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Abstract:
The 2008 Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy was written to update the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS), the EU’s overall foreign policy strategy. This article offers a comparative analysis of the two documents through the prism of four ‘conceptual pairs’: Strategic culture and human security; war on terror and terror as crime; preventive engagement and hedging; and effective multilateralism and normative power. It is argued that the revised strategy is a sign that the EU may be shifting towards an overall strategy of ‘hedging’ strategy vis-à-vis the great powers. While admirably succeeding in asserting an independent EU approach to foreign and security policy, it does so at the cost of re-submerging the Union’s strategic ambition in ambiguity. By adopting a hedging strategy, the EU can be seen as seeking to opt out of the turbulence usually associated with a systemic shift towards multipolarity.
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