Nicholas Williams, OBE is a Senior Associate Fellow for the European Leadership Network (ELN). He was a long-serving member of NATO’s International Staff, most recently as Head of Operations for Afghanistan and Iraq. Prior to this, Nick served in senior positions in NATO, EU, and British missions in Afghanistan, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Iraq. He began his career in the British Ministry of Defence working on defence policy and planning issues, with multiple secondments to NATO functions during the Cold War and to the French Ministry of Defence in its aftermath.
Nicholas Williams
Senior Associate Fellow
Content by Nicholas Williams
Commentary
The unforeseen consequences of the NATO Ankara summit
Despite the success of the Ankara summit, the US is gradually decoupling itself from Europe in ways that will have profound consequences for European security and strategic stability. As ELN Senior Associate Fellow Nicholas Williams writes, NATO will not collapse in a single dramatic moment; it is slowly changing into something less able to perform its central task.
Commentary
The death of the ‘global cop’: why NATO’s Ankara summit is burying out-of-area operations
What are the consequences stemming from the seeming end of NATO’s global role? ELN Senior Associate Fellow Nicholas Williams looks back at two decades of NATO’s “out-of-area operations”, arguing that foreign crisis management missions have become strategic liabilities rather than assets, exposing European troops to global conflicts while doing little to enhance European security.
Policy brief
The challenge of Russian dual-capable missiles
In a new policy brief, ELN Senior Associate Fellows Simon Lunn and Nicholas Williams examine the dual-capable nature of Russia’s medium and short-range missiles, and their implications for NATO’s strategy. Acknowledging the relationship between the nuclear and conventional dimensions, and in the context of Putin’s menacing references to Russia’s nuclear weapons, it looks at the impact on NATO strategy at both levels.