Blurring the Dividing Line:The Convergence of Internal andExternal Security in Western Europe

DEREK LUTTERBECKProject Coordinator, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Switzerland

ABSTRACT A distinctive feature of the security landscape in western Europe of the post-Cold War era is that the dividing line between internal and external security has becomeincreasingly obsolete*/mainly as a consequence of the growing importance of transnationalas well as other challenges to security which defy the distinction between domestic andinternational security. This article examines this convergence of internal and externalsecurity agendas from the perspective of the coercive apparatus of western Europeancountries, pointing to a militarisation and externalisation of policing, and an internalisationand ‘policisation’ of soldiering: while police forces are taking on military characteristics,and are extending their activities beyond the borders of the state, military forces are turningto internal security missions, and are adopting certain police features. Moreover, agencieswhich have traditionally been located at the interface between police and military forces, i.e.gendarmerie-type or paramilitary forces, are assuming an increasingly important role.

A distinctive feature of the security landscape in western Europe after the end

of the Cold War is that the division between internal and external security has

become increasingly obsolete. Traditionally, these two domains were considered

separate: while challenges to a state’s internal security were understood in terms

of criminal or otherwise disturbing activities within the boundaries of the state,

threats to external security were seen as arising first and foremost from the

aggressive behaviour of other states. However, it now seems commonly agreed

that the main security challenges facing the countries of the Euro-Atlantic area

are neither purely internal nor purely external, but rather transnational. At the

top of the ‘new security agenda’ one typically finds issues such as transnational

organised crime, irregular migration or, most recently, international terrorism,

while ‘traditional’ state-based threats are generally considered to have lost

much of their relevance.1 Of course, there are important differences between

these new types of risks and challenges, but one thing they have in common is

Correspondence Address: Derek Lutterbeck, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Avenue de

la Paix 7bis, P.O. Box 1295, 1211 Geneva 1, Switzerland. Email: d.lutterbeck@gcsp.ch

ISSN 0966-2839 Print/1746-1545 Online/05/020231�/23 # 2005 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09662830500336193

European Security

Vol. 14, No. 2, 231�/253, June 2005

that they have both a domestic and an international dimension and thus largely

defy the classical distinction between internal and external security.

This article looks at this convergence between internal and external security

agendas from the perspective of the coercive apparatus of western Europeancountries. It examines the changing functions and characteristics of internal

and external security agencies against the backdrop of this shift in security

concerns towards transnational as well as other challenges which blur the

separation between domestic and international security. Over recent years, a

number of European scholars, most notably Didier Bigo and his associates,

have noted that, mainly as a result of the transnationalisation of security, the

distinction between internal and external security has become increasingly

difficult to maintain, and that as a consequence there has also been arearrangement of the respective roles of internal and external security agencies.2

However, existing accounts of these developments have remained somewhat

limited, in that they have either been largely theoretical (or even meta-

theoretical) in focus, or have been confined to specific aspects of the

convergence between domestic and international security, and police and

military functions. Thus, while certain trends such as the transnationalisation

of policing, and in particular the growing cooperation among law enforcement

agencies of EU countries, have received considerable attention in the literature,other aspects of the de-differentiation of police and military functions have

been largely neglected*/for example the growing involvement of military forces

in domestic security, the convergence between foreign intelligence and law

enforcement, or the increasingly prominent role being played by ‘intermediary’,

i.e. neither purely internal nor purely external, security forces.3

In the USA, somewhat in contrast, there has however been a growing body of

more empirically-oriented analyses focusing on different aspects of the blurring

of police and military functions over recent years. Thus, for example, PeterAndreas and Richard Price have recently suggested that, in the post-Cold War

era, the American ‘national security state’ has increasingly been transformed

from a ‘war-fighting’ into a ‘crime-fighting state’, concerned less with fighting

wars in the traditional sense than with fighting different types of crime, such as

drug trafficking or other forms of transnational organised crime. This shifting

security agenda, they argue, has also led to a convergence of the roles of

internal and external security forces*/a militarisation of policing and

‘domestication’ (or a ‘policisation’) of soldiering*/as evidenced, for example,in the taking on of certain military characteristics by police forces (such

as resort to military-style hardware), the increasing involvement of military

forces in non-traditional, including internal, security missions or the growing

convergence of law enforcement and foreign intelligence.4

Various aspects of the militarisation of policing in the USA have also been

examined in the volume edited by Peter Kraska, Militarizing the American

Criminal Justice System .5 Kraska himself, as in his earlier work, has in

particular highlighted the increasing importance of military-style police units in

232 D. Lutterbeck

the USA, so-called SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) Teams, which are

often trained by the military, and typically use both military-style weaponry

and tactics.6 Other aspects of the militarisation of policing which have been

documented in this work include the growing involvement of the US military in

domestic law enforcement missions*/mainly in the context of the ‘war against

drugs’*/or the increasing use by law enforcement agencies of surveillance

technology which has originated in the military domain, such as computer-

based data management systems, CCTV (closed circuit television) networks

and other forms of high-technology.7 In the USA, considerable attention has

also been devoted to the ‘militarisation’ of the US�/Mexico border and the

increasing resort along the border to military technology (as well as military

personnel) in preventing drug trafficking and irregular immigration from

Mexico to the US.8 All of these developments have, of course, also raised

serious practical and ethical concerns, as*/in most general terms*/the close

linkage between police and military is often associated with authoritarian

governments and otherwise repressive practices, and is seen as an at least

potential threat to human rights and civil liberties.9

Following these more empirically-oriented analyses of the convergence of

police and military functions in the USA, and the hypotheses and concepts they

have generated, this article sets out to document similar trends in western

European countries over recent years, taking into account transformations of

internal and external as well as ‘intermediary’ security forces. The article is

structured as follows. I begin by discussing the increasing resort to military

technology and hardware by police forces as one aspect of the militarisation of

policing over recent years, with a particular focus on the field of border

policing. I then turn to the growing external orientation, i.e. the inter- or

trasnationalisation of policing, as a further indication of the convergence of

internal and external security functions. This is followed by an analysis of the

convergence and increasingly close linkages between law enforcement and

foreign intelligence. Next, I discuss the deepening involvement of military forces

in domestic security missions. The last section highlights the increasing

significance of ‘intermediary’, i.e. gendarmerie-type or paramilitary, forces

over recent years. As with the previous trends, the ascendance of these agencies

which have traditionally been located at the intersection of the realms of

domestic and international security also underscores the de-differentiation of

internal and external security, or of policing and soldiering, in the security

landscape of western Europe today.

Militarisation of Policing: The Case of Border Policing

Arguably the most visible aspect of the militarisation of policing in west

European countries over recent years and decades has been the increasing

resort to military-style technology by police forces. Equipment and hardware

originally developed and used for combat purposes is increasingly being

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 233

brought to bear in the fight against crime. While this trend can be observed in

many areas of policing today, in western Europe*/not unlike the USA*/it

seems to have been most pronounced in the field of border security, i.e. in the

fight against transnational crime and irregular immigration.10 Among the

countries of the European Union (EU), the issue of ‘border control’ or ‘border

security’ has generally emerged as an increasingly prominent topic in political

discourse since the beginning of the 1990s. This has been a consequence both of

the growing concern with cross-border challenges (supposedly) coming from

outside the EU, such as organised crime and irregular migration, but also of the

implementation of the Schengen agreement of 1985, which now covers all EU

countries except Great Britain, Ireland and the countries which joined the EU

in the latest round of enlargement. Under this arrangement, the participating

states have agreed to lift their ‘internal’ borders, and to ‘compensate’ for this

with tighter controls at the ‘external’ frontiers of the Schengen area.11

One implication of these heightened ‘border anxieties’ in EU or Schengen

countries has been that police forces responsible for border enforcement have

been resorting to a growing amount of military-style technology and hardware

to secure the outer frontiers of the Schengen area*/a development often

decried by human rights organisations as unacceptable ‘border militarisation’.

