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.
Thirty years ago today, the International Court of Justice drew a direct line between nuclear threats and the potential use of nuclear weapons. Yet as nuclear rhetoric returns to the centre of international politics, ELN Policy Fellow Jana Baldus argues the Court’s landmark advisory opinion remains an essential legal guide, and a call to action.
European security architecture is at a crossroads as NATO and the EU search for new roles amid growing uncertainty over the future of transatlantic security. With debate over a more European NATO and a European nuclear umbrella gathering pace, Tarja Cronberg argues that the Ankara summit will test whether allies can move beyond technical debates about defence spending and burden-sharing to articulate a collective vision for Europe’s future security order.
With the United States reducing its strategic role in Europe, NATO is entering a new era of European leadership. ELN Executive Director Robert Ondrejcsák argues that Europe’s priority should be strengthening alliance capabilities rather than creating parallel structures, while examining how rising defence spending, shifting military power within the continent, and new security partnerships will shape NATO’s long-term “Europeanisation”.
NATO’s ongoing adaptation process and unilateral US decisions have created the foundations for a larger European role in transatlantic security, writes ELN Programme Lead Alexander Graef. Whether Europeans can sustain that role politically remains uncertain. The value of the alliance’s upcoming summit may therefore ultimately lie in whether it helps Europeans begin addressing the political implications of a military transformation that is already underway.
Ahead of the July NATO Summit in Ankara, Ahmet Üzümcü, former Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO, reflects on the alliance’s transformation from 16 to 32 members and the challenges shaping its future. From burden-sharing and European defence to nuclear deterrence, Ukraine, China, and transatlantic tensions, he argues that NATO’s continued success will depend on unity, credible deterrence, and meaningful political consultation among allies.