Jean Monnet Module Courses

Spring 2026

North Atlantic and European Security:
The EU as a 21st Century Security Actor/State (CAS IR 589/PO 582)

This course is part of the Jean Monnet Module: EURopean securitY and Defense: Industry, Capacity, and Evolution (EURYDICE), supported by the European Union. The Module advances analysis of the EU as a 21st century security actor through teaching, research, and policy engagement.

This course evaluates the central issues concerning European security and transatlantic relations since the end of the Cold War. We examine how the European Union functions as a 21st century security actor through regulatory authority, market power, judicial frameworks, and infrastructural capacity rather than traditional military command structures. We review the Cold War security system of NATO, early attempts at European defense cooperation such as the EDC, evaluate changes to NATO in the 1990s and challenges such as the Balkan Wars, and analyze the emergence of new Europe wide security institutions and EU defense initiatives since the 1990s. Contemporary challenges include geopolitical issues such as Russia Europe relations and European engagement with the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. We examine major powers within Europe, their national security interests, strategies, military capabilities, and divisions of interests within Europe and between Europe and the United States. A central focus is understanding how the EU’s unique institutional development as a regulatory and market based security actor relates to and complements or constrains the NATO alliance.

The course has four sequential components. The first is Schuman Challenge Preparation, a national foreign policy competition focused on U.S. to EU relations where students develop original policy proposals addressing defense and at least one other policy area. The second is Historical Foundations, tracing European integration from 1945 through post Cold War transitions, early EU defense cooperation and NATO formation/enlargement, and the Balkan Wars. The third is EU as Security State, analyzing EU security integration and authority through regulatory, market, institutional, and transatlantic mechanisms. The fourth is Contemporary Challenges and Strategic Autonomy, examining EU policies on Russia, China, technology, Arctic security, and paths toward European strategic autonomy.