation

The 1999 Kosovo conflict in many ways mirrored the Bosnia experience and
furthered the doubt among German policy makers that the U.S.-NATO configuration was suitable for embedding German ideas of order. Throughout 1998,
when the situation in Kosovo was deteriorating, the German government
pushed for a diplomatic solution in the reconvened Contact Group, in the
OSCE and in the EU. When negotiations failed in March 1999 and the United
States and Britain came to agree on military intervention, the new government lead by Gerhard Schroder (SPD) came under significant pressure.
The allies expectation that Germany would support an offensive combat
mission through NATO without a UN mandate stood in stark contrast with
the basic principles of the Bonn Republic. Indeed, the incoming Red-Green
139 Klaus Kinkel, interview, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 7 March 1996; Werner Hoyer and Michael Barnier,
Exisitiert Europea? Ein deutsch-franzoesisches Plaedoyer fuer eine gemeinsame Aussen- und Sicherheitspolitik,Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 December 1995.
140 Karlheinz. Weissmann, Die Nation denken, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 April 1994, 33;
Gunther Gillessen, Was Adenauers Westbindung bedeutet, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28 April
1994; Dan Diner, Feinde des Westens, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 11 May 1994.
141 NATO, The Brussels Summit Declaration, Brussels, 1011 January 1994, 6.
142 Hilz, Europas Verhindertes Fuehrungstrio, 16379; Mathias Jopp and O. Schmuck, eds., Die
Reform der Europaischen
Union (Bonn: Europa Union Verlag, 1996); Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern? 232.
143 Arnulf Baring, ed., Germanys new position in Europe (Oxford: Berg, 1994); Werner Weidenfeld,
Kulturbruch mit Amerika? (Guetersloh: Bertelsmann Verlag, 1997).
440
government had emphasized civilian conflict prevention as the overarching

approach of German security policy in its coalition treaty.144 In the face of
such dissonance, and having promised that a Red-Green government would
not engage a Sonderweg in external affairs, German officials struggled to
respond. When their earlier statement that a UN mandate would be needed
was dismissed in Washington, policy makers in Bonn clung on UN Secretary
General Kofi Annans personal endorsement of the military intervention.145
But the heated domestic debate over the relative primacy of the historical
lessonsnever again war versus never again genocideindicated the
confusion over what were to be authentic and, hence, appropriate practices
for German foreign policy. The Schroder government eventually secured narrow Bundestag approval by repeating the argument which had been used
for justifying intervention in Bosnia, namely that Germany needed to compromise its pacifist principles to meet the expectations of key allies and
to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Europe, thereby safeguarding the
European Peace Order.146 This compromise, which justified Bundeswehr
participation in offensive combat operations for the first time since World
War II, amounted to crossing the Rubicon from the Bonn to the Berlin Republic.147 It destabilized the Civilian Power narrative and posed a serious
threat to Germanys ontological security.
Under pressure to reestablish resonance and embed the new Berlin
Republic in the idea of a European Peace Order, the Schroder government
sought to shape strategic debates and the terms of shared practices in NATO
and the EU toward this end. However, NATOs Kosovo operation and the
parallel negotiations over the new strategic concept suggested that NATO
was ill suited for such a task. German officials were effectively sidelined
during the last major diplomatic effort at Rambouillet and suspected that
the United States abandoned the diplomatic track too quickly.148 During
the subsequent NATO operation, the Schroder government was uneasy with
the fact that Washington, once again, conducted the war on behalf of its
European allies.149 The U.S. military bore the heaviest load as the Europeans
144 SPD/B
undnis 90/Die GRUNEN,

Koalitionsvereinbarung, Bonn, 20. October 1998, esp.
145 Hilz, Europas Verhindertes Fuehrungstrio, 34046; Kofi Annan, Secretary General of
chap. 11.
the United
Nations, statement to the North Atlantic Council, Brussels, 28 January 1999.

