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What did not happen at the G7 Summit in Canada (and why it matters)

Atlantic Council experts — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:22:13 +0000

What didn’t happen sometimes matters more than what did. On Tuesday afternoon, the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Alberta, Canada, concluded, but US President Donald Trump had left the day before, jetting back to Washington as the war between Israel and Iran intensified. Trump’s attendance for the full two-day summit was not the only thing that didn’t go as planned—several expected meetings and outcomes were canceled as well. Below, Atlantic Council experts examine four things that did not happen and what each nonevent reveals about the relevant issue.

1. The G7 did not release a joint communiqué

The absence of a joint communiqué at this week’s G7 summit starkly illustrates the deepening policy divisions among leaders of the world’s most powerful economies. While policymakers debate what the G7 can accomplish amid growing US-European tensions, a more fundamental question has emerged: Is the G7 itself equipped to address today’s complex geopolitical landscape?

The summit exposed significant rifts between G7 members and the United States on critical international issues. Trump’s assertion that ejecting Russia from the former Group of Eight (G8) was a strategic mistake amplified tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine. While the G7 did endorse a statement calling for “de-escalation of hostilities, including a ceasefire in Gaza,” watered down statements like this underscore the challenges in achieving consensus. These parallel conflicts reveal not only internal G7 divisions but also the growing disconnect between G7 positions and broader global sentiment, especially when it comes to Israel and Gaza.

The lead-up to the Kananaskis summit highlighted another critical question: Can the G7 remain relevant while excluding major global players? Pressure from G7 leaders ultimately compelled Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to extend an invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite ongoing diplomatic tensions over last year’s killing of a Khalistani separatist in British Columbia. This last-minute inclusion underscores an emerging reality—as one of the world’s largest economies, a crucial node in global supply chains, and a key player in Indo-Pacific security, India’s absence from major G7 discussions would render many outcomes meaningless.

Perhaps most troubling is the weakening of the shared democratic values that supposedly bind the G7 together. The transatlantic relationship faces unprecedented strain as the Republican Party, under the leadership of Trump and Vice President JD Vance, increasingly views liberal European societies through a harsh cultural lens. While the United States frames China as the primary geopolitical challenge of its time, today’s Republican Party often sees European societies as equally divergent from American values and interests. This ideological drift threatens the very foundation upon which the G7 was built.

These developments raise existential questions about the G7’s future relevance. A forum designed for the world’s democratic economic powerhouses now struggles to produce basic agreements, while excluding nations essential to global stability and prosperity. Today, the G7 risks becoming an increasingly irrelevant talking shop, much like the United Nations Security Council, unable to address many of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century.

—Rachel Rizzo is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

***

Trouble was brewing even before Trump’s early departure from the leaders’ summit on Monday evening and the absence of a communiqué on Tuesday. Trump’s trade policy had already effectively resulted in a G6+1—a coalesced European, Canadian, and Japanese front against the United States. But the fracture in the G7 has only become more evident this week. At the time of its formation fifty years ago, the group was created as a channel for economic coordination between the world’s largest economies. In recent years, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia had energized the G7, which had functioned as the hub for sanctions coordination and strategizing on supporting Ukraine. This energizing, and in some ways defining, achievement of the G7 in the past decade was put into question by Trump’s assertion on Monday that Russia should be brought back into the G8 fold, laying bare the misalignment between him and the other leaders.

There are issues that could have possibly aligned G7 leaders, such as responding to Chinese economic influence, including Beijing’s manufacturing overcapacity. But what ultimately binds the group and makes it different from the Group of Twenty (G20) and the United Nations Security Council is broad agreement on democratic values, free and open markets, and a belief in working together with allies. A fracturing G7 puts these foundational tenets under scrutiny. Trump’s early departure also snubbed partners beyond the G7; India and Mexico were looking forward to their respective bilateral meetings that could have furthered trade negotiations.

It’s clear that on its fiftieth anniversary, the G7 is in the middle of a geopolitical crisis, as the Israel-Iran conflict plays out, and an existential crisis, exacerbated by the United States’ strained relationship with the rest of the group. What lies ahead as France will take on the presidency in 2026, and whether the G6+1 break will continue, depends on how much value Washington sees in collaborating with its closest allies on economic issues.

—Ananya Kumar is the deputy director for future of money at the GeoEconomics Center.

2. Trump did not meet with Ukraine’s president

Trump did himself no favors at the G7 Summit toward his goal of achieving a durable peace in Ukraine. Trump has set out a tough approach to achieve that peace. He has asked for serious concessions from both Ukraine and Russia and said that he would exert pressure on the side(s) blocking progress. Since then, Ukraine has accepted every proposal Trump has offered since mid-March, and Russia has rejected them all except for one that it violated immediately. It is clear which side is obstructionist.

Trump had an excellent chance to use the G7 Summit to put needed pressure on the Kremlin. The G7 was poised to lower the price cap for a barrel of Russian oil from sixty dollars to forty-five dollars, which would put pressure on the Russian oil revenues enabling its aggression in Ukraine. But the United States vetoed the proposal last week—Trump’s first gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin at this G7 Summit.

The second gift came after his arrival in Canada. The US president repeated his criticism of the G7 for kicking Russia out of the group because of its conquest and “annexation” of Crimea in 2014. (Trump had done the same in his first term.) Since Putin is blocking his peace efforts, why would Trump provide this offering to the Russian dictator at this time? It is also true that by departing the summit early to deal with the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, Trump missed a planned side meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. No harm, no foul there, but achieving a real peace in Ukraine will remain a distant wish if the White House continues to treat the aggressor to bouquets.

—John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

3. Trump did not meet with Mexico’s president

After much anticipation, the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum did not take place due to the US president’s early departure. Perhaps unexpectedly, the leaders have had an amicable and constructive relationship so far, with mutual praise often being shared between the two and at least seven phone calls taking place since Trump’s election in 2024.

The meeting in Kananaskis, however, would have offered neutral ground for both leaders to further discuss the actions Sheinbaum has taken to address US security concerns while also addressing the thornier aspects of the bilateral relationship. This includes Mexico’s refusal to accept the involvement of US troops in its strategy against the illegal drug trade and cartels. It also includes Mexico’s concern about a proposed 3.5 percent tax on remittances currently moving through the US Senate. (Remittances to Mexico represent roughly 3.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.)

A three amigos-style meeting of Trump, Sheinbaum, and Carney was off the table even before the summit. But the presence of all three newly minted North American leaders and their confirmed bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the G7 Summit had nonetheless raised hopes across the region that a tangible agenda to discuss next steps for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) would be set. Now, just over a year before the sunset clause is activated in July 2026, the private sector across all three countries will be left craving certainty about the future of the trade deal, especially against the current backdrop of continuously changing trade conditions and recently doubled steel and aluminum tariffs.

So what comes next? US-Mexico communication lines remain open. Mexico has an ally in Christopher Landau, a US deputy secretary of state and a former US ambassador to Mexico who met with Sheinbaum last week. The United States should now continue to signal its willingness to engage with Mexico to find solutions to shared challenges by setting a date for Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announced visit and pave the way for a Trump–Sheinbaum tête-à-tête.

—Valeria Villarreal is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

4. No momentum was generated going into the NATO Summit

The G7 presents two cautionary tales for next week’s NATO Summit in The Hague. First, if Zelenskyy’s presence at the G7 contributed to Trump’s early departure, then this would serve as a reminder for NATO allies to tread lightly on signaling too much support for Ukraine in The Hague at the risk of alienating the US administration. Second, Trump’s comments in Canada suggesting that Russia should rejoin the G8 are also a warning to NATO. While allied leaders were already unlikely to raise costs on Russia at the summit for its ongoing war in Ukraine, Trump’s comments highlight that even tough language on Russia in the expected summit communiqué could exacerbate tensions while Trump is in The Hague.

Ignoring the threats Russia poses to the Alliance and the importance of maintaining support for Ukraine comes with different (and I would argue more problematic) risks. But if NATO’s goal in The Hague is to project Alliance unity and avoid a dust-up with Trump, then the Alliance should stay focused on securing a new defense spending pledge and go home. All the hard work, for better or for worse, will fall after the summit.

—Torrey Taussig is the director of and a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Previously, she was a director for European affairs on the National Security Council.

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Putin’s Kyiv blitz sends message to G7 leaders: Russia does not want peace

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:52:00 +0000

As G7 leaders attended a summit in Canada on Monday, Russia unleashed one of the largest bombardments of the Ukrainian capital since the start of Moscow’s invasion more than three years ago. The overnight Russian attack on Kyiv involved hundreds of drones and missiles targeting residential districts across the city. At least fifteen Ukrainian civilians were killed with many more injured.

While this latest Kyiv blitz was by no means unprecedented in a war that has been marked by frequent Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population, the timing is unlikely to have been coincidental. Like a mafia boss ordering elaborate killings to send coded messages, Putin has repeatedly scheduled major bombardments of Ukraine to coincide with international summits and gatherings of Western leaders. For example, Russia bombed Kyiv, Odesa, and other Ukrainian cities on the eve of NATO’s 2023 summit, and conducted a targeted missile strike on Ukraine’s biggest children’s hospital as NATO leaders prepared to meet in Washington DC last summer.

Bombing raids have also taken place during high-profile visits of international dignitaries. In spring 2022, Russia launched an airstrike on Kyiv while UN Secretary General António Guterres was in the Ukrainian capital. At the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack was a deliberate attempt by the Kremlin to “humiliate” the United Nations. Two years later, Russia subjected Ukrainian Black Sea port Odesa to intense bombardment as Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the city.

The massive bombardment of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities during this week’s G7 summit is the latest example of Putin’s penchant for sending messages with missiles. On this occasion his message could hardly have been clearer: Russia does not want peace. On the contrary, Moscow feels increasingly emboldened by growing signs of Western weakness and is more confident than ever of securing victory in Ukraine.

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Russia’s rejection of US-led peace efforts is equally evident in the diplomatic arena. While Ukraine agreed to US President Donald Trump’s call for an unconditional ceasefire more than three months ago, Russia still refuses to follow suit. Instead, the Kremlin has engaged in obvious stalling tactics while creating a series of obstacles aimed at derailing any meaningful progress toward peace. At one point, Putin even claimed the Ukrainian authorities lacked the legitimacy to negotiate a settlement and suggested the country be placed under temporary UN administration.

The recent resumption of bilateral talks between Moscow and Kyiv has provided further confirmation of Russia’s commitment to continuing the war. Putin personally initiated these talks but then chose not to attend and sent a low-level delegation instead. In the two meetings that have since taken place, Russian officials have presented a list of ceasefire conditions that read like a call for Kyiv’s complete capitulation.

The Kremlin’s demands include Ukraine’s withdrawal from four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that the Russian army has so far been unable to fully occupy. This would mean handing over dozens and towns and cities while condemning millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of indefinite Russian occupation.

Moscow also wants to ban Ukraine from any international alliances or bilateral security partnerships, while imposing strict limits on the size of the Ukrainian army and the categories of weapons the country is allowed to possess. In recent days, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko has underlined Moscow’s insistence on Ukraine’s total disarmament by calling on the country to destroy all Western weaponry provided since 2022.

Putin’s punitive peace terms are not limited to sweeping territorial concessions and harsh military restrictions. The Kremlin also expects Ukraine to grant the Russian language official status, reinstate the Russian Orthodox Church’s legal privileges, rewrite Ukrainian history in line with Russian imperial propaganda, and ban any Ukrainian political parties that Moscow deems to be “nationalist.”

The Kremlin’s negotiating position envisions a postwar Ukraine that is partitioned, disarmed, internationally isolated, and heavily russified. If imposed, these terms would allow Russia to reestablish its dominance over Ukraine and would deal a fatal blow to Ukrainian statehood. In other words, Putin wants a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

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Donald Trump’s talk of peace through strength succeeded in generating considerable optimism during the early months of 2025, but it is now time to acknowledge that this was largely based on wishful thinking. Since Trump returned to the White House, the Russians have significantly escalated their air war against Ukraine’s civilian population. On the battlefield, Putin’s troops are now engaged in the early stages of what promises to be a major summer offensive. Meanwhile, Kremlin officials continue make maximalist demands at the negotiating table that no Ukrainian government could accept. These are not the actions of a country seeking a pathway to peace.

In both words and deeds, Putin is sending unambiguous signals that he has no interest whatsoever in ending his invasion and remains determined to achieve the complete subjugation of Ukraine. This uncompromising stance will not change unless Western leaders can convince Putin that the most likely alternative to a negotiated peace is not an historic Russian triumph but a disastrous Russian defeat.

The steps needed to bring about this change and create the conditions to end the war are no secret. Sanctions measures against Russia must be tightened and expanded to starve the Kremlin war machine of funding and weaken the domestic foundations of Putin’s regime. Countries that currently help Moscow bypass international sanctions must be targeted with far greater vigor. In parallel, Western military aid to Ukraine must be dramatically increased, with an emphasis on providing long-range weapons and financing Ukraine’s rapidly growing domestic defense industry.

All this will require a degree of political will that is currently lacking. It would also be expensive. Indeed, during this week’s G7 summit, Trump balked at the idea of imposing new sanctions, saying they would “cost us a lot of money.” This is dangerously shortsighted. Trump and other G7 leaders need to urgently recognize that if Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, the cost of stopping him will skyrocket.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. ET Strengthening Transatlantic Alliances Through Business Cooperation: Next Steps?

Strahinja Matejić, Associate Director, Eurasia Group

Andrej Poglajen, Member of Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia

Amb. Philip Reeker, Partner, Europe Practice, Albright Stonebridge – DGA Group

Moderator: Ms. Lisa Homel, Associate Director, Europe Center, Atlantic Council

Session II

11:15 a.m. – 11:25 a.m. ET Southeast Europe – US: Enhancing Transatlantic Cooperation

Keynote remarks by:

Vladimir Lučić, Chief Executive Officer, Telekom Serbia

Session III

11:25 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ET Energy Diversification: Obstacles and Opportunities

Amb. John Craig, Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Leadership Network; Senior Partner, Manaar Energy Associates

Fred Hutchison, Chief Executive Officer, LNG Allies

Laura Lochman, Acting Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Energy Resources, US Department of State

Moderator: Olga Khakova, Deputy Director, European Energy Security, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council

Session IV

12:45 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. ET Montenegro: At the doorsteps of the EU membership

Keynote remarks by:

Aleksa Bečić, Deputy Prime Minister of Montenegro

FULL TRANSCRIPT IN ENGLISH

It is my honor and privilege to address you on behalf of the Government of Montenegro, a country rich in a history of resistance, statehood, and pride, and a people who have never forgotten their identity, no matter how much time has passed or how many borders have changed.

Montenegro and the United States have been bound by over a century of friendship. As early as 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the strength, dignity, and freedom-loving spirit of our nation. Today, as allies within NATO and partners in the fight against organized crime and the preservation of international security, we reaffirm that this partnership has both purpose and a future.

On this day, May 21, as we celebrate nineteen years since the restoration of our independence, Montenegro stands at a historic turning point. Our strategic orientation is clear: by 2028, Montenegro aims to become the 28th member of the European Uniop. We are proudly advancing toward this goal under the mandate of this Government. The facts speak for themselves: Montenegro is the only EU candidate country that has opened all negotiation chapters, closed six chapters, and received a report on meeting the interim benchmarks in the key Chapters 23 and 24, which focus on the rule of law and security. As one of the few candidates fully aligning its foreign and security policy with that of the EU, Montenegro holds a leading position, undeniably the most advanced candidate and the next in line to join the European Union.

The foundation of this path is a resolute fight against organized crime and corruption. As Deputy Prime Minister for Security and Coordinator of the Intelligence-Security Sector, I am particularly proud of this effort.

The recognition of these efforts is evidenced by the “Champion of the Fight Against Corruption” award, bestowed by the U.S. State Department in late 2023 to Montenegro’s Chief Special Prosecutor.

For the first time in Montenegro’s history, we are conducting a form of vetting within the Police Administration, thoroughly examining the integrity, assets, contacts, and lifestyles of every police officer.

Out of 3,500 officers, approximately 100 have been suspended in recent months alone. Hundreds of additional security checks, procedures, operational analyses, and audits are underway, all with a single goal: to ensure that the police badge is worn only by those who carry it with honor.

No fight is serious unless it begins within one’s own system. We have had the courage to start there. For the first time in modern Montenegrin history, the law applies even to those who, until recently, interpreted it at their own discretion.

The excellent cooperation and trust between the security sector, competent prosecutors, and our international partners-where we have received significant support from our American friends-have led to historic results in the fight against crime. Over 2,000 prosecutions of organized crime group members and persons of operational interest, the arrest and prosecution of leaders and high-ranking members of drug cartels, a twelvefold increase in results in combating economic crime, historic seizures and returns of weapons and ammunition, and hundreds of arrested, prosecuted, or suspended police officers all testify to our determination to rid the state of crime and corruption.

Today, Montenegro is becoming a country where the law has both strength and authority. A country where the question is not “who are you?” but “what have you done?” A country where it is clear that the law is the boss, not the head of a clan.

Never again will organized crime stand above the state, above the law, or above the citizens. Today, Montenegro is becoming a country of justice and fairness. A country where verdicts have been delivered or indictments confirmed against two presidents of the highest judicial institutions, two directors of the Police Administration, the director of the National Security Agency, the chief and special state prosecutors, the director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, and numerous other officials and officers.

Montenegro is becoming a country with no untouchables. A state firmly committed to peace and international stability. We confirm this commitment through concrete contributions within NATO, the modernization of our defense system, and participation in missions and battle groups. This contribution is further strengthened by a strategic investment: the construction of two patrol vessels in France, which will joir:i the Navy of the Armed Forces of Montenegro. These vessels are not merely a technical upgrade for our country; they symbolize our role as a reliable guardian of Adriatic security, in the interest of the entire Alliance.

For only a state free from crime, a state with strong institutions, a state where the rule of law prevails over fear, can be a strong international partner. Montenegro aspires to be that state. And we believe that, with the support of the United States, we can achieve this.

On behalf of all the citizens of Montenegro, I deeply thank you for that support. I am confident that everything we achieve together will benefit not only our peoples but also the future we jointly safeguard.

Long live the friendship between Montenegro and the United States!

Session V

2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET Empowering entrepreneurs: Driving integration convergence and innovation in Southeast Europe

Eric Hontz, Director, Center for Accountable Investment, CIPE

Bogdan Gecić, Founder and Partner, Gecić Law & Associates

Ilva Tare, Resident Senior Fellow, Europe Center, Atlantic Council

Moderator: Amb. John B. Craig, Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Leadership Network

In Partnership With

Sasha Toperich
Executive Vice President
Transatlantic Leadership Network

Russia and Ukraine are locked in an economic war of attrition

Anders Åslund — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 19:29:50 +0000

As the Russian army continues to wage a brutal war of attrition in Ukraine, the two nations are also locked in an economic contest that could play a key role in determining the outcome of Europe’s largest invasion since World War II.

A little noticed fact is that the Ukrainian economy is actually doing relatively well in the context of the current war. The Russian onslaught in 2022 reduced Ukraine’s GDP by 29 percent, but in 2023 it recovered by an impressive 5.5 percent. Last year, Ukrainian GDP rose by a further 3 percent, though growth is likely to slow to 1.5 percent this year.

Any visitor to Ukraine can take out cash from an ATM or pay in shops using an international credit card. Countries embroiled in major wars typically experience price controls, shortages of goods, and rationing, but Ukraine has none of these. Instead, stores are fully stocked and restaurants are crowded. Everything works as usual.

How has this been possible? The main answer is that Ukraine’s state institutions are far stronger than anybody anticipated. This is particularly true of the ministry of finance, the National Bank of Ukraine, and the state fiscal service. After 2022, Ukraine’s state revenues have risen sharply.

In parallel, wartime Ukraine has continued to make progress in combating corruption. When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine first began in 2014, Ukraine was ranked 142 of 180 countries in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index. In the most recent edition, Ukraine had climbed to the 105 position.

Rising Ukrainian patriotism has helped fuel this progress in the fight against corruption. EU accession demands and IMF conditions have been equally important. Ukraine has gone through eight quarterly reviews of its four-year IMF program. It has done so on time and with flying colors. The same has been true of each EU assessment.

