The coronavirus pandemic will be responsible for deep and long-lasting political and economic effects that will almost certainly influence international order and stability, as well as the ability of governments to confront security challenges today and in the future. Many countries will emerge from the coronavirus pandemic laden with debt and a severely depressed outlook for economic growth. It is conceivable that among the second- and third-order effects of the pandemic is an accelerated rebalancing of power away from the Euro-Atlantic community. This could threaten the ability of NATO and EU member states to shape and defend the rules-based international order.

The pandemic itself may be a driver of instability and insecurity at a time when the ability to deliver stabilising measures and crisis-management capacity is weakened. But where does the pandemic create genuinely new risks and where does it merely accelerate existing trends? During this webinar, the IISS and the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF) will launch a joint paper that examines this question and the geo-economic and geopolitical implications of COVID-19 for European security more widely. The paper draws on a series of webinars convened by the IISS and HSF at the end of 2020. The paper will be made available for download on the day of the event.