Defence cooperation does not exist in a vacuum, and several structural and situational factors are needed to establish a multinational defence cooperation (MDC) successfully. This book uses three cases to demonstrate the dynamics behind the creation of three defence collaborations in Europe: 1) the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) in 2009; 2) the British– French Lancaster House Treaties in 2010; and 3) the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) in 2011.

The first half of this chapter introduces the case studies and explains how they were selected, while the second half explains how the theoretical framework of the subregional approach was developed. In this regard, three rival explanations were tested using the method of pattern-matching, which means that the author generated predicted patterns regarding the studied phenomena and compared them to empirically based patterns. The three rival explanations regarding the creation of the studied MDCs were: 1) the lack of progress on pan-European/ transatlantic defence cooperation; 2) the impact of the financial crisis of 2008; and 3) different emerging perceptions by European states of shared threats. This research framework provided the opportunity to close certain explanations out, and helped to develop the empirically based patterns concerning every case that could convincingly explain the individual case studies. These empirically based patterns helped to develop the theoretical framework of the subregional approach. This theoretical framework is the structural and situational factors, and their unique interactions, which were introduced in Chapter 1. The details of them will be discussed in the following chapters.

The case studies: Lancaster House Treaties, NORDEFCO, CEDC

The book studies three subregional MDCs. The Lancaster House Treaties that were established between the UK and France comprise a bilateral MDC, while NORDEFCO and the CEDC are minilateral MDCs. These cases were selected because the academic literature focuses mostly on EU and NATO initiatives; the aim is for these bilateral and minilateral cases to provide a relevant contribution to our understanding of defence cooperation in Europe. Second, the cases represent different regions in Europe (the east, north and west); thus they make it possible to make generalizations about military cooperation in Europe.