146 Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 14/30, Bonn, 25 March 1999; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 14/31, Bonn, 26 March 1999; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 14/32, Bonn, 15 April
1999; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 14/35, Bonn, 22 April 1999.
147 This change in name reflects the (contested) move of the German capital from Bonn to Berlin in
July 1999. See also William E. Paterson, From the Bonn to the Berlin republic, German Politics 9, no. 1
(2000): 2340.
148 Marc Weller, The Rambouillet Conference on Kosovo, International Affairs 75, no. 2 (1999):
21151; Hilz, Europas Verhindertes Fuehrungstrio, 359.
149 J. P. Thomas, The Military Challenges of Transatlantic Coalitions (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 46; David S. Yost, The U.S.-European Capabilities Gap and the Prospects for ESDP, in
Defending Europe, ed. Jolyon Howorth and John T.S. Keeler (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 8889.
From NATO to ESDP
441
lacked crucial capabilities and not all U.S. military assets were integrated into
the allied framework. As symbolized in the debate about who was to choose
targets, the discrepancy between having no influence over the conduct of
the operation yet sharing the political responsibility turned the mission into
a political blind flight for the Schroder government.150
The dependency on American assets and the lack of influence on U.S. decisions increased the call for improved European capabilities across Western
Europe, yet the question was what kind of assets to invest in and for what
purpose these were to be used. The answer given by NATOs new strategic
concept, adopted in April 1999 in Washington, failed to reestablish resonance with the Berlin Republic. In the preceding negotiations, Germany,
together with France, had pushed for both a limitation of NATOs responsibilities to Europe and, eager not to turn Kosovo into a precedent, for a
strong confirmation of the UN as the mandate-issuing body.151 Yet the United
States was not in favor of such restrictions, preferring instead NATOs mission
to be defined more loosely as globally serving common security interests
and being able to act without a UN mandate.152 U.S. preferences prevailed.
Alongside references to the Euro-Atlantic region, the documents discussion
of military crisis management keeps NATOs geographic reach open and does
not conclude that a UN mandate is necessary for military action.153 In addition to this dissonance, German policy makers held the view that NATO
lacked instruments for preventing conflicts and for dealing with the aftermath of military violence, as captured in the widespread view that NATO
cannot make peace.154
Strengthening the Alternative: ESDP

Against this backdrop, the Schroder government invested in the alternative
available through the EU. Exploiting Germanys triple presidency in the EU,
WEU, and G8, the government initiated a civilian effort for post-conflict reconstruction and institutionalized this approach in the emerging ESDP. The
14 April 1999 plan put forward by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischerwhich
led to the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europemoved German engagement back into the Civilian Power narrative. Building on ideas voiced earlier
150
Senior political advisor, interview with authors, Berlin, 18 April 2007.

Johannes Varwick, Deutsche Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik in der Nordatlantischen Allianz, in Deutsche Sicherheitspolitik, ed. Sebastian Harnisch, Christos Katsioulis and Marco Overhaus
(Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2004), 1536.
152 Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern? 19296.
153 North Atlantic Council, Washington Summit Communiqu
e, Washington, DC, 24 April 1999, NACS (99) 64; North Atlantic Council, The Alliances Strategic Concept, Washington, DC, 24 April 1999, NAC-S
(99) 65. On the mandate issue, see also Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern? 19496.
154 Senior advisor, interview with authors, 18 April 2007; Senior German official, interview with
authors, 27 December 2001.
151
442
by France, Fischer presented outlines of the Pact within a week of the beginning of NATOs air campaign; and although the OSCE was the intended platform
for implementation, holding the EU presidency allowed him to drive the process forward in record time.155 Moreover, the 1998 Franco-British St. Malo
agreement and its call for the EU to develop capabilities to enable autonomous
action had reignited the dynamic of CFSP. German officials invested in this
dynamic and sought to make the EU the prime centre of European crisis
management156 This position was affirmed at the Franco-German meeting
on 29 May in Toulouse, where the duo stressed its determination to put full
weight behind the effort to secure for the EU the necessary autonomous assets
it needs and decides to be able to decide and act in the face of crises.157 The
declaration also suggested developing the Eurocorps into a European Rapid
Reaction Corps, but Germany, in its EU Presidency Conclusions delivered a
week later, emphasized civilian conflict-prevention capabilities.
The Presidency Conclusions presented in Cologne in June 1999 clearly
shows the German attempt to build up ESDP as an alternative to NATO, more
precisely as a preferred alternative whose activities resonate with German
ideas of appropriate mandate, missions, and means.158 The most notable
features of the Cologne document are the weak role assigned to NATO and the
way the relationship between NATO and the EU is defined in comparison to the
April 1999 NATO summit communique and NATOs new strategic concept.159
The Presidency Conclusions is inconsistent with the NATO documents in
three important ways. First, stressing that the EUs military effort is geared
toward crisis management, it describes NATOs mission mainly in traditional
collective defense terms, suggesting a division of labor between the two
organizations. Second, the hierarchy expressed in the NATO documents is lost
in the Presidency Conclusions that instead treats both options coequally.
Third, the Cologne document does not explicitly stress NATOs right of first
refusal. Stating that the EU must be capable of responding to crises without
prejudice to actions by NATO signals a weakening of NATO as the institution
of choice. This trend was echoed in a position paper on CFSP issued by
the parliamentary caucus of the Social Democratic Party in November 2000.
The position paper does not renounce European duplication efforts but
155 See Lykke Friis and Anna Murphy, Turbo-Charged Negotiations: The EU and the Stability Pact
for South Eastern Europe, Journal of European Public Policy 7, no. 5 (2000): 76870.
156 Mathias Jopp, European Defence Policy: The Debate on the Institutional Aspects (Berlin: Institut
fur Europaische Politik, 1999), 9; Jolyon Howorth, Discourse, Ideas, and Epistemic Communities in
European Security and Defence Policy, West European Politics 27, no. 2 (2004): 21134.
157 Franco-German Defence and Security Council, declaration, Toulouse, 29 May 1999, repr. in M.
Rutten, From St. Malo to Nice. European Defence: Core Documents, Chaillot Paper 47 (Paris: Institute for
Security Studies, 2001), 40.
158 Cologne European Council, Presidency Conclusions, repr. in Rutten, From St. Malo to Nice,
4145.
159 North Atlantic Council, Washington Summit Communiqu
e; North Atlantic Council, The Alliances Strategic Concept.
From NATO to ESDP
443
merely suggests improving coordination between the EU and NATO. It holds

