The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, on 1 December 2009, marks the start of a new phase of integration for the European Union. It coincides with the tenth anniversary of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), which is upgraded to the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It also lays down the principle of enhanced cooperation for groups of countries wishing to do more together without awaiting the other member states. Lastly, it confers both a civil and military dimension on the CSDP.

In parallel, in the United States, under the disastrous effects of the military intervention in Iraq, the new administration is modifying its diplomatic discourse if not its military doctrine. Last January, at her hearing before the US Senate’s Armed Forces Committee, Hillary Clinton announced that the United States would “use what has been called ‘smart power’: the full range of tools at our disposal - diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal and cultural - picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation”. In other words, the new secretary of state made it clear that she intends to use ‘soft power’ while keeping ‘hard power’ as an option.

By comparison, the CSDP, given its dual civil-military nature, becomes the institutional tool the EU was lacking for global deployment of its ‘smart power’. The change will come from this recognition of the dual nature of any peacemaking or peacekeeping intervention, in Europe or in external theatres. To ensure success, in the coming weeks and months the EU will be taking on new tools: a new leader, the high representative for the common foreign and security policy, and a new European External Action Service (EEAS) made up of Council and Commission officials as well as member state diplomats. Over the longer term, more than 5,000 people will be in charge of putting in place the civil-military approach in the member states and in the Union’s practices.

The new CSDP also implies the recognition, equally fundamental in a Union where neutral and non-neutral countries interact so closely, of the dual civil-military nature of technologies and equipment. Therefore, civil-military cooperation, which remains to be implemented, must apply in principle to all areas, starting with air space, space and the internet, but above all to upstream civil and military research.