The EU and NATO: Cyber-Security Partners or Divergent Actors? An Exercise in Framework Development

With the continually evolving importance of cyber strategy in European affairs, multi-stakeholder organizations such the EU and NATO are struggling to articulate cyber-security initiatives to address a wide variety of needs and imperatives. This paper will assemble a framework with which to critically analyze and explore the emerging NATO and EU cyber-security dynamic by building bridges between regime complex theory and the Choucri & Clark layered model of cyber-space. In addition the argument will be made to shift away from the term ‘cyber-security’ and instead focus on ‘information-security management’ at various levels of abstraction and analysis. It is proposed the emerging EU/NATO dynamic can be understood within the detailed framework where ‘chessboard politics’ inherent to regime complexes can be focused upon through usage of a layered model of cyber-space