ELN publications feature authoritative research, high-quality analysis, diverse viewpoints and practical recommendations to address current foreign, defence, and security policy challenges.
Thirty years ago today, the International Court of Justice drew a direct line between nuclear threats and the potential use of nuclear weapons. Yet as nuclear rhetoric returns to the centre of international politics, ELN Policy Fellow Jana Baldus argues the Court’s landmark advisory opinion remains an essential legal guide, and a call to action.
European security architecture is at a crossroads as NATO and the EU search for new roles amid growing uncertainty over the future of transatlantic security. With debate over a more European NATO and a European nuclear umbrella gathering pace, Tarja Cronberg argues that the Ankara summit will test whether allies can move beyond technical debates about defence spending and burden-sharing to articulate a collective vision for Europe’s future security order.
Ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, calls for higher defence spending are dominating the agenda. But military investment alone cannot guarantee Europe’s security. Sabine Mengelberg argues that NATO’s long-term strength depends equally on political cohesion and shared values, foundations that sustain deterrence and the alliance’s ability to confront security challenges.
ELN network members assess whether the Ankara summit marks a turning point for Europe’s role within NATO or a transition shaped by the US. They discuss defence spending, strategic autonomy, and the choices European governments must make to bolster the alliance in an uncertain security environment.
On the eve of the United States of America’s 250th anniversary, ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El is joined in conversation with Laurel Rapp, Director of the US and North America Programme at Chatham House, to discuss the US experiment and how recent developments across Greenland, Venezuela and Iran – as well as domestically – have altered global perceptions of the US.
With the United States reducing its strategic role in Europe, NATO is entering a new era of European leadership. ELN Executive Director Robert Ondrejcsák argues that Europe’s priority should be strengthening alliance capabilities rather than creating parallel structures, while examining how rising defence spending, shifting military power within the continent, and new security partnerships will shape NATO’s long-term “Europeanisation”.
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.
When NATO leaders meet in Ankara in July, they will do so against the backdrop of a strategic environment unlike any since the end of the Cold War. As Tacan Ilden writes, the alliance’s future effectiveness will depend not only on military strength but also on its ability to preserve political unity among allies whose threat perceptions and domestic political dynamics are increasingly divergent.
A decade after the Brexit referendum shattered the UK’s relationship with the EU, the ELN’s Nikita Gryazin argues that Europe’s security can no longer afford parallel approaches. With geopolitical pressures intensifying, he makes the case for turning political rapprochement into lasting security cooperation through stronger institutions, defence-industrial collaboration, and operational partnerships.