Strategic Adaptation or Identity Change?

In this working paper, Kristin Marie Haugevik seeks to analyse the nature of the
changes in Britain’s approach to the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) after
1998. Ever since the beginning of the European integration process in 1951, Britain’s approach
to European security and defence cooperation has been characterized by anti-federalism
and transatlanticism. Hence, it was unexpected when Tony Blair, together with Jacques
Chirac, took the initiative to frame a common security and defence policy for the EU in
Saint Malo in 1998. This paper discusses to what extent Britain’s new approach to the ESDP
after 1998 can be explained as the result of a strategic adaptation, and to what extent it can
be seen as a result of more profound changes in the British identity and security interests.
These two accounts are tested by analysing Britain’s approach to some of the most important
ESDP documents since 1998: the Saint Malo declaration, the Laeken declaration, the Nice
Treaty, the European Security Strategy, and the Constitution Treaty