ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that both organisations have struggled to cope with the results of strategic paralysis in their mutual relations. It considers the evolving nature of EUNATO relations since the end of the Cold War as a way of understanding why the barriers between the two organisations at the strategic level have been particularly difficult to overcome. The chapter sketches few possible scenarios for the impact of the recent security developments on the convergence of the strategic outlook of the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). It is divided into an analysis of the period from the end of the Cold War until 2004, which has been broadly characterised as top-down in the strategic sense. The informal cooperation in the Gulf of Aden, Afghanistan and Kosovo may be nice illustrations of bottom-up cooperation but are ad hoc in nature.
