Alliances In Europe Research Articles

Ретроспективный анализ и перспективы развития оперативного мышления НАТО

This article reviews Z. Lautsch’s monograph “The Foundations of NATO Operational Thinking. A Retrospective Analysis of Operational Thinking in the 80s and Assessment of Development Prospects”. A brief introduction to the author is given. His approaches to the basic concepts defining operational thinking as a complex phenomenon are reviewed. It is noted that the author uses the points of view of both Western and Soviet military science in his reflections. The author analyses Z. Lautsch’s reflections on Germany’s role in the multinational alliance structure during the last decade of the Cold War. The evolution of NATO operational thinking from air-to-ground combat doctrine in the 1980s to cognitive warfare in the sixth operational domain in the 21st century is examined. The concept of „petty warfare” in the views of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the role of operational command in its conduct are touched upon. Particular attention is paid to analyzing the relationships between the framework states of the North Atlantic Alliance and their role in the development of operational thinking at the present stage. In particular, the role of Germany as a logistics centre for the entire alliance in Europe is emphasised. The importance of rearming the Bundeswehr and enhancing its credibility in the eyes of the population and at European level is noted. It underscores the need to forge links between the military doctrines of all alliance members and to adopt uniform standards for combat and operational training. This direction of development is of primary importance for the USA, France, the UK, Germany and Italy. The author notes that the Western and Eastern models of operational thinking had conceptual similarities in content and scope.

Editorial introductions.

Editorial introductions.

A new alliance in Europe: the September 2021 defence agreement between Greece and France as a case of embedded alliance formation

ABSTRACT In September 2021, Greece and France announced the conclusion of a landmark defence agreement, which included not only the sale of modern French frigates to the Hellenic Navy but also the signing of a new “strategic partnership for defence and security cooperation”. The cornerstone of this strategic partnership – which formalises Paris’ and Athens’ geopolitical rapprochement, accelerated after the tensions with Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean in 2020 – lies in a mutual defence clause that commits France and Greece to defend each other in case of an armed attack against their respective territory. The new bilateral alliance thus forged between Athens and Paris, coming on top of similar NATO and EU security guarantees, is of political as well as scholarly interest. Politically, the question is how such an arrangement, which ostensibly aims to protect Greece from fellow NATO member Turkey, squares with the broader European security architecture. From a scholarly perspective, the Franco-Greek defence agreement is remarkable in that, unlike almost all bilateral or minilateral defence cooperation arrangements that have been concluded in recent years between NATO and EU countries, this one touches on the key question of collective defence, thus constituting an intriguing case of “embedded alliance formation”.

Stakeholders welcome proposal on the European Health Data Space.

On Oct 20, 2022, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), along with 28 other European organisations including European Cancer Organisation, Biomedical Alliance in Europe, and Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, issued a consensus statement welcoming the European Commission's proposal for a regulation on the European Health Data Space (EHDS).

Critical Implications of IVDR for Innovation in Diagnostics: Input From the BioMed Alliance Diagnostics Task Force.

Critical Implications of IVDR for Innovation in Diagnostics: Input From the BioMed Alliance Diagnostics Task Force.

Distribution maps of vegetation alliances in Europe

AbstractAimThe first comprehensive checklist of European phytosociological alliances, orders and classes (EuroVegChecklist) was published by Mucina et al. (2016, Applied Vegetation Science, 19 (Suppl. 1), 3–264). However, this checklist did not contain detailed information on the distribution of individual vegetation types. Here we provide the first maps of all alliances in Europe.LocationEurope, Greenland, Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores, Cyprus and the Caucasus countries.MethodsWe collected data on the occurrence of phytosociological alliances in European countries and regions from literature and vegetation‐plot databases. We interpreted and complemented these data using the expert knowledge of an international team of vegetation scientists and matched all the previously reported alliance names and concepts with those of the EuroVegChecklist. We then mapped the occurrence of the EuroVegChecklist alliances in 82 territorial units corresponding to countries, large islands, archipelagos and peninsulas. We subdivided the mainland parts of large or biogeographically heterogeneous countries based on the European biogeographical regions. Specialized alliances of coastal habitats were mapped only for the coastal section of each territorial unit.ResultsDistribution maps were prepared for 1,105 alliances of vascular‐plant dominated vegetation reported in the EuroVegChecklist. For each territorial unit, three levels of occurrence probability were plotted on the maps: (a) verified occurrence; (b) uncertain occurrence; and (c) absence. The maps of individual alliances were complemented by summary maps of the number of alliances and the alliance–area relationship. Distribution data are also provided in a spreadsheet.ConclusionsThe new map series represents the first attempt to characterize the distribution of all vegetation types at the alliance level across Europe. There are still many knowledge gaps, partly due to a lack of data for some regions and partly due to uncertainties in the definition of some alliances. The maps presented here provide a basis for future research aimed at filling these gaps.