At Germany’s and Austria’s eastern frontiers, for instance, police forces are

nowadays conducting their nightly patrols and searches for irregular migrants

with the help of military-type thermal cameras, which were first used by the US

army in the Vietnam war. Similarly, night vision goggles, which are also

commonly used in war fighting operations, now belong to the standard

equipment of police forces working at these borders.12 In Austria, the police

have even been deploying unmanned spy planes (drones) along the border,

which have been loaned from the country’s armed forces.13 At the border-

crossing points, trucks and vans which are suspected of transporting

undocumented immigrants into the EU are searched regularly with the help

of carbon dioxide sensors*/instruments which also are of military origin.14

Similar resort to military-style equipment in the fight against irregular

migration and cross-border crime can also be found along the EU’s southern

borders. For instance, around the two Spanish enclaves located on the African

side of the Mediterranean, Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish army has

constructed a double-layered fence along the two cities’ borderline with

Morocco. The four metre high fence, which is patrolled by the Spanish police,

is equipped with various military-type hardware*/both ‘high’ and ‘low’ tech*/

such as infrared cameras, heat sensors and other intrusion detectors, and

barbed wire.15

At the EU’s southern maritime borders this trend towards upgrading police

forces with military technology has been particularly pronounced. Along

Spain’s Mediterranean coast, for example, the country’s police forces have

recently begun to operate a vast system of radars, sensors and cameras to detect

and intercept boats carrying irregular immigrants and drugs from Morocco.

234 D. Lutterbeck

The system*/which costs a total of t142 million*/is composed of Israeli-made

radars which were first developed by the Israeli army to prevent Palestinian

‘extremists’ landing on Israel’s beaches.16 The same military-style radar

technology is also being used by the Italian police to track vessels coming

from Albania across the Adriatic.17 Police forces patrolling these maritime

borders have also generally been acquiring a rapidly increasing amount of

‘heavy’ equipment, such as airplanes, helicopters and high-speed patrol boats,

which at least traditionally have been more typical for military than for police

forces.18

As already mentioned above, there are also a number of other areas of

policing where law enforcement agencies have been making growing use of

military-style technology and hardware in their daily operations. In the field of

crowd or riot control, for example, a general trend reaching back to the 1970s

and 1980s has been towards increasing use by police forces of chemical

irritants, kinetic impact weapons, as well as other ‘non-lethal weapons’, many

of which have their origins in the military domain and are also used by military

institutions.19 Another such development, which will be discussed below, has

been towards the growing resort by law enforcement agencies to surveillance

technology which was originally used mainly in the field of foreign intelligence

and thus by external security agencies.

Finally, the issue of police militarisation can, of course, also be approached

from a broader perspective, taking into account not only technological aspects

but also, for example, ‘militant’ tendencies in operational style or ideology of

law enforcement agencies. In the UK, for example, analysts have pointed to the

adoption of certain militaristic forms of operation by police forces, in particular

in the area of public order policing, such as centralised and military-style

command and control structures.20 To come back to the field of border

policing, it can be noted that a general trend over recent years among police

forces responsible for securing the EU’s external and in particular its maritime

borders has been towards the adoption of a more ‘proactive’ or pre-emptive*/

and thus in a sense more military-type*/approach to border enforcement:

instead of seeking to catch the irregular migrants once they have landed on the

shores of the EU, police forces in both Italy and Spain, for example, have

increasingly been attempting to block (and return) the would-be immigrants

before they reach EU territory.21 Another current example of such a shift

towards a more military-style modus operandi , which will certainly become

increasingly important in the near future, are changes in the rules of

engagement regarding the use of firearms by police forces in the fight against

terrorism and in particular against suicide bombers. With the growing concern

with suicide terrorism in both Europe and the USA the traditional modus

operandi regarding the use of firearms, according to which police officers

should aim at the torso in order to neutralise the adversary, are increasingly

considered inadequate. Since 9/11 and the London bombings of 7 July 2005,

these traditional rules of engagement, as it seems, are being replaced by what

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 235

are often*/although usually not officially*/referred to as ‘shoot-to-kill’

policies, under which police officers in confronting (potential) suicide bombers

should seek to kill suspected terrorists by aiming at the head.22

Transnationalisation of Policing

The increasing merger between police and military functions and character-

istics can be seen not only in the growing resort to military-style technology by

police forces but also in the enhanced role being played by police forces at the

external level, i.e. in the increasing inter- or transnationalisation of policing

over recent years. With the growing concern with transnational phenomena,

such as different types of cross-border crime and irregular migration, police

forces of European countries have increasingly come to view their tasks as being

affected by developments beyond the national territory and have thus become

more externally oriented, extending their activities beyond the state’s domestic

sphere. Two main forms of policing beyond the borders of state which have

become increasingly important over recent years can be distinguished: the

expansion in international cooperation between law-enforcement agencies in

the fight against different forms of transnational crime as well as irregular

migration, especially through the deployment of liaison officers, and the

increasingly important role played by police forces in multilateral peacekeeping

operations.

Among EU countries, as has been documented by a number of studies, there

has been increasingly close collaboration between law enforcement agencies

since at least the 1970s.23 Initially such cooperation was largely informal in

nature, based on ad hoc groupings with a main focus on (European)

terrorism.24 With the Treaty on the European Union, however, collaboration

on internal security issues has been institutionalised within the EU’s formal

structure, the so-called Third Pillar (covering Justice and Home Affairs), and in

1994 the common European police force, Europol, was set up. Law enforce-

ment cooperation among EU countries has also become much broader in

scope, and now covers not only terrorism but also various other issue areas

such as irregular migration and different types of organised crime. Given the

increasingly dense cooperation on internal security issues among EU countries,

analysts have been talking about the emergence of a common ‘European

internal security field’.25

Since the beginning of the 1990s, law enforcement agencies of EU countries

have also been increasingly expanding their activities beyond the EU area,

mainly in an effort to more effectively combat undocumented immigration

from outside the EU. Thus, while the shift in security concerns towards

irregular migration and cross-border crime, as mentioned previously, has led to

a tightening of border controls at the external frontiers of the EU, it has also

resulted in the deployment of an ever larger network of immigration liaison

officers beyond the EU area*/with the aim of preventing these unwanted

236 D. Lutterbeck

migratory flows towards the EU in the source and transit countries of

migration. In other words, ‘upstream’ prevention has come to be seen as an

increasingly important complement to static controls at the border as such.

Such immigration liaison officers are typically stationed at ‘high risk’ airports,

where they assist airline personnel in detecting forged documents, or at the

embassy of their country, where they are involved in a broad range of

migration-related tasks, such as gathering intelligence on migratory trends or

providing assistance in the area of border and immigration control.26

The number of immigration liaison officers deployed by EU countries has

been rising impressively over recent years. For example, at the outset of the

1990s, the German Federal Border Police had liaison officers stationed at five

airports and two embassies. By the end of the decade it already had agents

working in 33 airports and 12 embassies, with plans to deploy liaison officer to

an additional 30 countries by 2004.27 Other EU countries as well have been

deploying an ever-increasing number of such liaison officers to source and

transit countries of migration. According to one estimate, in 2001 a total of

some 300 immigration officers from the EU were stationed in foreign

countries.28

A somewhat different but at least partially related form of internationalisa-

tion of policing over recent years can be seen in the ever more important role

played by police forces in the context of international peacekeeping missions.

Since the beginning of the 1990s multilateral peace support operations have not

only multiplied in number, they have also changed fundamentally in nature.

