Security Challenges and Security Institutions: Something Old, Something New, neither NATO, nor EU?

A collection of so-called 'emerging' security challenges, including but not limited to cyber attack, piracy, climate change, and reliable energy, food and water provision, has in recent years made its way onto the agenda of institutions dedicated, at least in part, to dealing with security issues. At the same time, the ‘traditional’ agenda of militarized conflict, weapons’ proliferation, and state fragility (or collapse) has not gone away. Events in Mali, Libya, Congo, Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria are testimony to the intractability of conflict and the power of kinetic engagements to fundamentally challenge the relevance of international institutions, regimes and law. Equally, the unresolved stalemate over Iranian and North Korean nuclear ambitions is indicative of the limitations of multilateral nuclear diplomacy, while China and Russia’s military capabilities and ambitions are a reminder of the significance of great power politics. The section proposed here aims to consider how two specific international organisations – NATO and the European Union (EU) – (and the broader regime complex of which they are part) have adapted to the fluid security agenda of the last two decades. If one defines success in terms of the absence of conflict or even the absence of security dilemmas, then these institutions have had a mixed record. In terms of ameliorating traditional security challenges, NATO and the EU continue to act as pacifiers among their own memberships and have extended this process through accession, enlargement, intervention and partnerships across the wider Europe. Nonetheless, success has been much less tangible in confronting traditional challenges in the European neighbourhood, including in the Middle East, the Mahgreb and the former Soviet Union. Overlapping the more traditional issues, both NATO and the EU have been required to turn to the agenda of ‘emerging security challenges’ (the name, in fact, of a new division within NATO’s international staff). The difficulties raised by this agenda are quite distinct, including the notion that security may be transitioning toward risk management rather than threat reduction or elimination. In this light, both academics and practitioners must look for lessons on whether and how existing institutions, and the relationships that underpin them, might address the security challenges of the day, whether traditional or emerging. That multifaceted task is compounded by a general sense of retreat and malaise in the West following a decade of war in Afghanistan (and previously, Iraq). Diverging interests and perspectives among NATO and EU member states, as well as limitations on the physical and economic wherewithal at the state and intergovernmental levels, are likely to play critical roles in the debate over retrenchment versus engagement. Other variables are important as well in determining how this significant juncture in security relationships might develop. Are existing institutions up to the task of addressing emerging challenges? What roles do organizational processes, political bargaining, institutional characteristics, economic factors, public opinion, member states’ search for prestige, or the character of the emerging security threats themselves play in shaping and determining institutional responses and ‘success’? Policy-relevant answers to these questions also have considerable theoretical significance. Is an understanding of transformation and adaptation in NATO and the EU best achieved through institutionalist perspectives (be that rational, sociological or historical variants), notions of security governance or inter-governmentalism, or through normative and critical approaches? In sum, this section will include panels that seek to identify whether and how NATO and the EU are succeeding in handling this emerging security agenda while simultaneously dealing with traditional security challenges. The section organizers welcome panels that address such questions empirically, theoretically or prescriptively. Specifically, the section aims to cover the following subjects: • Conceptualising the Emerging Security Issue Agenda • NATO’s Response to Emerging and Traditional Security Challenges • The EU’s Response to Emerging and Traditional Security Challenges • The European Role in the American Rebalance • Institutional Reform within NATO and the EU • Defense Reform at the State Level • New and Evolving Institutions for a New and Evolving Security Agenda • Defense, Diplomacy, and Development: A Three-Legged Stool?