that German scope of engagement should be limited to Europe and its
neighboring regionswhat Fischer called the European preferenceand
declares mediation, stabilization, and peace building through police forces,
legal and civilian administration, and a dialogue of cultures as key objectives
of German security policy.160 Emphasizing the aim to prevent another Kosovo
and to stay below the military threshold, the position paper limits the role
of the military to lend credibility to civilian missions. Notably, the main
section does not mention NATO but closes with an endorsement of the UN
and the OSCE as partners and mandating bodies.161
Overall, what comes through in these documents is the view that NATO
and ESDP are designed for serving different conceptions of security, with Germany favoring the latter institution.162 Fischers attempt to play down the
contradiction between investment in ESDP and his declaration that NATO had
passed the test in Kosovo could not conceal from the U.S. government that
Germany had undertaken an emancipatory move.163 Whereas Washington
again issued clear warnings not to decouple Europe from the United
States and NATO, the German investment and the specific direction it had
given ESDP found a positive reception in a number of EU member states
and was strengthened by subsequent EU presidencies and corresponding Council meetings in Helsinki (1999), Feira (2000), and Gothenburg
(2001).164
Afghanistan: Manifesting Emancipation

German-American estrangement continued over the engagement in
Afghanistan. This was not obvious at first. Although it was uncomfortable
with the newly installed George W. Bush administration, the Schroder government swiftly accepted the U.S. framing of the events of September 11,
2001 as an attack on the shared Western idea of order.165 Schroder declared
160 SPD,
Die Zukunft der GASP , November 2000, 11; Joschka Fischer, Berlins Foreign Policy, Internationale Politik, Transatlantic Edition 1, no. 1 (2000): 18.
161 SPD, Zukunft, 1720; Fischer, Berlins Foreign Policy.
162 Senior government official, interview with Felix Berenskoetter, 27 December 2001.
163 Joschka Fischer, The Indispensable Partner, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 1,
no. 1 (2000); Hunter, European Security and Defense Policy, 57; Giegerich, European Security, 5960.
164 Javier Solana, Improving the Coherence and Effectiveness of the European Union Action in the
Field of Conflict Prevention, report presented at the Nice European Council, Nice, France, 79 December
2000; Karen E. Smith, European Union Foreign Policy in a Changing World (Oxford: Polity Press, 2003),
154; Rory Keane European Security and Defence Policy: From Cologne to Sarajevo, Global Society 19,
no. 1 (January 2005): 9192.
165 Joschka Fischer, Die Antwort auf fast alle Fragen ist: Europa, Die Zeit, 15 March 2001; Michael
R. Gordon, Bush would Stop U.S. Peacekeeping in Balkan Fights, New York Times, 21 October 2000;
Regina Karp, The New German Foreign Policy Consensus, Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2005):
6667.
444
unrestricted solidarity with the United States and agreed for NATO to invoke
Article Five, a historical first, declaring the terrorist attacks a case for collective defense. The government also supported the U.S. military intervention
in Afghanistan through Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) as well as the
UN mandated International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF),
beginning in November and December 2001, respectively. By doing so, it
extended the scope of Bundeswehr combat missions beyond Europe, signifying another adjustment of domestic ideas of order and posing a new
challenge to the Civilian Power narrative.
Having only just recovered from the adjustment over Kosovo, Schroder
faced considerable opposition to this move within his own coalition government. He took the extraordinary step and tied the decision to a vote of
confidence to ensure Bundestag approval, risking the governments political
survival and escaping only narrowly. Schroder justified his stance by arguing
that engagement in Afghanistan was a necessary act of solidarity and that
avoiding German isolation within NATO was essential. In the context of 9/11,
Germany needed to be a reliable partner of the United States and contribute
to the defense of Western ideas of order.166 To sustain this commitment, the
Schroder government needed to frame the mission in Afghanistan as one that
resonated with Germanys Civilian Power narrative. In light of the different
character of OEF and ISAFthe former standing for offensive combat operations and the latter for a UN-authorized reconstruction effortthis meant
focusing on the latter and limiting or downplaying Bundeswehr involvement
in OEF. Struggling to find a balance between military solidarity with allies
and the struggle for peace, the German government was quick to host the
UN conference on Afghanistan reconstruction in December 2001 and to take
the lead in coordinating the build-up of an Afghan police force.167
In 2003 Germany initiated for NATO to take over the lead of ISAF from
the UN, marking the first formal engagement of the Atlantic Alliance outside
Europe. This move may appear at odds with the emancipatory strategy chosen earlier, but the Schroder government had two good reasons to pursue
the Afghanistan mission through NATO and to keep the EUs role limited.168
First, in contrast to the UNs rotation system that saw a new lead nation every six month, NATO was considered the organization best equipped to put
the mission on a stable institutional base.169 With ESDP still in its infancy,
166
Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 14/198, Berlin, 8 November 2001, 19287A; 19294A

