Forum: Learning from the Russo-Ukrainian War: Normative lessons in unnormative times

This Forum discusses how different international actors learn different lessons from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and how the logics discernible behind these lessons may define the future shapes of a new international order to substitute the post-1991 system of international relations. In this Forum, a group of scholars discuss the lessons learned from the perspective of Europe’s normative credentials, demonstrating tensions between idea(l)s of liberal normativity and practices of security governance. Together, these contributions suggest that contemporary security challenges require not merely new applications of existing theories, but fundamental reconsideration of how protection, threat identification, and institutional adaptation operate under war conditions. They point towards a research agenda focused on understanding when and why security governance produces its own contradictions, and what this means for both theoretical development and policy practice. With all the different interpretations in mind, what unites all the contributions to this Forum is the connection between lesson learning and agency that is built on this cognitive basis and defines where international actors stand regarding issues of normativity and security.