The EAPC/PfP as an Instrument to Combat Global Terrorism

Abstract

There is no multilateral security framework whose mandate has not been reexamined – and, in many cases, fundamentally redefined – in the aftermath of 11 September 2001.1 The search for an effective response at a multilateral level to global terrorist networks and the organized crime structures supporting these networks mirrored the extensive national measures and bilateral efforts undertaken to enhance homeland security. While it has been fashionable in academic circles to refer to the blurring of the distinction between national and international security, the magnitude and the nature of the terrorist attacks delivered the most convincing argument in favor of merging and intensifying the coordination between domestic intelligence, foreign policy, and defense policy. The invocation of Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty was the swiftest multilateral response to the terrorist attacks on the United States masterminded by the al Qaeda network. On 12 September 2001, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) adopted a package of measures designed to combat the scourge of terrorism. Within a week of the terrorist attacks, more than thirty countries had offered disaster relief assistance to the United States through the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Relief Coordination Center. By December 2001, the EAPC had adopted the new EAPC Action Plan for 2002–2004 based on innovative counter-terrorist approaches suggested in a joint Finnish–Swedish “food-for-thought” paper.2 One year later, at the Prague Summit, the EAPC member states endorsed a Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism (PAPT), including practical mechanisms and an action plan ranging from intensified consultation and information sharing and increased prepared-