Humans, with some exceptions left and right, have proven to be at their best when disaster strikes hard. At least, that is our hope and appears to be our defence for the future. In the meantime, we hide and live our perfect lives in the best conditions we ever had. Conditions that make us, lazy, fat, …

Permanent Change? The Paths of Change of the European Security OrganizationsIn recent years, the post-war multilateral system and the European security architecture, containing the OSCE, NATO and the EU, have come under scrutiny. However, these organizations have changed for more than seventy years and …

According to the European Council (2013), "Defence matters". However, the extent to which defence does matter appears to vary among the member states. Kollias (2008), analyzing burden sharing and free-riding behaviour of fifteen members of the European Union (EU15) over the year 2001, asks: Suppose the …

The deep political and security crisis in Iraq can only be described as a failed SSR effort. Since the U.S. led invasion of 2003, became the Stabilization Force in Iraq (SFIR) responsible for the reformation of the Iraqi SS. The present Iraqi security circumstances show that since the last U.S. troops …

The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the removal of the main adversary of NATO, and many believed that NATO had become obsolete given its original purpose of countering the Soviet communist threat. The end of the Cold War caused a debate about the future role and the necessity of the Alliance. It soon …

Will the Netherlands be able to keep its sovereignty in the current episode of European security and defence policies? More and more cooperation takes place at the international level in a globalised world. The European institutions get more and more control over Member States policies. All nation-states …