Security & Defence

In this paper for the IIEA, Patrick Keatinge, Co-Chair of the IIEA’s Security and Defence Group and Professor Emeritus at Trinity College Dublin, reviews the response of European states to the dangers of political conflict in an unstable international environment at the beginning of 2021.

In the Brexit debate, there has been relatively little focus on the issue of services, which make up about three quarters of the UK’s economic output. How might Brexit impact on this vitally important, and growing, sector? This IIEA paper, by Gavin Barrett, Professor of Law at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin, aims to address this question, and to focus attention on an issue that is, and will continue to be, of key importance in the years and decades after Brexit has taken place.  

In this paper for the IIEA, Patrick Keatinge, Co-Chair of the IIEA’s Security and Defence Group and Professor Emeritus at Trinity College Dublin, examines how Ireland’s Security and Defence Policy has evolved; how it is reflected in Ireland’s response to the main security challenges; and how it is understood in public debate today.  

This discussion paper by the Institute’s Germany Group provides a snapshot of German views on the highly pertinent topic of European security and defence policy. It reveals that the current German government has taken a very careful approach in seeking to reconcile its firm commitment to further European integration with the politically very sensitive topic of increasing military expenditure. For Germany, strategic bilateral and minilateral relationships within Europe may be key in sustaining the momentum in this policy area. Looking ahead to the German Federal Elections, which will take place on 24 September 2017, the paper also examines the views of Germany’s main opposition parties.

The conventional view of Europe as a zone of peace, already shaken by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, was further challenged by two generally unanticipated events in 2016: the referendum in the United Kingdom on 23 June to withdraw from the European Union and the election on 8 November of Donald Trump as President of the United States. This paper attempts to discern the direction of international security policy in 2017 and to set out the challenges for European security, and their implications for Ireland.