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.
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.
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.
As leaders gather in Washington for a three day summit to mark NATO’s 75th anniversary, ELN Senior Associate Fellows Nicholas Williams and Simon Lunn analyse the re-emergence of collective defence as a priority within the alliance, and what it means for national governments. The paper argues that NATO’s regional plans should be the subject of parliamentary scrutiny by individual national parliaments to ensure that national commitments to NATO are consistent with the resources and political aims of their respective countries.
As the security situation in Kosovo deteriorates significantly, the ELN’s Senior Associate Fellow Nick Williams writes that although this latest violence is local in origin, it has deeper roots and much wider implications.
Turkey’s resistance to Swedish and Finnish NATO membership is an outward sign of a more profound shift in Turkey’s geo-strategic position, writes Nick Williams. Fast becoming a “semi-detached ally”, NATO members are hoping that Turkey will return to a more moderate stance after the country’s May elections. If not, the consequences could be calamitous.