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Looking ahead, three critical factors are necessary for wartime Ukraine’s future economic progress. First of all, Ukraine needs about $42 billion a year in external budget financing, or just over 20 percent of annual GDP, to finance its budget deficit. The country did not receive sufficient financing in 2022 because EU partners failed to deliver promised sums. This drove up Ukraine’s inflation rate to 27 percent at the end of 2022. The Ukrainian budget was fully financed in 2023 and 2024, driving down inflation to 5 percent. The budget will be fully financed this year.

The second factor is maritime trade via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Shipping from Odesa and neighboring Ukrainian ports to global markets has been almost unimpeded since September 2023 after Ukraine took out much of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The vast majority of Ukraine’s exports are commodities such as agricultural goods, steel, and iron ore, which are only profitable with cheap naval transportation, so keeping sea lanes open is vital.

The third crucial factor for wartime Ukraine’s economic prospects is a steady supply of electricity. Russian bombing of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure disrupted the power supply significantly in 2024, which was one of the main reasons for the country’s deteriorating economic performance.

Ukraine’s economic position looks set to worsen this year. In the first four months of 2025, economic growth was only 1.1 percent, while inflation had risen to 15.9 percent by May. The main cause of rising inflation is a shortage of labor. The national bank will presumably need to hike its current interest rate of 15.5 percent, which will further depress growth. After three years of war, Ukraine’s economy is showing increasing signs of exhaustion. The country has entered stagflation, which is to be expected.

Eurasia Center events

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

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Russia’s current economic situation is surprisingly similar to Ukraine’s, although almost all trade between Russia and Ukraine has ceased. After two years of around 4 percent economic growth in 2023 and 2024, Russia is expecting growth of merely 1.5 percent this year, while official inflation is 10 percent. Since October 2024, the Central Bank of Russia has maintained an interest rate of 21 percent while complaining about stagflation.

The Russian and Ukrainian economies are both suffering from their extreme focus on the military sector. Including Western support, Ukraine’s military expenditure amounts to about $100 billion a year, which is no less than 50 percent of Ukraine’s GDP, with 30 percent coming from the Ukrainian budget in 2024. Meanwhile, Russia’s 2025 military expenditure is supposed to be $170 billion or 8 percent of GDP. Unlike the Ukrainians, the Russians complain about the scale of military spending. This makes sense. The Ukrainians are fighting an existential war, while Russia’s war is only existential for Putin.

Contrary to common perceptions, Russia does not have an overwhelming advantage over Ukraine in terms of military expenditure or supplies. Russia does spend significantly more than Ukraine, but much of this is in reality stolen by politicians, generals, and Putin’s friends. Furthermore, Western sanctions impede the Russian military’s ability to innovate. In contrast, Ukraine benefits from innovation because its economy is so much freer, with hundreds of startups thriving in areas such as drone production.

Russia is now entering a fiscal crunch. Its federal expenditures in 2024 amounted to 20 percent of GDP and are likely to stay at that level in 2025, of which 41 percent goes to military and security. However, the Kremlin has financed its budget deficit of about 2 percent of GDP with its national welfare fund, which is expected to run out by the end of the current year. As a result, Russia will likely be forced to reduce its public expenditures by one-tenth.

Low oil prices could add considerably to Russia’s mounting economic woes and force a further reduction in the country’s public expenditures. However, Israel’s attack on Iran may now help Putin to stay financially afloat by driving the price of oil higher.

Economically, this is a balanced war of attrition at present. Ukraine’s Western partners have the potential to turn the tables on Russia if they choose to do so. Ukraine has successfully built up a major innovative arms industry. What is missing is not arms but funds. The West needs to double Ukraine’s military budget from today’s annual total of $100 billion to $200 billion. They can do this without using their own funds if they agree to seize approximately $200 billion in frozen Russian assets currently held in Euroclear Bank in Belgium. This could enable Ukraine to outspend Russia and achieve victory through a combination of more firepower, greater technology, and superior morale.

Anders Åslund is the author of “Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy.”

The prevailing narrative among EU leaders, including European Council President António Costa, is that Albania and Montenegro are now leading the race to become the EU’s next member states. Both Albanian and EU officials have set 2027 as the target year to conclude the technical accession talks, paving the way for a membership vote. In May, that ambitious goal received a boost from French President Emmanuel Macron—once a skeptic of enlargement—who called it “realistic” during a visit to Tirana.

Albania is moving fast, but will face headwinds

Several factors explain why Albania and Montenegro are pulling ahead of everyone else. To begin with, both are NATO members and—unlike Russia-friendly Serbia—are fully aligned with the EU’s Common and Foreign Security Policy. Albania, in particular, is seen as a reliable pro-Western security anchor in a volatile region where ethnic Albanians dominate in neighboring Kosovo and are a politically significant bloc in NATO members North Macedonia and Montenegro. Unlike Kosovo, which remains unrecognized by five EU member states, and North Macedonia, which is blocked by Bulgaria over historical disputes, Albania faces no such bilateral hurdles to its accession path from EU members—aside from intermittent tensions with neighboring Greece over ethnic Greek property rights and maritime borders.

Yet perhaps the main driver of Albania’s recent progress has been its sweeping EU- and US-sponsored reforms in the justice sector. Over nearly a decade, Albania has overhauled its judicial institutions and established new bodies, such as the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK). While corruption remains high, the reformed institutions have shaken the culture of impunity that has plagued the country since the fall of communism. High-profile indictments—ranging from former presidents and prime ministers to powerful mayors—have started to build a credible track record in the fight against corruption and are helping to restore public trust in the rule of law. Yet SPAK’s results need to be sustained, and political commitment to the rule of law will increasingly be tested the deeper that investigations go.

Albania’s democracy also remains fragile and polarized. While the most recent parliamentary elections improved on earlier contests from an administrative standpoint, the political playing field continues to be uneven in favor of the ruling party. Corruption, the stifling effect of politics on media freedoms, the strength of organized crime, and weak administrative capacity—all persistent problems—could hinder the adoption of EU standards.

Most importantly, the geopolitical mood in European capitals could easily shift away from its current support for enlargement. While Rama has secured strong political backing from major countries such as France and Italy, it is not clear whether it will receive support from the new government in Germany, which is not striking equally enthusiastic tones. The German government’s coalition agreement ties enlargement to necessary internal EU institutional reforms, which means that the EU must first ensure it can operate effectively before allowing other countries in. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his Christian Democrats seem to favor intermediate integration models—such as having the Western Balkans join the European Economic Area, or layering the EU into concentric circles of states with varying degrees of integration.

What’s more, getting EU governments to support accession is one thing; getting the support of EU members’ parliaments to ratify accession is another. European public opinion remains wary of enlargement in several countries.

Race to the top

The prospect of Albania and Montenegro joining the EU ahead of their neighbors also raises pressing regional questions. With the rapid pace at which Albania is opening negotiation chapters, it has effectively leapfrogged over the region’s largest country, Serbia, whose accession talks have remained frozen since 2021.

For the Western Balkans, EU enlargement has functioned not only as a tool for political transformation but also for peacebuilding. The EU has long pursued a strategy of integrating the region as a group, using accession as leverage to foster regional stability, set up bilateral formats to resolve bilateral disputes—such as the Kosovo–Serbia dialogue on normalization of relations—and promote cooperation through initiatives like the Common Regional Market.

Critics may warn that Albania and Montenegro advancing alone could reinforce Serbia’s narrative of marginalization, fuel anti-EU sentiment, and undermine frameworks for regional cooperation—especially given Serbia’s pivotal role and the size of its population. But the long-standing Serbia-centric approach to enlargement—which posits that the region cannot move forward without accommodating Serbia due to its power and influence over other countries—has not worked. Rather, it has merely emboldened Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to wield even greater de facto veto power and leverage over regional countries and their EU trajectory, even as he slips deeper into authoritarianism, sustains close ties with Russia, and has helped erode support for EU accession among Serbians.

The EU—and Serbia itself—might be better served by fostering a merit-based “race to the top” that either rewards or fails Montenegro and Albania depending on how they deliver on reforms. Demonstrating that EU enlargement remains a real and attainable goal could create the kind of positive societal pressure the region has desperately needed and could incentivize other EU candidate countries to seize this historic window of opportunity by embracing an agenda of reforms.

Agon Maliqi is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. He is a political and foreign policy analyst from Pristina, Kosovo.

***

The Western Balkans stands at the nexus of many of Europe’s critical challenges. Some, if not all, of the countries of the region may soon join the European Union and shape the bloc’s ability to become a more effective geopolitical player. At the same time, longstanding disputes in the region, coupled with institutional weaknesses, will continue to pose problems and present a security vulnerability for NATO that could be exploited by Russia or China. The region is also a transit route for westward migration, a source of critical raw materials, and an important node in energy and trade routes. The BalkansForward column will explore the key strategic dynamics in the region and how they intersect with broader European and transatlantic goals.

The post Are Albania and Montenegro on the fast track to EU membership? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Great sea connections: Financing the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy transition

Karim Elgendy — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

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Author’s note

This paper draws on my professional experience working on energy and climate issues in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as many conversations with policymakers, technical experts, and civil society stakeholders from Athens to Beirut and from Istanbul to Cairo. The renewable energy revolution offers both cleaner power and a practical foundation for cooperation through shared infrastructure and capital flows. The region’s energy future is as much about finance, diplomacy, and institutional trust as it is about technology. My aim here is to explore how financial mechanisms can bridge historic divides and support a shared energy transition. My hope is that this paper contributes to reimagining the Eastern Mediterranean not as a collection of competing interests, but as an interconnected energy community bound by mutual prosperity and resilience.

Introduction
Rising tides: Meeting the Mediterranean’s surging energy needs
From pledge to power: Speeding the region’s renewable revolution
Beyond borders, beyond banks: Innovative financing for regional energy
Shared foundations: Creating a regional energy community
Shared horizon: Finance and diplomacy for a unified Eastern Mediterranean energy landscape

Introduction

The Eastern Mediterranean region stands at a critical juncture in its energy development. Positioned as a geopolitical crossroads with significant renewable energy resources and strategic importance, the region encompassing Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt has the potential to become a leader in sustainable energy while strengthening regional cooperation and economic integration.

This study examines how the Eastern Mediterranean can secure a sustainable energy future through a two-pronged approach: strategically financing next-generation grid technologies that leapfrog legacy infrastructure challenges, while simultaneously developing integrated financing mechanisms that foster cross-border cooperation. This dual strategy aligns technological innovation with regional stability and market integration needs, creating a framework for sustainable development that transcends political boundaries.

The Eastern Mediterranean’s abundant renewable energy potential, particularly in solar and wind resources, presents a transformative opportunity. The region could generate approximately 144 percent of its projected 2050 electricity demand through renewable energy sources.¹ Yet despite this potential, significant challenges persist. Aging and fragmented grid infrastructure, geopolitical tensions, and uneven regulatory frameworks hinder energy integration.

Additionally, ongoing political conflicts, geopolitical tensions, and maritime boundary threats in the region complicate the development of cross-border infrastructure, while the region remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels at a time when global climate commitments push for rapid energy transition.²

Meeting these challenges requires more than traditional approaches. This paper argues that innovative financing mechanisms can serve dual purposes: funding advanced infrastructure development while simultaneously functioning as instruments of regional cooperation. By strategically structuring financial tools that encourage cross-border collaboration, the Eastern Mediterranean can transform its energy landscape while creating economic interdependencies that help overcome historical political tensions.

The analysis unfolds in four parts. First, it examines the regional context—focusing on power demand trends, the state of grid infrastructure, and the region’s renewable energy potential. Second, it analyzes how COP28 commitments (made at the 2023 climate conference) intensify the need for rapid renewable integration and technological leapfrogging. Third, it evaluates the financing mechanisms available to fund this transition, from multilateral development banks and green bonds to Islamic finance and bilateral investment. Finally, it explores how these financing tools can support frameworks for regional collaboration, including physical infrastructure development, regulatory harmonization, energy diplomacy, and governance structures.

Rising tides: Meeting the Mediterranean’s surging energy needs

The region’s energy landscape is characterized by growing demand, aging infrastructure, and untapped renewable potential against a backdrop of complex geopolitical relationships. These interrelated factors explain why the strategies of technological leapfrogging and regional integration are necessary for sustainable energy development in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Regional power demand trajectory

Electricity demand across the Eastern Mediterranean is expected to grow substantially in the coming decades. Turkey, a pivotal economy in the region, saw its electricity consumption reach 348 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024, marking a 3.8-percent increase from the previous year.³ Projections indicate a rise to 380 TWh in 2025, 455 TWh by 2030, and 510 TWh by 2035.⁴

This growth trajectory is mirrored in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, driven by population growth, urbanization, and economic development. Meeting this demand sustainably requires a massive expansion of renewable energy capacity and modernized infrastructure to support it.

Recognizing the potential and cost competitiveness of renewable energy systems, countries in the region have established ambitious renewable energy targets. Turkey aims to double its electricity capacity by 2035, with renewable energy providing nearly 65 percent of power.⁵ Egypt has set a target of renewable energy providing 42 percent of its power by 2030 and 58 percent by 2040, while Greece plans to cover at least 60 percent of its power needs with green electricity by 2030.⁶

Untapped renewable potential

The Eastern Mediterranean possesses immense renewable energy potential that remains largely untapped, though Turkey and Greece have made progress in this area. The whole Mediterranean basin’s current renewable capacities stand at 90 gigawatts (GW) for solar photovoltaic and 82 GW for wind energy, with a potential exceeding 3 TW for the whole basin—a figure that underscores the opportunity for rapid expansion.⁷

Source: European Commission Joint Research Centre

The Eastern Mediterranean’s total renewable energy capacity in 2023 was around 90 GW, with research suggesting that the region could potentially generate 144 percent of its projected 2050 electricity demand through renewable energy sources.⁸ Egypt could produce 188 percent of its demand from solar and wind energy, with 76 GW of surplus electricity production. Syria could produce 592 percent of its total demand, while Turkey and Greece could produce 105 percent and 96 percent, respectively, of their 2050 demand.⁹

According to the author’s estimates, if the pipeline of solar, wind, and hydropower projects in Egypt is fully implemented—including projects that are announced, planned, or under construction—its renewables generation capacity would grow twelvefold, in line with those of other North African nations. If the pipeline of solar, wind, and hydropower projects in Greece is fully implemented, this would result in a sevenfold increase in renewable energy generation capacity.¹⁰ These estimates are not just an opportunity to enhance energy security and accelerate the energy transition. They are also an economic opportunity with the potential to create jobs, stimulate investment, and position the region as a global leader in the growing clean energy sector.

The rapidly growing power demands across the Eastern Mediterranean necessitate expanding renewable energy capacity while also fundamentally rethinking how electricity is transmitted and shared. Addressing this challenge requires examining the current state of interconnection infrastructure and identifying opportunities to transform the region’s fragmented grid systems into an integrated network.

The interconnection imperative

Cross-border transmission grid interconnections are of cornerstone importance in the development of power systems. Grids that depend on intermittent renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, benefit greatly from interconnections for balancing the intermittent nature of renewable sources. Because different countries have varying electricity demands throughout the day, spare capacities and shortfalls can be balanced between different grids.

The Eastern Mediterranean’s grid infrastructure presents a fragmented landscape in which cross-border electricity trade is limited. Northern countries such as Greece benefit from advanced energy grids, while southern and eastern regions lag behind. Across the whole Mediterranean, northern-shore countries have sufficient, albeit underutilized, interconnections, while southern-shore countries lack interconnection infrastructure and synchronization. Additionally, there are few north-south interconnections, with only a link from Spain to Morocco and another from Turkey to Syria.¹¹ This disparity creates both a challenge and an opportunity for leapfrogging conventional development paths.

Interconnections between Med-TSO members, including current and under-construction (continuous lines) and under-study (dotted lines) interconnections. Based on Moretti (2020).

Eastern Mediterranean countries continue to prioritize energy self-sufficiency through domestic power generation rather than regional power trading. With the exception of the Palestinian territories, which import nearly all (99.4 percent) of their electricity due to minimal local generation capacity, several countries maintain exceptionally low power import levels—around 1 percent of their total consumption—including Cyprus (0 percent), Lebanon (0.078 to 3.61 percent), Jordan (0.29 to 2 percent), and Egypt (0.29 to 0.41 percent). Similarly, with the exception of Greece and its integration into the European electricity market, power exports remain negligible throughout the region, with most countries exporting less than 1 percent of their generated electricity. This self-contained approach stems from incompatible technical systems among national grids that impede synchronous operation, difficulties in maintaining grid stability across borders, and persistent political tensions that discourage deeper energy integration.¹²

Some interconnections exist in the Eastern Mediterranean but are underutilized or nonoperational. Many of the interconnections are used purely on an emergency basis to cover unexpected or scheduled outages, or are not in operation at all. Key connections such as Turkey-Syria (400 kilovolts (kV)), Jordan-Syria (400 kV), and Lebanon-Syria (400 kV, 220 kV, and 66 kV) are currently inactive, largely due to regional conflicts and technical incompatibilities between national grids, including different frequencies and control systems.¹³

Yet some progress toward greater regional integration is under way. A “super grid” is slowly emerging across the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Master Plan 2022 outlines several Eastern Mediterranean interconnectors including: the Great Sea Interconnector between Greece, Cyprus, and Israel (1000 MW); the EuroAfrica interconnector to link Cyprus and Egypt (1000 MW), the Green Energy Interconnector (GREGY) between Greece and Egypt (3000 MW of primarily renewable power); and a number of capacity-expansion proposals such as the ones between Egypt and Jordan (1100 MW), Jordan and Syria (800 MW), Syria and Turkey (600 MW), and Jordan and the Palestinian territories (100 MW).¹⁴

These projects are designed to enhance electrical integration, facilitate renewable energy exchange, and improve security of supply. The Great Sea Interconnector, which is under construction, is expected to be operational by 2030 with a capacity of up to 2 GW, while the GREGY project is expected to be completed by 2031.¹⁵ These developments have been planned for more than a decade. An older proposal, the Mediterranean Electricity Ring, aimed to connect Mediterranean countries via a circle of interconnections to facilitate cross-border power exchange. In the Eastern Mediterranean, this included connecting Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Greece.¹⁶

Source: ENTSO-E

However, significant challenges remain. Tensions caused by maritime disputes between regional countries such as Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, the unresolved Cyprus question, and the protracted Israel-Palestinian conflict, all impede the development of cross-border infrastructure.¹⁷

In addition, the geopolitical diversity, uneven political stability, and limited political trust among Eastern Mediterranean countries dampen some national governments’ interest in exploring partial reliance on external electricity. Reasons cited often include the potential for electricity being used as a geopolitical lever, the risk of disruption caused by internal conflict, infrastructure failure, governance breakdown propagating across borders, and concerns about expanding cybersecurity vulnerabilities by exposing national grids to transboundary breaches.

Additionally, many countries maintain vertical monopolies in their electricity sectors—e.g., utilities such as Electricité du Liban (EDL) in Lebanon, Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) in Israel, and, to some extent, various companies in Jordan—which enable them to control generation, transmission, and distribution, thus limiting market competition and cross-border electricity flow.

Technical barriers are equally significant, as systems have evolved separately with different standards and technologies. Alternating-current (AC) interconnections require high degrees of technical compatibility and operational coordination, creating stability risks when disturbances in one location impact other areas of the network. These challenges are compounded by insufficient regulatory frameworks and governance structures needed to support cross-border trading.¹⁸

From pledge to power: Speeding the region’s renewable revolution

Developing renewable energy capacity and establishing physical interconnections form the backbone of regional energy integration, and these efforts need to rapidly scale up due to the urgency of the climate crisis. Global climate commitments and obligations provide a framework for measuring progress and highlight the gap between current trajectories and required outcomes.