19299CD; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 15/8, Berlin, 7 November 2002, 387D; Deutscher Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 15/73, Berlin, 7 November 2003, 6290A6292D.
167 German Chancellor Shores Up His Shaky Coalition, New York Times, 9 December 2001. In 2002
Germany agreed to the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, with the understanding that these operated
under ISAF rather than an OEF mandate.
168 Germany initiated the appointment of an EU Special Representative to Afghanistan, drew up the
mandate, and filled the post with a German diplomat.
169 Varwick, Deutsche Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik, 22.
From NATO to ESDP
445
the EU possessed limited capacities and had already committed to long-term

reconstruction missions on the Balkans, including taking over NATOs SFOR
mission in Bosnia by the end of 2004. Second, NATO involvement ensured
that the United States, distracted by the war in Iraq, was included within the
institutional frame. Given that the Afghanistan mission was a U.S.-led enterprise, ESDP would have been unsuitable for engaging the United States in a
constructive debate about aims and conduct of the mission.
Afghanistan did not prove to be a new opportunity to engage the United
States in building a post-9/11 international order, however. The first sign was
that the invocation of NATOs Article Five following 9/11 was downplayed in
Washington, with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld commenting that the mission determines the coalition.170 When gathering support for the intervention in Afghanistan, the United States ignored NATO as a consultative forum,
undermining Germanys attempt to be a valued and dependable ally.171
The Bush administration appeared to view NATO more as a place for summoning allies to support missions along the principles outlined in the 2002
National Security Strategy (NSS)self-mandated, pre-emptive military action
in a global fight for freedomthat were not open for negotiation.172 That
this clashed with the German understanding of appropriate mandate, missions, and means was dramatically exposed in Schroders opposition to the
U.S.-led intervention in Iraq. Despite the harsh U.S. criticism of the German
position and domestic warnings of a Sonderweg, the Schroder government
made no signs of conceding.173 In this climate, American indifference to a
German proposal in 2004 to reform NATO with a new Harmel Report was
not surprising, yet it confirmed in Berlin that NATO had ceased to be a forum through which a productive partnership with the United States could
be negotiated.174 As a senior German official recalled, Germany was pretty
lonesome in NATO . . . there was no consensus on strategic questions.175 In
February 2005 Schroder gave a much noted speech in which he emphasized
Germanys right to be involved in decision-making and reaffirmed the UN as
an irreplaceable mandating body. At the same time, he noted that the transatlantic partnership was not sufficiently open for changes and that [NATO] is
170 U.S. Department of Defense, news transcript, Secretary Rumsfeld Media Stakeout in Washington,
23 September 2001.
171 Klaus Becher, German Forces in International Military Operations, Orbis 48, no. 3 (2004): 404.
172 Edward Rhodes, The Good, the Bad, and the Righteous: Understanding the Bush Vision of a
New NATO Partnership, Millennium 33, no. 1 (2004): 12343.
173 On the fallout over Iraq, see Forsberg, German Foreign Policy; Szabo,Der Rubikon; Cornelius
Bjola and Markus Kornprobst, Security communities and the habitus of restraint: Germany and the United
States on Iraq, Review of International Studies 33, no. 2 (2007): 285305.
174 Marcus Overhaus, German Foreign Policy and the shadow of the Past, SAIS Review 25, no. 2
(2005): 31.
175 Senior German official, interview with Bastian Giegerich, Hamburg, October 2009. A senior,
non-German NATO official noted that frustration with the Bush administrations attitude of taking allies
for granted and treating allies with a lack of respect was widespread among Europeans. NATO official,
interview with Felix Berenskoetter, London, 23 January 2009.
446
no longer the primary venue where transatlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies. This assessment stood in notable contrast to his view
that German foreign and security policy is . . . [formulated] in Europe, for
Europe and from Europe . . . The step toward creating its own set of political
and military instruments with [ESDP] is . . . necessary.176
Schroders display of self-confidence in opposing the Iraq invasion and
questioning the value of the transatlantic relationship indicates that dissonance with the United States did not generate ontological insecurity in
Berlin. This must be seen in light of ESDP having become a viable alternative for embedding the Berlin Republic. Whereas some observers noted
that the German-American fallout over Iraq reopened the German question, for the Schroder government, the (new) answer was already in place.177
Germany had continually invested in ESDP and managed to shape the evolving institutional design and practices along German ideas of order: in 2002,
Foreign Minister Fischer and his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin,
submitted a joint contribution to the European Convention calling for a
declaration on Solidarity and Common Security, including the development
of ESDP toward a European Security and Defense Union.178 In April 2003,
on the heels of criticizing the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Germany together
with France, Belgium, and Luxembourg called for an autonomous EU operational planning capability. The proposal marked the clearest sign yet
that German leaders were willing to accept some duplication of NATO structures, with Schroder noting that there was too little Europe in NATO.179
In June 2003 the Bundestag overwhelmingly supported participation (albeit with only a small force) in the French-led, UN-authorized ESDP operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The mission had
great symbolic value as it was the EUs first military operation launched
independently from NATO. And when EU leaders discussed the European
Security Strategy (ESS) throughout the course of the year, the German
government was instrumental in both watering-down the notion of preventive action and strengthening the notion of a UN mandate to increase
the distance between the ESS and the 2002 NSS.180 Berlin also succeeded in
176 Gerhard Schr