While the peacekeeping missions of the Cold War period were typically

confined to monitoring a ceasefire between warring factions, most of the

operations which have been carried out from the early 1990s onward have been

much more multifaceted and complex, and have also involved a variety of

public order or law enforcement tasks, such as crowd control, combating

organised crime, protecting returning refugees, or the reorganisation of local

police forces.29

As a consequence of this growing importance of public order or internal

security tasks in peacekeeping missions, police forces have been deployed

regularly and in much larger numbers than previously in such operations. Thus,

while in 1988 a total of only 35 police officers were involved in international

peace support operations, by the late-1990s their numbers had multiplied

several hundredfold: 1,555 police officers served in Namibia, 3,600 in

Cambodia, 900 in Haiti, 1,000 in Mozambique, 1,800 in Bosnia, and more

than 6,000 are currently active in Kosovo and East Timor.30 Within the EU, the

growing importance attributed to policing in peace operations is also evidenced

by current plans to create a European police rapid reaction force as part of the

EU’s ‘non-military crisis management’ capability. At the Feira Summit in June

2000, EU countries agreed to set up a 5,000-strong police rapid reaction

force which could be deployed in international missions across the range of

conflict prevention and crises management operations.31 By 2003, already two

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 237

international police missions had been launched under the EU’s auspices, one

in Bosnia (European Police Mission, EUPM), the other in Macedonia

(Proxima).

Noteworthy in this regard is that, from the perspective of EU or western

European countries in particular, the enhanced role being played by police

forces in international peacekeeping missions can be seen as a consequence not

only of the growing importance of public security tasks arising from post-war

reconstruction efforts, but also of the increasing concern with transnational

challenges originating from countries emerging from conflict, which are seen as

having a direct impact on the security of the EU. As places such as Bosnia,

Kosovo or Albania are nowadays viewed as major breeding grounds for various

illicit cross-border activities directly affecting the internal security of EU

countries, such as human smuggling or drug trafficking, the deployment of

police forces to these places is often seen as a means not only to combat crime

and maintain order ‘on the spot’ but also to prevent these illegal cross-border

activities before they reach EU territory. In this respect as well one can thus

speak of an externalisation of internal security provision beyond the borders of

the state.

‘Policisation’ of Foreign Intelligence �/ ‘Intelligence-isation’ of Policing

A further characteristic of the merger of internal and external security, which

Andreas and Price in their aforementioned discussion of the transformation of

the American ‘national security state’ have also pointed out, is the increasingly

close linkages between law enforcement and foreign intelligence. This has been

manifest in particular in the growing collaboration between the FBI and the

CIA over recent years.32 In arguably all western European countries this trend

of convergence between police work and foreign intelligence can also be

observed, whereby three main aspects can be distinguished: a shift in focus of

foreign intelligence agencies towards internal (or transnational) security

challenges, enhanced cooperation between intelligence services and law

enforcement bodies, and a shift towards intelligence-type modus operandi by

police forces.

While both law enforcement and external security agencies have always

engaged in some form of intelligence*/in the sense of information gathering

and analysis*/in all western countries police work and foreign intelligence have

traditionally been considered two separate domains with both different targets

and different modes of operation. The focus of law enforcement has been on

criminal behaviour of individuals within the boundaries of the state, whereas

foreign intelligence services have been concerned with monitoring the (military)

activities of potentially hostile countries. Moreover, law enforcement has

been a mainly reactive activity, whereas foreign intelligence aims to be

proactive, in order to gain information about potential threats at the earliest

possible stage. An important aspect of this separation, especially from a civil

238 D. Lutterbeck

rights perspective, has been that law enforcement bodies have been subject to

much stronger constraints and stricter regulations, whereas the latter have

enjoyed much more far-reaching and intrusive powers and have been allowed to

operate under much higher degrees of secrecy in order to protect their sources.

However, in most if not all western European countries, the post-Cold War

period has seen increasing convergence of, and the establishment of ever closer

linkages between law enforcement on the one hand and foreign intelligence on

the other.

With the end of bipolarity and the demise of the Soviet Union, all western

intelligence services have been deprived of their main target, which has sparked

a sometimes frantic search of these agencies for new fields of activity.33 From

the early 1990s onward, intelligence services of European countries thus

entered various new domains which previously were considered to belong to the

realm of policing, such as different types of transnational organised crime or

international terrorism. The German Foreign Intelligence Service, the so-called

Bundesnachrichtendiesnt (BND), for instance, has shifted its main focus to

areas such as drug trafficking, money laundering, nuclear smuggling and

transnational terrorism.34 Also the British Intelligence Service MI6 has

fundamentally changed its role over the 1990s. Instead of spying on enemy

countries it is nowadays concerned mainly with combating organised crime,

terrorism and the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction.35 The same can

be said of the French Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE),

which also now concentrates mainly on terrorism and weapons proliferation.36

Since the late 1990s, the foreign intelligence agencies of some European

countries have even become involved in the prevention of irregular immigration

and human smuggling towards the EU. In this context, these agencies

have typically justified their implication in the fight against unwanted

migration with the argument that effective prevention requires intervening

not only at the borders as such but also in the source and transit countries of

migration.37

As foreign intelligence services have increasingly taken on such internal

security tasks they have also been engaging in closer collaboration with law

enforcement bodies. While this trend can be observed across western Europe,

the change has arguably been most pronounced in Germany, where for

historical reasons and the experiences with the Nazi regime the institutional

separation between foreign intelligence and law enforcement has been

considered almost sacrosanct, anchored in the so-called Trennungsgebot . Since

the late 1980s, however, the barriers between the two domains have been

gradually eroding, through both legislative changes and institutional rearran-

gements which have aimed at facilitating cooperation and information

exchange between the country’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, and its

police forces. In late 1989, for example, a joint anti-terror body (Koordinier-

ungsgruppe fur Terrorismusbekampfung ) composed of members of the BND

and several law enforcement agencies was set up, with its main task being to

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 239

develop common strategies in the fight against terrorism. Subsequently, in

1994, a new law on crime prevention (so-called Verbrechensbekampfungsgesetz )

was passed which not only gave the BND the right to extend its intelligence

activities into various internal security areas such as drug trafficking and

money laundering but also, under certain conditions, to pass on information on

suspects to the country’s law enforcement institutions.38 In the late 1990s, the

BND also began to exchange trainees with the Federal Criminal Police Office

(Bundeskriminalamt )*/this too in order to facilitate information exchange

between the two bodies.39 Thus far the latest step in this continuous

rapprochement between the BND and the country’s police forces was taken

in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11

September 2001. In 2002, new anti-terror legislation was passed which again

provided for easier information exchange between the BND and law enforce-

ment authorities, mainly with regard to the monitoring of asylum seekers.40

Moreover, a new anti-terror centre was set up with members of the BND and a

number of law enforcement agencies*/the main objective again being to

improve information exchange and to develop common counter-terror

strategies.41

The convergence of law enforcement and foreign intelligence has taken the

form not only of the ‘policisation’ of foreign intelligence agencies, but also of

what could be called the ‘intelligence-isation’ of police work in the sense that

police forces have been resorting to ever-more sophisticated surveillance

technology, which was originally conceived for foreign intelligence purposes,

and have been granted much more intrusive investigative powers, thus bringing

their modus operandi closer to that of intelligence agencies. In particular in the

fight against transnational organised crime, the use of various high-tech

surveillance technologies, has become increasingly widespread among law

enforcement agencies, such as CCTV networks, bugging and tapping devices, as

well as other national and international communication interception systems.42

Resort to such technology has generally gone hand-in-hand with a more

proactive style of policing which is no longer limited to pursuing individual

suspects once a crime has been committed but is rather aimed at preventively

monitoring entire ‘high risk groups’ already before criminal acts have occurred.

