Loading...
The Beowulf Group:Taking the lead to defend Europe
Walshe, Garvan
Walshe, Garvan
Title / Series / Name
European View
Publication Volume
23
Publication Issue
2
Pages
Author
Editors
Keywords
Files
Loading...
Walshe-Garvan1-2025.pdf
Adobe PDF, 179.65 KB
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/28792
Abstract
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has exposed divisions in European strategic culture and threat perception. The search for a lowest-common-denominator response to the threat has hampered the European reply to the Russian aggression, often forcing the EU to move at the speed of its slowest member, whether in supplying ammunition and equipment to Ukraine or setting up the defence industry needed to accelerate such a supply in the future. Notwithstanding the importance of keeping a broad coalition together, this article argues that it is now time to create a vanguard of like-minded European nations, led by France, Poland and, though not an EU member, the UK, but open to other states, which can force the creation of a new strategic culture able to meet the Russian threat. This ‘Beowulf Group’, named after the Danish hero from the Anglo-Saxon epic who stood up to the marauding monster Grendel, could establish a Strategic College for Europe, a joint Elite European Reserve Legion and a strategic communications centre, to move European policy in a more active direction.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2024-10-15
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1177/17816858241288389