Terrorism and immigration stemming from the Southern Mediterranean have made it to the top of the European security agenda since 11 September 2001. This paper analyses the European Neighbourhood Policy in the light of European security perceptions. It suggests that the reason why the EU has...

This article assesses the development of EU-Russia relations in the context of EU foreign policy. EU relations with neighbouring countries and regions were the main priorities of the Common Foreign and Security Policy at its inception in the early 1990s. While Russia and the other former Soviet...

The paper addresses the question of how Europe (in NATO and the EU) has responded to changes in US announced and operational strategic and military policy and what the principal factors are for explaining European responses to what is perceived as a new form of American hegemony. The discussion...

The South China Sea is subject to competing claims of sovereignty by the littoral states. Due to the number of claimants and the complexity of claims, it is called the 'mother of all territorial disputes'. China is far the biggest country in the region and claims sovereignty over almost all the...

This paper takes an in-depth look at the European great powers France, Germany and Britain and their foreign policy reactions vis-à-vis the Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. It explains the different reactions from a certain interplay between present and past geopolitics that shape the foreign...

EU policy towards the Southern Mediterranean remains painfully fragmented across different lines: member states initiatives vs. EU as a whole; bilateral EU policies vs. multilateral frameworks. Underpinning these tensions, there is a continuing 'securitization' of the Mediterranean debate, which...

When Nicolas Zarkozy became president in 2007 he proclaimed a break with the past: France was no longer automatically to go it alone as during de Gaulle's presidency, but was to be integrated fully into NATO. Instead of competing with the strongest power on earth, France - as well as the EU -...

When a US drone was shot down by Iran, Trump called off a military response just ten minutes before it was due to start, while the reaction to the attacks on Saudi Arabian oil installations on September 14, which the US accused Iran of being behind, has been moderate. There were no real threats...

Bilateral diplomacy has become increasingly important in today's multipolar world. A number of cases are analysed in this DIIS Working Paper, where Nordic countries have been 'disciplined' in bilateral diplomacy by the emerging great powers of Russia, China, or India. Compared to the immediate...