This form of pre-emptive policing is based on military-style intelligence

gathering in that it involves collecting large amounts of low-grade in-

telligence*/as opposed to more limited but more specific information on

individual suspects.43

All of the trends described in this section have also received an additional

boost with the policies implemented by European countries in response to the

events of 9/11. In most if not all western European countries (as well as in the

US), a core focus of counter-terrorism efforts has been to enhance collabora-

tion between law enforcement and foreign intelligence agencies*/both domes-

tically and internationally*/and to strengthen the investigative and surveillance

powers of police forces.44

240 D. Lutterbeck

This growing convergence between law enforcement and foreign intelligence

as described above has potentially far-reaching consequences, which are often

highlighted and criticised by civil rights organisations. In most general terms, it

can be argued that it points to a shift towards a more intrusive style of policing

and to the transformation of intelligence agencies, which are generally less

constrained by legal safeguards, from instruments of external defence to

instruments of crime control. An important implication is also that the state’s

own citizens, as well as activities which are exclusively domestic in nature, could

increasingly be subject to the surveillance efforts of foreign intelligence services.

In Germany, for example, the expansion of the BND’s remit to cover different

types of transnational crime and its empowerment in 2001 to monitor not only

satellite, but also cable-based communication has had the consequence that it

will be able to intercept not only international communication but also, for

example, e-mail communication between persons on the national territory (if

one them uses an external host). This information could then be passed on to

the country’s law enforcement agencies, which in turn might use it to initiate a

criminal case against the person concerned.45

Military Participation in Internal Security

Just as the growing concern with transnational challenges has led to a stronger

external orientation of policing, it has also prompted the inverse development:

an enhanced role being played by military forces within the borders of the state.

In the twentieth century, all western European countries with liberal-

democratic regimes have at least in principle adhered to the strict separation

between police and military, although in at least some of them the armed forces

have occasionally been deployed within the state’s domestic sphere. In Italy, for

example, the armed forces have been resorted to repeatedly throughout the

post-World War II period to combat terrorism and separatist movements in the

northern parts of the country, and the British army has been deeply involved in

counter-terrorism operations and public order tasks in the troubled province of

Northern Ireland.46 In general, however, it can be argued that the deployment

of the armed forces for domestic security missions has been viewed as an

exceptional measure, reserved for emergency situations. Moreover, the armed

forces of most if not all western European countries have themselves not been

keen to become involved in internal security operations, not only for historical

reasons and the experiences with authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century,

but also because police duties were seen by many militaries as a diversion from

their external defence role. With the demise of the ‘Soviet threat’ and rapidly

shrinking military budgets, however, European militaries have been confronted

with a growing need to demonstrate their continued utility by taking on an

increasing number of non-military*/including internal security or law-en-

forcement*/tasks, and such measures have also increasingly gained greater

public acceptance.47 It is, again, mainly transnational challenges where military

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 241

forces of European countries have come to play an increasingly prominent

internal security role. Two main areas stand out: border control and the

prevention of irregular immigration on the one hand, and the fight against

terrorism on the other.

As already noted above, as EU countries became increasingly concerned with

illegal immigration and cross-border crime from outside the EU area, they have

been making great efforts to tighten their borders. This process of ‘border

militarisation’ has involved not only equipping border police forces with a

growing amount of military-style hardware, but in some EU countries also the

direct deployment of military forces along the border in support of police

forces. The European country in which the armed forces have become the most

deeply implicated in securing the country’s frontiers and preventing irregular

immigration is Austria. As early as 1990, the Austrian government deployed a

contingent of some 2,000 soldiers along the country’s borders with Hungary

and Slovakia to reduce the rapidly growing numbers of irregular migrants

streaming across the country’s eastern borders. Ever since then the armed forces

have been carrying out the brunt of the border enforcement task in Austria.48

In other EU countries the armed forces have also increasingly taken on an anti-

migration role, although on a more limited basis. In Italy, for example, the army

carried out two major immigration control operations in the 1990s*/one

between 1993 and 1995 along the border with Slovenia, another in 1995 along

the country’s Adriatic coast aimed at preventing illegal migration from

Albania.49 Similarly, in Spain military units stationed in the two enclaves

Ceuta and Melilla have repeatedly been deployed in support of the country’s

police forces to curb undocumented immigration into the two cities.50

Also in this regard, the conversion of military assets to law-enforcement

purposes has been particularly far-reaching along the EU’s maritime borders,

as evidenced by the ever-deeper involvement of European naval forces in the

fight against irregular migration and cross-border crime along the EU’s

Mediterranean coast. The use of warships and other military hardware in the

prevention of migration and illicit trafficking by sea is often officially justified

with the argument that maritime police forces are insufficiently equipped in

terms of boats and aircraft to effectively patrol the seas, especially over larger

distances and beyond the state’s coastal waters.51

The Italian navy, for instance, has been actively engaged in the prevention of

undocumented migration across the Adriatic from Albania since the first

Albanian refugee crisis in 1991*/despite the fact that collisions between

warships and vessels transporting would-be immigrants have been frequent,

resulting in a considerable death toll in the Straits of Otranto.52 In 2002, about

one-quarter of the Italian navy’s total hours of navigation were exclusively

devoted to immigration control, and this is nowadays considered one of its

most important fields of activity.53 Naval forces of European countries have

also been carrying out multilateral anti-immigration operations in the

Mediterranean. In January 2003, for example, the navies of France, the UK,

242 D. Lutterbeck

Spain, Portugal and Italy launched Operation Ulysses which was aimed at

preventing undocumented migration and people-smuggling across the Straits of

Gibraltar as well as from the west Sahara towards the Canary Islands.54 NATO

naval forces have been involved in immigration control in the Mediterranean as

well. In 2002, NATO’s Mediterranean fleet was dispatched to the eastern

Mediterranean under Operation Active Endeavour. Although the official aim

of the mission was to combat terrorism, the prevention of irregular migration

and human trafficking across the Mediterranean was also considered an

important objective.55

The other main internal security field which has seen growing involvement of

military forces of European countries over recent years is the fight against

(international) terrorism. In this context, troops have been deployed mainly to

protect critical infrastructure against terrorist actions, as well as for other

surveillance tasks. In at least some European countries the armed forces, as

already mentioned previously, have traditionally played a certain role in

counter-terrorism, but since the 1990s there has generally been a deepening

of European militaries’ implication in this area*/a trend which was further

accelerated with the events of 11 September 2001.

In France, for example, the armed forces were deployed for the first time on a

major scale on the national territory during the first Gulf War of 1991 in order

to protect certain sensitive sites against retaliatory actions by Islamic

extremists. The French army’s participation in counter-terrorism is based on

the so-called Vigipirate plan, which was originally developed in the 1970s but

was never applied before the early 1990s. The plan basically comprises two

stages*/Vigipirate simple, with enhanced controls and surveillance of impor-

tant installations and lines of communication, and Vigipirate renforce, under

which military units may be deployed in support of police forces. Since the plan

was first applied in 1991, it has never been deactivated, only stepped down to

the simple stage. In 1995 and 1996, when France suffered a number of terrorist

attacks on its territory, Vigipirate renforce was again put into effect. About

4,500 soldiers were deployed throughout the country, about half of them in

Paris, where they were involved in the surveillance of various public sites, in

particular of the metro system.56 France’s response to the attacks on the US on

11 September 2001 also involved the reactivation of Vigipirate renforce. Some

900 soldiers were moved into Paris to protect important installations against

terrorist acts, and the French Air Force was tasked with preventing hijacked

airliners from entering French airspace.57

In Italy, as noted previously, the armed forces have continued to play a

considerable internal security, in particular anti-terrorism, role even after World

