“Dengeleme mi yoksa Sorumluluk Paylaşımı mı?” Avrupa Güvenlik ve Savunma Politikası (AGSP) ile ilgili Belirsizliği Giderme
“Balancing or Burden Sharing?” Settling the Ambiguity around the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)

Summary/Abstract: One of the most interesting phenomena of the past decade in the field of international relations has been the gradual emergence of collective effort of 27 sovereign states to construct and implement a collective European Union (EU) security and defence policy (ESDP). The overall question that this study seeks to answer is that how could the emergence and rise of the ESDP be interpreted: as an act of burden sharing that seeks to support US-led defence initiatives in its neighbourhood in terms of finance of operations, military capabilities and personnel? Or as an act of balancing that is assumed by the traditional wisdom in the IR as the primary instinct of any state when faced with the greater power in its area of influence? Since the ESDP has emerged overwhelmingly as a series of empirical reactions to historical events, the ESDP as a variable can be traceable over the course of history. The positioning of the EU member states (specifically Germany, France and the UK) in critical junctures such as Afghanistan War under the guise of NATO, the Iraq War that have been carried out by the US-led “coalition of willing,” 2008 Russo-Georgian War and recent Libya Crisis would highlight the possible venues in the evolution of the ESDP. By picking these four cases, the aim of the study is to pinpoint the promises and pitfalls of the ESDP and the positioning of EU member states (specifically European trio) vis-àvis the US. Furthermore, this study hopes that these four cases could help provide sufficient insights to the evolution of the ESDP.

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