The previous chapters introduced how the individual structural and situational factors worked and how they contributed to establishing the three studied subregional multinational defence cooperations (MDCs): the Lancaster House Treaties, the NORDEFCO and CEDC. However, they do not explain how these factors interacted with each other and what the dynamics were between them. Accordingly, the current chapter brings the structural and situational factors together by applying the theoretical model that was briefly introduced in Chapter 1. For this purpose, this chapter first summarizes the conceptual elements of the studied structural and situational factors and expands on the model which the book offers to understand how and why new subregional MDCs are created in Europe. Second, based on this discussion and the insights of the previous chapters, this chapter explains how each studied subregional MDC was established. The purpose of this section is to pull all threads together with the help of the aforementioned theoretical model to provide a comprehensive picture about how these defence collaborations were created and how defence cooperation can be achieved in Europe.

As mentioned in Chapter 1, this book argues that, for understanding the processes behind creating subregional MDCs, we have to know the factors that affect and drive the participating defence policy communities (DPCs) to establish defence collaborations. Therefore, the unit of analysis is the individual DPCs of subregional defence cooperation. This book defines DPC of a current European country as the groups and persons who have the expertise, will and opportunity to influence the defence policy of the state. DPCs usually consist of military personnel and civil servants of the Ministry of Defence – including the Defence Staff – experts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Finance and the Prime Minister’s Office or its equivalent, major defence industrial actors, scholars of defence academies and think tanks and influential members of the parliament. In regard to theLancaster House Treaties, the British and French DPCs, and in the case of the NORDEFCO the Norwegian and Swedish DPCs, while concerning the CEDC the Hungarian and Austrian DPCs, will be discussed in this chapter in detail.