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Many students in Germany undertaking academic writing tasks consult one of the numerous German-language books on research writing. Curiously, these works tend to downplay or ignore creativity, compared to their American counterparts. A hermeneutic and rhetorical study that examines the structure, content, and style of 21 German books on research writing with the help of framing theory reveals that, firstly, the rationale given to readers for learning how to do a research project is usually that it enables them to complete difficult tasks and thus to graduate successfully – the potentially fascinating aspects, such as learning through writing, and the possibility of advancing the field are rarely mentioned. Secondly, when defining good academic research, US books stress exploration and invention based on wrestling with questions, while the German ones mostly emphasize rules, correctness within a fixed system, and the mastery of techniques. Finally, in the 21 works, academic work primarily comes across as a solitary, linear process neatly divided into separate phases, not as a holistic, discursive practice that takes place within the research community. The likely reasons for this phenomenon highlight several crucial challenges German writing teachers and consultants are facing: as the rhetoric/composition and writing consultancy scene in Germany is vibrant but somewhat marginalized at universities and relatively new, there is no tradition of mandatory composition courses influenced by writing studies with a creative component, and most guidebooks on research are not by writing experts but by professors in other fields. Moreover, there is still widespread belief that creativity cannot be taught, and that students’ fascination with their chosen field of study should be taken for granted, so that neither need to be mentioned in primers. Terminology might also play a role; the German term for ‘research (writing)’, ‘Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten’ or ‘academic practice’, already appears to emphasize correctness over discovery.

European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) has become a contentious subject in transatlantic security relations. This essay identifies the ambiguities that have occurred in the policymaking on both sides of the Atlantic that appear to have generated a basic lack of confidence and trust in the other side's good intentions and commitment to cooperation. It does so by sketching three historical time periods—1981–1986, 1988–1996, and 1998–2004—that convey the recurrent patterns and outcomes in the ESDP dispute. These three cases cover the periods (1) from the London Report on European Political Cooperation to the Single European Act and the Western European Union Security Platform, (2) the Maastricht Negotiations on a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and (3) the evolution of ESDP from St. Malo to Brussels.

At the beginning of the 1990s the European political scene is in a state of rapid transformation. While the East–West conflict may not be over, it is clearly undergoing a fundamental change from an ideologically charged contest to a ‘normal’ competition between major actors in the anarchical international system. This change may well entail the elimination of some of the most dangerous threats to peace, whilst at the same time generating requirements for a new framework of European and East–West security. As the ideological conflict fades, so the bipolar alliance system which, in spite of all its shortcomings, burdens and injustices, provided some measure of stability to Europe, is also about to vanish.