Around the political NATO Summit in the Hague last week, with its limited ambition to make Donald Trump happy again, a less visible and much more productive summit occurred, writes ELN Senior Network Member Nicholas Dungan. Concentrating on what Europe needs to do to increase European deterrence, efficiency, and resilience, it produced sound thinking and actionable proposals.
The threat to global non-proliferation norms resulting from Israel’s attack on Iran is putting Europe’s commitment to multilateralism and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to a real test. ELN Policy & Research Director Oliver Meier writes that those countries still believing in multilateralism can bring their political, economic, and military clout to protect and strengthen the global non-proliferation regime. They must come down from the fence from which they have been observing the conflict and engage on the side of diplomacy and international law.
This week, Finland looks set to vote a final time on withdrawing from the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines, and Poland may soon follow. Mary Wareham and Laura Lodenius write that this is a catastrophic step backwards for the protection of civilians, and these states should reconsider. Withdrawing from long-standing legal and humanitarian norms threatens to erode fundamental tenets of international humanitarian and human rights law and will only increase the likelihood of harming civilians.
On Thursday night, Israel launched massive strikes on Iran, targeting its nuclear programme and military leaders. This came two days before the US and Iran were supposed to resume direct talks on finding a diplomatic agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear programme. Jane Kinninmont writes that while the short-term repercussions are highly uncertain, there may be more certainty about the long-term ones: this is hugely undermining to nuclear diplomacy and non-proliferation in general.
Following the release of the UK’s Strategic Defence Review, we asked members to reflect on if its recommendations strengthen security and its implications for multilateral nuclear disarmament.
At last year’s Vilnius Summit, NATO pledged to develop a strategic approach to Russia. But with President Trump engaging Moscow directly and ending the “no business as usual” stance, consensus by the June summit in The Hague is unlikely. ELN Senior Associate Fellow and former UK Ambassador to NATO, Sir Adam Thomson, and Former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Operations, Stephen Evans, argue that in light of this, NATO should pursue a strategic shift—an internal deal towards a “managed co-existence” with Russia. This could align with Trump’s goals while preserving deterrence, sustaining European support for Ukraine, and keeping the U.S. committed to NATO.
NATO’s upcoming Summit in The Hague comes at a key point in the Alliance’s history; Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine, American impatience with European underspending on defence, and European fears of American withdrawal from collective defence all represent major threats. Former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Operations, Stephen Evans, and ELN Senior Associate Fellow former UK Ambassador to NATO, Sir Adam Thomson, argue that NATO’s history demonstrates it is capable of combining strength and flexibility in times of crisis. They argue for a ‘back to basics’ approach to ease internal tensions, strengthen partnerships and move towards a state of ‘managed co-existence’ with Russia.
As the UK and the EU declare a “new strategic partnership” to boost trade and security ahead of a UK-EU summit at the end of May, ELN Executive Director Robert Ondrejcsák outlines nine steps for how Europe can rejuvenate itself and become an active architect of its own security.
Artificial intelligence, much like nuclear technologies, has the capacity to transform our world for the better, offering breakthroughs in several fields whilst simultaneously posing catastrophic risks. Nuclear policy experts, skilled in managing existential threats, are well-suited to guide AI governance. ELN Network and Communications Manager Andrew Jones argues that urgent, coordinated international action and further collaboration between experts in the nuclear and AI fields is needed before AI outpaces our ability to control it.