ELN publications feature authoritative research, high-quality analysis, diverse viewpoints and practical recommendations to address current foreign, defence, and security policy challenges.
Last week, Russia announced it had started tactical nuclear weapons exercises near Ukraine. Pavel Podvig explores whether this move is an attempt to go beyond signalling and bring non-strategic nuclear weapons closer to the frontline and asks how the international community should respond.
Ahmet Üzümcü, Senior Network member and former Director General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) during the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, outlines the steps the international community can take to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use by Russia in Ukraine.
Ilana Bet-El, Senior Associate Fellow at the European Leadership Network, is joined by Salome Samadashvili, a prominent member of the opposition of the Georgian parliament, to discuss the protests that have erupted on the streets of Tbilisi since the Georgian parliament voted to designate Western-funded NGOs as foreign agents. Critics of the new law allege it negatively impacts Georgia’s aspirations to join the EU and further bolsters the perception that Georgia’s government is aligning itself with Russia.
As the situation on the battlefield has changed in recent months to the detriment of Ukraine, a “prolonged war” where there is no decisive military victory on either side is the most likely scenario, writes ELN Policy Fellow Katia Glod. Based on a scenario-building workshop with experts from Ukraine, Russia, and wider Europe, she outlines what implications this could have for Europe and how the EU and UK can prepare for it.
Meir Javedanfar writes that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza war mean that a nuclear Iran may no longer be viewed as a threat by the Russian leadership. Javedanfar argues that a nuclear Iran could boost Russia’s leverage in the Middle East and divert attention from its war in Europe.
In an excerpt from her new book “The New Cold War”, ELN Senior Policy Fellow Julia Berghofer writes that despite the challenges, the West needs to maintain certain channels of communication beyond the political and military level. Contact with a younger generation of Russian security experts, civil society activists, and political scientists is essential for a safer Europe.
Introducing Women Leaders, the podcast that discusses world complexities with women experts! Our host llana Bet-El welcomes one or two women experts for an informal conversation to explain, analyse, discuss and highlight events of the day by an array of wonderfully qualified women from all around the world.
On NATO’s 75th anniversary, and as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, Dr Leon Hartwell calls on NATO member states with larger economies to match the economic contributions to Ukraine of smaller NATO countries, as a percentage of GDP. He argues that if NATO properly utilised its economic advantage over Russia, Ukraine would then have the necessary capacity to win on the battlefield.
On the second anniversary of Putin’s war in Ukraine, Olamide Samuel writes that the invasion has upset the fragile balance of obligations in the NPT’s bargain by dramatically increasing the perceived salience of nuclear weapons and reigniting motivations for proliferation. In response, nuclear weapon states choosing to reinforce their extended deterrence commitments inadvertently devalues the wider framework of security assurances granted to non-nuclear weapon states and the perceived value of the NPT’s grand bargain.