War II. However, the post-Cold War period has been marked by a sharp rise in

operations conducted by the Italian army on national territory. About ten such

operations were carried out between 1990 and 2000, some of which lasted for

several years. The majority of these domestic missions were aimed at combating

organised crime and terrorist-type activities in the southern parts of the

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 243

country, with military forces involved in activities such as road blocks, search

and seizure operations and the protection of important public buildings. In

Italy the events of 11 September 2001 also prompted the renewed deployment

of the armed forces on home territory. In November 2001, some 4,000 troops

were mobilised to protect NATO military installations in Italy as well as certain

other public sites against terrorist action.58

Even in Germany, where for historical reasons and the excessive use of the

military for internal repression by the Nazi regime the domestic use of the

armed forces has long been viewed with considerable suspicion, this measure is

now increasingly being discussed. Despite the fact that the German Constitu-

tion (Grundgesetz ) explicitly forbids the use of the military in areas that fall

under the jurisdiction of the country’s police forces,59 since the beginning of the

1990s, a number of leading politicians*/mainly from the (conservative)

Christian Democrats (CDU)*/have been calling for a stronger internal role

of the German armed forces, especially in the areas of counter-terrorism and

border enforcement.60 While the German army has thus far not become

involved in any major domestic security mission, the country’s new military

doctrine, adopted in the aftermath of 9/11, no longer excludes the possibility of

resorting to the armed forces for internal security purposes. Thus, according

to Germany’s most recent strategic concept (Verteidigungspolitische Richtli-

nien ), the armed forces may now also be deployed in the interior in order to

secure critical infrastructure against terrorist acts and other ‘asymmetric

threats’.61

The ‘policisation’ of military forces of European countries has been manifest

not only in the growing involvement of troops in internal security missions but

also in changes in their modus operandi and rules of engagement, which have

increasingly come to resemble those of police forces.62 This has involved both

limitations on the use of force as well as the granting of certain police-type

powers to military units. Thus, in contrast to external warfare which involves

largely unrestricted use of force, the use of force by troops in these domestic

security missions, such as the immigration control operations mentioned above,

is typically confined to instances of self-defence and allowed only as a measure

of last resort. In Austria, for example, where military units carrying out border

patrol operations are armed with assault rifles and also employ certain military

(infantry) tactics to round up ‘recalcitrant’ immigrants, the use of firearms (and

other weapons) is strictly limited to situations where the soldiers are directly

threatened by armed immigrants or people-smugglers and have no other means

to defend themselves.63 Similarly, the Italian navy, in its anti-immigration

activities, operates under rather strict regulations regarding the use of force.

Officials of the Italian navy are also themselves greatly concerned with the

casualties caused by collisions at sea, and put great emphasis on the fact that

they use ‘as little force as possible’ in intercepting boats carrying would-be

immigrants across the Mediterranean. In order to avoid collisions and other

accidents, patrols are also carried out with relatively small vessels, even if these

244 D. Lutterbeck

are considered ‘less effective’ in deterring irregular migrants.64 These restric-

tions on the use of military force, however, have gone hand-in-hand with an

increase in police powers: in at least some European countries, troops engaged

in domestic security missions may also be granted certain formal powers which

normally only law enforcement agencies have, such as the authority to arrest,

search and detain a person. In Italy, for example, troops involved in domestic

security operations may be assigned the status of ‘agents of public security’

(agenti di pubblica sicurezza ), which gives them practically the same powers as

police forces have.65

While thus a number of new, non-military challenges, such as irregular

migration, have been ‘securitised’ and even militarised in western Europe today,

this does not mean that these issues are addressed according to what members

of the so-called Copenhagen school in security studies have called the ‘logic of

war’.66 Rather, with the involvement of military forces in these internal security

areas, these forces are also subject to stricter rules and constraints which would

not apply under a ‘logic of war’ and are more typical for police forces. Instead

of a ‘logic of war’ they operate under what might be called a ‘logic of public

order’. This, of course, is not to argue that these developments do not raise

serious concerns*/after all, the use of military forces in internal security

missions is commonly considered a typical feature of repressive or authoritar-

ian regimes. It can be noted in this regard that it has been in particular the

increasing involvement of military forces in the fight against irregular migration

which has met with rather severe criticism from various human rights and

immigrant support organisations. Such organisations have, for example,

pointed to the considerable death toll along the EU’s outer and especially its

maritime borders, which inter alia has been a consequence of the tightening and

increasing militarisation of the EU’s external frontiers. According to the

Andalusia-based human rights organisation APDHA (Asociacion Pro Derechos

Humanos Andalucıa), for example, more than 4,000 migrants have drowned

seeking to enter Spain from Morocco since the beginning of the 1990s, and the

International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) has

estimated that, over the last decade, a total of at least 10,000 persons

have died trying to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe’s southern

shores.67

The Expansion of Gendarmerie-type Forces

A final aspect of the convergence of police and military functions in western

Europe of the post-Cold War era can be seen in the increasingly prominent role

played by agencies which have traditionally been located at the intersection

between internal and external security, namely gendarmerie-type or paramili-

tary security forces.68

While, as pointed out above, since the demise of authoritarian regimes on the

European continent all European countries have in principle been upholding

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 245

the basic separation between police and military, it should be noted that many

European countries also keep forces in being which, at least in certain respects,

are located in between police and military forces. These are usually referred to

as paramilitary or gendarmerie forces. Although there is no generally accepted

definition of the term ‘paramilitary’, or such a thing as a standard gendarmerie-

type force, the term is usually applied to police forces which have some military

characteristics in terms of armoury, internal organisation and function even

though strictly speaking they are not part of the armed forces.69 Examples

of gendarmerie-type forces in the European context include the French

Gendarmerie, the Italian Carabinieri, the Spanish Guardia Civil, the Austrian

Federal Gendarmerie or the German Federal Border Police*/all police forces

with certain military characteristics, although there are also consider-

able differences between these agencies in terms of their degree of ‘militarisa-

tion’.

Table 1 depicts the evolution of the manpower of both regular military and

gendarmerie-type forces in those western European countries which have such

agencies. As can be seen, the gendarmerie forces of European countries have

expanded considerably and in some countries dramatically over recent decades,

and in particular since the beginning of the 1990s. Thus, between 1980 and

2000, the gendarmeries of western European countries grew on average by

about 30 per cent, contrasting sharply with the downsizing of the regular

military which has taken place in all European countries over this period.

Moreover, as I have documented elsewhere, since the beginning of the 1990s,

Table 1. Development of regular armed forces and gendarmeries in Western Europe,1980�/2000

1980 1990 2000

Austria Armed forces 50,300 42,500 35,500Gendarmerie 11,000 11,794 15,751

France Armed forces 494,730 461,250 294,430Gendarmerie 78,000 91,800 94,950

Germany Armed forces 495,000 469,000 321,000Border Police 23,564 25,187 39,240

Greece Armed forces 181,500 162,500 159,170Gendarmerie 26,000 26,500 34,000

Italy Armed forces 366,000 389,600 250,600Carabinieri 84,000 111,400 110,000Finance Guard 52,150 52,280 66,983

Netherlands Armed forces 114,980 102,600 51,940Maurechausee 3,900 4,700 5,200

Portugal Armed forces 59,540 68,000 44,650Rep. Guard 13,000 19,000 25,300

Spain Armed forces 342,000 274,500 166,050Guardia Civil 64,000 63,000 75,000

Source: Military Balance

246 D. Lutterbeck

gendarmerie-type agencies have generally been the fastest expanding security

forces in western European countries While there has been a general trend

across western Europe since the beginning early 1990s of shifting spending

priorities from external to internal security forces, gendarmerie-type forces have

typically shown the highest growth rates.70

There are a number of areas of the post-Cold War security agenda where

these gendarmerie forces have come to play an increasingly important role, such

as counter-terrorism, riot control, border enforcement or peace support

operations. In general, their growing popularity can be seen as a consequence

of these agencies’ intermediary status and the fact that they combine the

features of police and military forces. In fields such as counter-terrorism,

border enforcement or peace support operations, for example, effective action is

often considered to require a combination of both police-type skills and

equipment and the ability to engage in more ‘robust’ (military-style) operations.