Meeting COP28 targets

The commitment at COP28 to triple the world’s installed renewable energy generation capacity by 2030 provides a clear imperative for action in the Eastern Mediterranean. Nations collectively committed to this target as part of the global stocktake of the 2015 Paris Agreement.¹⁹ In addition, 130 nations—including Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey—also joined the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, a voluntary coalition committing to triple their renewable energy capacity and double the rate of energy-efficiency improvement.²⁰ In September 2024, nine northern Mediterranean countries (often known as the MED9) agreed to collaborate on making the region a renewable energy hub, aligning with this global target.²¹

A growing grassroots initiative known as TeraMed is seeking to mobilize Mediterranean countries to triple their renewable energy capacity and reach 1 terawatt in combined generation capacity.²²

As of 2023, Eastern Mediterranean countries had an installed renewable power capacity of 90 GW, accounting for 42 percent of their total electricity generation.²³ To meet the COP28 target, the region must reach 405 GW of capacity by 2030, requiring a steep annual growth of 45 GW. Unsurprisingly, the region is not on track. With the exceptions of Greece and Egypt, all Eastern Mediterranean countries must accelerate their efforts if they are to meet the threefold-increase target.²⁴

In my view, meeting these ambitious renewable targets requires more than simply adding generation capacity. The Eastern Mediterranean needs advanced infrastructure solutions that can both accommodate the tripling of renewable energy and overcome existing grid fragmentation. Smart grid technologies represent the critical connective tissue that will enable this rapid transition.

Smart grid innovation: The digital backbone of renewable integration

To effectively integrate the growing share of renewables and enhance grid stability, the Eastern Mediterranean must leapfrog conventional infrastructure by investing in smart grids. In addition to interconnections, smart grid technologies enable better management of intermittent renewable sources, improve reliability, and reduce losses. These technologies include battery storage, advanced metering infrastructure, dynamic line rating, and other network automation, data management, and analytics technologies for real-time monitoring and control.

Battery storage is particularly crucial for managing the intermittency of renewable energy sources, ensuring grid stability as the share of renewables increases. However, large-scale battery storage projects are still nascent in the Eastern Mediterranean—with the exception of Turkey, which set a target for battery energy storage capacity to reach 7.5 GW by 2035.²⁵

Flexibility mechanisms, including demand response and renewable hydrogen production, further enhance grid stability. Technologies such as electrolysis using solar and wind electricity for hydrogen production are gaining traction. Turkey has plans to develop 5 GW of electrolyzer capacity for green hydrogen production by 2035, and to expand capacity to a staggering 70 GW by 2053.²⁶ Similar applications are being explored in Egypt, which plans to become a transit route for renewable hydrogen.²⁷

Smart meters also help manage the grid better through demand-side management. In the Eastern Mediterranean, Greece is leading on smart meters. It plans to roll out 3.12 million units by 2026, funded by the European Investment Bank, to enhance energy efficiency and support demand response.²⁸

Deploying advanced grid technologies across borders also requires moving beyond identifying technical requirements to addressing the fundamental question of funding this transition. Additionally, this paper argues that the financing challenge is not merely about capital mobilization but also the creation of financial structures that simultaneously enable technological leapfrogging and regional cooperation.

Credit: Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash

Beyond borders, beyond banks: Innovative financing for regional energy

The transition from technical requirements to financial realities necessitates examining the substantial capital investments needed to realize the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy transformation. While technological solutions provide the roadmap, financing mechanisms will determine the pace and scale of implementation, particularly when the magnitude of required investment exceeds traditional national budgetary capacities.

Quantifying the investment challenge

The Eastern Mediterranean’s energy transition demands significant capital to expand limited renewable energy capacity, modernize aging grids, and develop cross-border interconnections.

Renewable energy projects typically cost around $1 million per megawatt of installed capacity. Their costs are already competitive, and they are the cheapest form of new generation capacity across the region. Moreover, those costs are expected to continue falling and renewables are expected to be the cheapest source of electricity in most countries—including for storage—by 2027.²⁹

However, given the sheer scale of buildup required to meet COP28 commitments, the enormity of the financing required cannot be overstated. If the region is to build 45 GW of renewable energy capacity this year, this would require approximately $45 billion just for generation capacity at current costs, excluding transmission and storage infrastructure.³⁰

Transmission infrastructure is another challenge, especially given how its cost is often borne by grid operators rather than by private developers. The Great Sea Interconnector, for example, is estimated to cost approximately €1.9 billion ($2.08 billion).³¹

By 2030, the region’s total investment needs for sustainable energy transition could well exceed $300 billion. The magnitude of investment required highlights why ordinary national financing approaches are insufficient for the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy transformation. Instead, the region needs to scale finance beyond national resources and to explore financing instruments that mobilize capital at scale and also create structures for regional cooperation, serving as both financial tools and diplomatic instruments in a region where political tensions have historically impeded collaboration.

Financing the energy transition

The Eastern Mediterranean’s sustainable energy future will require mobilizing diverse financing sources and mechanisms. A mix of public and private funding sources—ranging from multilateral lenders and climate funds to innovative partnerships and financial instruments—can bridge the investment gap and accelerate the energy transition.

In developing countries within the Eastern Mediterranean, this challenge is made more difficult by the higher cost of capital, as investors demand high-risk premiums due to country, currency, or sector uncertainty.

This section outlines key financing sources and provides case studies and examples of how each source is being applied (or could be applied) in the Eastern Mediterranean. Each financing mechanism not only brings capital but can also serve as a catalyst for regional cooperation and innovation in energy infrastructure.

1. Multilateral development banks

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) provide a foundational source of capital and risk mitigation for large-scale energy projects in the region. Institutions such as the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the World Bank offer concessional loans, grants, guarantees, and technical assistance to support renewable energy and grid modernization. For example, the EBRD has invested more than €3.8 billion in renewable energy across emerging markets, supporting 119 projects totaling more than 6 GW of capacity.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, MDB financing often underpins ambitious projects. For example, the EBRD and partners launched a $500-million framework that helped finance sixteen solar plants (750 MW) in Egypt, including in the Benban solar park.

Another notable initiative with a renewable energy component is the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (SEMED SEFF), a joint program of the EBRD, EIB, Agence Française de Développement, and KfW, a German state-owned bank. With a €141.7-million budget, SEMED SEFF catalyzed investments in Jordan and Morocco to cut more than 150,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually and boost renewables (25 percent of its funds went to renewable energy projects).³²

MDBs not only supply affordable long-term loans; they also crowd in other investors. In Egypt’s Benban project, for instance, the EBRD, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the AIIB, and the African Development Bank (AfDB) cofinanced solar plants alongside private developers, dramatically lowering financing costs and risk.³³ By leveraging MDBs’ preferred creditor status and technical expertise, such involvement signals to markets that projects are bankable.

By providing concessional finance, convening power, and technical and policy assistance, MDBs help Eastern Mediterranean countries undertake projects that might otherwise be too costly or complex, from large wind and solar farms to regional grid interconnectors. Their financing comes with due diligence and policy guidance, encouraging reforms (such as market liberalization or improved procurement frameworks) that improve the overall investment climate. Going forward, scaling up MDB capital—including through their climate-focused funds and guarantees—will be crucial to meet the region’s renewable investment needs at the pace demanded by global climate commitments.

2. Green finance and investment

Green finance refers to capital raised for climate-friendly and sustainable projects through instruments such as green bonds, green loans, and ESG (environmental, social, governance) investments. In the Eastern Mediterranean, green bonds specifically are emerging as an important tool to tap global capital markets for renewable energy and low-carbon infrastructure. The global green bond market has expanded rapidly to more than $2.5 trillion outstanding by 2024.³⁴

Eastern Mediterranean nations have started to issue their own green bonds to fund clean energy, often with strong investor demand. Egypt was an early mover, launching a $750-million sovereign green bond in September 2020.³⁵ Cyprus followed in 2022, issuing a €1-billion green bond. In 2023, Israel and Turkey debuted their first sovereign green bonds, raising $2 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively.³⁶ Greece signaled plans to issue a sovereign green bond as well. While a national issuance expected for 2024 remains pending, the Bank of Greece issued a €500-million green bond in 2020.³⁷

Other private institutions have also issued green bonds, including banks and other businesses such as renewable energy companies. Lebanon’s Fransabank SAL issued its first green bond in 2018, valued at $60 million, with support from the IFC and EBRD. The proceeds were directed to support sustainable finance initiatives. Jordan’s Kuwait Bank followed in 2023 and, in collaboration with the IFC, issued its first green bond, valued at $50 million. The funds were allocated to renewable energy, low-carbon transport, and sustainable water and wastewater projects. Additionally, Arab Bank in Jordan issued a $250-million sustainable bond in October 2023 to support green and sustainable initiatives.³⁸

However, the market remains nascent and fragmented. Strengthening regulatory frameworks, standardizing green taxonomies, and building technical capacity among issuers and investors will be key to unlocking green capital at scale. For instance, Turkey developed its own sustainable finance framework in 2021, while IFC support enabled Egypt to develop green bond guidelines and the Amman Stock Exchange to produce sustainability reporting guidelines.³⁹ The European Union recently introduced the European Green Bond Standard, a voluntary framework to ensure transparency and combat greenwashing, which could serve as a model to harmonize practices in the region.⁴⁰

3. International climate finance

International climate finance refers to dedicated funds and initiatives aimed at supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. For Eastern Mediterranean nations (many of which are middle-income or emerging economies), these funds are an important supplement to domestic resources. Key global climate funds include the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Climate Investment Funds (CIF) such as the Clean Technology Fund, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Historically, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has underutilized these funds: MENA has received only about 6.6 percent of cumulative financing from the major global climate funds through 2023.⁴¹

Eastern Mediterranean countries are now working to improve their access to these pools of finance by developing strong project proposals and institutional capacity. Egypt has been notably successful in tapping climate funds, securing about one-third of all GCF resources allocated to MENA as of 2023. About 85 percent of Egypt’s GCF funding has been in the form of loans. Jordan has also received international climate finance, accounting for roughly 10 percent of GCF funding in MENA (with around half in loans). Meanwhile, Turkey has benefited from World Bank funding via the Türkiye Green Fund (TGF), receiving a $155-million loan for the greening of firms through equity financing, while Lebanon has benefited from GEF grants, receiving about 8 percent of GEF’s MENA allocations.⁴² These funds often work by blending with multilateral bank financing or by de-risking projects to attract private investors (through instruments like guarantees and concessional tranches).

4. Islamic finance

Islamic finance is a growing source of funding for the energy transition and is particularly relevant in the Muslim-majority countries of the Eastern Mediterranean. Islamic finance follows sharia principles, such as prohibition of interest, and typically uses profit-sharing or asset-backed structures.⁴³ Green sukuk (sharia-compliant bonds earmarked for environmental projects) have emerged as a key instrument to raise capital for renewables while tapping into Islamic investor pools. The global sukuk market has seen strong growth and greening in recent years. The first half of 2024 set a record, with $9.9 billion in green and sustainability sukuk issuances, indicating accelerating interest.⁴⁴

While most green sukuk so far have originated in Southeast Asia and the Gulf, Eastern Mediterranean nations are starting to consider them.⁴⁵ Egypt, for example, has been considering sukuk as a financing tool. It passed a Sovereign Sukuk Law in 2021 and could issue green sukuk to fund projects under its renewable energy and sustainable transport plans.⁴⁶

Importantly, major finance institutions are steering toward climate action. In 2021, Emlak Katılım issued the first green sukuk in Turkey with a total value of 51.8 million Turkish lira.⁴⁷ The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has also issued sukuk to raise funds for green projects. For example, in 2024 it issued a $2-billion benchmark sukuk earmarked partly for green development programs.⁴⁸

Beyond sukuk, Islamic finance can support renewable energy through Islamic banks and funds investing in project equity or providing sharia-compliant loans (such as profit-sharing and loss-sharing musharakah (a joint-venture structure) or lease-based Ijarah financing). Islamic finance also opens opportunities for waqf (endowment funds) or zakat (charitable contributions) to be structured for community-level clean energy access or climate resilience projects, although such models are still in experimental stages.

5. Bilateral investment

Financing and development support from one country to another plays a pivotal role in the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy landscape. Bilateral investment often comes either directly from foreign governments (through aid, export credits, or state-owned banks) or via government-backed companies and sovereign wealth funds pursuing projects abroad. In the push for renewables, several powerful bilateral actors have emerged: notably the Gulf states (such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia) and China. They view renewable energy projects not only as commercial opportunities but also as avenues to strengthen strategic ties and influence in the region.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have invested significantly in Egypt’s renewable energy projects, using investors such as ACWA Power, Masdar, and AMEA Power to fund new wind and solar capacity.⁴⁹ For example, Masdar has partnered with Egyptian firms to develop a gigantic 10-GW onshore wind farm, one of the world’s largest, which it announced on the sidelines of COP27.⁵⁰

China is increasingly becoming a major bilateral financier in Eastern Mediterranean energy. Chinese state-owned enterprises and funds have targeted renewable energy acquisitions and projects, especially in economies where financing gaps exist. In Egypt, Chinese banks and companies have supported the Benban solar complex; for example, the AIIB provided $210 million in debt financing for eleven solar plants (totaling 490 MW) in Benban’s second phase.⁵¹ Chinese firms have also supplied solar panels and construction for many Benban projects. China also has energy investments in Turkey, Lebanon, and Greece. China’s Silk Road Fund has acquired a 49-percent stake in ACWA Power’s renewable energy portfolio.⁵² These investment patterns are part of the increasing “greening” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and reflect China’s willingness to invest in lower-income Eastern Mediterranean nations, though these investments often serve dual purposes of commercial returns and strategic positioning.⁵³

The European Union (EU) and its member states also act bilaterally through programs like the EU-funded Neighbourhood Investment Platform, which gives grants to complement loans for energy projects in the Mediterranean neighborhood.⁵⁴ Europe often emphasizes grid interconnections and market integration (e.g., funding studies for a EuroAfrica interconnector between Egypt and Greece), Gulf countries favor high-profile generation projects, and China is active across the value chain from generation to transmission.

Bilateral investments bring substantial capital and can fast-track projects, but they also entail geopolitical balancing as recipient countries in the Eastern Mediterranean navigate offers from multiple suitors. When managed well, bilateral financing can complement multilateral efforts. It also can foster regional cooperation. For instance, the UAE not only invests in Arab neighbors but has discussed energy deals involving Israel (such as solar facilities in Jordan exporting power to Israel as part of a desalinated water and solar energy swap between Israel and Jordan).⁵⁵

6. Debt financing

Debt financing (i.e., borrowing funds to be repaid with interest) is one of the predominant ways to fund energy infrastructure, including renewable projects, worldwide. In the Eastern Mediterranean, debt financing takes multiple forms: loans from commercial banks or international institutions, bonds issued in capital markets, export credits or supplier credits for equipment, and concessional and blended debt.

Given that debt is cheaper than equity, developers typically seek debt to cover most of the project costs. For investors and lenders, renewable energy projects can be attractive debt opportunities because they generally generate steady cash flows once operational.

Finance for regional cooperation

A comprehensive financing strategy leveraging all of the above mechanisms is crucial for the Eastern Mediterranean to realize its energy transition ambitions. Multilateral and climate funds provide scale and patient capital, green and Islamic finance tap new investor pools, and bilateral investments bring in strategic funding.

Additionally, financing structures such as project finance, public-private partnerships, power purchase agreements, and blended finance can help reduce risk. Green investment banks can help mobilize funding for green projects, while innovative tools like fintech and results-based financing fill niche gaps.

In my view, the region’s success in meeting COP28 goals hinges less on the availability of technology and more on the ability to align financial incentives across borders.

By structuring these financing approaches with regional cooperation as their foundation, these instruments create shared financial interests across borders, incentivizing collaboration and helping overcome entrenched political obstacles. Financial mechanisms explicitly requiring cross-border participation serve as powerful diplomatic tools in addition to their capital mobilization function.

For instance, multilateral investment funds that mandate co-investment from multiple Eastern Mediterranean countries establish joint ownership stakes in critical infrastructure, creating a financial incentive to maintain peaceful relations. Similarly, blended finance structures offering preferential terms for projects with cross-border components make cooperation economically advantageous compared to purely national approaches. For example, a Mediterranean renewable energy fund requiring participation from Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus could provide a neutral financial platform in which shared economic benefits supersede maritime disputes.

The strategic design of these mechanisms must include governance frameworks that span national boundaries, with representation requirements ensuring all stakeholders have meaningful input in investment decisions. Interconnection-specific project bonds co-issued by multiple countries can create shared liability structures in which default risks are mutually borne, fostering accountability across traditional divides.

When properly implemented, these tools can transform abstract diplomatic goals into concrete economic incentives. Countries with historical tensions can begin to view their neighbors not as competitors but as essential partners in accessing capital markets and achieving energy security. Countries that once viewed energy resources as potential flashpoints for conflict can instead develop economic interdependencies that make continued cooperation the most rational choice.

Credit: Photo by Jason Mavrommatis on Unsplash

Shared foundations: Creating a regional energy community

While innovative financing mechanisms provide the tools for transformation, their successful implementation depends on creating supportive physical, institutional, and diplomatic frameworks. The mobilization of capital through green bonds, MDB funding, climate finance, and other financial instruments discussed above is necessary but insufficient on its own to achieve regional energy integration.

Having participated in several regional energy dialogues, I have observed that trust between regulators remains limited. Finance can be the tool that enables cooperation in more sensitive policy areas. Yet it must be paired with robust infrastructure development, harmonized regulatory environments, diplomatic initiatives that overcome historical tensions, and coordinated governance structures that span national boundaries. The implementation of regional energy integration requires establishing concrete structures for collaboration that can transform the Eastern Mediterranean’s abundant renewable resources into a shared, resilient energy architecture that benefits all participating nations. These efforts must include

physical infrastructure development and grid integration;
interconnected energy markets and regulatory alignment on grid codes, tariff structures, and cross-border trading;
regional cooperation and diplomatic engagement; and
regional governance frameworks.

Scaling cross-border initiatives for a connected grid

Cross-border energy cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean is advancing through several key initiatives aimed at integrating renewable energy sources and enhancing grid connectivity. There are nine interconnection projects and proposals at different stages of development across the region. If implemented fully, they can help create a more unified energy market capable of efficiently distributing energy across the Mediterranean while addressing the intermittency challenges of solar and wind.

The Great Sea Interconnection, set to link Cyprus, Greece, and Israel, is perhaps the region’s flagship project and will facilitate the trade of renewable electricity across borders. Similarly, Egypt and Greece are exploring the GREGY interconnection. Beyond the Eastern Mediterranean, Italy and Tunisia are advancing the ELMED interconnection between them, which is expected to be operational by 2027.⁵⁶ Technologies already exist to manage some of the perceived risks of interconnections. Using high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines offer greater controllability and can be isolated more easily than traditional AC interconnections. Interconnections can also be directed to non-critical loads or areas in order to reduce risk to cross-border disruptions, while robust cybersecurity standards and protocols can help protect critical infrastructure.

Harmonizing regulations for seamless market operation

Achieving a fully integrated energy market in the Eastern Mediterranean requires harmonized regulations to ensure fair access to grids, promote investment, and reduce the cost of risk capital. Countries involved in interconnection projects need to have the regulatory framework in place to allow for successful entry of foreign electricity into domestic electricity markets and successful export of their electricity to foreign markets. This is especially difficult for countries in which electricity utilities hold vertical monopolies in all sectors of the economy. Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, and Egypt have unbundled or are on the way to unbundling their electricity markets; meanwhile, Jordan, Lebanon, and, to a lesser extent, Israel have electricity utilities that hold vertical monopolies and are responsible for generating and supplying electricity to all sectors in the economy.⁵⁷

The EU’s internal energy market policies are a model for regulatory convergence, emphasizing transmission ownership unbundling between electricity generation or supply companies and transmutation ones, consumer rights, and the role of regulatory actors such as the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER).⁵⁸ The EU’s Electricity Directive 2019/944 mandates nondiscriminatory access to transmission and distribution systems, a principle that could be adapted for the Eastern Mediterranean to attract private investment.⁵⁹

However, this EU model cannot be fully replicated in the Eastern Mediterranean due to different system maturity levels. The Association of Mediterranean Energy Regulators (MEDREG), comprising twenty-seven energy regulators from twenty-two countries, recommends that regulatory frameworks must be tailored to specific subregional contexts, and that Eastern Mediterranean countries need to develop more regulatory solutions independent from those of the EU.⁶⁰

Progress in regulatory harmonization could also increase infrastructure investments significantly in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, this progress is slow due to the region’s diverse regulatory environments, with countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Egypt maintaining state-controlled energy sectors, while others like Greece and Cyprus align with EU directives to liberalize the energy market. Overcoming these disparities will require sustained dialogue, capacity building, and incentives for alignment.

