Overlap or Opposition? EU and NATO's Strategic (Sub-)Culture

Abstract

This paper discusses the inter-organizational relationship of the two leading security organizations in Europe: the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Rather than discussing the two organizations’ material overlaps, the paper discusses their quest for organizational identity and role in the domain of foreign and defence policy, as well as the ideational structures that affect both institutions’ social behaviour and their behaviour toward each other. It aims first to tease out how structures of meaning in the form of norms, values, and beliefs have affected the two organizations’ behaviour toward each other; and second to introduce explanatory arguments about their subcultural relationship that can help explain their attitudinal divergences. The article makes two arguments: First, there is a significant normative overlap between the two institutions, especially with regards to future challenges and threats and the role of third parties and international organizations. Second, I introduce a preliminary argument by holding that the best way to make sense of the ideational divergences between the two organizations is to conceptualize NATO's strategic culture as a subculture of the European Union's strategic culture.