Arguably the most significant field where gendarmerie-type agencies of

European countries have been increasingly mobilised is, again, the one of

border enforcement and the prevention of irregular immigration and cross-

border crime. In many European countries, border control forces are

gendarmerie-type agencies, and as EU countries have been upgrading their

borders to prevent undocumented migration and transnational crime from

outside the EU, this has often involved a massive expansion of such forces. The

most salient example in this regard has been the German Federal Border Police

(Bundesgrenzschutz */BGS), which, as can be seen from Table 1, grew from

25,000 to almost 40,000 officers during the 1990s. In other European countries,

as well, gendarmerie-type border control forces have grown impressively since

the beginning of the 1990s. In Italy, for example, the country’s main border

control agency, the Finance Guard (Guardia di Finanza ), expanded from 52,280

to 66,983 officers between 1990 and 2000, or in Spain the Guardia Civil */which

is also responsible for border enforcement*/grew from 63,000 to 75,000

officers over this period.

Another noteworthy area which has seen growing involvement of gendarm-

eries over recent years is international peace support operations. While in the

post-Cold War period, as discussed previously, police forces have generally

come to play a much more significant role in peacekeeping missions,

gendarmerie-type forces in particular have increased in importance, and have

been deployed in ever larger numbers in such operations.71 Their main

functions in peacekeeping missions typically include combating serious forms

of organised crime, riot control and other public order tasks. Also in this

regard, as has been pointed out by several analysts, it is precisely because

gendarmeries combine the skills and equipment of police and military

forces, and because they may be deployed both under civilian and military

command, that they are often seen as ideally suited for addressing the internal

security or public order challenges that arise in post-war reconstruction

efforts.72

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 247

Conclusions

The relatively clear-cut separation between internal and external security, and

between an internally-oriented policy and an externally-pointed military

apparatus, has been a distinctive feature of the modern nation-state. As such

a core principle, it has also tended to be treated as somewhat of an axiom in

security thinking and analysis. However, as has been pointed out by Anthony

Giddens and others, and as is also suggested by the preceding analysis, this

distinction is not an unchanging feature of political life, but is rather subject to

historical transformations. It was only with the emergence of the modern

nation-state that the functions of police and military forces were separated*/

that the armed forces were gradually removed from the state’s domestic sphere,

and came to focus mainly on external threats, whereas police became concerned

with monitoring the domestic population.73 Similarly, the discussion above

suggests that this institutional division is again being transformed, as the

nation-state further evolves from modern towards what might be called late- or

post-modern forms of governance. One general characteristic of politics in late

or post-modernity is often said to be the blurring of the boundaries between the

domestic and international realms, due to the fact that political issues are

increasingly cross-border in nature and often have both an internal and an

external dimension. Similarly, a defining feature of security and organised

violence in the late- or post-modern era can be said to be the proliferation of

security challenges which can no longer be neatly fitted into the categories of

internal and external security, and the increasing blurring of the respective

functions and characteristics of internal and external security agencies.

As documented above, this process of convergence between policing and

soldiering has manifold aspects and can be observed at different levels,

including the functional, spatial, operative, and technological. In functional

and spatial terms, it is manifest in the increasing external orientation of police

forces, and the growing involvement of military forces (including intelligence

services) in domestic security missions. In terms of modus operandi , a general

trend has been that police forces have been taking on certain military

characteristics, for example in the form of more proactive (or pre-emptive)

styles of policing, while military forces, as far as they have become engaged in

domestic security mission, are undergoing a process of policisation*/in the

sense of restrictions on the use of force, often coupled with an increase in police

powers. At the technological level, the analysis has pointed to the increasing

resort to military-style technology and hardware by police forces*/a develop-

ment which, although not discussed in this article, has also taken the inverse

form of a growing importance of police-style weaponry, and in particular so-

called non-lethal weapons, for external security forces.74 Finally, I have also

highlighted the increasingly prominent role being played by security forces

which have traditionally been located at the intersection between internal and

external security, that is gendarmerie-type (or paramilitary) forces.

248 D. Lutterbeck

While this article has extensively documented the how of this process of

convergence between internal and external security forces, the question of why

this development is taking place has thus far been somewhat neglected. In most

general terms, two types of explanations or theoretical frameworks could be

advanced to account for the processes described above. First, they could be seen

as a ‘functional’ adaptation or as ‘rational’ responses of security institutions to

a changing security environment and the new challenges this poses. Second,

the shifting functions of security agencies as described in this article could also

be viewed as the result of (internal) bureaucratic struggles of and between

different security institutions*/internal, external and intermediary*/which

need to find new fields of activity in order to justify their continued existence or

expansion.75

Given the predominantly empirical focus of this article, it is not my aim here

to fully investigate the validity of these two theoretical perspectives; suffice it to

note that both of them have some plausibility. On the one hand, it seems clear

that the most significant security challenges confronting western European

countries today are no longer state-based and military but rather non-military

and transnational in nature. Such transnational challenges practically by

definition blur the distinction between internal and external security, and

effectively confronting at least some of them might reasonably be said to

require a combination of police- and military-type responses, at both the

domestic and the international levels. On the other hand, it seems equally

clear that some of the developments described above are also driven by

bureaucratic interests of different security institutions, the legitimacy of some

of which is increasingly being questioned. It could, for example, be argued that

the growing involvement of military forces and foreign intelligence services in

domestic security issues is not just simply an adaptation of such institutions to

a changing security environment, but is to a large extent also driven by the

desire of such agencies to secure their continued existence despite the

disappearance of their traditional adversaries and the absence of direct military

threats.

Needless to say, finally, that these processes of convergence between policing

and soldiering are not only a matter of security institutions reinventing

themselves or adapting to new types of challenges and a transformed strategic

environment. Far from being a ‘neutral’ institutional arrangement, the division

between police and military, and in particular the removal of the armed forces

from the state’s domestic sphere, can also be said to have strong normative

underpinnings, as the absence of this separation is often associated with

authoritarianism and repressive practices. Thus, while there is reason to believe

that the developments outlined above will continue in the future, they will also

raise some difficult political and ethical questions*/in particular regarding the

appropriate role of military force in domestic security*/which will need to be

addressed in one way or the other.

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 249

Notes

The author would like to thank Anne Deighton, Andrea Ellner, Anna Khakee, Thierry Tardy as

well as the anonymous reviewers for their most helpful comments on earlier versions of this

article.

