The EU’s Rapid Deployment Capacity Initiative: Developments, Prospects, and Challenges – True Marker of a Strategic Shift or Spectre of the Past?

Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, called for Europe’s ‘geopolitical awakening’ in the foreword of the Strategic Compass, published in March 2022. The document, which marked a strategic shift in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), aimed to make the ‘EU a stronger and more capable security provider’ (EEAS, 2022).

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Urban Warfare

With the ongoing war in Ukraine, the focus on urban warfare has returned to prominence in military reviews and analysis. Russian forces have engaged in urban battles in Kyiv, Mariupol, Kherson, and other Ukrainian cities.

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Refusing a second Finlandization

Europe is again amidst a security crisis, the roots of which go far beyond the unsolved issues with post-Soviet Russia and NATO enlargement towards the East of Europe. The current invasion of Ukraine shows that two opposing international concepts are on the battleground. On the one side, there is a vision that officially supports the right of non-interference in a multipolar world whilst, in reality, abusing sovereign power, imposing it on other nations and dividing the world into areas of one-dominant country influence

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PESCO launches new projects as Denmark joins the effort to improve European military interoperability

At the end of May, the Council of the European Union adopted 11 new projects and welcomed Denmark as a new member state of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative (European Council, 2023). These events are milestones for two reasons; first, these new operations have a focus on interoperability; and second, Denmark’s accession itself, as in the past the country was reluctant to join PESCO and European defence efforts. The 11 new projects focus on a range of military domains. These include training, land, maritime, air systems and cyber. More specifically, the projects concerning land interoperability will primarily focus on unmanned ground systems, communication and infrastructure networks (PESCO, 2023).

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Nova Kakhovka Dam Collapse: what are the consequences and who is to blame?

On Tuesday morning, a massive dam on the Dnipro River separating the Ukrainian and Russian forces in the south of Ukraine was breached. The dam is part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and holds 18 cubic kilometres of water (Faulconbridge, 2023). Thousands of civilians are likely to be affected and people have been evacuated on both sides of the river. Ukrainian officials estimated that over 40,000 people are at risk from flooding.

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