European Security Structural Integration Through Pooling & Sharing in the Lens of Collective Actions in the Coalition of the Opting

Pooling and sharing has become a vehicle of European structural integration in security and defence, but the patterns that drive it remain understudied. Applying Galtung’s theory of structural integration to 496 pools of the European Union and NATO and to the participations of 28 European states, we ask which principles of integration drive the pools and how Western and post-communist states differ. Network and gravity analyses show that the three principles organise different layers of the pooled supply chain. Industry is integrated functionally, around four large states that frame programmes by capacity and across distance; the rear echelon associationally, where post-communist states associated on their shared institutional heritage; and military operations territorially, among neighbours of related culture. Framing ties are reciprocated, as the coalition of the opting implies. After 2022 the post-communist states lost ground in the common capabilities, while allied troops moved to their territory. Structural integration through pooling is layered.