“Civilian crisis management” by Stéphane Pfister
(BRUSSELS2) The thesis written by Stephane Pfister for obtaining a doctorate in Political Science at the University of Geneva is interesting in more ways than one. Because she is dedicated to the " civilian crisis management: un politico-strategic tool par excellence (...) at the service of politicseu foreign eu ». And it puts the focus on an often neglected part of European defence.
A policy long ignored. As the author himself says: Limited in its size and in its ambitions, European defense has not yet developed as one might have imagined. It has thus gradually emerged as an original civil-military unit, where the civilian and police aspects have become, in fact, preponderant. (...) Long ignored, the rise in power of the structures and operational activities of (civilian crisis management) is underlined by all the commentators who nevertheless struggle to analyze it in depth, for lack of adequate conceptual lenses. More often than not, the capabilities of the civilian component of the ESDP are moreover considered to be negligible: are they not the illustration of the Europeans' inability to shed their pusillanimity? How to take seriously an EU capable of projecting at most a few gendarmes, lawyers and customs officers? The major strategic debates on the ESDP therefore seem to revolve solely around military aspects, with the implicit issue of the “transatlantic gap” in terms of investment and defense capabilities. The EU nevertheless displays its ambition to make the ESDP a unique whole where the two civilian and military aspects would intervene in perfect complementarity. This civil-military duality certainly marks the specificity of the EU in the international security architecture. It can allow him to "make the difference" compared to actors of equivalent rank. »
Tvery detailed, substantiated, documented, this thesis leaves nothing to chance (download here). It reviews both the political aspects
than operational, not neglecting to point out the difficulties or half-success of this or that mission. From field to theory in a way. This is not very surprising when you know the author's background: a career officer who served in several theaters of multinational operations, he "reconverted" to teaching and research, in particular as a master- assistant at the University of Geneva, since 2004.