oder, speech, 41st Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, Germany, 12
February 2005.
177 Stephen Szabo, Germany and the United States After Iraq: From Alliance to Alignment, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft 1 (2004): 4152; Richard Bernstein The German Question, New York
Times Magazine, 2 May 2004.
178 European Convention, Gemeinsame deutsch-franz
osische Vorschlage
Kon fur
den Europaischen
vent zum Bereich ESVP , Brussels, 22 November 2002, 2.

179 Gerhard Schr
oder, cited in Forsberg, German Foreign Policy, 223. For the proposal, see Antonio
Missiroli, comp., From Copenhagen to Brussels. European Defence: Core Documents, vol. 4 (Paris: EUISS,
2003), 7680.
180 Alyson J. K. Bailes, The European Security Strategy: An Evolutionary History, SIPRI Policy Article
no. 10 (Stockholm: SIPRI, 2005); Felix Berenskoetter, Mapping the Mind Gap: A Comparison of US and
European Security Strategies, Security Dialogue 36, no. 1 (2005): 7192.
From NATO to ESDP
447
strengthening the multilateral and UN-friendly character of the Franco-British

EU Battlegroup initiative and continued to enforce the notion of comprehensive security for defining the character of ESDP missions and choice of
means.181 A government action plan issued in May 2004 not only shows
strong overlap between development and security policy but also designates
CFSP/ESDP as the prime regional institution, followed by OSCE, the Council of
Europe, and the Stability Pact, with NATO listed at the bottom.182
End of a Friendship-Merkel to the Rescue?

The new coalition government, formed in November 2005, was led by Angela Merkel (CDU) who launched a new attempt to engage the United States
through NATO. This attempt was motivated by more than the pragmatic need
for coordinating the ongoing mission in Afghanistan; it illustrates the difficulty of letting go friendships and the desire to rescue them. Having grown
up in the former GDR, Merkel felt profound gratitude toward the United States
for supporting German unification and had been amongst those criticizing
Schroders stance on the Iraq War arguing that German opposition was hurting the German-U.S. friendship.183 Supported by the conservative (Atlanticist)
currents of her party that felt emancipation had gone too far, Merkel entered
office committed to revitalize the bond through NATO.184 This commitment
is reflected in the 2006 defense White Paper that stresses the German-U.S.
partnership based on shared values and lauds NATO as the foundation of
German and European securityalthough not without noting that the relationship needs cultivating through consultation and coordinated action.185
Although the White Paper puts ESDP second, it highlights civilian crisis prevention, conflict resolution, and post-conflict peace building as the overall
approach and notes its resonance with the ESS.186 The paper stresses that this
approach should also be pursued through NATO.
Merkels commitment to reconciliation without compromising domestic principles was tested in Afghanistan, where dissonance with the United
States over mandate, missions, and means endured. The Merkel government
continued to make a clear distinction between OEF and ISAF and resisted U.S.
181 Karl Heinz Kamp, European Battle Groups, Analysen und Argumente15 (Berlin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2004).
182 Deutsche Bundesregierung, Aktionsplan Zivile Krisenpraevention, Konfliktloesung und Friedenskonsolidierung, Berlin, 12 May 2004.
183 Angela Merkel, Schroeder Doesnt Speak for All Germans, Washington Post, 20 February 2003.
184 Neue Zurcher
Zeitung, Berlin setzt wieder mehr auf die Nato, 10 May 2006; Germany redis
covers the US as a Partner, Spiegel Online, 30 April 2007, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/
0,1518,480221,00.html.
185 White Paper 2006 on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr (Berlin: Federal
Ministry of Defense, 2006), 7, 2429.
186 White Paper 2006, 7, 23.
448
attempts to merge them under NATO command.187 This created tensions as

