Defence Cooperation

Building Capacity for the EU Global Strategy

A degraded security situation, the Brexit referendum and the election of a US President at best indifferent to European security matters have led the Member States to search for new security and defence solutions and for new ways to demonstrate European cohesion.

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NORDEFCO: “Love in a Cold Climate”?

Nordic Defence Cooperation, or NORDEFCO, is a comprehensive framework of political and military cooperation, through which the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, seek to enhance their operational capabilities and further strengthen national and regional stability and security. In short, as stated in the 2009 Memorandum of Understanding on which it is based, “the aim and purpose of NORDEFCO is to strengthen the participating nations’ national defense, explore common synergies and facilitate efficient common solutions.”

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The Causes and Limitations of Swedish-Finnish Defence Cooperation

During the last few years, there has been a noticeable surge in bilateral and multilateral defence cooperation ventures among the Nordic states. The most well-known of these is NORDEFCO (Nordic Defence Cooperation). However, NORDEFCO is, essentially a framework for cooperation – it is not even a standalone organization , let alone a body resembling a political or military alliance.

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NATO’s Truly Enhanced Partnership

At the Wales Summit in September 2014, NATO introduced new initiatives to enhance the capacity of its various partners to work with the Alliance. In themselves, these initiatives were by no means novel. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has developed an extensive partnership program. The main tool for such cooperation, the Partnership for Peace program (PFP), was launched in 1994; from a humble beginning it has morphed into a network connecting the 28 Alliance members with more than 40 partners around the world.

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