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The Minilateral Turn: Germany, the United States, and Post-Hegemonic Transatlantic Security Cooperation
Speaker: Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters, DAAD/AGI Research Fellow
Moderator: Jeff Rathke, President and Director of the Foreign & Security Policy Program, AGI
The Euro-Atlantic region has recently experienced a number of shocks and shifts that have affected the contemporary European security order and the cohesion of its multilateral organizations, most notably NATO and the EU. As these organizations face an essential crisis, states have increasingly sought to form alternative frameworks and initiatives to advance their security interests. The concept of minilateral security cooperation (MSC) has, in this context, received greater scholarly attention. While minilaterals can complement and support NATO and the EU, they might also lead to greater institutional fragmentation and divergences in the European security order. This raises questions about which states initiate minilateral security frameworks and with what motivations and rationales.
This presentation will first discuss the concept and emergence of minilateral security cooperation in the Euro-Atlantic region. It will then focus on how the United States initiates and leads minilateral security cooperation. Finally, it will make some tentative comparisons to Germany’s approach and rationales.
Dr. Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters is Assistant Professor for European Security at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Her research is at the intersection of European security and global governance with a particular in transatlantic security cooperation and the EU-NATO relationship. Previously, she held positions at Helmut-Schmidt-University of the Federal Armed Forces, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and University College London, and received her PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent. She is the author of Understanding EU-NATO Cooperation: How Member States Matter (Routledge, 2022) and co-editor of NATO 2030: Towards a New Strategic Concept and Beyond (Brookings, 2021).
This session will convene via Zoom. Please contact AGI Program Associate Mr. Jack Fornasiero at jfornasiero@aicgs.org with any questions.
This event is supported by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Foreign Office.