ISAF forces moved into the more dangerous region of southern Afghanistan
where the mission could not be reasonably portrayed as reconstruction. In
fall 2006 when calls by British, United States, and Canadian contingents for
German assistance in combat were turned down by Berlin, NATO partners reacted harshly. They accused Germany as unwilling to share in risk taking and
responsibilities, questioning the value of Germanys contributions and status
as an equal partner within NATO.188 Despite this (threatened) loss of recognition and mounting pressure from the Bush administration, Merkel maintained
that Bundeswehr forces made an important contribution and would not shift
toward combat engagement. At the same time, amidst voices in Washington
suggesting the need for NATO reform,189 she advocated for NATO to adopt the
comprehensive or networked security framework laid out in the 2006 White
Paper. As the framework basically suggests balancing military with civilian
means, with an emphasis on the latter, it did not require a shift in domestic
principles.190 Yet the framework provided a sufficiently vague structure for
staking out the possibility of remaking NATO into a forum through which
ideas of order could be negotiated along German lines.
Thus, underneath the diplomatic cloud, Merkels invitation to U.S. officials in February 2007 to talk about the Alliances self-image as part of a
civil-military overall profile was conditional.191 Although willing to deploy a
few additional troops and reconnaissance jets to Afghanistan, Berlin viewed
meaningful negotiation as predicated on U.S. recognition of German contributions and U.S. willingness to adapt. This stance was also visible in Defense
Minister Franz Josef Jungs insistence that NATO should focus on reconstruction rather than discussing military needs.192 However, the Bush administration showed little willingness to adapt. Instead, it refueled the tension
in January 2008 by sending requests for more German troops and equipment to join in combat operations, which even prominent Atlanticists in the
187 NATO Chiefs to Mull Options in Afghanistan, Deutsche Welle, 13 September 2005; Judy Dempsey
and David S. Cloud, Europeans balking at new Afghan role, International Herald Tribune, 14 September
2005.
188 Zwei-Klassen-K
ampfer, Welt am Sonntag, 29 October 2006 http://www.welt.de/print-welt/
article90828/Zwei Klassen Kaempfer.html; The Germans have to learn how to kill, Spiegel Online,
20 November 2006, http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,449479,00.html.
189 Ronald D. Asmus, Reinventing NATO (yet again) politically, NATO Review, no. 2 (Summer 2005),
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue2/english/analysis.html.
190 Interview with senior German policy advisor, Berlin, October 2007; White Paper 2006; Giegerich,
European Security and Strategic Culture, 11314.
191 Angela Merkel, speech, 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, Germany, 10 February 2007. See also Franz-Josef Meiers, The German Predicament: The Red Lines of the Security and
Defence Policy of the Berlin Republic, International Politics 44, no. 5 (September 2007): 62344.
192 Jung lehnt Einsatz von Nato-Eingreiftruppe ab, Spiegel Online, 8 February 2007; See also German defence minister calls for changes in Afghanistan tactics, International Herald Tribune, 14 May
2007.
From NATO to ESDP
449
Bundestag considered completely inappropriate.193 Secretary of Defense

Robert Gatess subsequent warning of a two-tier NATO and admonishment
that some allies were not sharing the burden in Afghanistan by refusing
to fight drew uncompromising responses from Jung and Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier.194 From the German perspective, the line had been
drawn: American demands stopped being interesting a long time ago. The
German domestic consensus does not allow for more.195 These were hardly
signs of productive negotiations, quite the contrary. As captured in the observation by one German commentator, the two sides were talking pass each
other,196 indicating that Merkels efforts had not ended the estrangement.
At the same time, there were signs that emancipation had sunk in. In
early 2007 Foreign Minister Steinmeier declared ESDP a success story. He emphasized that the strong civilian aspect was the trademark of ESDP, making
ESDP a role model and giving the EU an identity in security affairs that resonated with the German commitment for peaceful conflict resolution.197 In
a joint article with his French counterpart Kouchner, Steinmeier claims that
only inner-European cooperation can guarantee stability and security for
all without mentioning NATO even once.198 To be sure, as a former close
confident of Schroder, Steinmeier represented the strand of the government
more comfortable with emancipation. Yet Merkels conditional approach and
the fact that her government remained unshaken by the threat of a two-tier
NATO suggest that the sense of ontological security resting in an alternative
friend-institution configuration also registered with the Chancellor. Merkel
was aware that the notion of comprehensive security had been adopted by
the EU and characterized an emerging European strategic culture.199 And as
illustrated in her remarks surrounding NATOs sixtieth anniversary summit in
early 2009, Merkel came to appreciate ESDP and France as the alternative configuration through which norms about mandate, means, and missions could
193
Deutschland verweigert sich Amerika, Welt Online, 2 February 2008.