Energy diplomacy: Transforming geopolitical challenges into opportunities

Geopolitical tensions are another major barrier to cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean. Political and security dynamics significantly influence energy cooperation in the region. Long-standing disputes—such as those between Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus over maritime boundaries, the Syrian civil war, the unresolved Cyprus question, the recently intensified Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Israel-Lebanon conflict—have all historically hindered regional collaboration and the development of cross-border infrastructure, particularly affecting projects like the EastMed Gas Pipeline.⁶¹ Overcoming these challenges will require financial resources as well as diplomatic engagement and innovative governance structures.

However, the shift toward renewable energy and the EU’s focus on a green energy economy present new opportunities for cooperation. Initiatives such as the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF)—established in 2019 as a platform focused on natural gas development, it includes Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories, along with France and Italy—can be both reformed to become more inclusive of all Eastern Mediterranean counties and expanded beyond natural gas to include renewable energy, power infrastructure, and advancing electricity interconnection and trading.⁶² Some energy policy experts have advocated for renaming the EMGF as the East Mediterranean Energy Forum (EMEF) to reflect this broader mandate.⁶³ Such a forum should include a regulatory platform, in which each country is represented by its national regulatory authority or electricity governing body, to jointly promote greater harmonization of regional energy markets and legislation.

Energy cooperation is increasingly recognized as a tool for regional stability and economic integration. The development of renewable energy projects and interconnectors can create shared economic interests, reducing the potential for conflict.⁶⁴ This approach transforms energy from a source of competition to a platform for collaboration, potentially easing long-standing tensions through mutual economic benefits and shared climate goals.

An increased shift toward renewable energy sources not only ensures long-term sustainability and economic benefits for the region, but also has higher potential than gas diplomacy. Unlike natural gas and other tradable commodities, renewable energy systems are an undisputed resource. Additionally, collaboration on renewable energy projects through interconnections provides synergies between partnering countries due to the benefits they provide to both grids.

Shared horizon: Finance and diplomacy for a unified Eastern Mediterranean energy landscape

The Eastern Mediterranean stands at the cusp of a transformative energy transition in which innovative financing can simultaneously advance technological leapfrogging, economic development, and regional cooperation. By strategically structuring investment mechanisms that require collaboration, the region can convert financial transactions into diplomatic bridges.

Financial innovation offers three distinct diplomatic dividends beyond its direct economic benefits.

First, joint financing creates structured engagement opportunities that maintain dialogue even during political tensions. When countries coinvest in renewable infrastructure through mechanisms such as regional green bonds or mixed-ownership projects, they establish technical and financial communication channels that persist through diplomatic fluctuations. These ongoing interactions build relationships among technical experts and financial officials that can later facilitate broader cooperation.

Second, shared financial liabilities transform political calculus by creating mutual dependencies. When neighboring countries with historical tensions become co-guarantors of infrastructure loans or joint issuers of project bonds, they develop a tangible economic interest in maintaining stable relations. The economic costs of diplomatic ruptures become quantifiable and immediately visible to stakeholders on all sides.

Third, financial innovation creates positive-sum narratives in a region often characterized by zero-sum competition. By enabling countries to collectively tap into previously inaccessible capital pools—such as global ESG funds seeking large-scale sustainable investments—regional financial mechanisms demonstrate that cooperation delivers benefits unattainable through individual action.

If the Eastern Mediterranean realizes this vision of financially driven integration, it could emerge as a global model for how innovative capital structures can overcome entrenched geopolitical challenges. The region’s abundant renewable resources, which have the potential to generate more electricity than its projected future demand, provide the natural foundation, while innovative financing creates the institutional architecture for a sustainable energy future that transcends historical divisions and creates shared prosperity across borders.

The path forward requires financial creativity, diplomatic persistence, and technical expertise—but the potential rewards extend far beyond renewable kilowatts to include a fundamental reconfiguration of regional relationships built on shared economic interests rather than historical grievances.

Acknowledgments

The Atlantic Council would like to extend special thanks to Limak Holding for its valuable support for this report.

About the author

Karim Elgendy
Executive Director,
Carboun Institute;
Associate Fellow,
Chatham House

Karim Elgendy is an expert on energy transition and climate policy in the Middle East and North Africa. His research examines the intersection of climate diplomacy, energy geopolitics, and sustainable development across the region. Elgendy investigates how countries navigate energy transitions and climate change impacts within shifting geopolitical landscapes, and analyzes how regional and global power dynamics influence climate action and policy implementation. He possesses deep expertise in energy and climate policies across the Eastern Mediterranean and Gulf Cooperation Council states, with particular focus on renewable energy, climate resilience, and diplomacy.

Elgendy has authored numerous articles and policy publications in leading journals and platforms. He has presented at over one hundred public speaking engagements and has delivered guest lectures at several prestigious universities. His expert analysis is regularly featured in broadcast, print, and digital media outlets, and he has appeared in most mainstream media outlets.

Appendix: Acronym glossary

Acronym	Full name
ACWA Power	Arabian Company for Water and Power Development
ADB	Asian Development Bank
AIIB	Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
COP	Conference of the Parties (UN Climate Conference)
EBRD	European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
EDL	Electricité du Liban
EIB	European Investment Bank
EMEF	East Mediterranean Energy Forum (proposed)
EMGF	East Mediterranean Gas Forum
ENTSO-E	European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity
ESG	Environmental, social, and governance
GEF	Global Environment Facility
GREGY	Greece-Egypt Interconnector
GCF	Green Climate Fund
IEC	Israel Electric Corporation
IsDB	Islamic Development Bank
MDBs	Multilateral development banks
MEDREG	Association of Mediterranean Energy Regulators
PV	Photovoltaic
RCC	Regional Coordination Committee
RIG	Regional Implementation Group
RSG	Regional Stakeholder Group
SEMED SEFF	Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Sustainable Energy Financing Facility
TSO	Transmission System Operator
UAE	United Arab Emirates

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1 Pantelis Kiriakidis, et al., “Projected Wind and Solar Energy Potential in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East in 2050,” Science of the Total Environment 927 (2024), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724022630.

2 Moritz Rau, Günter Seufert, and Kirsten Westphal, “The Eastern Mediterranean as a Focus for the EU’s Energy Transition,” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2022, https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2022C08/.

3 “Electricity,” Republic of Türkiye, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, last updated April 16, 2025, https://enerji.gov.tr/infobank-energy-electricity.

4 Ibid.

5 Karim Elgendy, “Charting Energy Transitions in the Eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Peninsula,” Atlantic Council, December 8, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/charting-energy-transitions-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-and-arabian-peninsula/.

6 “Egypt Reaffirms 42% Renewable Energy Goal by 2030, Urges International Help,” Reuters, November 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/egypt-reaffirms-42-renewable-energy-goal-2030-urges-international-help-2024-11-12/; “Clean Energy for EU Islands: Greece,” European Commission, last visited March 25, 2025,https://clean-energy-islands.ec.europa.eu/countries/greece.

7 “Setting the Scene for an Interconnected, Renewable Mediterranean Energy System,” ECCO, 2023, https://eccoclimate.org/setting-the-scene-for-an-interconnected-renewable-mediterranean-energy-system/.

8 “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2024,” International Renewable Energy Agency, March 2024, https://www.irena.org/Publications/2024/Mar/Renewable-capacity-statistics-2024; Kiriakidis, et al., “Projected Wind and Solar Energy Potential.”

9 Kiriakidis, et al., “Projected Wind and Solar Energy Potential.”

10 Authors’s calculations based on Global Energy Monitor datasets, last visited March 25, 2025, https://globalenergymonitor.org.

11 Antonio Moretti, et al., “Grid Integration as a Strategy of Med-TSO in the Mediterranean Area in the Framework of Climate Change and Energy Transition,” Energies 13, 20 (2020), https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5307.

12 Ramzi El Dobeissy and Mayssa Otayek, “The Potential of Electricity Interconnections,” American University of Beirut, January 2023, https://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/Documents/publications/research_reports/2022-2023/Electricity-Interconnections-Eastern-Mediterranean.PDF.

13 Ibid.

14 “Masterplan of Mediterranean Interconnections 2022,” Mediterranean Transmission System Operators, May 31, 2023, https://med-tso.org/en/masterplan-of-mediterranean-interconnections-2022/; El Dobeissy and Otayek, “The Potential of Electricity Interconnections.”

15 Gianluca Muscelli, “Integrated Electricity Grids in the Mediterranean? A Bridge for Energy Cooperation between Europe and North Africa,” ECCO, December 4, 2023, https://eccoclimate.org/integrated-electricity-grids-in-the-mediterranean-a-bridge-for-energy-cooperation-between-europe-and-north-africa/; “GREGY Interconnector,” Energy Press, last visited March 25, 2025, https://energypress.eu/tag/gregy-interconnector/.

16 Abdenour Keramane, “The Energy Ring and the Euro-Mediterranean Electricity Market,” Les Notes IPEMED, Institut de Prospective Economique du Monde Méditerranéen, September 2010, https://www.ipemed.coop/adminIpemed/media/fich_article/1315774972_LesNotesIPEMED_11_BoucleElectrique_sept2010.pdf.

17 Rau, Seufert, and Westphal, “The Eastern Mediterranean as a Focus for the EU’s Energy Transition.”

18 El Dobeissy and Otayek, “”The Potential of Electricity Interconnections.”

19 “What Is the Global Stocktake?” McKinsey & Company, August 28, 2024,
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-the-global-stocktake.

20 “Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge,” COP28, last visited March 25, 2025, https://www.cop28.com/en/global-renewables-and-energy-efficiency-pledge.

21 Karim Elgendy, “The Mediterranean Must Work Collectively to Harness the Power of Renewables,” Atlantic Council, March 11, 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/the-mediterranean-must-work-collectively-to-harness-the-power-of-renewables/.

22 “1 Terawwatt Renewable Energy Capacity Installed in the Mediterranean Region by 2030,” TERAMED Initiative, last visited March 25, 2025, https://teramedinitiative.com/.

23 “Renewable Capacity Statistics 2024.”

24 Elgendy, “The Mediterranean Must Work Collectively to Harness the Power of Renewables.”

25 Karim Elgendy, “From Grey to Green: Türkiye’s Energy Transition(s),” CeSPI Osservatorio Turchia, October 2023, https://www.cespi.it/sites/default/files/osservatori/allegati/approf._26_turkiyes_energy_transitions_elgendy_0.pdf.

26 Ibid.

27 Rau, Seufert, and Westphal, “The Eastern Mediterranean as a Focus for the EU’s Energy Transition.”

28 “HEDNO Smart Meters I Project Pipeline,” European Investment Bank, August 2, 2023, https://www.eib.org/en/projects/pipelines/all/20220823.

29 Femke J. M. M. Nijsse, et al., “The Momentum of the Solar Energy Transition,” Nature Communications 14 (2023), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41971-7.

30 “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2023,” International Renewable Energy Agency, 2024, https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2024/Sep/IRENA_Renewable_power_generation_costs_in_2023.pdf.

31 Great Sea Interconnector, last visited March 28, 2025, https://www.great-sea-interconnector.com/en.

32 “Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Regional Sustainable Energy Financing Facility,” EU Neighbours South, last visited March 28, 2025, https://south.euneighbours.eu/project/semed-seff-southern-and-eastern-mediterranean-regional-sustainable/.

33 “AIIB Investment’s Portfolio in Egypt Hits $1.3b,” Egyptian Gazette, September 25, 2023, https://egyptian-gazette.com/egypt/aiib-investments-portfolio-in-egypt-hits-1-3b/.

34 “Green Bond Market Guide,” Goldman Sachs Asset Management, November 1, 2024, https://am.gs.com/en-gb/institutions/insights/article/2024/green-bond-market-guide.

35 “Supporting Egypt’s Inaugural Green Bond Issuance,” World Bank, March 15, 2022, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2022/03/02/supporting-egypt-s-inaugural-green-bond-issuance.

36 “Green Bond Allocation,” State of Israel Ministry of Finance, January 2024, https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/green-bond-framework/en/files-eng_Publications_Israel-Green-Bond-Framework-SOI.pdf; “ESG Issuances,” Republic of Turkey Ministry of Treasury and Finance, last visited April 3, 2025, https://en.hmb.gov.tr/esg-issuances.

37 “Sustainability and Green Bond Frameworks,” National Bank of Greece, last visited March 29, 2025, https://www.nbg.gr/en/group/investor-relations/debt-investors/sustainability-and-green-bond-frameworks.

38 Jessica Obeid, “Turning MENA Markets Green: Why Sustainable Finance Matters and How to Do It,” SRMG Think Research and Advisory, 2024, https://awsprod.srmgthink.com/featured-insights/411/special-report-turning-mena-markets-green.

39 “Republic of Turkey—Sustainable Finance Framework,” Republic of Turkey, November 2021, https://ms.hmb.gov.tr/uploads/2021/11/Republic-of-Turkey-Sustainable-Finance-Framework.pdf; Obeid, “Turning MENA Markets Green.”

40 “European Green Bond Standard,” European Commission, last visited March 28, 2025, https://finance.ec.europa.eu/sustainable-finance/tools-and-standards/european-green-bond-standard-supporting-transition_en.

41 Jessica Obeid and Alice Gower, “Mind the Gap: Highlighting MENA’s Climate Finance Challenge,” SRMG Think Research and Advisory, December 2023, https://www.srmgthink.com/highlighting-menas-climate-finance-challenge.

42 “$155 Million World Bank Loan to Expand Equity Finance for the Greening of Turkish Firms,” World Bank, press release, November 9, 2023, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2023/11/09/-155-million-world-bank-loan-to-expand-equity-finance-for-the-greening-of-turkish-firms; Obeid and Gower, “Mind the Gap.”

43 “Islamic Finance and Renewable Energy,” Greenpeace MENA, 2024,
https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-ummah-stateless/2024/11/d63785ad-iffe_report_en-.pdf.

44 Ibid.

45 “Unlocking Islamic Climate Finance,” Asian Development Bank, November 2022, https://www.adb.org/publications/unlocking-islamic-climate-finance.

46 “Sovereign Sukuk Act Signed into Law,” Enterprise (Egyptian news site), 2021, https://enterprise.press/stories/2021/08/19/sovereign-sukuk-act-signed-into-law-51060/.

47 Esma Karabulut, “Technical Assistance for Assessment of Türkiye’s Potential on Transition to Circular Economy,” Circular Economy Workshop, October 4, 2022, https://webdosya.csb.gov.tr/db/dongusel_en/icerikler/deep-project-presentat-on-en_esma-karabulut-20221024144340.pdf.

48 “IsDB Issues US$2 Billion Sukuk in First Benchmark of the Year,” Islamic Development Bank, May 8, 2024, https://www.isdb.org/news/isdb-issues-us-2-billion-sukuk-in-first-benchmark-of-the-year.

49 “Gulf Renewable Power Tracker,” Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, last visited March 29, 2025, https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/the-gulf-renewable-projects-tracker/.

50 Maha El Dahan, “COP27: UAE and Egypt Agree to Build One of World’s Biggest Wind Farms,” Reuters, November 8, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/cop27-uae-egypt-agree-build-one-worlds-biggest-wind-farms-2022-11-08/.

51 “AIIB Supports Renewable Energy Development in Egypt,” Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, September 5, 2017, https://www.aiib.org/en/news-events/news/2017/AIIB-Supports-Renewable-Energy-Development-in-Egypt.html.

52 “Silk Road Fund Becomes a 49% Shareholder in ACWA Power Renewable Energy Holding LTD,” ACWA Power, June 23, 2019, https://www.acwapower.com/news/silk-road-fund-becomes-a-49-shareholder-in-acwa-power-renewable-energy-holding-ltd/.

53 Clemens Hoffmann and Ceren Ergenc, “A Greening Dragon in the Desert? China’s Role in the Geopolitical Ecology of Decarbonisation in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 25, 1 (2023), 82–101, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19448953.2022.2131079.

54 “Neighbourhood Investment Platform,” European Commission, last visited March 20, 2025, https://enlargement.ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-investment-platform_en.

55 Veronika Ertl, Benjamin Nickels, and Hamza Saidi, “Climate Change and Geopolitical Dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa,” Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, July 19, 2024, https://www.kas.de/de/einzeltitel/-/content/climate-change-and-geopolitical-dynamics-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa.

56 “ELMED Project,” last visited March 25, 2025, https://elmedproject.com.

57 El Dobeissy and Otayek, “The Potential of Electricity Interconnections.”

58 “Internal Energy Market,” Fact Sheets on the European Union, April 2024, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/45/internal-energy-market.

59 Ibid.

60 Francesco Valezano, “Decarbonization, Decentralization and Digitalization in the Mediterranean,” Revolve, August 12, 2019, https://revolve.media/features/decarbonization-decentralization-and-digitalization-in-the-mediterranean.

61 Rau, Seufert, and Westphal, “The Eastern Mediterranean as a Focus for the EU’s Energy Transition.”

62 Ariel Ezrahi, “An Energy and Sustainability Roadmap for the Middle East,” Atlantic Council, November 22, 2024, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/an-energy-and-sustainability-road-map-for-the-middle-east/.

63 Ibid.

64 “Rethinking Gas Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean,” International Crisis Group, April 26, 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena-turkiye/240-rethinking-gas-diplomacy-eastern; “Regional Integration: Sub-regional Regulatory Convergence,” Association of Mediterranean Energy Regulators, December 2020, https://www.medreg-regulators.org.

The post Great sea connections: Financing the Eastern Mediterranean’s energy transition appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Lipsky cited in Politico on expectations for the upcoming G7 summit

bpiasecki — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 13:58:36 +0000

Read the full article here.

The post Lipsky cited in Politico on expectations for the upcoming G7 summit appeared first on Atlantic Council.

US global leadership in the age of electricity

Robert F. Ichord, Jr. — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 12:00:00 +0000

The international system is experiencing a period of significant realignment, shaped by shifting geopolitical relationships, economic tensions, and evolving security challenges. Within the broader context of global uncertainty, President Donald Trump’s initial foreign policy actions during his second term, for example on trade, support for Ukraine, and foreign assistance, have contributed to questions among allies about the future trajectory of US global leadership and engagement.

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This shake-up has important implications for global energy security, which has come into sharp focus since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Considering the Trump administration’s renewed focus on an “energy dominance” agenda, including an emphasis on furthering US oil and gas production and exports, one should not overlook the equally important geopolitical aspects of the electricity sector. Increasingly relevant to global affairs, the electricity sector has experienced rapid global demand growth of 4 percent per year—often placing new energy systems at the heart of geopolitics.

As the world enters an “age of electricity,” decisions made during this second Trump administration will have far-reaching consequences impacting the future of international conflict, competition, and cooperation around the world.

Security, growth, and innovation

A dominant geopolitical feature impacting the electricity landscape is Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, which has sharpened the confrontation between the West and a coalition of authoritarian states that have in various ways supported Russia’s war effort, including China, Iran, and North Korea. The conflict has illustrated and heightened the priority of electricity security, as the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently emphasized to European Union (EU) leaders. The EU, with major help from US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, reduced its dependence on Russian gas for electricity, ramped up renewable energy to 47 percent of total generation, began to replace Russian nuclear fuels with Western sources, and disconnected the Baltic states from the Russian power grid.

Meanwhile, outside of the EU, the rest of the world saw record levels of electricity demand growth in 2024, especially in Asia, with China accounting for about half of the increase. Although the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts slower world economic growth given the impact of uncertainty given ongoing trade pressure from Trump’s tariff strategy, the IEA still projects substantial electricity growth over the next three years.

Partly fueling this expected rise in demand is the explosion of digital information, along with the artificial intelligence (AI) systems to analyze this data. This trend is revolutionizing the electricity sector and creating growing demands for reliable, flexible, secure, and resilient electricity supplies for data centers and in other key civilian and military spheres. More complex and interconnected national and regional electricity grids are growing in almost all regions of the world. But these large digital systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks, especially from malign actors such as China and its Volt, Flax, and Salt Typhoon threat teams. Electricity security is therefore a vital component to national security in this new age.

This growing demand has set off a race to innovate and deploy new energy technologies. One critical strategic area is the development of advanced nuclear power systems, with designs under development to meet needs for electricity, industrial heat, desalination, military systems, district heating, data centers, hydrogen production, and shipping. There has been a resurgence of interest in nuclear power around the world—at COP28, leading countries pledged a tripling of nuclear power by 2050 from 2020 levels.

