European security in practice: EU-NATO communities in-the-making?
European security is at a critical juncture and many have called for a more coherent and efficient response, involving both the EU and NATO. However, the primary tool for EU–NATO cooperation, “Berlin Plus”, has been stuck in a political quagmire since the mid-2000s, making a lot of scholars to conclude that this cooperation is obsolete and outdated. This article is challenging this view by analysing a range of informal but regular interaction patterns that have emerged. Using practice theory, it sheds new light on and explores how EU and NATO staff at all levels engage in informal practices on various sites in headquarters in Brussels and in field operations. A study of EU–NATO cooperation as practice focuses on the everyday, patterned production of security as well as what makes action possible, such as (tacit) practical knowledge and shared “background” knowledge (education, training, and experience). The article also discusses the extent to which shared repertoires of practice may evolve into loose communities of practice that cut across organisational and professional boundaries.
Noreg og Russland: Kald krig eller ope vindauge?
Kva strategi bør Noreg ha overfor Russland? Kva moglegheiter og avgrensingar ligg i samarbeidet? Barentssekretariatet, NUPI og FNI arrangerer den 24. november 2016 debatten: Noreg og Russland: Kald krig eller ope vindauge?
The Cyber Frontier
The cyber frontier perspective serves to explicate that the Global South’s participation in digitalization is not simply a matter of joining cyberspace. On the contrary, it is a matter of selective forms of global connection in combination with disconnection and exclusion. Firstly, I contextualize security concerns by describing the trajectory of digitalization in the Global South. I then explore how “technological leapfrogging” can create new and unique societal vulnerabilities. By linking digitalization with security and economic growth, cybersecurity is seen in connection with development assistance and the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Finally, I hold that this triple knot represents an opportunity for donors such as the EU to foster new types of development assistance building on a continued engagement in the Global South.
New Momentum for European Defence Cooperation
For better or for worse, the politics of Brexit, in combination with the implementation of the new EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy, have generated renewed momentum for European defence cooperation. EU member states have tabled a range of proposals. Some consolidation will be necessary, especially if effective defence integration is the aim – and that is the way to overcome current fragmentation. National forces can cooperate and be made interoperable with other forces in various formats simultaneously, but they can be integrated only once. Two levels of defence cooperation and integration must be addressed. At the level of the EU as such, and using EU incentives such as Commission funding for R&T, largescale projects for the development and acquisition of strategic enablers can be mounted, with the European Defence Agency acting as manager. At the level of state clusters, large deployable multinational formations can be created (such as army corps and air wings), with fully integrated maintenance, logistics and other structures in support of the national manoeuvre units that each participant can contribute. By pooling all-too-limited national military sovereignty in this way, defence cooperation and integration can revive sovereignty, understood as the capacity for action, at a higher level.