Europe's Uncommon Foreign Policy

Abstract

Philip Gordon of the International Institute of Strategic Studies evaluates the performance of the European Union's common foreign and security policy (CFSP) since its creation at the Maastricht summer in December 1991. Gordon analyzes the record of CFSP to determine how much real progress the EU's member states have made in transcending national interests for the sake of greater European cooperation. Among the criteria he uses are the degree of unity of the EU's member states, their ability to act globally, and their capacity to intervene militarily. Gordon suggests that the prospects for a unified EU foreign and security policy continue to be poor given the disparate interests of individual member states, especially in foreign affairs. Emphasizing this historic inability to overcome differences when it truly matters, Gordon concludes that "the United States' current status as the world's 'lone superpower' may well be challenged in the twenty-first century, but not by the European Union."