Becoming Each Other? Trends of Convergence in the Strategic Cultures of NATO and ESDP

Strategic culture is a constructivist concept that seeks to understand and explain a security community.s actions based upon the collective, identity-driven norms, ideas, and patterns of behavior regarding the pursuit of their security and defense goals. This thesis looks at the strategic cultures of NATO and the ESDP over the last decade. It seeks to place both organizations within matrices to visually represent their respective strategic cultures, and then to compare the trends in their evolution over that timeframe through three case studies of missions where both organizations participated. It finds that, not only are the strategic cultures of both organizations broadening in scope and reach, but they are also converging toward each other. This suggests that mission overlap between them might occur with greater frequency in the future, presenting challenges but also greater opportunity for cooperation between them.