The information crisis surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the events at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021 have laid bare the destabilizing effects of disinformation and propaganda on democratic societies. A growing number of ill-intentioned external and internal actors, from…

Receding ice is expanding access to surface transit routes and subsurface resources in the Arctic, which are predicted to have a seismic impact on global trade and commodities markets. Greater access to the Arctic is driving increased attention to the region – from both Arctic and non-Arctic states…

Following highly problematic August 2020 Belarusian Presidential Elections, which many observers characterised as neither free nor fair, widespread protests swept through Belarus. That the elections were illegitimate was hardly surprising. President Alexander Lukashenko has long maintained his grip…

NATO has continuously expanded cooperation with countries that lie outside the geographical scope of the Alliance. Through a series of programmes and initiatives, NATO engages bilaterally with Partner nations which are not part of its regional partnership frameworks but share the Alliance’s values…

Over the past two decades, the United States, Russia, and China’s have developed diverging perceptions of the international security environment, perceptions that have inadvertently motivated the successive abrogation of multiple arms control agreements. In February 2021, the final nuclear arms…

Beijing is investing in modern armed forces capable of defending China’s increasingly global interests. The modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is accelerating under the watch of Xi Jinping. Three military goals structure Xi’s vision for the PLA – mechanisation, informationisation,…

For Allied societies, the COVID-19 pandemic has painfully demonstrated the importance of strengthening their preparedness and capacity to respond to crises. Faced with an increasingly complex security environment and the multiplication of military and non-military threats affecting all of our…

Relations between Russia and West are currently at a new post-Soviet low and the prospects of a new reset of relations are bleak at best. While NATO’s prudent dual track approach to Russia is likely to be reaffirmed in the new Strategic Concept, should the Allies agree to draft one. However, it is…

Space technologies and space-based data and services are crucially important for the global economic and financial systems, communication, scientific progress, earth observation and natural disaster management, to name but a few. Not surprisingly, space has become a key security issue. In…

The longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the global economy are not yet fully apparent. National responses to the virus have differed as have the economic consequences. Public responses in many countries have reflected lessons learned from the global financial crisis in 2009. This…

The Mediterranean Sea has three strategic entry points, providing access to the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea which leads to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the Black Sea which leads to the Russian world. Thus, the Mediterranean connects all the world’s major political, economic and energy hubs.…

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exposed global vulnerabilities to biological threats and refocused attention on the possibility of deliberate biological attacks. This draft report discusses the opportunities offered by biotechnology and other Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs), as well…

The 2011-2012 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa raised high expectations for the democratisation of the region’s societies and for a greater respect of the fundamental rights of the populations. Ten years after the Arab revolutions, some progress – varying from country to country and…

Over the last two decades, Iraq has undergone civil war, occupation, a rise in sectarianism and a deep crisis of confidence in the state and its institutions. Some observers claim that Iraq itself is an artificial construct, an amalgam of ethnically and religiously varied populations too diverse to…

The COVID-19 pandemic and the global recession it has triggered have put serious pressures on Allied defence budgets. As governments enact fiscal stimulus packages to bolster aggregate demand, there is growing concern amongst strategic thinkers that defence spending could be sacrificed to cover…

This preliminary draft report discusses ways to rejuvenate the transatlantic bond and to seek fairer burden sharing in the context of the NATO 2030 debate. Despite the pandemic and other new challenges, NATO continues to demonstrate its unique ability to find consensus among its 30 Allies and to…

The Gulf, like other parts of the Middle East, is both a source of friction and cooperation between Europe and the United States. This reflects both convergent and divergent interests in the region, but it is also emblematic of more enduring changes underway in the international system as a whole,…