Taking Stock of EU Military Conflict Management
Over the last decade, the EU has established itself as a player in the international field of conflict management. Both its civilian missions and military operations have played a significant part in this development. This article takes a closer look at the EU’s military endeavours in conflict management. It presents a theoretically grounded definition and a corresponding set of criteria for success in military conflict management and evaluates the operations accordingly. The article provides a comprehensive review of all the EU military conflict management operations to date. The analysis is structured and focused around the criteria for success, which provides a more nuanced picture of the Union’s operational achievements throughout its first decade in military conflict management.
Military operations and the EU’s identity as an international security actor
ABSTRACT For long, its lack of military means served to single the European Union out as a “civilian” or “normative power”. However, since 2003 twelve EU military operations have been launched. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of all EU military mission so far, this article seeks to establish how these missions have evolved over time and how they have affected the character of the EU as an international actor. For this purpose, the article outlines four ideal-typical conceptions of the EU's international identity and operationalises them along two underlying dimensions: justification (the purpose of military operations) and policy-embeddedness (the coordination between military means and other foreign policy instruments). Analysing the military operations along these two axes, the article suggests that the EU has been evolving towards a “Liberal Power” identity, as is reflected in a shift from value-based to utility-based justifications, while military operations have at the same time become more embedded in the EU's overall foreign policies.
Variations of sulphur dioxide at the cloud top of Venus’s dynamic atmosphere
A pulse of sulphur dioxide in Venus’s upper atmosphere was observed by the Pioneer Venus spacecraft in the 1970s and 1980s and attributed to volcanism. Recent sulphur dioxide measurements from Venus Express indicate decadal-scale fluctuations in sulphur dioxide above Venus’s cloud tops in an atmosphere that is more dynamic than expected. Sulphur dioxide is a million times more abundant in the atmosphere of Venus than that of Earth, possibly as a result of volcanism on Venus within the past billion years1,2. A tenfold decrease in sulphur dioxide column density above Venus’s clouds measured by the Pioneer Venus spacecraft during the 1970s and 1980s has been interpreted as decline following an episode of volcanogenic upwelling from the lower atmosphere3,4. Here we report that the sulphur dioxide column density above Venus’s clouds decreased by an order of magnitude between 2007 and 2012 using ultraviolet spectrometer data from the SPICAV instrument onboard the Venus Express spacecraft. This decline is similar to observations during the 1980s. We also report strong latitudinal and temporal variability in sulphur dioxide column density that is consistent with supply fluctuations from the lower atmosphere. We suggest that episodic sulphur dioxide injections to the cloud tops may be caused either by periods of increased buoyancy of volcanic plumes, or, in the absence of active volcanism, by long-period oscillations of the general atmospheric circulation. The 30-year observational record from Pioneer Venus and Venus Express confirms that episodic injections of sulphur dioxide above the clouds recur on decadal timescales, suggesting a more variable atmosphere than expected.