1 According to the Eurobarometer Report of 2003 (No. 58), international terrorism and organised

crime are nowadays considered to be the main security threats in EU countries. See European

Commission, Eurobarometer Report , No. 58 (Brussels, 2003) p. 13. On transnational security

challenges, see e.g. Robert Mandel, Deadly Transfers and the Global Playground: Transnational

Security Threats in a Disorderly World (Westport: Praeger 1999); Richard A Matthew and George

E. Shambaugh, ‘Sex, Drugs and Heavy Metal: Transnational Threats and National Vulner-

abilities’, Security Dialogue 29/2 (1998) pp. 163�/75; Alessandro Politi, ‘Western Europe’, in Paul

B. Stares (ed.), The New Security Agenda. A Global Survey (Tokyo/New York: Japan Centre for

International Exchange 1998) pp. 117�/33; and Ole Waever, Barry Buzan and Morten Kelstrup,

Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1993).2 Didier Bigo, ‘When Two become One: Internal and External Securitisations in Europe’, in:

Morten Kelstrup and Michael C. Williams (eds), International Relations Theory and the Politics of

European Integration, Power, Security and Community (London: Routledge 2000) pp. 171�/205;

and Jean-Paul Hanon, ‘Securite interieure et Europe elargie. Discours et pratiques’, Revue

internationale et strategique 52 (2003) pp. 23�/32.3 Major works on the growth of police cooperation in Europe include Malcolm Anderson, Monica

Den Boer, Peter Cullen, William C. Gilmore, Charles D. Raab and Neil Walker, Policing the

European Union (New York: Oxford University Press 1995); Didier Bigo, Polices en reseaux

(Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques 1996); and Heiner Busch,

Grenzenlose Polizei? Neue Grenzen und polizeiliche Zusammenarbeit in Europa (Munster:

Wesfalisches Dampfboot 1995).4 Peter Andreas and Richard Price, ‘From War Fighting to Crime Fighting: Transforming the

American National Security State, International Studies Review 3/3 (Fall 2001) pp. 31�/52.5 Peter B. Kraska (ed.), Militarizing the American Criminal Justice System. The Changing Roles of

the Armed Forces and the Police (Boston: Northeastern University Press 2001).6 Peter B. Kraska, ‘The Military-Criminal Justice Blur: An Introduction’, in Kraska (ed.),

Militarizing the American Criminal Justice System , pp. 3�/13; Peter B. Kraska and Victor E.

Kappeler, ‘Militarising American Police: The Rise and Normalisation of Paramilitary Units’,

Social Problems 44 (1997) pp. 1�/18.7 Charles J. Dunlap, ‘The Thick Green Line: The Growing Involvement of Military Forces in

Domestic Law Enforcement’, in Peter B. Kraska, Militarizing the American Criminal Justice

System , pp. 29�/42; and Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson, ‘The Military Technos-

tructures of Policing’, in Peter B. Kraska (ed.), Militarizing the American Criminal Justice

System , pp. 43�/64.8 Timothy Dunn, The Militarization of the U.S.�/Mexico Border, 1979�/1992 (Austin: Center for

Mexican-American Studies, University of Texas 1996); and Timothy Dunn, ‘Waging War on

Immigrants at the U.S.�/Mexico Border: Human Rights Implications’, in Peter B. Kraska (ed.),

Militarizing the American Criminal Justice System , pp. 65�/81.9 See, e.g., Hanna Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism , 3rd edn (London: Allen and Unwin

1967).10 For a more general discussion of the increasing resort to military-style technology by police forces

in European countries, see European Parliament, An Appraisal of Technologies of Political

Control (Luxembourg: Directorate General for Research, 1998). For an in-depth discussion of

the ‘militarisation’ of the US�/Mexico border, see Dunn, Militarization .11 Anderson et al ., Policing the European Union , pp. 135�/6.

250 D. Lutterbeck

12 Heiner Busch, ‘Hart an der Grenze’, Zeitschrift Burgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP 60 (1998) pp. 20�/

27; and Bundesministerium fur Inneres, Grenzdienst der Bundesgendarmerie (Vienna: Bundesmi-

nisterium fur Inneres 1999).13 Author interview with Austrian police officials, Vienna, May 2002.14 Busch, ‘Hart an der Grenze’; and Bundesministerium fur Inneres, Grenzdienst der Bundesgen-

darmerie.15 Miguel Gonzales, ‘El gobierno leventara otra valle en Ceuta porque la actual no frena a los

inmigrantes’, El Paıs, 2 Febuary 1999.16 Giles Tremlett, ‘Spain’s hi-tech eye on illegal entrants’, The Guardian , 16 August 2002.17 ‘Un radar mobile per il controllo costiero’, Il Finanziere 10 (2000) p. 5.18 For a more detailed account of these trends, see Derek Lutterbeck, ‘Between Police and Military:

The New Security Agenda and the Rise of Gendarmeries’, Cooperation and Conflict 39/1 (2004)

pp. 45�/68.19 European Parliament, An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control . In contrast to ‘ordinary’

or lethal weapons, ‘non-lethal’ weapons are designed not to kill or destroy but rather to ‘disable’

or ‘incapacitate’. Typically, such weapons are used by both police and military institutions. For

recent overviews of this rapidly expanding field, see e.g. Nick Lewer and Neil Davison, ‘Non-

lethal Technologies*/an Overview’, Disarmament Forum 1 (2005) pp. 37�/51; or John B.

Alexander, Future War. Non-Lethal Weapons in the Twenty-First-Century Warfare (New York: St.

Martin’s Press 1999).20 P.A.J. Waddington, ‘Towards Paramilitarism? Dilemmas in Policing Civil Disorder’, British

Journal of Criminology 27/1 (1987) pp. 37�/46; P.A.J. Waddington, ‘The Case Against

Paramilitary Policing Considered’, British Journal of Criminology 33/3 (1993) pp. 353�/70;

Tony Jefferson, ‘Beyond Paramilitarism’, British Journal of Criminology 27/1 (1987) pp. 47�/53;

Tony Jefferson, ‘Pondering Paramilitarism: A Question of Standpoints?’, British Journal of

Criminology 33/3 (1993) pp. 374�/81; Alice Hills, ‘Militant Tendencies. ‘‘Paramilitarism’’ in the

British Police’, British Journal of Criminology 35/3 (1995) pp. 450�/58.21 For a more detailed analysis of this development, see Derek Lutterbeck, The Fortress Wall:

Policing the EU’s Outer Borders, 1990�/2001, PhD Dissertation, The Graduate Institute of

International Studies, Geneva, 2003.22 See, e.g., ‘Man shot dead not connected to terror attacks’, Financial Times, 22 July 2005; ‘Anger

over shoot to kill policy grows’, The Guardian , 31 July 2005; and ‘Police Chiefs Group Bolsters

Policy on Suicide Bombers’, Washington Post , 4 August 200523 Anderson et al ., Policing the European Union ; and Bigo, Polices en reseaux .24 The main joint body in this respect was TREVI (Terrorism, Radicalism, Extremism and

International Violence).25 Didier Bigo, ‘The European Internal Security Field: Stakes and Rivalries in a Newly Developing

Area of Police Intervention’, in Malcolm Anderson and Monica den Boer (eds), Policing Across

National Boundaries (London: Pinter 1994), pp. 161�/73.26 Mark Holzberger, ‘Grenzenlos’, Zeitschrift Burgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP 69 (2001) pp. 48�/54.27 Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI), Bundesgrenzschutz Jahresbericht 1991 (Bonn: BMI 1992);

and BMI, Bundesgrenzschutz Jahresbericht 1999 (Bonn: BMI 2000).28 Holzberger, ‘Grenzenlos’.29 See, e.g., Robert B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic and Eliot M. Goldberg (eds), Policing the New

World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security (Washington DC: Institute for National

Strategic Studies 1998).30 Figures regarding the deployment of both military and civilian personnel in UN peacekeeping

operations can be found on the website of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations

(UNDPKO), at: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/.31 EU Presidency Report on ESDP, Feira European Council, June 2000.32 Andreas and Price, ‘Crime Fighting’, pp. 41�/42.