Competition for electricity markets

Against this complex backdrop, the Trump administration’s expanded use of tariffs has added new dimensions to global economic competition that is affecting relationships both allies and opponents alike. These measures have also introduced added strain on already fragile electricity supply chains, including those of power transformers, switchgear, and meters. This added pressure for the West and Western-aligned countries gives China, the world’s largest exporter of electric power equipment and electronics, an opportunity to expand further its global market presence, especially in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). EMDEs generate about two thirds of the world’s power and are projected to account for 85 percent of global electricity growth over the next three years.

Moreover, over the past decade as the costs of solar and wind have dropped, EMDEs have pursued a transition to renewable energy. Although renewables supplied only 26 percent of EMDE generation in 2023, they now provide over 75 percent of new EMDE generation capacity outside of China. China’s dominance in renewables gives it significant market—and geopolitical—influence. Global installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity increased by 30 percent in 2024, and Chinese companies are poised to continue flooding the market with solar PV systems and components.

EMDE natural gas demand for power, which can complement intermittent renewables and improve grid reliability, and for industry is also growing. This creates space in EMDE electricity markets for a growing US role. As the world’s largest LNG exporter, the United States is looking to increase export capacity and access markets in India, Southeast Asia, and other EMDEs. Some countries may commit to increasing US LNG imports in their trade negotiations with the Trump administration to address trade imbalances and reduce tariffs. In 2024, US volumes went to 20 EMDEs and represented about 30 percent of total US LNG exports.

In the past five or so years, the United States has made significant progress in the development of advanced nuclear power systems, some of which are now beginning construction. This has placed the United States in a strong position to compete for new nuclear contracts in EMDEs, particularly to build small and micro reactors. These systems offer the prospect of lower total capital costs, faster construction times, and more appropriate sizes for the smaller grids in many of these countries than large 1000-MW reactors. Russia has dominated the international new-build market with Rosatom constructing large VVER 1000/1200 reactors in India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, and China and beginning a small modular reactor (SMR) project in Uzbekistan. China has the largest number of reactors under construction (30 domestically) and is working to expand exports of its Hualong I large reactor beyond the completed units in Pakistan as well as developing several types of SMR systems. South Korean, European, and Canadian companies are also eyeing foreign markets and nuclear supply chains for new reactors are linking companies from these regions.

Recognizing the critical role nuclear can play in meeting US electricity demand growth, the Trump administration, with bipartisan cooperation, is supporting advanced reactor development and demonstration as well as domestic uranium mining, enrichment, and fuel production efforts. Trump recently signed an executive order targeting an increase in US nuclear capacity from 100 to 400 gigawatts by 2050. Domestic growth in the sector would enable the administration to export both large AP-1000s and SMRs, with at least a dozen projects and cooperation in the works not only in advanced economies, like the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, but also with EMDEs like Ukraine, India, Ghana, Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Interest in SMRs is at play in most of these countries and US companies could achieve of a sizeable share of the IEA’s projected SMR global market of 120 GW by 2050.

National security and global engagement

Given its broad-based excellence in the electricity sector and emerging digital and AI technologies, the United States is well positioned to engage with allies on the adoption of technologies that advance grid reliability, flexibility, and resilience. US involvement in these growing overseas markets, valued at over $2 trillion annually, is vital to its commercial, technological, and national security interests and to restoring trust and confidence in the United States as a reliable partner.

In this effort, the United States should leverage its strengths as the largest producer of both natural gas and nuclear power to help other countries build out firm, baseload, and peaking power, helping reduce dependence on Chinese solar and battery systems in an age of electricity. But US investment both at home and abroad in renewables, energy efficiency, carbon capture, hydrogen, and other technologies is also critical to US influence in the world.

As the Trump administration reconfigures US foreign policy, it is important to forge a new partnership with industry to enhance US energy leadership and coordinate deployment of key diplomatic and economic tools—including technology and commercial agreements, policy and regulatory assistance, capital allocation, and trade and investment promotion—in a package that can be tailored to the energy needs of individual countries. In addition to bilateral efforts, successful US global leadership will require close cooperation with allies in supporting sound multilateral financial and technology cooperation mechanisms, Western-oriented regional electricity markets, and secure supply chains.

The age of electricity is coming. Will the United States step up and recognize that being a global leader in this sector is critical to its national security?

Robert F. Ichord Jr. is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.

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Trump promised peace through strength. When will he use US strength to bring peace to Ukraine?

John E. Herbst — Sat, 14 Jun 2025 01:36:47 +0000

This is part of a series of regular assessments of the efforts, spearheaded by the Trump administration, to achieve a negotiated end to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Read last week’s edition here.

It’s not always the weeks with the most activity that reveal the most. After several consecutive weeks of news-making developments in Russia’s war in Ukraine, this past week seemed quieter. Yet upon closer inspection, it did feature some public musings by US President Donald Trump that sadly suggest a certain unwillingness to confront a painful reality. It also saw the administration decide to redirect a shipment of thousands of counter-drone missiles that were originally intended for Ukraine. Taken together, these rhetorical and policy choices only encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to continue his war of conquest and make it harder for Trump to reach his stated goal of establishing a durable peace in Ukraine.

The painful reality is that the Kremlin does not want peace in Ukraine. It wants, as former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said publicly, victory. The proof, of course, is that Russia has rejected multiple Trump peace proposals that Ukraine has accepted. Confronted by this, as early as April 24, Trump has acknowledged that Putin might be stalling and said then, and again on April 27, that he would know in “two weeks” if that were so and, if so, he would put some form of pressure on Russia.

Trump has been talking about a two-week deadline for nearly two months and has said on several occasions over this period that he might have to impose sanctions. Yet he continues to dither. Why does he keep bringing up sanctions if he is not acting on his threats to impose them? The obvious answer is that he is under regular criticism—including from Republicans in Congress—for not living up to his stated promise to achieve a stable peace by putting pressure on the side obstructing progress. Members of both parties in the Senate for nearly three months have been working on a major sanctions bill against Russia. It now has eighty-four cosponsors, which means that a large majority of Republican senators are on board. House Speaker Mike Johnson is also an advocate. In the past two weeks, Trump has asked the Republican senators both to weaken the bill’s provisions and to delay its introduction. They are still heeding his request, but impatience is growing, as evidenced by a June 12 statement from US Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC), the bill’s original sponsor. Trump’s posturing—floating the idea of sanctions even while he refrains from imposing them—helps the White House manage this pressure, but this can continue indefinitely.

Trump’s public musings on Russia also betray his unwillingness to take the strong steps that might persuade Putin to seriously negotiate. Last week, Trump characterized Russia and Ukraine as two brawling boys, rather than as aggressor and victim. This week, he said that he thought it strange that many American observers have a positive view of Japan and Germany, whom the United States fought in World War II, and a negative view of Russia, a US ally in that war—with no reference to Russia’s savage aggression in Ukraine or to the fact that Moscow considers the United States its principal adversary.

As the latest two-week deadline passed this week with the Kremlin still firmly opposed to US peace proposals, Trump commented that Putin does not care about the human costs of war, but added that he was frustrated by both Russia and Ukraine.

While the president postures inconsistently, his administration is making decisions that disadvantage Ukraine. A case in point is the Defense Department’s decision to divert US counter-drone weapons from Ukraine to the Middle East. This decision was likely not taken with the goal of weakening Ukraine, but that was certainly the result. Such a decision can only be taken because the administration is not operating on the common-sense understanding that if it wants a durable peace in Ukraine, it must make it much harder for Putin to seize more of the country.

The Trump administration’s position in the preparation for the Group of Seven (G7) Summit in the coming days also highlights its peculiar interest in accommodating the Kremlin. The G7’s members have decided not to release a joint communiqué, unlike last year, in part, I suspect, because previous G7 statements have included sharp criticism of Kremlin aggression. The White House, meanwhile, has avoided language critical of the Kremlin since February in the G7, NATO, and the United Nations.

Trump’s concessions to Russia on this language, his efforts to obscure the perception that Russia alone is blocking his peace initiative, and the decision to take weapons away from Ukraine have not made the Kremlin more reasonable. These measures only encourage Putin to expect that the United States will detach itself from Ukraine and that a Russian victory awaits. The Biden administration’s weakness in Afghanistan invited Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Trump promised peace through strength. When will he start to deliver?

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Ukraine is shaping the future of drone warfare at sea as well as on land

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 21:16:01 +0000

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is redefining military doctrine in ways not witnessed since the advent of air power and nuclear weapons in the first half of the twentieth century. For more than three years, both countries have been locked in a daily race to innovate that is leading to the increasing dominance of unmanned systems. This unprecedented drone war is being fought on the battlefields of Ukraine, deep inside Russia, and at sea. While Russia’s far greater resources favor Moscow, Ukraine’s sophisticated tech scene and vibrant startup culture are helping Kyiv to punch well above its weight.

Ukraine’s spectacular June 1 drone attacks on Vladimir Putin’s strategic bomber fleet at airbases across Russia made global headlines and have led to widespread claims that Kyiv has managed to “rewrite the rules of war.” However, Ukraine’s most remarkable accomplishments in the field of drone warfare have arguably been achieved thousands of miles to the south in the Black Sea.

Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Chief Kyrylo Budanov recently showcased the latest addition to the country’s expanding naval drone fleet, the Magura V7 unmanned marine vehicle. This domestically produced naval drone is armed with a pair of anti-aircraft missiles and is reportedly capable of operating at sea for days at a time while hunting Russian warplanes. According to Ukrainian officials, the Magura V7 has already proven itself in combat by shooting down two Russian Su-30 fighter jets over the Black Sea in early May. Budanov described the operation as an “historic moment.” It is believed to be the first ever instance of military jets being downed by unmanned naval platforms.

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Last month’s destruction of two Russian warplanes was the latest in a series of remarkable maritime breakthroughs that have allowed Ukraine to gain the upper hand in the Battle of the Black Sea. When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began more than three years ago, few would have believed such a turn of events was possible. At the time, the war at sea was widely viewed as a foregone conclusion. After all, Ukraine had no conventional navy to speak of, while Russia could call on the considerable might of the country’s aged but nonetheless formidable Black Sea Fleet.

This disparity was on display during a famous incident that took place on the very first day of the invasion. On the morning of February 24, 2022, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva missile cruiser, loomed up to Ukraine’s Snake Island and ordered the tiny Ukrainian garrison to surrender. “Russian warship, go f*** yourself,” came the iconic response. While this message of defiance captured the global imagination and became an unofficial slogan for the entire Ukrainian war effort, the incident also served to underline the apparent mismatch between the maritime capabilities of the two adversaries.

During the initial weeks of the war, Russian control of the Black Sea remained uncontested, with Ukrainian attention focused firmly on preventing amphibious landings along the country’s southern coastline. But even at this precarious point, Ukrainian commanders had their own offensive ambitions and would soon send a powerful signal that they were capable of fighting back at sea as well as on land. In April 2022, the Ukrainian Navy launched a bold missile attack on the Moskva, securing two direct hits and sinking the Russian flagship. The attack sent shock waves around the world and sparked fury among Kremlin officials. Little did they know that this was just the first of many stunning Russian naval defeats that would transform the military situation in the Black Sea.

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Since the sinking of the Moskva, Ukraine has used a combination of domestically developed naval drones and cruise missiles provided by Kyiv’s French and British partners to decimate Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Ukrainian Navy officials claim they have managed to damage or destroy around one-third of Putin’s entire fleet, while forcing the remaining Russian warships to retreat from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of ports in Russia itself. This has severely limited the Russian Navy’s ability to operate in the Black Sea. By spring 2024, Britain’s Defense Ministry declared that the Russian Black Sea Fleet had become “functionally inactive.”

Ukraine’s stunning success in the Battle of the Black Sea has yet to receive the international attention it deserves. By breaking the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s seaports, it has allowed Kyiv to resume maritime exports and secure a vital economic lifeline.

Crucially, the Russian Navy’s humiliating retreat from Crimea has also made a complete mockery of the Kremlin’s so-called red lines and has demonstrated the emptiness of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling. The Russian dictator has long championed the seizure of Crimea as his crowning achievement, and has repeatedly hinted that he is willing to use nuclear weapons in defense of his conquests. But when confronted by the harsh military realities of Ukraine’s deadly naval drones, he withdraw the bulk of Russia’s fleet from Crimea with barely a murmur.

The Battle of the Black Sea is far from over, of course. While Ukraine develops groundbreaking new naval drones capable of hitting warplanes as well as warships, Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian seaports and targets merchant shipping carrying Ukrainian exports to global markets. The Russian Navy is also producing marine drones of its own, and is adopting defensive measures to protect the remainder of the Black Sea Fleet. Nevertheless, Kyiv’s Black Sea innovations are a reminder that Ukraine is an increasingly formidable military power in its own right and is shaping the future of drone warfare at sea as well as on land.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Putin’s peace plan is a blueprint for the end of Ukrainian statehood

Tetiana Kotelnykova — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 20:06:24 +0000

The memorandum presented by the Russian Federation during recent bilateral talks with Ukraine in Istanbul was described by Kremlin officials as a constructive step toward a possible peace agreement. However, the demands outlined in the document tell an altogether different story. Russia’s memorandum makes clear that Moscow does not seek peaceful coexistence with an independent and sovereign Ukraine. Instead, the Kremlin’s goal evidently remains the systematic dismantling of Ukrainian statehood.

One of the key demands detailed in the Russian memorandum is the requirement for Ukraine’s complete withdrawal from four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow claims as its own but has so far been unable to fully occupy. For Kyiv, this would mean abandoning dozens of towns and cities along with millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of indefinite Russian occupation. It would also dramatically weaken Ukraine’s defenses and leave the rest of the country dangerously exposed to further Russian aggression.

Handing over the city of Kherson and the surrounding region would be particularly disastrous for Ukraine’s future national security. This would grant Russia a foothold across the Dnipro River in the western half of Ukraine, placing Odesa and the country’s other Black Sea ports in immediate danger. The loss of Zaporizhzhia, one of Ukraine’s largest cities with a prewar population of around seven hundred thousand, is similarly unthinkable.

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Territorial concessions are only one part of Russia’s comprehensive plan to undermine Ukrainian statehood. The memorandum presented in Istanbul calls for strict limits to be imposed on the size of Ukraine’s military along with restrictions on the categories of weapons the country is allowed to possess. Ukraine would also be banned from joining any military alliances or concluding bilateral security agreements with other nations. This would transform Ukraine into a disarmed and internationally isolated buffer state with no means to defend itself, leaving it entirely at Putin’s mercy.

Beyond the battlefield, Russia’s memorandum proposes a series of sweeping changes to Ukraine’s internal political and cultural landscape that would allow Moscow to reestablish its dominance over the country. Key demands include official status for the Russian language, the reinstatement of the Russian Orthodox Church’s legal privileges, and a wholesale rewriting of Ukrainian history in line with Kremlin narratives.

One of the most sinister aspects of the Russian peace proposal is the call for a complete ban on all so-called “nationalist” Ukrainian political parties. This rather vague wording is open to interpretation and could easily be used to silence Ukrainian politicians opposed to Russian influence. Given the Kremlin’s long record of labeling anything that contracts Russian imperial orthodoxies as “extremist” or “fascist,” the idea of outlawing “nationalist” political parties represents an obvious threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and the country’s democratic political system.

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Moscow’s memorandum was presented at a time when Russia is escalating its invasion of Ukraine. In recent months, Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities have increased significantly, leading to a sharp rise in the number of killed and wounded civilians. Along the front lines of the war, the Russian military is currently engaged in what most analysts believe are the early stages of a major summer offensive that seeks to break Ukrainian resistance. Russian troops are advancing in the east and have recently crossed the border in northern Ukraine to open a new front in the Sumy region.

The Ukrainian authorities cannot accept the punishing terms being proposed by Russia. Indeed, no sovereign state could do so and expect to survive. The real question is how the international community will respond. Russia’s memorandum is a blueprint for the end of Ukrainian statehood and the return of the country to Kremlin control. It makes a complete mockery of recent US-led calls for a compromise peace, and demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that Russia has no interest in ending the invasion.

This should be enough to persuade Western leaders that progress toward peace will only be possible if they increase the pressure on Putin. At present, the Russian leader clearly believes he is winning and is confident of outlasting the West in Ukraine. In order to change this calculus and force a rethink in Moscow, Kyiv’s partners must impose tougher sanctions on Russia while boosting military support for Ukraine. In other words, they must speak to Putin in the language of strength, which remains the only language he truly understands.

Russia’s recent memorandum sends an unambiguous signal that Moscow is undeterred by the current Western stance and remains fully committed to its maximalist goal of erasing Ukraine as a state and as a nation. If Western leaders wish to avoid this catastrophic outcome, they must convince Putin that the alternative to a negotiated peace is a Russian defeat.

Tetiana Kotelnykova is a graduate student at Yale University specializing in European and Russian Studies with a focus on conflict, postwar recovery, and regional geopolitics. She is the founder of Brave Generation, a New York-based nonprofit organization that supports young Ukrainians affected by war and invests in the next generation of Ukrainian leadership. She also leads the Ukrainian Recovery Youth Global Initiative.

US President Donald Trump is still getting to know some of his new colleagues, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and the summit’s host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Trump will try to coordinate the group against China’s economic coercion. But the rest of the leaders may turn back to Trump and say that this kind of coordination, which is at the heart of why the G7 works, would be easier if he weren’t imposing tariffs on his allies. The chart above shows the friction points heading into one of the most consequential G7 summits in the organization’s history.

—Josh Lipsky is the chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council, senior director of the GeoEconomics Center, and a former adviser to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Originally created as an economic coordination body, the G7 began to put foreign policy and national security on its agenda in the 1980s, as the Soviet Union’s political influence was waning. Soon after, Russia attended its first G7 Summit as a guest in 1991, formally joined in 1998, creating the Group of Eight (G8), and then was suspended in 2014 due to its annexation of Crimea.

In the years since, new geopolitical rivals have entered the fray: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, G7 summits and declarations have attempted to address China’s role in the global economy. Last year’s leaders’ communiqué was especially harsh on China—which was mentioned twenty-nine times—on everything from its material support to Russia’s war against Ukraine to Beijing’s malicious cyber activities. But China was once a guest at the forum, first joining in this capacity in 2003.

Other members of the G7+5, an unofficial grouping of large emerging markets—India, Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa—have been invited as guests in recent years. If that sounds familiar, it is because India, Brazil, and South Africa, along with Russia and China, are the founding members of the BRICS group of emerging economies, which some would consider a representation of the geopolitical and economic competition the G7 faces today.

This year, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, and India were invited to attend as guests. These invitations are a signal of broad alignment among the G7 and its guests. These invitations demonstrate the importance of the guests’ economic might on the global stage, even though India has shifted away from the G7 quite significantly in the last fifty years, as seen in the graph above. In 1992, when Russia first attended the G7 as a guest, its gross domestic product (GDP) was less than 1 percent of the world’s GDP, and the combined economies of the five founding BRICS countries made up less than 9 percent of global GDP. At the time, the G7 represented 63 percent of the world’s GDP. Today, the G7’s share is now 44 percent of the world’s GDP and the founding BRICS members’ share has more than doubled to almost 25 percent.

—Ananya Kumar is the deputy director for future of money at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

In 2024, G7 countries attracted over 80 percent of global private artificial intelligence (AI) investments, led primarily by the United States. In ten years, private AI investments have grown almost fifteen-fold. This month, the US Department of Commerce rebranded its AI Safety Institute as the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI)—shifting away from an emphasis on “safety” and toward promoting rapid commercial development.

Carney has said that he plans to put AI at the top of his agenda at the upcoming G7 Leaders’ Summit. He has been a long-standing advocate of AI—dating back to his 2018 presentation on AI and the global economy while he was governor of the Bank of England.

But while the United States leads in AI innovation and investment, Europe continues to set the pace on regulation, and China strategically develops its own AI models. All this leaves Canada asking where it fits in.

That may be why Carney hopes to lead on this issue. The G7 presidency offers Canada a unique opportunity to convene democracies to work together on AI. Rather than trying to outspend the United States or out-regulate Europe, Canada can focus on building connections—creating shared standards, developing trusted public-private data hubs, coordinating strategic investments, and outlining guidelines for common learning and collaboration across borders.

