Can the effectiveness of the European Union's Military Crisis Management be increased through mechanisms of Pooling and Sharing? A single-case and concordance analysis of the European Union’s military crisis management in Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

Since 2003, the European Union has the capability to conduct civilian and military crisis management operations. Within the last 18 years, it has succeeded in developing into a reliable in-ternational security policy actor. However, due to the persistence of international security threats and the ever-changing global security situation, the European Union is forced to con-stantly evolve and adapt in order to not lose its status and global influence. For this reason, this master’s thesis addresses the following question: "Can the Effectiveness of the European Union's Military Crisis Management be Increased through Mechanisms of Pooling and Sharing? A single-case and concordance analysis of the European Union's military crisis management in Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina". In order to answer this question comprehensively, the re-search design of the thesis is based on the combination of two different research concepts: mul-tiple single-case study and comparative case study. The multiple single-case study examines the EU's military crisis management in Bosnia-Herze-govina and Somalia on the basis of four effectiveness factors - reaction speed, operational in-volvement, mandate fulfillment and sustainability. The focus is on the respective core military operations Althea (Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Atalanta (Somalia). However, since civilian and military crisis management cannot be sharply separated in practice, the embedding of both oper-ations in the respective comprehensive crisis management concept of the EU will also be con-sidered in the interest of a comprehensive coverage of both cases. In addition, the respective sis-ter operations will also be included in the analysis. Based on this in-depth and comprehensive analysis, case-specific conclusions can be drawn on how to improve the effectiveness of EU military crisis management in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia. The comparative case study follows the logic of concordance comparison according to John Stuart Mill and is based on the results of the single case analyses on Bosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia. This analysis aims to identify those factors (independent variables) that had an influ-ence on the dependent variable - effectiveness operationalized on the basis of reaction speed, operational involvement, mandate fulfillment and sustainability - in both cases under considera-tion. Based on this comparative analysis, conclusions can be drawn on how to improve the ef-fectiveness of EU military crisis management as a whole. Together, the multiple case analysis, which allows for case-specific conclusions, and the con-cordance analysis, which allows for generalizable conclusions, provide a complete and compre-hensive answer to the research question underlying this master’s thesis. In this context, I will elaborate that the EU is already using numerous ‘Pooling and Sharing’ mechanisms that have positively influenced the effectiveness of its military crisis management in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia. In addition, I will show that the EU is aware of the persistent problems in its com-prehensive crisis management concept for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia and is already working on ‘Pooling and Sharing’ projects in the framework of PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation) through which these problems can be alleviated. Finally, based on the results of the two single case studies and the concordance analysis based on them, I will propose a num-ber of ‘Pooling and Sharing’ measures that could further increase the effectiveness of the EU's current military crisis management in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia as well as the effectiveness of EU's military crisis management as a whole.