MODES OF STRATEGIC ADAPTATION: NATO and the EU under Revisionist Pressure

Abstract

How to assess the strategic adjustment of international organisations? The article combines recent advances in the study of grand strategy and studies in institutional adaptation to explain NATO's and European Union's responses to current Russian revisionism. Selecting specific cases of NATO's Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) and EU's East StratCom Task Force, it analyses the innovativeness, scope and cohesiveness of these measures in the context of broader strategic readjustments. The conclusions pit the Alliance's gradual but more robust strategic renovation against the Union's more radical but limited and possibly fractious strategic breakthrough.