A comparison of the EU and AU in the field of peace and security – partners and rivals?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59569/jceeas.2024.4.1.262Keywords:
African Union, European Union, integration, military, peace operationsAbstract
The intention of this paper is to examine how the European Union and the African Union are developing in parallel as voluntary integration projects, and how they compare with regard to the respective development of their defence policies, Union level military forces and strategies for the future.
The author looks at the EU and AU as peace projects, their efforts regarding crisis management and territorial defence, the structures they use to further their integration, and also cooperation with each other. Remarkable parallel processes and also problems are found with respect to the financing, generation and use of forces. The paper compares the standby forces of the two organisations, namely the Battlegroups and the Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC) in the EU, and the African Standby Force (ASF) in Africa.
The author assesses the priorities, strategies, levels of ambition of the EU and the AU, taking into account their geopolitical situations, military alliance membership, and their potential regarding their size, population, resources, amounting to advantages and disadvantages with regard to reaching potential great power status in the future.
According to the author’s assessment, the topic of cooperation and/or rivalry between the European Union and the African Union is a topic to watch, as the two continents come from very different histories but develop in remarkably similar ways, which might point to structural patterns working at deep levels.
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