For the text of the speeches, see www.securityconference.de (accessed 7 July 2008). See also
NATO at risk over Afghanistan, 7 February, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south asia/7231909.stm.
195 German official, telephone interview with Bastian Giegerich, February 2009.
196 Jochen Bittner, Sch
one neue NATO, Die Zeit, 13 November 2006; See also Joschka Fischer,
Dustere Aussichten, Die Zeit, 31 March 2008; Deutscher Trend zur Scheckbuch-Diplomatie macht
Sorgen, Spiegel Online, 3 April 2009
197 Frank Walter Steinmeier, ESVP: Von K
oln nach BerlinBilanz und Perspektiven (speech, ESDP
Conference of the German Foreign Ministry, Berlin, 29 January 2007. Most ESDP missions have been civilian
in character, including a police mission in Afghanistan launched following the German EU presidency in
2007 that was taken over from the German Police Project Office. For an overview, see Giovanni Grevi,
Damien Helly, and Daniel Keohane, eds., European Security and Defense Policy. The First 10 Years (Paris:
European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2009).
198 Frank Walter Steinmeier and Bernard Kouchner, Europa und seine Sicherheit, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 October 2007.
199 Senior German official, interview with Felix Berenskoetter, London, December 2009; Paul Cornish
and Geoffrey Edwards, Beyond the EU/NATO Dichotomy: The Beginnings of a European Strategic Culture,
International Affairs 77, no. 3 (2001): 587603; Meyer, European Strategic Culture.
194
450
be negotiated with some success. In contrast to hailing NATO three years earlier, Merkel now spoke of NATO and ESDP in equal terms, with the summit
itself embedded in a celebration of the Franco-German relationship and a
joint German-Franco commitment to speak with a single European voice.200
Launching the debate on a new strategic concept, Merkel again stressed that
negotiations would need focus on making the comprehensive security approach the strategic common good of the Alliance.201 Even when the new
Obama administration appeared sympathetic to the idea, there were no signs
that Merkel saw a brighter future for this approach in NATO than in ESDP.202
A few months after the summit, her joint statement with French president
Nicolas Sarkozy pledging to move ESDP to a new level to defend Europes
values and identity suggests, at least, that she kept the emancipatory path
open.203
CONCLUSION: OPENINGS AND IMPLICATIONS

The aim of this article is twofold: to bring into focus Germanys role in the
development of CFSP/ESDP after the end of the Cold War and to offer a social
constructivist argument for explaining this investment. We put forward the
theoretical argument that states invest in international security institutions
to gain ontological security, more precisely to negotiate the compatibility
of domestic and international ideas of order, grounded in principles over
the legitimate use of force, with significant Others, or friends. We further
argued that friends will attempt to adapt to dissonance over appropriate
mandate, missions, and means, and that enduring dissonance (signifying a
process of estrangement) renders the configuration unsuitable for providing
ontological security and leads to investment in an alternative institution with
an alternative friend (signifying a process of emancipation).
The empirical discussion demonstrates the analytical value of this theoretical frame. Starting from the observation that Germany emerged out of
the Cold War with having its ontological security embedded in a friendship
with the United States and through NATO, we showed that disagreements
between German and American policy makers over the 1991 Gulf War and
the conflict in Bosnia destabilized Germanys Civilian Power narrative. This
prompted the Kohl government to push for domestic changes of principles
200
Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy, Wir Europaer mussen mit einer Stimme sprechen, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 3 February 2009; Angela Merkel, Regierungserklarung zum NATO Gipfel, 26 March
2009, http://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/AudioVideo/2009/Video/2009-03-26-Regierungserk
laerung-Nato/2009-03-26-regierungserklaerung-nato.html.
201 Merkel, Regierungserkl
arung; German official, interview with authors, February 2009
202 See Merkel on the Defensive in Afghanistan, Spiegel Online, 12 July 2009.
203 Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy, Zehn Thesen Fuer Europas Fuehrungsrolle, Welt am
Sonntag, 1 June 2009.
From NATO to ESDP
451
about appropriate mandate, missions, and means and to invest in CFSP, with
France, as a possible alternative to NATO able to accommodate these adjustments. When dissonance with the United States continued over engagements
in Kosovo and Afghanistan and when German adjustments did not translate
into sufficient voice in NATO as a forum for strategic debate and operational
practice, the Schroder government manifested emancipation by investing in
ESDP. Merkels attempt to rescue the German-U.S. friendship failed to halt
estrangement, exemplified in continued disagreements over engagement in
Afghanistan and prompting Merkel to keep the emancipatory path open.
Overall, the analysis suggests that CFSP/ESDP became an attractive alternative
for German decision makers because it enabled building an international
order based on (1) a multilateral mandate that acknowledges the authority
of the UN, (2) conflict prevention and peace building as its mission, and (3)
a balance of means that prioritizes civilian over military instruments. Even
though Bundeswehr engagements required profound changes in the German narrativereflected in a shift from the Bonn Republic to the Berlin
Republicthese parameters remained stable throughout the Kohl, Schroder,
and Merkel governments. Investment in CFSP/ESDP was crucial in allowing for
this stability and sustain an authentic sense of Self, thus enabling German
governments to maintain continuity through change.
Taking a step back, the analysis enhances our conceptual understanding
of dynamics of interstate security cooperation in at least three ways. First,
the friendship angle confirms the importance of negotiating a shared referent
object with core partners, highlighting the necessary convergence of ideas
of order, in particular norms specifying the conditions under which force is
used. It sheds light on the process leading to the change of such norms and
on the function of international security institutions as forums for negotiating
a shared idea of international order with friends. Second, the analysis suggests that in this process, formal institutionalized mechanisms of consultation
are not the decisive factor. What matters, rather, is the willingness of states
to recognize each other as equal in the negotiation process, respect each
others contributions as adequate, and reciprocate when costly adjustments
are made. Third, exploring processes of estrangement and emancipation enriches the social constructivist research agenda. It not only addresses the
limits of socialization and the weakening social bonds but also directs attention to their reconfiguration and, thus, to shifts in interstate trust and
institutional investments, thereby providing a social constructivist alternative
to the realist balancing proposition. Of course, any attempt at developing a
new theoretical framework leaves room for improvement and refinements.
This is inevitable and, indeed, desirable. Future scholarship might want to
gain a better understanding of what causes dissonance among friends, assuming that estrangement is in neither sides interest. It would also be useful
to pay closer attention to domestic debates over alternative pathways, adaptation or emancipation, and the corresponding mobilization or breakup of
452
transnational coalitions with (potential) friends. Toward the end of the analysis, another phenomenon requiring conceptual attention is that of rescue
of friendships in decline.
On the practical side, the analysis makes clear that German investment
in CFSP/ESDP is not primarily motivated by a desire to balance U.S. military
power but to establish an alternative platform for negotiating and enforcing
principles about mandate, missions, and means that resonate better with Germanys biographical narrative and allow maintaining its authenticity. As such,
this article demonstrates that the German preference for multilateralism is not
unconditional. Rather than depicting policy makers in Bonn or Berlin as steering a republic without compass, it portrays them as consciously seeking
out the best possible platform for adjusting the Civilian Power narrative with
a suitable partner.204 Moreover, the estrangement between Germany and the
United States has been under way for some time and contains a structural
component that contrasts views emphasizing specific leadership constellations and singular events, such as the Schroeder-Bush fallout over Iraq. One
important consequence of the German emancipation move is that it curtails
U.S. influence in Europe. Whereas from Berlin ESDP does not appear as a competitor to NATO but as the (possibly) better alternative, from Washington it
delineates a political space formally closed to the United States, reducing U.S.
ability to negotiate ideas of international order with Europeans. To be sure,
the picture presented here does not suggest that Germany will leave NATO or
that a shift in institutional preferences toward ESDP, should it solidify, would
be irreversible. As the reconciliation attempts by Merkel demonstrate, the
U.S.-NATO configuration has not lost its appeal in Berlin and much depends
on the attraction of the alternative. Germany does not control the agenda of
ESDP, and dissonance within the EU, including with France, cannot be ruled
out. The more important question, however, is how much value the Obama
administration places on German-U.S. friendship and, consequently, whether
Washington is willing to transform NATO back into a forum capable of renewing the Western idea of order in a way that satisfies Berlin. The debate over
a new strategic concept for the Atlantic Alliance and Obamas attempt to
reorient U.S. engagement in Afghanistan provides a crucial test in this regard.
204 Hans-Peter Schwarz, Republik ohne Kompass: Anmerkungen zur deutschen Auenpolitik (Berlin:
Propylaen Verlag, 2005).