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 251

33 Peter Klerks, ‘Security Services in the EC and EFTA countries’, in Tony Bunyan (ed.),

Statewatching in the New Europe: A Handbook on the European State (Nottingham: Russell Press

1993) p. 66.34 Ernst Uhrlau, ‘Nachrichtendienste im Wandel’, Internationale Politik 7 (2000) pp. 53�/60.35 Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘Britain’s Spooks have fallen into Fearful State’, The Guardian , 7 March

1997.36 Stephane Marchand, ‘Enquete sur les trois grands services de renseignement francais’, Le Figaro ,

8 April 1995; and Jeremy Shapiro and Benedicte Suzan, ‘The French Experience of Counter-

Terrorism’, Survival 45/1 (2003) pp. 67�/98.37 Richard Ford, ‘New squad will take on illegal immigration racketeers’, The Times, 27 November

1997; Roland Nelles, ‘Menschenschmuggler werden immer brutaler’, Die Welt , 29 October 1999;

and Miguel Gonzales, ‘Aznar encarga al CESID que investigue las mafias de trafico de

inmigrantes’, El Pais, 11 July 2000.38 Heribert Prantl, ‘Der Geheimdienst als Zulieferer der Polizei’, Suddeutsche Zeitung , 14

September 1994.39 Severin Weiland, ‘BKA und BND schauen sich in die Karten’, Tageszeitung , 19 August 1998.40 Heiner Busch, ‘Staatschutzerische Grossbaustelle’, Zeitschrift Burgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP 78

(2004) pp. 14�/28.41 Kai Beller, ‘Schilys Terrorabwehrzentrum erhitzt die Gemuter’, Financial Times Deutschland , 14

December 2004.42 European Parliament, An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control , pp. 15�/20.43 Ibid., p. 9; and Busch ‘Grossbaustelle’.44 For an overview, see Erik Van de Linde, Kevin O’Brien, Gustav Lindstrom, Stephan de

Spiegeleire, Mikko Vayrynen and Han de Vries, Quick Scan of post 9/11 National Counter-

terrorism Policymaking and Implementation in a Number of European Countries (Leiden: Rand

Europe 2002); and Mark Holzberger, ‘Antiterroristische Triangel’, Zeitschrift Burgerrechte &

Polizei/CILIP 78 (2004) pp. 56�/64.45 ‘Alle horen mit’, Jungle World , 16 May 2001. In 2003, there were 18 cases in which the BND

reported suspicious information to domestic law enforcement agencies. See Busch, ‘Grossbaus-

telle’.46 There is a vast body of literature on the role of the British army in Northern Ireland. For an

overview see, e.g., Ellison Graham and Jim Smyth, The Crowned Harp: Policing Northern Ireland

(London: Pluto Press 2000); or Caroline Kennedy-Pipe and Colin McInnes, ‘The British Army in

Northern Ireland 1969�/1972: From Policing to Counter-Terror’, Journal of Strategic Studies 20/2

(1997) pp. 1�/24.47 According to an opinion poll carried out by the journal Der Spiegel in July 2005, 65 per cent of

the German population would be in favour of deploying the German Armed Forces in the

interior to fight against terrorism, whereas 31 per cent would be against such a measure (Der

Spiegel , 30/2005, p. 16).48 Wolfgang Kemmerling, ‘Die militarische Befestigung des Ostwalls’, in Anny Knapp and Herbert

Langthaler (eds), Menschenjagd: Schengenland in Osterreich (Vienna: Promedia 1998) pp. 33�/42.49 Alberto Selvaggi, ‘Fronte clandestine: schierato l’esercito’, Corriere della Sera , 11 May 1995.50 Author interview with officials of Spanish Guardia Civil, Ceuta, April 2002.51 Author interview with officials of Italian navy and Spanish Guardia Civil, November 2001 and

April 2002.52 The most important accident in the Straits of Otranto occurred in 1997, when an Italian warship

collided with a boat transporting would-be immigrants from Albania, killing more than 100

Albanians. See Fabio Caffio, L’Italia di fronte all’immigrazione clandestine via mare , Rome, 6 June

2005, available at: http://www.poliziadistato.it/pds/chisiamo/territorio/reparti/immigrazione/

allegati/articolo_caffio_immigrazione.pdf.53 Caffio, L’Italia di fronte all’immigrazione clandestine via mare.54 El Pais, 28 January 2003.

252 D. Lutterbeck

55 Ferdinando Sanfelice di Monteforte, presentation given at Royal Services Institute on Nato and

Mediterranean Security: Practical Steps towards Partnership, London, 30 June 2003.56 Daniel Hermant and Didier Bigo, ‘Les politiques de lutte contre le terrorisme: Enjeux francais’,

in Fernando Reinares (ed.), European Democracies Against Terrorism. Governmental Policies and

Intergovernmental Cooperation (Aldershot: Ashgate 2000) p. 110.57 Van der Linde et al ., Quick Scan of post 9/11 National Counter-terrorism Policymaking , pp. 51�/2.58 For an overview of all the operations carried out by the Italian army on the national territory, see

the website of the Italian army at: http://www.esercito.difesa.it/root/sezioni/pag_home.asp

(accessed 1 September 2005).59 See Article 87a of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz ).60 Stefan Gose, ‘Bundeswehr im Innern’, Zeitschrift Burgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP 70 (2001) pp.

49�/54.61 Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, Verteidigungspolitische Richtlinien (Berlin: Bundesminis-

terium der Verteidigung 2003).62 Similar arguments with regard to the ‘policisation’ of military rules of engagement in

peacekeeping operations are made by Andreas and Price, ‘Crime-Fighting’, pp. 47�/9.63 Author interview with Austrian military commanders, Eisenstadt, May 2002. There has

reportedly ‘only’ been one case in which a would-be immigrant was shot dead by a soldier.64 Author interview with representatives of Italian navy, Bari, June 2000.65 For most of the operations carried out by the Italian army on the national territory since the early

1990s, military units were assigned the status of ‘agents of public security’, which gives them the

right to arrest and detain suspects as well as to seize suspicious objects. See website of the Italian

armed forces (note 58).66 Ole Waever, ‘Securitization and Desecuritization’, in Ronny D. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security (New

York: Columbia University Press 1995), pp. 46�/86; or Jef Huysmans, ‘Migrants as a Security

Problem: Dangers of "Securitizing" Societal Issues’, in Robert Miles and Dietrich Thranhardt

(eds), Migration and European Integration: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion (London:

Pinter 1993), pp. 53�/72.67 Asociacion Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucıa (APDHA), El Estrecho: la muerte de perfil

(Sevilla, December 2003); and International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD),

Irregular Transit Migration in the Mediterranean*/Some Facts, Futures and Insights (Vienna:

ICMPD 2004) p. 8.68 On the neglect of these intermediary agencies in the literature, see Lutterbeck, ‘Gendarmeries’. In

some ways, the growing importance of gendarmerie-type forces in western Europe is comparable

to the increasing significance of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) Teams in the USA, as

documented by Kraska and Kappeler.69 John Andrade, World Police and Paramilitary Forces (New York: Stockton Press 1985) p. ix; and

David H. Bayley, Patterns of Policing. A Comparative International Analysis (New Brunswick:

Rutgers University Press 1985) pp. 40�/41.70 Lutterbeck, ‘Gendarmeries’.71 Lutterbeck, ‘Gendarmeries’, pp. 60�/63.72 Annika S. Hansen, From Congo to Kosovo: Civilian Police in Peace Operations, Adelphi Paper

343 (London: Oxford University Press for the IISS 2002) pp. 71�/72; and Alice Hills,

‘International Peace Support Operations and CIVPOL: Should there be a Permanent Global

Gendarmerie’, International Peacekeeping 5 (1998) pp. 26�/41.73 Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press

1987); and Christopher Dandeker, Surveillance, Power and Modernity (Oxford: Polity Press 1990).74 See note 20.75 This second type of explanation is typically favoured by Didier Bigo and his associates.

Internal and External Security in Western Europe 253