Nordic Defense Cooperation: Prospects for expanding the endeavor

Abstract: The debate on Nordic defense cooperation has surged in the recent year as a result from a perceived shift in the security environment. The study focuses on the five Nordic states; all of them committed to different security communities and yet engaged in cooperative measures with each other. With the question of exploring the prerequisites for a possible deepening of the Nordic defense cooperation, this study adopting the concepts security and identity, will utilize the theoretical ideas of Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett on security communities by performing a qualitative content analysis of the Nordic countries’ defense policies. The analysis is performed through a constructed coding scheme where eleven questions has been created and then applied onto the policies. The results show that the prerequisites for a deepening of the Nordic defense cooperation heavily rest on their commonalties in culture, views on democracy, rule of law and aspirations in the region concerning their security policies. All countries are committed to a future development but differ to some extent as to how such cooperation ought to take and in their perceptions on security-issues.