EUROMITE

The Europeanization of Military Training and Education

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'After the Cold War, European militaries transformed officer education. Several consolidated military education institutions into a new arrangement of National Defence Universities with civilian academic accreditation. The proposed study will analyze their evolution and meanings using the “Officership as a Profession” school. The study sees officership to be a profession, and officers as professionals. The military profession is unique in its reliance on knowledge and skills related to the “management of violence”. Professional military educational institutions equip officers with expert knowledge and values unique to the profession. These institutions are especially important when militaries facing dramatic changes. Such an upheaval resulted from the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). One of its results is a growing demand for improved interoperability between European armed forces which turned to military colleges for achieving a better level of interoperability. The research aims to consider the derivation of these reforms; To consider the impact(s) of civilianization and Europeanization on long-standing proud institutions; To disaggregate their impacts on military education institutions; To investigate their future implications on the nature of the European military profession and civilian-military relations; To contextualize these reforms within an EU context; and assessing prospects for further intra-European cooperation in military education.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

The project analyses the construction of European military culture through the adoption of new model of Defence education-National Defence University (NDU).

Descrizione progetto (Article)

In the aftermath of the Cold War, European armed forces embarked on an ongoing transformation of their professional military education systems. At its core lies unprecedented restructuring of military colleges into defence universities. Instead of the teaching college, characterised by military-focused curriculum and uniformed faculty and student body, there is the establishment of research universities, supervised by civilian-military public authorities where an academic qualified faculty educates military and civilian university alike. As military education plays a key role not only in commissioning and qualifying officers as commanders and staff officers, but also in equipping them with professional ethics, attitudes and values then these changes have significant implications for military preparedness and civil-military relations.

The EU-funded project 'The Europeanization of military training and education' (EUROMITE) offers the first comprehensive analysis of the origins, trends and implications of the emergence of the National Defence Universities (NDUs) in Europe. The project compares the main military education institutions of the Baltic States, Finland, Romania, Germany and the United Kingdom. The project relies on several qualitative methodologies including phone and in-person interviews, thematic analysis of a wide collection of primary sources and a historical study of the evolution of post-Cold War European military education.

Project findings indicate that the development of the national defence universities is enhanced and supported by transnational collaboration, resulting in the emergence of European epistemic community of military education. The activity of this epistemic community leads to the construction of a European military culture. However, in contrast to the common debate in literature whether such development takes place within NATO or the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), the project finds that in practice the NDUs uses opportunities offered by both institutions. This suggests that while the NATO/CSDP debate is relevant at the national level, a more multi-layered approach should be taken to study developments at the armed forces, services and even unit levels.

Additionally, the project finds that the emerging common military culture cantered on the concept of crisis management. Therefore the project has significant policy-oriented implications, regarding the skills and knowledge of European officers, the level of armed forces interoperability, as well as the readiness to carry out crisis management operations.