Implementation of the new EU IVD regulation- urgent initiatives are needed to avert impending crisis.

Laboratory medicine in the European Union is at the dawn of a regulatory revolution as it reaches the end of the transition from IVDD 98/79/EC (https://eur-lex.eur-opa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A31998L0079&qid=1628781352814) to IVDR 2017/746 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2017/746. Without amendments and contingency plans, implementation of the IVDR in May 2022 will lead the healthcare sector into uncharted waters due to unpreparedness of the EU regulatory infrastructure. Prospective risk analyses were not made by the European Commission, and if nothing happens it can be anticipated that the consequences will impact all stakeholders of the medical test pipeline, may seriously harm patients and may prevent caregivers from making appropriate clinical decisions due to non-availability of medical tests. Finally, it also may discourage manufacturers and academia from developing specialty tests, thereby hampering innovation in medical diagnostic care. We hereby inform laboratory professionals about the imminent diagnostic collapse using testimonies from representative stakeholders of the diagnostic supply chain and from academia developing innovative in-house tests in domains of unmet clinical needs. Steps taken by the EFLM Task Force on European Regulatory Affairs, under the umbrella of the Biomedical Alliance in Europe, will be highlighted, as well as the search for solutions through dialogue with the European Commission. Although we recognize that the IVDR promotes positive goals such as increased clinical evidence, surveillance, and transparency, we need to ensure that the capabilities of the diagnostic sector are not damaged by infrastructural unpreparedness, while at the same time being forced to submit to a growing bureaucratic and unsupportive structure that will not support its "droit d'exister".

HOW THE WEST WON: Post-Cold War negotiations on NATO enlargement in the 1990-2000s

With the disappearance of the Soviet Union, in 1991, the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) became the triumphant military alliance in Europe. Following prolonged deliberations, NATO eventually conducted a systematic enlargement of the alliance into Central and Eastern Europe. This expansion of the alliance was fiercely contested, and according to many critics was based upon a ‘broken promise’ of no-NATO expansion east of a newly-reunified Germany, an assurance given during the negotiations on German reunification by the leaders of the Western alliance. This paper will explore the enlargement of NATO in the 1990s, whether or not it was indeed based on a broken promise of non-expansionism, how this enlargement was accomplished, and how it has affected the subsequent geopolitics of Europe. In doing so, this paper shall argue that a multitude of false assurances on NATO expansion were given to Soviet officials during the negotiations on German reunification.

For a Red-and-Green Alliance in Europe

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University alliances in the Europe of knowledge: Positions, agendas and practices in policy processes

Several university alliances have been established in Europe in an attempt to influence the development of policies in research and education. As such, these alliances can be seen as being new players in the increasingly complex multi-actor, multi-level governance in this policy domain. The paper compares two key university alliances in Europe; in particular, how membership differences are related to their positions in the policy arena, their policy agendas and their policy formation and lobbying practices. The study contributes to understanding of, first, the role of university alliances in European level policy processes concerning higher education and research; and, second, the implications their involvement might have for future shaping of European initiatives in the knowledge domain.

Nuclear weapons and alliance institutions in the era of President Trump

ABSTRACTThe swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States presages, at the very least, a period of flux in American strategy with respect to the relationship between nuclear weapons and alliances. In this response to three thoughtful rejoinders to our article, “Nuclear weapons, the United States and alliances in Europe and Asia: Toward an institutional perspective,” we clarify key aspects of our argument and discuss why alliance institutions are likely to be relatively robust in the face of change, how they can influence national decision-making, and argue that they may exert a moderating influence over the new administration.

