Europes Interstitial Security Institutions:What Relevance for Irelands Defence Forces?

This paper explores some small interstitial European security institutions which exist in the margins between the EU and NATO. The latter are not the only show in town. A more diverse European security ecosystem has emerged which includes: the Franco-British Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF); the UK led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) with Nordic Baltic membership; the French led European Intervention Initiative (E2I); the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (HCoE), in Finland; and finally, three distinct heavy lift aircraft pooling arrangements. These interstitial institutions are offering many European states opportunities to co-operate on defence without the excessive political baggage associated with the big two. Yet apart from participation in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a more typical multilateral body, Ireland stands aloof from all of these initiatives. This is regrettable because some present few challenges to Irish neutrality and indeed could help in achieving the aims of the Defence White Paper (and update) in 2015, 2019. More fundamentally, European security has become increasingly complex, fragmented and diverse, a trend to which Irish defence policy needs to be flexible enough to respond.