—Alisha Chhangani is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

Ten years after the first G6 meeting took place in France, another landmark meeting took place at the Plaza Hotel in New York, in September 1985. At the meeting, then US Treasury Secretary James Baker convinced his counterparts from West Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Japan to support a significant devaluation of the US dollar—what became known as the Plaza Accord.

Today, the dollar’s value relative to its G7 counterparts is on the rise again, fueled by tight monetary policy and expansionary fiscal spending. Although the current appreciation is milder than the surge seen in the early 1980s, the Trump administration may use the G7 Summit to raise concerns about the burden of being the world’s reserve currency, especially when it comes to export competitiveness. In late 2024, the current chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran, proposed a “Mar-a-Lago Accord” as an updated version of the Plaza Accord, though no real progress on this is apparent. Moreover, this time a key global player is absent from the conversation—China.

—Bart Piasecki is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

The finance ministers and central bank governors of the G7 already held their meeting last month in the Canadian Rockies, emerging with a consensus on tackling “excessive imbalances” and nonmarket policies. While the G7’s finance ministers and central bank governors’ communiqué didn’t call out China by name, it’s clear that’s who they were referring to. Simultaneously, the US-UK trade deal called for the United Kingdom to meet US requirements on the security of supply chains, which infuriated Beijing.

Washington wants coordinated economic security partnerships to help counter China and encourage more investment in the United States. But the United States has been calling for allies to divest from China for a while now. In response, G7 counterparts could point to the data above and ask: How much more do we need to give?

Over the past five years, nearly every G7 country, with the exception of Canada, has scaled down their investments in China and scaled up their investments in the United States. For example, Japan has reduced foreign direct investment in China by 60 percent over the past decade, including shuttering a major Honda plant in Guangzhou. Meanwhile, the Japanese carmaker pledged to put $300 million into a plant outside of Columbus, Ohio. This has been the trend as the United States’ G7 partners reassess their economic dependencies on China. But amid ongoing trade wars, how much are they willing to coordinate more closely with the United States?

—Jessie Yin is an assistant director with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

Foreign aid, or official development assistance (ODA), from G7 countries dropped sharply in 2024, and early projections through 2025 and 2026 suggest even steeper declines ahead for most nations. The United States has exhibited the most drastic retreat, following the effective dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. But European countries have also scaled back development budgets and are redirecting funds toward defense and domestic economic issues. While ODA briefly surged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, that uptick masked a longer-term downward trend in traditional development funding as a percentage of G7 countries’ economies.

Most G7 nations have failed for years to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Target 17.2, which called for allocating 0.7 percent of gross national income to ODA. As of 2024, none of them has reached this benchmark. This retreat is particularly troubling given today’s fractured geopolitical and economic landscape. In such times, investing in global partnerships and life-saving aid through ODA is not just a moral imperative—it’s also a strategic one.

—Lize de Kruijf is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative.

A major focus heading into the G7 Summit will be how Carney handles his latest meeting with Trump. The two managed to have a cordial meeting in May, and Carney’s announcement this week that Canada will increase its defense spending could help to placate Trump, who has long complained about Canada’s lagging defense spending.

But Canada is also looking beyond its southern neighbor. Carney has invited the leaders of Australia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia to join him in Alberta. Under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s relationships with both Saudi Arabia and India reached diplomatic low points. By inviting these leaders, Carney is demonstrating a willingness to reengage partners. In no area is Carney more likely to pursue new partnerships than in the defense sector. Canada stated its desire to join the ReArm Europe Initiative and has signed a major deal for an Australian radar system. Expect Carney to seek new partners as Canada rebuilds its defense capacity, potentially with some of the countries invited to this year’s G7.

—Imran Bayoumi is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Canada’s hosting of the G7 Summit in Alberta carries exceptional significance amid escalating tensions with the United States. Trump’s attendance, which will mark his first G7 Summit since 2019, signals renewed engagement with Canada. This could spark talks on renegotiating the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) ahead of the trade deal’s first joint review in July 2026. The timing of the G7 Summit coincides with heightened Canadian nationalism and intense public focus on Canada-US relations, particularly around tariff disputes affecting sectors such as steel.

The Trump-Carney relationship differs markedly from previous dynamics between Trudeau and Trump, potentially enabling more productive G7 cooperation when US foreign policy dominates global conversations. The trilateral presence of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump, and Carney creates an opportunity for preliminary USMCA discussions. However, critical questions emerge: Will Mexico and Canada align against the Trump administration? Will Canada prioritize repairing bilateral US relations over Mexico-Canada ties? The summit’s outcome is likely to significantly shape hemispheric trade relationships and regional diplomatic strategies.

—Maite Gonzalez Latorre is a program assistant at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and Caribbean Initiative.

Sophia Busch, Ella Wiss Mencke, Ethan Garcia, and Miguel Sanders contributed to the data visualizations in this article. The data visualization titled “US jobs rely on Mexico and Canada more than any other trade partner” originally appeared in an article by Sophia Busch published on January 16, 2025.

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Donovan cited in Newsweek on EC proposal to lower price cap on Russian oil

bpiasecki — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 16:50:02 +0000

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The objectives of transatlantic financial services regulation and the future of international cooperation

Matthew L. Ekberg — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 16:09:51 +0000

Much has been written in recent weeks about heightened geopolitical tensions and the impact of policy changes concerning international trade on global markets. Less has been said about the growing shift in focus on both sides of the Atlantic—and across the English Channel—on the next stage of development for financial services regulation. With recent leadership changes in both the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States, along with a newly constituted European Commission and European Parliament, the contours of policy towards banks and non-bank financial institutions are becoming ever clearer, with implications for economic growth, development, and stability in particularly volatile times.

Factors will depend, however, on evolving political circumstances coupled with the effects of a continuing shift toward more fragmented policy making across borders. This issue has long been on the minds of government and industry alike, but it may become more complicated in the near to medium term. It is timely to examine these trends to better understand the direction of travel between the UK, European Union (EU), and United States, and how this will impact markets and economies globally.

First, in the UK, the government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy will be published this July. It will focus on five priority growth opportunities—sustainable finance, asset management, fintech, insurance, and capital markets. The Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority will be at pains to continue emphasizing that the primary objectives of consumer protection and systemic stability will not be compromised through any changes. However, it will be important to reflect on how issues such as the Basel III Endgame implementation will be addressed in light of these priorities, considering the approach of other jurisdictions (especially the United States) to the future of this global prudential package.

Second, in the EU, the European Commission has similarly affirmed that it will increasingly focus on growing financial market activity and ensuring the bloc can adequately compete with other world actors in financial services. This will likely lead to further discussions on, inter alia, sustainability standards, financial risk rules, and closer market integration. Though there is consensus on the need to make the EU more competitive, concerns have already been raised, for example, by Frank Elderson, vice-chair of the European Central Bank supervisory board that increasing competitiveness should not be pretext for watering down regulation and potentially increasing instability.

Further complicating matters is the issue of how, or if, the bloc will respond to any escalation of punitory trade measures by the US administration. Though the pace of recent trade talks has accelerated, questions remain in the near term about the potential application of the EU Anti-Coercion Instrument if negotiations fail, and what that may mean for the imposition of restrictions on financial services activity from third countries.

Third, in the United States, a more complex picture is emerging. The economic implications of White House trade policy will have to be weighed against the general deregulatory bent of the administration, but a few themes have come to light. There is a clear indication that the US Treasury will play a greater role in financial services regulation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is on record stating that lending policies should better match the risk of financial firms, and that bank regulation has not taken economic growth into account. Federal banking agency rulemaking will also likely shift. Federal Reserve (Fed) vice chair for supervision, Governor Michelle Bowman, has indicated that supervisory reform, the promotion of innovation, and a pragmatic approach to regulation will be prioritized. The objective of cost-benefit analysis being applied toward regulation will affect how the Fed addresses the outstanding issue of the Basel III Endgame implementation, alongside an expected review of the supplementary leverage ratio and its impact on the US Treasury market.

Lastly, how the United States approaches international regulatory initiatives is also expected to be gauged by how they align with updated US regulatory policy objectives and the America First approach of the administration. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce recently questioned the agendas of the international standard setters in light of calls for increased domestic control over policy. Secretary Bessent has also raised the issue of US reliance on these bodies. Such interventions will be important to monitor considering the wider gap between national and international rhetoric on cooperation geopolitically.

This is certainly a non-exhaustive snapshot of trends across three major economies, but it raises the question of where the rest of the world stands. How will international cooperation on financial stability evolve with this more domestic-minded focus on growth and competitiveness? This question is coupled with potential disputes on international trade in goods spilling into reciprocal action against the services sector.

On the first point, cooperation will likely continue around topics of consistent mutual concern at the Basel Committee, the Financial Stability Board, the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, and the International Organization of Securities Commissions. Areas of focus will include oversight of the non-bank financial institution sector, modernizing cross-border payments, and addressing issues for operational resilience and cyber security. In his April letter to the Group of Twenty finance ministers and central bank governors, outgoing Financial Stability Board Chair Klaas Knot emphasized the importance of vigilance and international cooperation to address emerging risks and ensure the continued resilience of the financial system. Bilateral and multilateral regulatory collaboration is also continuing in the crypto currency space. The United States and the UK, in particular, are working together to support the responsible growth of digital assets.

However, the prospect is significant for increased fragmentation in regulatory approaches to capital, liquidity, and financial risks related to climate, among other issues. Cross-border financial institutions will potentially have to navigate a much more complicated and disparate set of requirements, which ultimately may impact systemic safety and soundness.

On the second point, the Bank for International Settlements recently warned that geopolitical tensions between countries reduce cross-border bank lending between them. The specter of retaliatory responses in reaction to punitive trade policies seeping into the regulation of financial services can exacerbate this concern. This is particularly acute in the regulation and supervision of foreign banks. Trapping capital and liquidity can have a specific negative impact on the provision of domestic financial services products, hurting the very objectives of growth and competitiveness that appear the ubiquitous watchwords of national policymakers.

There is still a strong case to be made for an interconnected global financial services system where regulatory authorities collaborate on the best means to ensure stability and security across borders. Doing so is not mutually exclusive with objectives for increased domestic growth and competitiveness. It can, in the case of cross-border capital flows, contribute to achieving those goals. An important area of reflection for both the public and private sectors in the coming months is how cooperation can be activated to prioritize economic development while maintaining stability with consistent global standards.

Matthew L. Ekberg is a contributor at the Atlantic Council and former Senior Advisor and Head of the London Office for the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

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The fracturing of traditional alliances carries significant consequences for companies facing multijurisdictional compliance obligations, meaning an already complex situation will become more chaotic.

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Basel III endgame: The specter of global regulatory fragmentation

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Diverging timelines for Basel III implementation are fragmenting global financial regulation. As major economies delay or dilute reforms, coordinated oversight erodes—posing renewed risks to international financial stability.

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Lipsky quoted in The President’s Daily Brief Podcast on US-China Trade Negotiations

bpiasecki — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:00:00 +0000

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Complex energy systems face low-tech threats

Travis Nels — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:06:40 +0000

The dramatic destruction of parked Russian strategic bombers through a daring operation of the Ukrainian intelligence service has once again shone a spotlight on the power of asymmetric warfare. After initial reactions of delight in the West at seeing Russian aircraft burn, such feelings quickly turned to concern that similar events could relatively easily happen here as well.

The fact that cheap, low-end systems could wreak havoc on advanced military forces is indeed fear inducing—and unfortunately, that risk extends beyond jets parked on an airfield apron.

The electrical grid has been described as “the world’s largest machine.” In terms of defending it, a better mental model is that of a very complex supply chain. Electrons are produced from molecules pulled from the ground, atomic reactions, or the movement of wind, water, or sun. Those electrons are transported through a vast network of wires to their ultimate end use.

Notably, that end use—whether light, warm or cold air, artificial intelligence inference, or a Netflix movie—is all that matters. The electrons in an intermediate form or location are useless to a human being, so disruptions anywhere along the supply chain are functionally equivalent.

Attacking energy infrastructure has long been recognized as a useful combat tactic because those electrons are a precursor to many legitimate military end uses. Attacking electric power can also terrorize civilian populations, best evidenced in Ukraine by thousands of Russian attacks against the grid by high-end cruise missiles and guided weapons.

The number of global actors with access to cruise missiles is, thankfully, limited. But that does not reduce the risk to the grid. Being able to disrupt end use anywhere along the electron supply chain is a boon to the asymmetric attacker, who can find plenty of choke points along that chain. They can look for targets with the greatest impact at the lowest cost in time, resources, and risk.

To combat these threats, discussion of asymmetric risk vectors has increasingly focused on cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Recent revelations that the global supply chain for solar power inverters has been compromised by Chinese manufacturers is another reminder of the sector’s cyber vulnerabilities. The North American Electric Reliability Company (NERC), through its Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) program strives to address these risks through compliance activity, and players in the electric power ecosystem have invested heavily in software and processes to defend against cyberattacks.

Beyond cyber, attention is often focused on physical risk to the generation end of the electron supply chain. Certainly, it is easy to envision both attacking and defending a large, fixed piece of infrastructure like a power plant from an asymmetric attacker’s drones. The same applies to substation infrastructure. But what if one were to push the imagination a little further?

Electric utilities across the United States must constantly deal with outages from technical challenges, weather, animals, and even mylar balloons, which have disrupted utility services for years.

Listings on Amazon and Alibaba show that approximately 10,000 mylar balloons could be filled and released for less than $15,000 (with 95 percent of that being the cost of helium). Given that electric transmission and distribution infrastructure is in fixed, known locations—often highly visible and open to the air—it is acutely vulnerable to aerial attack.

Such an attack wouldn’t require smuggling drones and explosives, clandestinely attaching them to trucks in an action worthy of a Hollywood spy thriller—it would just require waiting for a delivery from the attacker’s e-commerce provider of choice. Think less of a spy thriller, and more of a dark remake of Up.

Infrastructure risk is increasing on two fronts—from the diffusion of high-end digital technology and from an evolving understanding that high-end energy systems can be threatened by cheap and low-tech weapons, or weaponized commercial products.

To counteract this threat landscape, policymakers are trying to support infrastructure owners and operators in protecting the grid. In addition to NERC CIP measures for infrastructure security, there is legislation pending that would hold states to the same federal standard as interstate transmission infrastructure, or elevate the US Department of Energy’s leader responsible for emergency response to a Senate-confirmed position.

This is not a call to action to ban mylar balloons—though some states are trying. Instead, infrastructure stakeholders must realize that the threat environment is broadening at both the high and low ends of the spectrum. After watching videos of burning Russian bombers, the sinking feeling that society is more vulnerable today than it was yesterday extends far beyond the military domain.

Travis Nels is a Veterans Advanced Energy fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the vice president of planning, analytics, technology, and transformation at AES Corporation in Arlington, Virginia. The views and ideas expressed in this article are his own.

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Donovan quoted in China Daily on potential US reactions to proposed EC sanctions on Russia

bpiasecki — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 16:34:49 +0000

Read the full article here.

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Five questions (and expert answers) about the new EU sanctions plan for Nord Stream and Russian banks and oil

Atlantic Council experts — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 21:53:27 +0000

“Strength is the only language that Russia will understand.” That’s what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday as she unveiled a proposed eighteenth European Union (EU) sanctions package against Russia for its war on Ukraine. Among the proposals are a ban on transactions with Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines, additional sanctions on more than twenty Russian banks, and a lowering of the oil price cap from sixty dollars to forty-five dollars. Approval for the package now rests with the twenty-seven EU member states, and some elements of the package, such as lowering the oil price cap, could prove contentious this coming weekend at the Group of Seven (G7) meeting in Canada. Below, our experts explain what was announced and what is at stake.

1. What impact would this proposal have on the Nord Stream gas pipelines?

This package could put the final nail in Nord Stream 2’s coffin, providing a much overdue, decisive vision for the future of Russian pipeline flows to Europe. Ending this zombie project debate once and for all also sends a clear message to global liquefied natural gas producers, which may be hesitant to expand partnerships with the European buyers as long as a relapse to Russian gas dependence is a possibility. This checkmate move from the European Commission still needs approval from EU member states, as well as watertight language on sanctions implementation to prevent caveats or exemptions. Moreover, the Commissions’s bold action on Nord Stream 2 brings the Commission’s Roadmap to fully end EU dependency on Russian energy closer to reality, just as the roadmap’s legislative proposals are expected later this month.

—Olga Khakova is the deputy director for European energy security at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

***

The proposal is a welcome one to put an end to the questions about the restarting of the pipelines. The proposed rules would ban any EU operator from doing direct or indirect transactions for Nord Stream 1 or 2, making the operation of the pipelines impossible. More importantly, the proposal would end any rumors or quiet discussions around the future of the pipeline and shows the seriousness, at least in the Commission, around achieving energy independence from Russia. “There is no return to the past,” von der Leyen declared during Tuesday’s announcement.

—Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

***

After nearly two static decades of Germany’s Gazpromphilic foreign policy, and statements emerging in recent weeks from German politicians from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) indicating openness to a revival of Nord Stream, today’s EU announcement of Nord Stream sanctions is nothing short of astonishing. That’s because it amounts to a de facto approval by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Since assuming the Chancellery, Merz has taken steps toward a true Zeitenwende that were lacking in Germany since that political approach to Russia had been first announced by his predecessor Olaf Scholz, with Merz stating clearly and resolutely in late May that under his leadership, the German government will “do everything to ensure that Nord Stream 2 cannot be put back into operation.”

Merz doubled down on this rhetoric while sitting next to US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week, declaring Nord Stream to have been “a mistake.” Saying this next to Trump is especially important given recent reports that a US-based investor has sought to lobby the Trump administration to drop sanctions on Nord Stream to allow for American ownership of the pipelines. According to the investor, this move is an attempt to supposedly achieve the “de-Russification” of the projects—despite the logical incoherence of how such infrastructure could ever be truly “de-Russified” if it were still delivering Russian gas.

If the EU is able to successfully get this sanctions package through the gauntlet of member state ratification—no small task with the likes of Hungary and Slovakia waiting in the wings to go to bat for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s energy interests in Brussels—it will be a major step toward finally ending Russia’s energy grip over European political and security interests.

—Benjamin L. Schmitt is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and Perry World House.

2. How much would lowering the oil price cap from $60 to $45 hurt Russia’s economy?

That depends on how effectively the new price cap would be enforced and where the general price of crude would fluctuate. The impact would probably be significant but not as big as it would be if the United States could find a way to limit third-country purchases of Russian oil, either through US Senator Lindsey Graham’s bill or in another (and more practical) form.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US ambassador to Poland.

***

Russia still relies on revenue from oil exports, so lowering the price cap could negatively affect how much money they can bring in. However, the price cap has been very difficult to enforce. In response to the price cap, Russia developed an expansive shadow fleet to export its oil, which created an additional challenge for Western sanctions enforcement authorities.

That said, lowering the price cap would be welcome considering the price of Brent Crude as of today, $67.24 per barrel, which is very close to the $60 price cap. When the price cap first went into effect in 2022, the price of oil was over $100 per barrel. Reducing the price cap is an acknowledgement that oil prices have dropped considerably since it was first introduced and reflects a commitment to restrict Russia’s ability to generate revenue.

—Kimberly Donovan is the director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. She previously served in the federal government for fifteen years, most recently as the acting associate director of the Treasury Department Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s Intelligence Division.

3. What else is in this sanctions package?

The most interesting aspect of this package is the “transaction ban” on “financial operators in third countries that finance trade to Russia, in circumvention of sanctions.” That sounds a lot like secondary sanctions, which historically have been controversial in the EU. If this passes, it could significantly strengthen EU sanctions by extending their reach.

—Kimberly Donovan

4. What are the chances of this proposal moving forward?

It’s worth keeping in mind that this is still just a proposal, and there is a long way to go before it is finalized. These sanctions proposals require the unanimous support of the EU’s twenty-seven member states, which, in and of itself, is no simple process of negotiations. The proposal will likely face two immediate hurdles from the likes of Hungary and Slovakia, whose respective leaders have delayed or played spoiler on the previous efforts for political leverage until their demands were met. However, the fact that there have been seventeen successful rounds of sanctions in the past suggests that solutions, however messy, incomplete, or last-minute, are possible. There is an important transatlantic angle as well. The EU wants to move together with the United States on Russia. So European holdouts will certainly not want to be seen as roadblocks should the Trump administration decide, for example, to push for further sanctions on Russia.

