How useful is the concept of strategic culture for understanding when, where and how the European Union uses force? This paper will assess the extent to which agreement among the European Union Member States to conduct Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations is founded on a top-down...

Immediately after the formal introduction of the ESDP by the Nice European Council in 2000, the new policy was equipped with a starting set of governance structures and procedures for crisis management operations. In 2003, these new arrangements were tested for the first time in the context of...