European Security

Vol. 14, No. 2, 231/253, June 2005

Blurring the Dividing Line:

The Convergence of Internal and
External Security in Western Europe
DEREK LUTTERBECK
Project Coordinator, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Switzerland

ABSTRACT A distinctive feature of the security landscape in western Europe of the postCold War era is that the dividing line between internal and external security has become
increasingly obsolete */mainly as a consequence of the growing importance of transnational
as well as other challenges to security which defy the distinction between domestic and
international security. This article examines this convergence of internal and external
security agendas from the perspective of the coercive apparatus of western European
countries, pointing to a militarisation and externalisation of policing, and an internalisation
and 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 turning
to internal security missions, and are adopting certain police features. Moreover, agencies
which 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 states 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

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D. Lutterbeck

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 European
countries. 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 a
rearrangement 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 metatheoretical) 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, Peter
Andreas 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

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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 computerbased 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

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D. Lutterbeck

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 Germanys and Austrias 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 countrys armed forces.13 At the bordercrossing 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 EUs 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 EUs southern maritime borders this trend towards upgrading police
forces with military technology has been particularly pronounced. Along
Spains Mediterranean coast, for example, the countrys 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.

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235

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 Israels 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 EUs 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

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D. Lutterbeck

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 characteristics 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 states 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 EUs 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 enforcement 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

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237

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 internationalisation 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
EUs 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

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international police missions had been launched under the EUs 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

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239

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 rearrangements which have aimed at facilitating cooperation and information
exchange between the countrys foreign intelligence agency, the BND, and its
police forces. In late 1989, for example, a joint anti-terror body (Koordinierungsgruppe fu
r Terrorismusbeka
mpfung ) composed of members of the BND
and several law enforcement agencies was set up, with its main task being to

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

1994, a new law on crime prevention (so-called Verbrechensbeka
mpfungsgesetz )
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 countrys 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 countrys 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 enforcement 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 intelligence */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 collaboration between law enforcement and foreign intelligence agencies */both domestically and internationally */and to strengthen the investigative and surveillance
powers of police forces.44

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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 states
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 BNDs 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 countrys 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 liberaldemocratic 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 states 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-enforcement */tasks, and such measures have also increasingly gained greater
public acceptance.47 It is, again, mainly transnational challenges where military

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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 countrys frontiers and preventing irregular
immigration is Austria. As early as 1990, the Austrian government deployed a
contingent of some 2,000 soldiers along the countrys borders with Hungary
and Slovakia to reduce the rapidly growing numbers of irregular migrants
streaming across the countrys 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 antimigration 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 countrys 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 countrys
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 EUs 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 EUs
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 states 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 navys 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,

Internal and External Security in Western Europe

243

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, NATOs 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 armys 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 important 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 Frances 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

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D. Lutterbeck

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 Constitution (Grundgesetz ) explicitly forbids the use of the military in areas that fall
under the jurisdiction of the countrys 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 countrys 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 Germanys most recent strategic concept (Verteidigungspolitische Richtlinien ), 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

Internal and External Security in Western Europe

245

are considered less effective in deterring irregular migrants.64 These restrictions 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 authoritarian 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 EUs outer and especially its
maritime borders, which inter alia has been a consequence of the tightening and
increasing militarisation of the EUs external frontiers. According to the
Andalusia-based human rights organisation APDHA (Asociacion Pro Derechos
Humanos Andaluca), 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 Europes 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 paramilitary 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

246

D. Lutterbeck

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 gendarmerietype 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 considerable differences between these agencies in terms of their degree of militarisation.
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

Austria
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
Netherlands
Portugal
Spain

Armed forces
Gendarmerie
Armed forces
Gendarmerie
Armed forces
Border Police
Armed forces
Gendarmerie
Armed forces
Carabinieri
Finance Guard
Armed forces
Maurechausee
Armed forces
Rep. Guard
Armed forces
Guardia Civil

Source: Military Balance

1980

1990

2000

50,300
11,000
494,730
78,000
495,000
23,564
181,500
26,000
366,000
84,000
52,150
114,980
3,900
59,540
13,000
342,000
64,000

42,500
11,794
461,250
91,800
469,000
25,187
162,500
26,500
389,600
111,400
52,280
102,600
4,700
68,000
19,000
274,500
63,000

35,500
15,751
294,430
94,950
321,000
39,240
159,170
34,000
250,600
110,000
66,983
51,940
5,200
44,650
25,300
166,050
75,000

Internal and External Security in Western Europe

247

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 crossborder 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 countrys 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 gendarmeries 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

248

D. Lutterbeck

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 states 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 development which, although not discussed in this article, has also taken the inverse
form of a growing importance of police-style weaponry, and in particular socalled 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.

Internal and External Security in Western Europe

249

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 states 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.

250

D. Lutterbeck

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 Vulnerabilities, 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 Technostructures 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.

Internal and External Security in Western Europe

12

251

Heiner Busch, Hart an der Grenze, Zeitschrift Bu

rgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP 60 (1998) pp. 20 /
27; and Bundesministerium fur Inneres, Grenzdienst der Bundesgendarmerie (Vienna: Bundesministerium 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 Bundesgendarmerie.
15
Miguel Gonzales, El gobierno leventara otra valle en Ceuta porque la actual no frena a los
inmigrantes, El Pas, 2 Febuary 1999.
16
Giles Tremlett, Spains 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, Nonlethal 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.
Martins 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 EUs 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 2005
23
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 Bu
rgerrechte & 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.

252
33

D. Lutterbeck

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, Britains 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 CounterTerrorism, 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, Su
ddeutsche 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 Bu
rgerrechte & 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 OBrien, Gustav Lindstrom, Stephan de
Spiegeleire, Mikko Vayrynen and Han de Vries, Quick Scan of post 9/11 National Counterterrorism Policymaking and Implementation in a Number of European Countries (Leiden: Rand
Europe 2002); and Mark Holzberger, Antiterroristische Triangel, Zeitschrift Bu
rgerrechte &
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, Grossbaustelle.
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
sterreich (Vienna: Promedia 1998) pp. 33 /42.
Langthaler (eds), Menschenjagd: Schengenland in O
49
Alberto Selvaggi, Fronte clandestine: schierato lesercito, 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, LItalia di fronte allimmigrazione 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, LItalia di fronte allimmigrazione clandestine via mare.
54
El Pais, 28 January 2003.

Internal and External Security in Western Europe

55

253

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 Bu
rgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP 70 (2001) pp.
49 /54.
61
Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, Verteidigungspolitische Richtlinien (Berlin: Bundesministerium 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 Andaluca (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.