NATO as a Stratified Security Regime: Differentiated Solidarity among Member States
NATO as a Stratified Security Regime: Differentiated Solidarity among Member States

Summary/Abstract: The geopolitical environment is undergoing accelerated transformations, and the Euro-Atlantic security architecture is increasingly influenced by changes in the international strategic environment. The return of power competition, the diversification of sources of conflict, and pressure on the international order have brought the role of alliances back to the forefront as mechanisms for organising cooperation in the field of security. States tend to adopt an increasing number of types of partnerships and alliances to maximise their security efforts. However, NATO remains the main collective defence framework for the transatlantic space, while itself undergoing a process of adaptation to new strategic realities. The aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine in 2022 accelerated the adaptation of NATO’s strategic posture and, although the main mission remained the same, brought the debate on the distribution of responsibilities among the Allies back into focus. This paper simultaneously analyses NATO as a military alliance and as an international security regime, in order to examine whether internal differentiation can be conceptualised as a structural property of its functioning and not merely as a source of intra-allied tension. The present analysis comes against the backdrop of recent debates on the future of the transatlantic relationship and pressures from the United States for European states to assume increased security responsibilities within the Alliance. The paper starts from the hypothesis that, although allied solidarity remains uniform at the normative level, from a functional point of view, its implementation is carried out differently, as a result of distinct perceptions of threats, the different roles assumed by the Allies, and the uneven distribution of strategic responsibilities. The article argues that this internal stratification can be understood not as an expression of the fragmentation of the Alliance, but as a structural and adaptive feature of the way in which allied solidarity is organised and one which, in essence, does not affect the cohesion of the Alliance in any way.

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