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This article was downloaded by: [SOAS, University of London]

On: 21 August 2013, At: 06:20

From NATO to ESDP: A Social

Felix Berenskoetter & Bastian Giegerich

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, UK

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Security Studies, 19:407452, 2010

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From NATO to ESDP:

This article addresses the question why Germany invested in what

Felix Berenskoetter is Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Oriental and

F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich

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From NATO to ESDP

implementation process.4 This article focuses on Germanys motivation to

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F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich

we argue that challenges to these conditions from within NATO, specifically

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From NATO to ESDP

SHORTCOMINGS OF EXISTING THEORETICAL APPROACHES

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F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich

From NATO to ESDP

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F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich

Posen, ESDP, 7; Posen, Response to Unipolarity? 164.

From NATO to ESDP

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Insurance against Abandonment and Entrapment?

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F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich

evidence that this scenario dominated the calculations of German policy

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From NATO to ESDP

Meiers, Zu neuen Ufern?; Dalgaard-Nielsen, Germany, Pacifism and Peace Enforcement.

F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich

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ONTOLOGICAL SECURITY THROUGH FRIENDSHIP

Instrument for hard balancing U.S. power (purpose:

Defection from United States as declining hegemon

Insurance against abandonment by or entrapment

Result of socialization process: interaction through

inefficient: does not satisfy German security

result of spill-over from economic realm,

Argument (for German investment in

TABLE 1 Weaknesses of Existing Theories

hegemony not in decline during period of investigation

Indeterminate about which institution supports stronger

Lack of concrete evidence; threat assessments do not

Germany does not consider United States a threat; CFSP/ESDP

Indeterminate about meaning of security interests and,

Path dependency bias: cannot account for intergovernmental

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F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich

Constructivist literature commonly suggests that meaning is given by an

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From NATO to ESDP

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F. Berenskoetter and B. Giegerich