The European Union as a small power : after the post-Cold War / Asle Toje.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"À fascinating tale of great ambitions and limited capacity to meet them. The great strength of Asle Toje's...absorbing study is to show what role the European Union might be expected to play under multipolarity..At last a study that sets contemporary European security and the European Union in its broader international context.'---Robert Kagan, author of The Return of History and Paradise and Power" "Àsle Toje...asks the really tough questions which cannot be obfuscated...This is a book which should be read by all those who seek to understand the reality behind Europe's emerging role as a global actor.'---Jolyon Howorth, Professor of Political Science, Yale University, USA" "C̀learly Written... and theoretically sophisticated, this book is a must for all those interested in Europe's role in the emerging world order. The argument presented that, for all its size and wealth, the European Union is emerging as the equivalent of a s̀mall state" on the international scene is both ingenious and extremely important.---Professor Anand Menon, Director of the European Research Institute & Professor of West European Politics, University of Birmingham, UK" "À provocative, yet highly necessary debate in the age of multipolarity, to which this book is an indispensable contribution.'---Professor Dr Sven Biscop, Director of the Security and Global Governance Programme, Royal Institute of International Relations, Belgium." "The post-Cold War is drawing to a close. For the first time since 1945 Europe is about to experience the centrifugal forces of multipolarity. It does so after two decades of intense institution with a collective presence in the shape of the European Union. Asle Toje asks the question, what place will the EU take in a multipolar global order? In examining the historical forces that converged in the post-war integration project, the efforts to construct a common foreign and security policy and experiences from the field, he argues that due to the lack of a workable decision-making mechanism the EU is destined to play the limited but at the same time distinct role of a small power" "Toje explains that only with the surge of integration in the post-Cold War era and the restraining force of sovereignty -both linked to the emergence of the European Union as a small power -has a situation been created that signals a return to balance of power politics. The selfless character of the EU foreign policy and the strength of the United States allow the EU to exercise strategic restraint and establish stable relations with emerging powers despite rapid shifts and extreme disparities in power."--BOOK JACKET.