It was not very long ago that any attempt to fit these three words — context, identity and narrative — into a sentence about European security would have been frowned upon in the academic circles of International Relations (IR) and security studies. A sign of the paradigmatic debates and epistemological anxieties of these disciplines, there is still a perceived need to demonstrate the empirical relevance and analytical prowess of any conceptual framework that centres on these categories. This is therefore a double challenge. On the one hand, students of security must show that, for example, "identity" or "narrative" gives us significant explanatory or hermeneutical purchase in a field of interaction typically circumscribed by the categories "anarchy" and "material capability". On the other, one is also compelled to show that "identity" is not only a useful conceptual lens but also something that has profound relevance for the actors under investigation. European security offers a particularly complex illustration of this dynamic interplay between the political and hermeneutical relevance of the categories and concepts used by actors and analysts alike.