Außenpolitische Dokumente der Republik Österreich 1918–1939: Band 12, Österreich zwischen Isolation und Anschluss ed. by Walter Rauscher and Arnold Suppan

Reviewed by: Außenpolitische Dokumente der Republik Österreich 1918–1939: Band 12, Österreich zwischen Isolation und Anschluss ed. by Walter Rauscher and Arnold Suppan Laura A. Detre Walter Rauscher and Arnold Suppan, eds., Außenpolitische Dokumente der Republik Österreich 1918–1939: Band 12, Österreich zwischen Isolation und Anschluss. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2016. 398 pp. There is no shortage of accounts of the 1938 annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. This dramatic moment in European history was recorded by eyewitnesses, and news of the event was spread through newspaper reports and newsreels around the world. What can, at times, get lost in these reports is that what transpired in mid-March 1938 did not come as a complete surprise to the world; in particular, the government of Austria was acutely aware of the German desire to incorporate their southern neighbor into a larger German-speaking empire. In their book, Außenpolitische Dokumente der Republik [End Page 166] Österreich 1918–1939: Band 12, historians Walter Rauscher and Arnold Suppan describe the reactions of the Austrian Foreign Ministry to the increasing pressure they faced from German forces starting in 1937. This text is part of a twelve-volume project to publish and examine the most important foreign policy documents produced by the Austrian government in the interwar period. Specifically, this volume focuses on the correspondence issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between September 1937 and March 1938. That seven-month period was, of course, a highly charged time as the independent Federal State of Austria teetered on the edge of its ultimate annexation into Nazi Germany, something that had been in the cards for many years but had been held at bay by both diplomatic efforts and the threat of military conflict. Austrian independence had been a topic of intense speculation since the creation of the First Republic in 1919 and was nearly ended with the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in the July Putsch of 1934. It was only because of Italian support for Austrian independence, most obviously in the form of the Rome Protocols, that Germany did not annex the country at this point; as we now know, the reprieve was only temporary. The book is divided into two rough sections. The first is an introductory essay written by Arnold Suppan, a diplomatic historian at the University of Vienna and the vice president of the Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, publisher of this text. In this essay Suppan presents a concise history of the last days of the corporate state, showing how the Austrian government attempted to make sense of a continent undergoing tremendous change. In the second and probably more important section of the book, Suppan and Rauscher have re-published nearly two hundred examples of diplomatic correspondence from this period, all of which illustrate the concerns of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the collapse of the Austro-Italian cooperation and the potential consequences of this failure. As is common with diplomatic correspondence, none of these documents are particularly long, but they reveal how the Foreign Ministry worked to make sense of the changing alliances in Europe on the eve of World War II. They were produced by envoys throughout the continent and contain, as is to be expected with this type of communication, details of behind-the-scenes conversations with people of all sorts who had potentially valuable information on the position of Austria. One of the most interesting of these documents is, unsurprisingly, the [End Page 167] last in this section. This protocol, from March 15, 1938, details the liquidation of the Foreign Ministry and, most importantly, lists the twenty ministry officials who were deemed at the meeting to be eligible and appropriate to be recommended for transfer to the new government. What is thought-provoking about this text is not the detail of what transpired at the meeting, which seems to have been borderline mundane, but the establishment that this diplomatic protocol of the truth that the Anschluss was not a conquering of a foreign entity by a military power but the acquiescence of an admittedly weak country to be legally integrated into its stronger neighbor. While Austria would, in...

Upotreba ARJ PVD M/D na Kosovu i Metohiji 1998. i tokom agresije NATO 1999. godine

The dissolution of SFRY began in 1991 by the method of armed secession of the Republic of Slovenia and Croatia with the support and assistance of foreign states. Contrary to the international law, the borders of the republics became overnight the borders of sovereign states. NATO bombed the Republic of Srpska (code name Operation Deliberate Force) from 30th August to 20th September 1995. It was the first military action of the alliance in Europe after World War II. Air Defense artillery missile units of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Srpska operated on targets in airspace and on that occasion two F-16 jets and one 'Mirage' 2000K were shot down. The civil war and the wave of secession with the newly emerging states from Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina slowly approached Serbia.

Nuclear weapons, the United States and alliances in Europe and Asia: Toward an institutional perspective

ABSTRACTAmerica’s alliances in Europe and East Asia all involve some institutional cooperation on U.S. nuclear weapons policy, planning or employment—from consultative fora in Asia to joint policy and sharing of nuclear warheads in NATO. Such cooperation is often analyzed through the prism of “extended nuclear deterrence,” which focuses on the extension of U.S. security guarantees and their effect on potential adversaries. This article argues that this underplays the importance of institutional factors: Allies have historically addressed a range of objectives through such cooperation, which has helped to catalyze agreements about broader alliance strategy. The varied form such cooperation takes in different alliances also flows from the respective bargaining power of allies and the relative importance of consensus, rather than perceived threats. The article concludes that nuclear weapons cooperation will remain crucial in successful U.S. alliance management, as allies negotiate their relationship with each other in the face of geostrategic change.

