The EU’s response to Russia’s war of aggression: social learning and informal patterns of cooperation with third countries

The role of third countries in the EU’s response to Russia’s war of aggression can hardly be understated. Many accounts assume that third country influence on EU foreign policy boils down to hard bargaining or ‘divide and rule’ strategies, particularly when it comes to the United States. In this article, we seek to complement rational-choice oriented alliance politics/external influence approaches by turning our attention to the generally overlooked patterns of informal cooperation and social learning between the EU and third states. Focusing on the Union’s response to Russia’s war, we set out to uncover informal cooperation dynamics between EU member states and third actors in order to asses whether (and how) social learning practices shaped the threat perception in the EU’s institutions and the member states – and ultimately their policy response. We expect that the more frequent the interaction, the greater the exposure between diplomats, and the more informal the modes of cooperation, the greater the chance that social learning might result in changes to the EU’s threat perception and policies. Evidence on these cooperation and social learning dynamics will be drawn from on semi-structured interviews with national diplomats and EU officials. Specifically, the paper zooms in on some of the EU’s closest partners in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: the US, Canada, UK, Japan, and Norway. Firmly inscribed in the constructivist tradition, the paper makes an important contribution to our current understanding of third country influence on EU foreign policy by shedding light on the critical role of mutual learning, socialization, and informal patterns of cooperation.