This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ OUTSIDE NATO AND THE EU SUB-REGIONAL DEFENCE CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE Nemeth, Bence Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 PHD THESIS OUTSIDE NATO AND THE EU: SUB-REGIONAL DEFENCE CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE KING’S COLLEGE LONDON DEFENCE STUDIES DEPARTMENT BY BENCE NÉMETH ABSTRACT I am studying why European nations have created new sub-regional Multinational Defence Co-operations (MDCs) in the last couple of years, instead of using the existing NATO and EU institutional frameworks for military collaboration. By applying the multiple-case study research method elaborated by Robert K. Yin, I investigated three cases: the Central European Defence Co-operation, the British- French ‘Lancaster House Treaties’ and the Nordic Defence Co-operation. In this framework I tested three rival explanations using the method of pattern matching, which means that I generated predicted patterns regarding the studied phenomena and compared them to empirically based patterns. The three rival explanations I compared regarding the creation of new sub-regional MDCs were 1) the lack of progress on pan-European/Transatlantic defence cooperation 2) the impacts of the financial crisis, 3) different emerging shared threat perceptions of European states. This research framework provided the opportunity to close certain explanations out, and helped to develop the empirically based patterns concerning every case that could convincingly explain the three studied cases individually. These empirically based patterns helped to develop a generic framework that describes the circumstances, which encouraged the launch of the studied sub-regional MDCs. The thesis concludes that two main structural and two main situational factors played the most significant roles in the creation of the MDCs. The structural factors are ‘previous defence collaborations between the participating states’ and ‘similar perception about certain defence related EU/NATO processes and initiatives’. The situational factors are ‘strong leadership of a group of enthusiastic high-level officials and good interpersonal chemistry among them’ and ‘supportive political milieu towards sub-regional multinational defence co- operation’. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. 1 ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................ 12 BACKGROUND ......................................................................................................... 12 MULTINATIONAL FORCES .................................................................................... 18 COLLABORATIVE EQUIPMENT PROCUREMENT ............................................. 26 MULTINATIONAL CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT ............................................. 36 The Evolution of the Concept of Pooling & Sharing .......................................................... 37 Pooling and Sharing in Practice – PESCO, Smart Defence and the Ghent Process ........... 41 SUB-REGIONAL DEFENCE CO-OPERATION ...................................................... 45 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 48 CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH FRAMEWORK ......................................................... 49 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ......................................................................................... 49 KEY CONCEPTS ........................................................................................................ 51 Sub-regional MDCs ............................................................................................................ 51 Threat Perception ................................................................................................................ 55 METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................... 57 Case Study Research Method.............................................................................................. 57 Research Design .................................................................................................................. 62 Rival Explanations .............................................................................................................. 65 CHAPTER 4. CENTRAL EUROPEAN DEFENCE CO-OPERATION (CEDC) ...................................................................................................................................... 70 CREATION OF CEDC AND ITS IMPLICATIONS .................................................. 72 DEFENCE CO-OPERATION OF CEDC COUNTRIES BEFORE THE CREATION OF CEDC ..................................................................................................................... 77 CREATING CEDC INSTEAD OF CO-OPERATING IN NATO AND EU.............. 83 Rival Explanation 1 – Lack of progress on pan-European/Transatlantic defence cooperation .......................................................................................................................... 84 Rival Explanation 2 – Effects of the financial crisis ........................................................... 94 Rival Explanation 3 – Convergent threat perceptions ....................................................... 106 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 120 CHAPTER 5. THE LANCASTER HOUSE TREATIES .................................... 124 THE TREATIES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS .................................................... 125 The Treaties and the joint LoI .................................................................................... 125 The Implications of the Treaties ................................................................................ 130 2 BRITISH-FRENCH RELATIONS AND DEFENCE CO-OPERATION BEFORE THE LANCASTER HOUSE TREATIES ................................................................. 135 CREATING LANCASTER HOUSE TREATIES INSTEAD OF CO-OPERATING WITHIN NATO AND EU ......................................................................................... 141 Rival Explanation 1 – Lack of progress on pan-European/Transatlantic defence cooperation ........................................................................................................................ 145 Rival Explanation 2 – Effects of the financial crisis ......................................................... 156 Rival Explanation 3 – Convergent threat perceptions ....................................................... 169 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 179 CHAPTER 6. NORDIC DEFENCE CO-OPERATION (NORDEFCO)........... 183 CREATION OF NORDEFCO AND ITS IMPLICATIONS..................................... 185 DEFENCE CO-OPERATION OF NORDIC COUNTRIES BEFORE THE CREATION OF NORDEFCO ................................................................................... 190 CREATING NORDEFCO INSTEAD OF CO-OPERATING IN NATO AND EU . 196 Rival Explanation 1 – Lack of progress on pan-European/Transatlantic defence cooperation ........................................................................................................................ 198 Rival Explanation 2 – Effects of the financial crisis ......................................................... 215 Rival Explanation 3 – Convergent threat perceptions ....................................................... 221 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 229 CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 234 SUMMARY OF RESEARCH GOALS AND METHODOLOGY ........................... 234 FINDINGS ................................................................................................................