—Jörn Fleck

***

I don’t know how much has been vetted with Hungary nor what kind of pressure the Commission is prepared to put on Budapest if it attempts to block the proposal. But the Commission seems serious about ramping up pressure and announcing steps before the G7 Summit, where they will have a chance to obtain Japanese and Canadian support, and thus to present the United States with some decisions.

—Daniel Fried 

***

Brussels seems optimistic that the eighteenth sanctions package will pass. However, aspects of the sanctions package will need G7 support. This includes the proposal to reduce the price cap, which is why the Commission understandably announced the proposal in advance of G7 meetings this coming weekend in Canada. Further, support from Washington or lack thereof could sway how countries such as Hungary and Slovakia vote on the sanctions package.

—Kimberly Donovan

5. How might Washington react to this proposal?

That is a big question, and I can’t give a reliable answer. The European leaders at the G7 will have a chance to convince Trump that it is his own plan to end the war that the EU is backing, and that the United States ought to go all in to that end and agree to pressure Russia. But Trump, despite edging up toward imposing additional costs on Russia, has not yet done so, despite multiple opportunities and provocations from Putin.

—Daniel Fried 

***

It’s unclear how Trump himself will react to the proposal. But what the US president should see in this proposal is a Europe that is a willing and serious partner. The administration has made clear that it expects Europe to step up for its own security and for Ukraine’s. This is part of Europe’s response to do just that. European leaders have been united on pushing for action on Russia given Moscow’s continued intransigence on cease-fire talks and devastating attacks on Ukraine. This proposal is another indication that Europe is putting real ideas on the table to boost US and Ukrainian leverage with Putin.

—Jörn Fleck

***

Members of Congress may welcome this package, as the spirit is consistent with the bill Graham introduced to get Putin to the negotiating table. However, we’ll have to wait and see how Trump reacts considering the stalled cease-fire talks and escalating violence on the battlefield.

—Kimberly Donovan

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Modern Ukraine’s national journey can be traced on Kyiv’s central square

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 21:18:16 +0000

Ancient Kyiv is drenched in more than a millennium of history and boasts a dizzying array of cathedrals, monasteries, and palaces dating back hundreds of years. However, the location most intricately associated with modern Ukraine’s national journey is far younger than any of these venerable landmarks and carried no particular spiritual significance until the very recent past.

Located in the geographical center of Kyiv, Independence Square is known to locals and foreign guests alike by its Ukrainian-language name, Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or simply Maidan. Over the past three decades, Maidan has undergone a dramatic transformation that has seen it emerge from Ukraine’s post-Soviet identity crisis via two popular uprisings to become the sacred ground zero of a nation forged in the crucible of revolution and war.

Today, Maidan is an obligatory point of pilgrimage on the itinerary of all visitors to the Ukrainian capital. People come to Maidan in order to honor those who have died in the fight against Russia’s invasion, or just to soak up the atmosphere of an iconic location that has witnessed some of the most consequential political events of the twenty-first century.

It was not always this way. When the modern square first began to take shape in the nineteenth century, it was a relative backwater in an elegant and aged city where the center of gravity remained firmly fixed elsewhere. Tellingly, when Ukrainian officials gathered in Kyiv on January 22, 1919, to publicly sign the unification act between the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, they chose to stage this historic event on Sophia Square rather than Maidan.

As Kyiv rose from the ashes following World War II, the square became more architecturally impressive and gained in logistical importance, but it continued to lack the aura attached to the city’s true heirlooms. Instead, Maidan remained a fairly identikit Soviet public space noted for its large fountains and even larger Lenin monument.

Maidan first became associated with political activism during the dying days of the Soviet Empire in 1990 when it hosted a two-week student protest dubbed the Revolution on Granite that played a significant part in Ukraine’s independence struggle. At the time, it was known as October Revolution Square. Maidan would receive its current name on August 26, 1991, two days after the Ukrainian declaration of independence, but it would be many years before the square began to earn its current reputation as a genuine symbol of Ukrainian statehood.

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During the first decade or so of Ukrainian independence, Maidan was anything but inspiring. The square remained largely empty, with no monuments or memorials to celebrate the newly independent state. Instead, the cult of communism was replaced by crass commercialism. On the spot once occupied by Lenin, a giant TV screen was installed broadcasting an eclectic mix of adverts, pop videos, cage fights, and catwalk shows. Taxi drivers would line up nearby and watch absentmindedly while waiting for new fares.

High above Maidan, the skyline was dominated by the Hotel Moscow. In 2001, the Ukrainian authorities finally decided that this branding was probably inappropriate for a country looking to shake off the shackles of empire, and the hotel name was duly changed from Moscow to Ukraine. Likewise, a colossal Soviet hammer and sickle was allowed to loom large over Maidan until 2003, when it was belatedly removed from the facade of the Trade Union building. The continued prominence of the Soviet crest made a mockery of Independence Square and spoke volumes about the often ambiguous attitudes toward Ukrainian statehood that characterized the early post-Soviet period.

The first big turning point in Maidan’s transformation came following Ukraine’s November 2004 presidential election. Amid massive public anger over a crude Kremlin-backed bid to steal the vote, huge crowds flooded into Kyiv from across the country and congregated on Maidan, establishing a tent city and a round-the-clock presence. This protest movement lasted for over two months and came to be known as the Orange Revolution. Millions of Ukrainians participated. They eventually succeeded in overturning the rigged election and forcing a rerun which was won by the opposition candidate, representing a watershed moment in modern Ukrainian history.

Maidan itself was synonymous with the Orange Revolution and occupied a central position in the mythology that grew up around it. From that moment on, Maidan became not just a place but also an event. To stage a Maidan meant to organize a grassroots protest and hold power to account. This was a particularly terrifying concept for the neighboring Russian authorities. Dread of a Moscow Maidan soon began to haunt the Kremlin, feeding Putin’s obsession with Ukraine and laying the foundations for the horrors that were to follow. The Russian propaganda machine promptly adopted Maidan as a buzzword signifying wicked foreign plots, and continues to use it two decades later without any need for further explanation.

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Nine years after the Orange Revolution, Maidan would be the scene of a second Ukrainian revolution. This time, the spark came when Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin president, Viktor Yanukovych, pulled out of a long anticipated EU association agreement and unleashed the riot police against students who objected to this drastic geopolitical U-turn. Once again, millions of Ukrainians flocked to the capital and gathered on Maidan. This time, though, it would not be bloodless.

With strong backing from Russia, the Ukrainian authorities took a hard line approach to the protests, leading to weeks of running battles on Maidan and in the surrounding streets. The nadir came in late February 2014, when dozens of protesters were shot and killed in the city center. This Maidan massacre brought down the Yanukovych regime. With his support base evaporating, the disgraced Ukrainian president fled to Russia. Days later, Putin responded by invading Crimea. Russia’s war to extinguish Ukrainian statehood had begun.

The tragic events of February 2014 had a profound impact on Ukraine’s collective psyche and served to consecrate Maidan in the national imagination. Up until that point, the square had regularly hosted public holidays, pop concerts, and Christmas fairs. In the aftermath of the killings, such events were moved to other locations in the Ukrainian capital. Maidan itself would now be reserved for the most somber and significant occasions in the life of the nation, such as the funerals of soldiers, vigils for Ukrainians held captive in Russia, and memorials marking important Ukrainian anniversaries.

Since 2022, Maidan’s transformation has gained further momentum amid the shock and trauma of Russia’s full-scale invasion. During the initial stages of the war, people began planting flags on the square in memory of fallen soldiers. This impromptu memorial has since expanded organically to become a sea of flags and portraits commemorating those who have lost their lives in the defense of Ukraine. It is an authentic grassroots tribute that is entirely in keeping with the spirit of Maidan.

As Russia’s invasion has unfolded, Maidan’s role as the principal site for wartime mourning and reverence has served to confirm the square’s position at the heart of modern Ukraine’s national story. There could hardly be a more fitting location. After all, Vladimir Putin launched the current war because he viewed the emergence of an independent Ukraine as an intolerable threat to his own authoritarian regime and a potential catalyst for the next stage in Russia’s long retreat from empire.

Maidan embodies Putin’s darkest fears. The Russian dictator’s goal remains the destruction of Ukraine as a state and as a nation, but he is acutely aware that the country is slipping inexorably out of the Kremlin orbit. This is nowhere more evident than on Kyiv’s central square, which has become the ultimate symbol of Ukraine’s escape from empire and embrace of an independent identity.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukrainian innovations are redefining the role of drones in modern war

Vitaliy Nabukhotny — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 20:34:16 +0000

Ukraine’s audacious recent drone strikes on Vladimir Putin’s bomber fleet at airbases across Russia have generated global headlines and fueled a lively debate over the implications of the attack. Many have hailed this highly successful Ukrainian operation as a watershed moment in military history, leading to claims in some quarters that Ukraine is now “redefining modern warfare.”

This international attention is understandable. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is widely recognized as the world’s first drone war, with Ukrainian innovation playing a key role in defining the role of drones in twenty-first century military operations. But while most analysis tends to focus on spectacular attacks like the recent decimation of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, the Ukrainian military is actually using drones for a far wider variety of functions. Ukraine’s drone experience is unprecedented and provides a range of important lessons for military commanders around the world.

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The primary role of drones in modern warfare is as weapons. Over the past three years, first person view (FPV) drones have become a ubiquitous feature of the contemporary battlefield and are believed to be responsible for the vast majority of Russian and Ukrainian casualties. This is changing the way the war is fought. Any vehicles operating close to the front lines must now rely on jamming devices, with many also favoring the additional protection of so-called “cope cage” coverings to shield against drone attacks. With larger groups of infantry deemed too vulnerable to drone strikes, attacks are typically carried out by small groups, often using highly mobile transport such as motorbikes or buggies.

Ukraine has also pioneered the use of drones and accompanying software to perform surveillance tasks mapping out the battlefield and providing real-time situational awareness of enemy deployments. This reconnaissance capability is not new in itself, but has undergone significant upgrades in recent years. Accurate and up-to-date information allows commanders to make informed decisions quickly, improving the effectiveness of military operations.

Beyond the battlefield, Ukraine has also transformed international understanding of drone warfare at sea. Since 2022, Ukrainian naval drones have succeeded in sinking or damaging around one-third of Russia’s entire Black Sea Fleet, forcing the remainder of Putin’s warships to retreat from Russian-occupied Crimea to the relative safety of Russia’s own Black Sea ports. Most recently, Ukraine claimed to have used naval drones to shoot down two Russian warplanes over the Black Sea.

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In addition to strike and surveillance functions, Ukraine has also employed drones in logistical roles. The Ukrainian army uses both aerial and ground-based unmanned systems to deliver ammunition, food, medicine, and other supplies to troops operating in dangerous or inaccessible areas, thereby reducing the need to expose personnel to hostile environments. Drone-based solutions can also potentially facilitate the evacuation of the wounded when manned rescue is deemed to be too risky.

One of the most creative Ukrainian uses of drones on the battlefield has been to help take surrendering Russian soldiers prisoner. This method reduces the need for physical engagement with enemy troops and therefore limits the risks to the Ukrainian side. Drones are used to give instructions using printed messages or via loudspeakers to guide enemy soldiers and indicate safe directions that will allow them to surrender without coming under fire.

Ukrainian unmanned systems are also playing an important role in efforts to document Russian war crimes. Drones are able to record the time, location, and nature of potential crimes, along with the identity of the perpetrators in some cases. Over the past three years, Ukrainian drones have captured evidence of potential war crimes including the execution of unarmed POWs and attacks on civilians. This footage can be used in future prosecutions and increases the chances that those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine will be held accountable.

The growing role of drones in warfare creates a range of challenges in terms of the accepted norms governing military operations. With this in mind, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has drawn up and issued internal guidelines for drone operators and legal teams to ensure adherence to the laws of armed conflict. These guidelines incorporate real-world combat scenarios to help drone operators understand how to treat categories such as medical personnel, retreating enemy troops, and those engaged in the evacuation of the wounded. This initiative is a step toward establishing broader global standards for responsible drone warfare.

Ukraine’s unique experience of drone warfare offers valuable insights that will shape military doctrines for many years to come, while also helping to define international standards for the use of drones in a military context. It is already clear that drones are transforming the battlefield in ways the evoke the twentieth century rise of air power. As drone technologies continue to advance, Ukraine is likely to remain a key player in this new wave of military innovation.

Vitaliy Nabukhotny is a human rights lawyer and external legal advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence’s Legal Department.

Turkmenistan’s deepening water crisis could have far-reaching regional consequences

Rasul Satymov — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 20:23:38 +0000

The vast, arid landscapes of Turkmenistan, stretching across Central Asia, are facing a profound and growing threat—a deepening water crisis that casts a shadow over its future stability, as well as over the security of the entire region. While often overshadowed by other domestic problems, the struggle for water in Turkmenistan is a critical issue demanding immediate attention. Exacerbated by a changing climate, almost a century of unsustainable practices, and new regional developments, this crisis is not just an environmental problem—it’s an unfolding human tragedy that could have significant economic and political ramifications well beyond its borders.

The roots of scarcity

Turkmenistan’s vulnerability to water stress is the highest in Central Asia, a precarious position resulting from a complex interplay of factors. Much of the country’s water infrastructure is a relic of the Soviet Union, including open canals and irrigation ditches that are tragically inefficient. Estimates suggest that anywhere between 30 percent and 60 percent of the water transported through these systems is lost to evaporation or seeps into the sandy soil before reaching its intended destination. These physical conditions are compounded by systemic mismanagement. A cohesive national strategy for water conservation and distribution remains elusive, hampered by a lack of coordination among governing bodies.

This inefficiency is particularly damaging given the demands placed upon the water supply, primarily by agriculture, which consumes an estimated 94 percent of the nation’s water resources. The heart of the problem lies in the legacy of Soviet-era planning: industrial production dedicated to cotton, a thirsty crop ill-suited to Turkmenistan’s naturally arid climate. This reliance on water-intensive agriculture depletes precious reserves. A shift toward drought-resistant crops, modern techniques such as drip irrigation, and greater agricultural diversification is long overdue to alleviate the immense pressure on the water supply.

Compounding these internal challenges are external pressures. Turkmenistan relies on the Amu Darya river, which flows along its border with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, for roughly 90 percent of its water. The construction of Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa Canal upstream represents a significant new threat. By diverting substantial amounts of water from the Amu Darya for its own agricultural ambitions, the canal project could reduce the flow reaching Turkmenistan, further straining an already stressed system. The absence of robust transboundary water-sharing agreements and effective diplomatic channels risks tensions, highlighting the urgent need for dialogue, potentially facilitated by neutral international mediators, to navigate this issue peacefully.

Overlaying all these factors is the undeniable impact of climate change. Projections indicate that temperatures in Turkmenistan are set to rise faster than the global average, inevitably leading to more frequent and severe droughts, further diminishing already scarce water resources and pushing the nation closer to the brink.

The human and environmental toll

The consequences of this escalating water scarcity are already being felt across Turkmenistan. Food insecurity is on the rise, with reports indicating that 12 percent of the population faces severe challenges in accessing sufficient food—among the highest rate among former Soviet nations. Access to safe drinking water is also becoming increasingly precarious. Residents across the country, including in the capital city of Ashgabat, report frequent water cuts and shortages. The tap water that is available is often of questionable quality, forcing many to rely on more expensive bottled water.

Reduced water flow and dying vegetation leave the soil vulnerable to erosion, intensifying the dust, sand, and salt storms that plague the region. In the northern Dashoguz province, vast tracts of agricultural land are severely affected by salt storms originating from the desiccated Aral Sea, posing significant risks to respiratory health and further degrading farmland. This vicious cycle of soil salinity, exacerbated by inefficient irrigation and poor drainage, diminishes air quality and agricultural productivity. Altogether, this creates an increasingly hostile environment for both people and wildlife.

The economic repercussions are also significant. Turkmenistan’s economy relies on natural gas exports, which constitute nearly 90 percent of its export revenue. However, the natural gas industry itself is water-intensive, requiring substantial amounts for cooling systems, equipment cleaning, and extraction processes. Water scarcity could directly impede the nation’s ability to maintain current natural gas production levels, potentially impacting national revenue and the funding of essential public services.

Furthermore, the unique ecosystems adapted to Turkmenistan’s arid conditions, including the vast Karakum Desert, are under threat. Rivers, wetlands, and oases—vital habitats for diverse flora, fauna, and migratory birds—risk shrinking or disappearing entirely, leading to biodiversity loss and pushing vulnerable species toward extinction.

Finally, the crisis is beginning to drive climate migration. Faced with failing crops, soil degradation, rising food prices, and dwindling agricultural employment (a sector that employs over 40 percent of the workforce), people are increasingly forced to migrate in search of better living conditions, both within the country and abroad. This displacement adds another layer of social and economic strain.

A call to action to maintain regional stability

The water crisis unfolding in Turkmenistan is not merely a domestic issue; its ripples will likely be felt regionally and globally. Declining agricultural output could increase Turkmenistan’s reliance on international food markets, potentially contributing to fluctuations in global food prices. More critically, the potent combination of environmental degradation, economic hardship, and potential social unrest fueled by water scarcity could destabilize the country and, by extension, the wider Central Asian region. History, including the the Syrian uprising, serves as a warning of how severe drought and resource mismanagement can exacerbate existing tensions and lead to conflict. Such instability could create power vacuums, ripe for large global powers.

Therefore, addressing Turkmenistan’s water challenge is a matter of international concern. Proactive engagement from the United States and the European Union could play a crucial role in promoting sustainable solutions and regional cooperation. In addition, supporting comprehensive research and data collection on water resources, climate impacts, and agricultural practices is essential for informed policymaking. The United States and the European Union should take the lead in facilitating regional dialogues involving Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Such initiatives will be critical for fostering transboundary cooperation and preventing conflicts over shared water resources such as the Amu Darya. Furthermore, technical assistance and funding from the United States and the European Union, potentially channeled through civil society organizations, could help implement sustainable water management practices on the ground—from promoting efficient irrigation techniques to supporting public education campaigns on water conservation.

Turkmenistan’s struggle with water scarcity is a powerful illustration of the interconnected challenges facing many parts of the world in the twenty-first century, where climate change, resource management, and geopolitical interests collide. Ignoring this looming crisis is not an option. Concerted action, grounded in cooperation and sustainable practices, is essential not only to secure a livable future for Turkmens but also to maintain stability in the region.

Rasul Satymov is a researcher with Progres Foundation with a focus on climate change, energy, and water issues in Turkmenistan.

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Kroenig featured in Times Radio segment on ‘a new nuclear age’

Atlantic Council — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 14:35:45 +0000

Original Source

On June 4, Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, was featured in a Times Radio segment discussing the ‘new nuclear age.’ Kroenig stated that China’s massive nuclear buildup, alongside Russia’s arsenal, marks the dawn of a new and more dangerous nuclear age.

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Armenia’s ‘crossroads’ offers the US and Israel a rare opportunity

Sheila Paylan — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:00:00 +0000

For decades, Armenia and Azerbaijan’s conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has kept the South Caucasus in a gridlock of historic animosities, closed borders, and economic stagnation. But with the conflict now effectively over, Armenia has launched its “Crossroads of Peace” initiative, envisioning itself as a central Eurasian transit hub.

The project aims to revive long-defunct transport routes—once important arteries of Soviet-era trade—that were severed after Azerbaijan and Turkey closed their borders with Armenia in 1991 and 1993, respectively, thereby isolating it. Restoring these routes would reconnect Armenia with its neighbors and link broader corridors from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea and from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, facilitating trade between major economies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. For both the United States and Israel, supporting this initiative offers a strategic opportunity to enhance regional stability, expand economic influence, and counterbalance adversarial powers like Iran, Russia, and China.

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev attend a meeting of heads of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on October 11, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS

This vision, however, ultimately depends on the successful conclusion of the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which remains stalled largely due to Azerbaijan’s shifting and escalating demands—including calls for constitutional amendments and the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group—despite diplomatic consensus over the treaty text and Armenia’s expressed readiness to sign it. Another major underlying issue is Azerbaijan’s insistence on an extraterritorial so-called “Zangezur Corridor”, which would connect it to its exclave Nakhchivan through southern Armenia, but bypassing all Armenian oversight, customs, and security. Armenia, while supportive of connectivity, unequivocally rejects any surrender of sovereignty over its territory.

