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.
Journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk joins ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El to discuss Ukraine’s grim reality after four years of war. From frontline trauma to documenting war crimes, she reveals what it means to live under attack—and why EU membership is essential for Ukraine’s long-term security and prosperity.
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.
China has long contrasted itself with the United States, and the West more generally, as offering trade and aid to developing nations, without subjecting partners to moral lectures on democracy and human rights. President Trump, on his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, announced that the US would no longer tie aid and trade to democracy and human rights, signalling a further retreat from the post-WW2 order and posing an unexpected challenge to China’s no-strings-attached global strategy. ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El explores this with Dr Ivana Karásková.
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.