Abstract
Driedger assesses the development of military and security ties between Estonia and the United Kingdom between 2014 and 2018. Focusing on the 2016 Brexit referendum, he shows that, in contrast to previous assessments, these ties strengthened after the referendum. Driedger argues that this development is largely shaped by perceptions of increasing mutual alignment utility. He develops a new theoretical framework of security alignment strength and uses structured and focused comparison on a wide array of British, Estonian, and Russian sources, including interviews with defence officials and an analysis of key policy documents. As the case of Estonia resembles others in the region, this study yields crucial insights for assessing North-East European security, developing alliance theory and informing policy-making towards Russia in a time of populist crises.
Keywords
- United Kingdom
- Estonia
- Defence
- Security policy
- Military alliances
- Brexit
- Russia
I thank Joe Ganderson, Ulrich Krotz, Jule vom Köhlerwald, Richard Maher, Benjamin Martill, Carsten Richter, and the editors for their comments.
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Notes
- 1.
Ruike further transforms these three variables into four: common threats for common security concerns (or “anxiety” as he puts it), balance of power for mutual ability to help against threats, and socialisation and institutionalisation for the reliability of an ally (Xu 2016, pp. 19–47).
- 2.
Although there is a danger of “buckpassing” among allies within highly threatening multipolar security environments, see (Christensen and Snyder 1990; Mearsheimer 2014). Buckpassing, however, requires specific conditions, such as multipolarity and/or significant defence advantages, neither of which is given in the British-Estonian case.
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Driedger, J.J. (2019). Alliance Persistence, Military Security and the 2016 Brexit Referendum: The Case of Estonia and the United Kingdom. In: Baciu, CA., Doyle, J. (eds) Peace, Security and Defence Cooperation in Post-Brexit Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12418-2_5
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