U.S. Grand Strategy in the 21st Century: The Case for a Continental Commitment

The history of great power conflicts waged by maritime/island powers clearly shows the criticality of supporting continental allies with a ground force commitment. Now is the time to establish a credible series of alliances in Europe and Asia—even though it is a moment of economic retrenchment and great power peace. These alliances need not be costly, but will provide deterrence in the near term and a hedge in the long run against future great power conflict—conflicts that will be waged not just in the air, on the seas, and in cyberspace, but on land as well.

Polityka mocarstw europejskich wobec Turcji w latach 1903-1914

The years 1903-1914 should be considered as the most interesting period in the activity of the great powers states in South-East Europe and Near East for a few reasons discussed below. In the final period of the formation of the antagonistic military-political alliances in Europe, the so called “Concert of Europe” mainly showed a great interest in maintaining the status quo and preventing any conflicts which could occupy their attention. These states also focused on Turkey and especially on its European dominion. As a result, they jointly conducted reforms in Macedonia or tried to prevent the outbreak of war between the High Porte and the Balkan allies in 1912. At the same time, the powers did not stop their endeavors to realize their own political or economic aims at the cost of Turkey (e.g. the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austro-Hungary in 1908, the occupation of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica by Italy in 1911). Their aim was to eliminate the influences and block the initiative of their competitors.

‘Why is there no NATO in Asia?’ revisited: Prospect theory, balance of threat, and US alliance strategies

Why did the US prefer multilateral alliances in Europe, but bilateral alliances in Asia after World War II? Rationalists and constructivists debate the impact of power, institutions, and identities in explaining this highly contested question. We introduce a new argument embedded in prospect theory from political psychology — a prospect–threat alliance model — to account for the variation in US alliance strategy toward Europe and Asia after World War II. Through setting the threat level as a reference point for leaders’ prospects of gains or losses, we suggest: (1) high threats frame decision-makers in a domain of losses, and multilateral alliances become a favorable alliance choice because states are more likely to take the risk of constraining their freedom of action in return for more help from multiple allies as well as for avoiding further strategic losses; (2) low threats position leaders in a domain of gains, and bilateral alliances win out because states are risk-averse in terms of maintaining their freedom of action in seeking security through alliances with fewer allies. US alliance policy toward Asia after World War II is a within-case analysis that tests the validity of the prospect-threat alliance model.

The Transformation of the Military Alliance in Europe and Cooperative Security Structures

The Transformation of the Military Alliance in Europe and Cooperative Security Structures

The United States and Peacekeeping Policy in Europe and Latin America: An Uncertain Catalyst?

Reviewing US policy towards peacekeeping in Europe and Latin America since the early 1990s, this article addresses how far the United States dictated the terms on which it engaged in peace operations, and the extent it could decide the terms on which its allies participated in those operations. During the Clinton era, the United States encountered significant operational challenges, but this was the tactical price of strategic success, as its engagement in peace operations contributed to a transformation of its alliances in Europe (although there was no comparable process in Latin America). The Bush administration took a negative view of peace operations, but European and Latin American governments continued to see them as proof of their strategic relevance, European forces deploying in Afghanistan and Lebanon. But US allies frequently aim to demonstrate their autonomy – sometimes placing this political goal over operational efficiency – and the resulting tensions have had a significant impact on missions.

Luso–British Cooperation in India: A Portuguese Frigate in the Service of a British Expedition

The friendly ties of the Anglo–Portuguese alliance in Europe were hardly in evidence in the Indian context even in the second half of the 18th century. The Marquez Alorna's note to his successor Viceroy of Goa, in 1751, listed the French as a friend and the English as an enemy in India. Towards the end of the century, though, relations took a dramatic turn towards close ties of amity and cooperation between England and Portugal. This article examines crucial changes during the Viceroyalty of Sr Francisco Antonio da Veiga Cabral (1794–1807) when Anglo–Portuguese relations entered a new phase of assistance and adjustment through the introduction of a British auxiliary force into Goa, by a process of super-imposition rather than supercession. In this atmosphere of friendship and amity, cooperation covered the fields of defence, administration, trade protection and political affairs. The article specifically studies documentary evidence related to how the Portuguese frigate Real Fidelissimo was spared by the Portuguese Viceroy for service in a British expedition to the Red Sea in 1801. Even a temporary integration of the Portuguese European troops into British pay and a joint command of all the Portuguese and British troops in Goa, under a British Commanding Officer, were possible in that ambience.