ELN publications feature authoritative research, high-quality analysis, diverse viewpoints and practical recommendations to address current foreign, defence, and security policy challenges.
Drawing on parallels with the Manhattan Project, the ELN’s Oliver Meier argues that AI companies cannot be relied upon to govern the risks their technology creates. Examining Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah’s response to Pope Leo’s encyclical, he contends that meaningful safeguards will require governments and international institutions to impose robust regulation.
Assessing risk is a vast and growing field, made ever more complex and expansive by the introduction of technology, especially AI. Tinatin Japaridze, YGLN member and Director of Geopolitics at Anadyr Horizon joins ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El to analyse how the ever-changing nature of global affairs intersects with emerging technologies to transform our conceptions of risk.
AI-enabled warfare is giving the United States unprecedented tactical reach while eroding strategic restraint, writes Erasmus University Rotterdam Professor Michal Onderco. From the Caracas raid to strikes in Iran, reduced risks enable operations with minimal casualties. That ease lowers the bar for war, leaving allies exposed to miscalculation and dependence on a partner willing to act without planning the aftermath.
This report by Ganna Pogrebna and ELN Senior Policy Fellow Rishi Paul presents findings from an ELN workshop that examined the ‘human’ and ‘machine’ components of bias and their points of interaction. The report highlights how human judgment and AI systems can interact in ways that reinforce, rather than reduce, risk.
Nuclear weapons aren’t going anywhere, and the way we manage them can and must keep evolving. Today’s security environment is more complex than during the Cold War: more nuclear-armed states, faster decision-making technologies, and fewer treaties providing guardrails. The good news? Proven tools exist to reduce risk, from fail-safe mechanisms to dialogue between adversaries, and they don’t all require perfect trust or total agreement. This animation explains both the challenges and the credible paths forward.
In a new study testing six leading AI models, YGLN member Ihor Samokhodskyi found that the language in which users ask AI chatbots questions about Russia’s war in Ukraine affects the likelihood that answers contain disinformation or propaganda. Samokhodskyi writes that this is a cognitive warfare problem that shapes how millions of users understand contested events. Europe needs to take three policy steps to address this.
As State Parties prepare for the 2026 Review Conference, Bailey Schiff and Diya Ashtakala write that engaging with emerging technologies, which are already transforming military programmes, as well as verification and civilian nuclear programmes, offers a way to break entrenched debates. Revisiting longstanding challenges regarding non-proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear technology through the framework of emerging technologies may be one of the few practical paths to relieve pressure on the NPT by opening space for innovation and debate across the three pillars.
On Saturday, 10 January, Finland’s withdrawal from the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention or ‘Ottawa Treaty’, will come into effect. This follows the earlier withdrawals of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Gary Toombs writes that while landmines may seem appealing as cheap, simple tools of defence, in reality, they are militarily outdated, strategically counterproductive, and devastating in humanitarian, economic, and environmental terms. States on the path to leaving the treaty should reconsider, as withdrawal would not strengthen their security but would undermine international law, erode alliances, and cause generational harm.
At the start of the new year, members of the European Leadership Network’s senior and younger-generation leaders’ networks offer their perspectives on their defining issue or policy trend to watch in 2026.