Nevertheless, Crossroads of Peace still offers Baku significant economic and geopolitical benefits. By reconnecting regional transport networks, including access to Turkey through Armenian territory under Armenian jurisdiction, Azerbaijan could achieve many of its logistical objectives without the contentious demand for a sovereign corridor. This cooperative model would provide Baku with more trade routes to Nakhchivan and beyond, while also gaining international legitimacy and investment through a mutually beneficial and multilateral framework.

Why engagement serves US interests

The entry of US President Donald Trump’s second administration offers an opportune moment for the United States, and potentially Israel, to play an active role in securing a high-profile peace agreement by pushing Azerbaijan to sign the treaty with Armenia. While brokering such a deal would be a diplomatic win in itself, its real payoff lies in unlocking the Crossroads of Peace and thereby delivering meaningful strategic and commercial gains.

By facilitating new trade routes through a Western-friendly, post-conflict South Caucasus, the United States could establish a firmer presence in a region it has long neglected, challenge the dominance of rival powers, and generate economic returns through infrastructure partnerships and transit revenue.

For Washington, the Eurasian transport network represents a unique opportunity to establish a foothold in a region vital to global trade and geopolitics. It offers a Western-aligned alternative to transport networks increasingly dominated by Russia and China while opening the door to US commercial participation in logistics, infrastructure, and technology.

The Eurasian transport network, comprising mainly the Northern Corridor, Middle Corridor, and International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), moves millions of tons of freight worth billions of dollars each year. These corridors, which cut across Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, are economic battlegrounds where Moscow and Beijing seek to maintain influence, and the West attempts to create alternatives to Russian and Chinese-controlled infrastructure. In this fiercely contested region, controlling trade routes means shaping the future balance of economic and geopolitical power.

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Despite the strategic importance of these corridors, the United States currently has a very limited regional presence and lacks an integrated strategy or infrastructure footprint, offering only modest support limited to diplomatic engagement and technical assistance for the Middle Corridor, led by Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. However, this corridor faces significant challenges, including limited infrastructure capacity, high costs, and a lack of integration, which undermine its efficiency and deter large-scale, reliable trade flows. It is also partially aligned with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with parts of the Middle Corridor physically overlapping with and increasingly integrated into the BRI, drawing it into Beijing’s sphere of influence.

China’s growing interest and investment in the Middle Corridor thus further complicates its appeal for Western stakeholders. Chinese influence is now poised to grow even further with the Anaklia Port—a deep-sea project in Georgia—having been awarded to a Chinese-led consortium. Meanwhile, most freight still flows through Russia via the Northern Corridor, maintaining Moscow’s dominance over Eurasian transport. The INSTC—connecting India, Iran, Russia, and Europe—offers some diversification, but it presents “double trouble” for Washington’s involvement by relying heavily on both Iranian and Russian networks, two countries under sweeping US sanctions.

From a purely economic standpoint, the potential of Crossroads of Peace is substantial. Much of Eurasia’s overland trade currently bypasses Armenia, relying instead on Georgia’s politically sensitive routes and the broader Middle Corridor. Diversifying transit through Armenia would strengthen regional connectivity and unlock new channels for investment, trade, and employment. By investing early in Crossroads of Peace, the United States can counterbalance Moscow and Beijing’s regional footprints while creating entry points for American firms in sectors such as construction, energy, digital infrastructure, and logistics. While comprehensive feasibility studies have yet to be publicly released, the Armenian government has indicated that the project could generate significant economic returns by restoring dormant transit infrastructure and linking key regional corridors. Institutions like the Asian Development Bank have expressed support, and the US-Armenia Strategic Partnership Charter highlights the initiative as a priority area for cooperation.

Moreover, given the Trump administration’s emphasis on economic partnerships and tangible returns, Armenia’s proposal aligns well as a concrete opportunity to advance US financial interests. Infrastructure projects, particularly railways and highways, could generate significant returns through tolls, tariffs, and transit fees, benefiting US investors, US-backed development institutions, and potentially the US federal government if linked to initiatives like an External Revenue Service.

However, the precise mechanisms through which the United States would realize these returns—such as specific investment structures, revenue-sharing agreements, or operational roles—require further elaboration. Detailed financial modeling and bilateral agreements would be necessary to quantify and actualize these benefits. The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) could help drive this effort by providing early-stage support and risk mitigation for targeted investments in Crossroads of Peace that lay the groundwork for a sustainable US economic footprint across the South Caucasus. This approach would also dovetail with Trump’s broader ambitions to fund government expenditures through foreign-derived revenue rather than domestic taxation. Investing in Crossroads of Peace could therefore fit neatly into this vision, turning geopolitics into a profitable enterprise benefiting the American taxpayer.

The potential for this initiative to succeed under US sponsorship could redefine Washington’s legacy in the South Caucasus and position the Trump administration as the indispensable peace broker in a region historically dominated by rival powers. Given Trump’s record of bold diplomatic efforts, from Ukraine-Russia negotiations to mediation between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo—conflicts still far from resolution—brokering peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan would be a comparatively easy win. It would take little more than a decisive push from Trump to “close the deal” and get Azerbaijan to sign onto terms it has already effectively agreed to, delivering a swift and tangible diplomatic victory.

Why engagement serves Israeli interests

Israel, too, has strong incentives to support the finalization of peace and the development of Armenia’s transit ambitions. Azerbaijan is a close Israeli ally, particularly in terms of energy and security cooperation. Helping to solidify peace with Armenia could deepen these ties while promoting broader regional stability. With trade between Israel and Gulf states, particularly the United Arab Emirates, growing rapidly under the Abraham Accords, Israel could benefit from overland corridors like Crossroads of Peace that improve access to Persian Gulf markets, bypass Iran, and create new logistics, infrastructure, and technology cooperation opportunities. This would enhance Israel’s economic outreach and reduce its exposure to Tehran’s influence in regional supply chains.

Additionally, Israel has historic and cultural ties with Armenia, notably through the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem, home to one of the oldest continuous Armenian diasporas in the world. A peaceful, economically integrated South Caucasus could open new avenues for Israeli trade, diplomacy, and investment across the region.

Furthermore, a secure peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan would significantly reduce Armenia’s dependence on Iran, which has become one of its few trade and energy lifelines due to closed borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Armenia’s pragmatic relationship with Iran stems more from necessity than ideological alignment. Opening new trade routes through Azerbaijan and Turkey would enable Armenia to break this dependence and accelerate its Westward pivot.

This shift would directly serve Israel’s interests by further isolating Iran economically while allowing Israel to maintain its foothold in Azerbaijan as a counterweight to Iranian threats. Armenia remains one of Iran’s few accessible and expanding trade partners, with Iranian exports to Armenia reaching nearly 600 million dollars in 2023, including petroleum gas, iron, and other industrial goods. The two countries also maintain strategic energy exchanges—notably under a “Gas for Electricity” agreement—and Armenia is Iran’s only direct link to the Eurasian Economic Union. Reducing Armenia’s dependence on Iran through regional normalization would therefore help close a critical commercial and geopolitical corridor for Tehran. At the same time, a more connected and less Iran-dependent Armenia—at peace with its neighbors and increasingly aligned on common regional security concerns—could adopt a more collaborative stance toward Israel’s interests. Turkish officials have made clear, however, that normalization with Azerbaijan is a necessary precondition for reopening the Turkey-Armenia border.

To this end, leveraging Azerbaijan’s growing interest in joining the Abraham Accords could be instrumental. Although Baku has long maintained strong security and energy relations with Israel, formalizing those relations within the Abraham Accords would significantly elevate its international standing. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff recently indicated that Armenia, too, could be a candidate for future accession—a development that would further reinforce a regional climate of normalization, mutual recognition, and cooperation. Building on this momentum, US-Israeli joint mediation could help encourage Azerbaijan to soften its stance toward Armenia, facilitating the conclusion of a peace agreement that respects Armenia’s sovereignty while satisfying Azerbaijan’s strategic objectives.

Seizing the opportunity

Finalizing peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan offers Washington and Jerusalem a rare chance to tilt the balance of power in one of the world’s most critical yet contested regions. Investing in this moment and helping to overcome the last obstacles to a peace deal—through targeted diplomacy, infrastructure support, and principled mediation—can help secure new trade corridors, weaken adversaries, and build lasting influence at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Armenia’s Crossroads of Peace is not merely a reconstruction project but a strategic gateway to a more stable, prosperous, and Western-aligned South Caucasus.

That said, a Westward pivot is not without geopolitical risks. Armenia’s deep historical ties with Russia and Iran could make this realignment contentious, especially if viewed as a zero-sum loss by Moscow or Tehran. To mitigate this, the United States and its allies should pair their investment and mediation efforts with clear security and economic guarantees to Armenia, ranging from energy diversification and trade facilitation to defense cooperation and institutional integration. Framing Crossroads of Peace as a shared regional gain, rather than a Western encroachment, will be essential to ensuring its sustainability.

But this opportunity will not remain open for long. It must be seized now.

Sheila Paylan is a human rights lawyer and senior legal consultant with the United Nations.

* The views expressed herein are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations.

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Ullman in the Hill on importance of strategic innovation for US military superiority

bgalicia — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 11:13:55 +0000

On June 9, Atlantic Council Senior Advisor Harlan Ullman published an op-ed in the Hill on lessons the US can learn from Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb.” He argues that future success against adversaries will depend on the US military’s ability to use innovative tactics and remain agile.

International Advisory Board member

Harlan Ullman

Senior Advisor

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A German leader’s D-Day lesson for Trump

Frederick Kempe — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Set aside for the moment the mud wrestling between the world’s most powerful and richest men, Donald Trump and Elon Musk. This weekend, let’s focus on an insufficiently noticed exchange that goes more to the heart of the United States’ enduring and endangered purpose.

On the eve of the eighty-first anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion at Normandy that marked the beginning of Europe’s liberation from Adolf Hitler, newly elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz brought a message to the White House that no American should ignore.

Merz made reference to the anniversary, in the context of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, as marking a day “when the Americans once ended a war in Europe.”

Caught off-guard, the US president quipped that D-Day wasn’t a pleasant day for Germany.

“Well, in the long run, Mr. President,” Merz replied calmly, “this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship.”

Trump paused to digest what he’d just heard, a good German thanking Americans for defeating a criminal one, then he answered, “That’s true. That’s true.”

What came next was the most significant message US allies could send to the Trump administration as another criminal regime tests allied resolve.

“And we know what we owe you,” Merz went on. “But this is the reason why I’m saying that America is, again, in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war.” Merz asked Trump to talk about what they could do jointly “for more pressure on Russia,” placing the war’s blame unambiguously where it belongs.

It’s worth calling out that Merz-Trump exchange, which came in the twenty-seventh minute of their Oval Office session with reporters, after Trump comments on his travel ban, prospects for a China trade deal, his relationship with his erstwhile adviser Musk, and the presidential protocol of when to use an autopen signature.

Given the Ukraine war’s gravity and Merz’s reference to World War II, Trump’s comments that followed must have been disconcerting to Merz. The German chancellor was well enough rehearsed not to show it. When asked by a reporter when he would impose more sanctions on Russia, Trump talked about his over two-hour conversation with Putin, during which he compared the war to “two young children fighting like crazy . . . Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”

With nearly a million and a half casualties already in this schoolyard brawl, a reporter asked Merz whether he agreed with the analogy.

Merz was at his best. He said both Germany and the United States agree on how terrible war is, and both are looking for ways to stop it soon. “And I told the president before we came in,” said Merz, “that he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia.”

As Merz spoke of the children Russia has kidnapped from Ukraine, Trump described disturbing satellite pictures of the war—“bodies, arms, heads, legs all over the place. You’ve never seen anything like it. It’s so ridiculous.” Merz then added, “And this is only by Russian weapons against Ukraine. This had never happened with [Ukrainian] weapons against Russia, never . . . So, this is the difference, and that’s the reason why we are trying to do more on Russia.”

In the past two weeks, Trump has appeared to be losing patience with Putin, suggesting that he knows Putin is playing him for time and wondering whether Putin’s relentless attacks on civilians demonstrate that the Russian president has “gone absolutely CRAZY.” Beyond that, Trump has been quoted as calling Ukraine’s drone attacks last weekend on Russian strategic bombers “badass.”

All that history will remember, however, is whether Trump was the US president who contributed to Putin’s defeat and brought Ukraine a lasting peace—or whether he stood by as Putin escalates further, targeting civilians and their infrastructure. In all the news noise of a typical Trump administration week, it is worth listening closer to the German chancellor’s D-Day appeal that it will take much more US pressure on Russia to end this European war.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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Ukraine’s drone strikes offer four big lessons for US nuclear strategists

Mark J. Massa — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 22:09:40 +0000

In the days since Ukraine’s brazen special forces attack inside Russia, analysts have breathlessly argued that the operation, captured in spectacular detail in videos, significantly changed the character of military conflict—or even “rewrote the rules of war.”

Maybe so. There were plenty of novel elements to Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb,” which destroyed a dozen or more large Russian military aircraft—including bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons—across the length and breadth of Russia, using drones launched from containers positioned near Russian airfields.

But in my field of nuclear deterrence, the attack was enlightening in another way: It reinforced principles that have been hiding in plain sight for years. For US nuclear strategists, the attack yielded at least four crucial lessons.

1. The risk of nuclear escalation over conventional attacks is exaggerated

Ukraine’s drone strikes were a blow to the widely held belief that nonnuclear military attacks on nuclear-relevant facilities or assets will lead automatically to uncontrollable nuclear escalation.

As I have argued previously, too many analysts of nuclear affairs appear to overweight the risk that if a nuclear-armed country is facing attacks on nuclear-relevant locations or assets by conventional weapon systems or dual-capable ones (systems relevant to both nuclear and conventional missions), then that country will feel overwhelming pressure to escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, perhaps even before assessing the extent of the attacks. This logic looks convincing. But it is empirically unsupported.

Russia may yet respond to the Ukrainian attack. But Russian nuclear retaliation in Ukraine seems unlikely, even after Russia lowered its stated threshold for nuclear use in September 2024. Ukrainian drone strikes on multiple Russian bomber bases would seem to be exactly the sort of attack that would trigger Russia’s lower threshold for resorting to nuclear weapons. Yet no such use has materialized.

To be clear, nuclear-armed states may well resort to nuclear use to coerce an end to military operations that could lead to unacceptable costs, such as the destruction of a large portion of that state’s nuclear arsenal. But last weekend’s operation is further evidence that attacks falling short of this threshold are not likely to trigger a major nuclear exchange.

2. Nuclear forces are only as dependable as their defenses

Ukraine’s attacks vividly illustrated the vulnerability of the US bomber fleet, which is often sitting on the tarmac. Drone threats are just one of a variety of air and missile threats to the US homeland, though certainly one that has received less attention in the strategic forces community. The 2023 Congressional Strategic Posture Commission Report and a recent Atlantic Council study on missile defense both concluded that the United States must enhance its air and missile defense. In particular, it must pay attention to countering coercive attacks on civilian and military infrastructure, as well as on US nuclear forces.

Reflecting on the Ukrainian attacks, General Thomas Bussiere, the commander of US Air Force Global Strike Command, said at an Atlantic Council event on June 5 that the Air Force already deploys counter-drone systems around strategic air bases. The strikes on Russia this past weekend underscore that these efforts should improve and expand, perhaps under the aegis of the Trump administration’s proposed “Golden Dome.” This active defense must be completed by improved sensing, better coordination among responsible agencies, and the advancement of passive measures, such as the use of hardened shelters in peacetime, as well as air alerts and backup airfields in conflict or crisis.

3. Drones should be factored into nuclear-capabilities planning

There’s another truism in nuclear affairs rendered all the truer by last weekend’s operation: Advanced and emerging technologies can powerfully complement nuclear weapons in holding an adversary’s strategic nuclear forces at risk.

This possibility is especially tantalizing as US nuclear strategists grapple with the fact that China’s nuclear-weapons arsenal is expected to reach near-parity with the US nuclear arsenal in the mid-2030s. Because holding at risk an adversary’s nuclear weapons is an important part of how the United States deters nuclear war, the growth in China’s nuclear arsenal puts pressure on the United States to increase the size of its own nuclear arsenal. Advanced conventional weapons might complement these forces or even reduce the extent to which the United States will need to expand its nuclear forces. Perhaps drones could play a part in that equation.

4. Special forces should be at the center of major power competition

As my Atlantic Council colleagues have argued in recent reports, US special operations forces, which have been occupied with counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in the Middle East for two decades, can play an important role in US competition with major powers such as Russia, marking a return to their Cold War-era roots. Ukraine’s attack on Russian bombers is best understood in the context of a long history of operations behind enemy lines to disrupt airfields.

Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb was certainly daring and will reduce the capacity of Russia’s long-range aviation for some time. More than marking a new chapter in the history of warfare, however, the strikes should spur the US government to address the vulnerabilities and opportunities that nuclear strategists have focused on for years.

Mark J. Massa is the deputy director for strategic forces policy in the Forward Defense program of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council.

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Dispatch from Kyiv: Ukraine is putting new pressure on Russia. Will Trump follow?

John E. Herbst — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 20:25:48 +0000

This is part of a series of regular assessments of the efforts, spearheaded by the Trump administration, to achieve a negotiated end to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Read last week’s edition here.

KYIV—I arrived in Ukraine’s capital on June 1, several hours after news broke of the country’s successful destruction of advanced Russian bombers—TU-22s and TU-95s—and Russia’s most advanced intelligence plane, the A-50. Over the next two days, I had numerous meetings with senior Ukrainian officials, politicians, and civil society activists. The strike was a major morale boost across the board, though some of the Ukrainians I spoke with still worry whether the Trump administration will continue to supply military intelligence and equipment to Ukraine; others are optimistic that Trump will not let Russian President Vladimir Putin bamboozle him.

In the near term, the spectacular Ukrainian operation will have a major impact on Russia’s ability to strike from the air at Ukrainian civilian and military targets. It has also bolstered the nuclear security of the United States and its allies by taking out as much as 34 percent of Moscow’s nuclear-capable bomber force. But perhaps the greatest impact of the strike extends to the diplomacy to end the war, and in particular to the calculations of the Trump administration. That is because the strike undermined the common perception, including in the White House, that time was on Putin’s side and Russia would ultimately overwhelm Ukraine.

How has that big idea played out this week? It is notable that the only immediate reaction to the strike from Trump world came from outside actors, many of whom have shown little understanding that the Kremlin considers the United States to be its principal adversary. Some in this cohort have even naively argued that the United States has no stakes in its aggression against Ukraine. Trump allies Steve Bannon and Mike Flynn, for example, claim that Kyiv’s strike undermines Trump’s diplomacy to end the war. It is therefore time, in Bannon’s phrase, for the United States to “pull all support” for Ukraine. It should be noted that this was not a reflection of Trump’s policy. It was an attempt by some in his circle to influence that policy.

But Trump has not moved in that direction. In fact, the White House reaction to the audacious operation has been notably nuanced. The first word from the White House—almost a day after Ukraine’s “special military operation”—was that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had not informed Trump of the impending action. There was no real comment on the action itself.

Reading between the lines with Putin and Merz

The next step was Trump’s June 4 phone call with Putin. In a Truth Social post afterward, Trump noted that it was a good call, but the Russian president was very angry about Ukraine’s attack and would have to retaliate. Trump critics understandably complained that there was no indication that the US president had tried to dissuade Putin from doing so—although the next day, the Washington Post reported that Trump claimed to have told Putin not to retaliate. In any case, Trump chose not to characterize the Ukrainian action.

That task was left to Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, who in a terse public statement on June 4 noted that the attack on Russia’s nuclear strike capacity could be considered escalatory. This was essentially a performative smack on the knuckles for Kyiv. More relevant indications of Trump’s reaction and inclinations were leaked to the press on background. While expressing to his staff his frustration with both Putin and Zelenskyy, Trump also recognized the audacity of the Ukrainian operation, calling it “badass,” according to Axios. Still, Trump reportedly lamented that it would slow down movement toward a cease-fire.

Further indications of Trump’s outlook came June 5, when he met with Friedrich Merz, the new German chancellor. Merz’s objective, of course, was to strengthen Trump’s resolve to maintain support for Ukraine (and to maintain the US commitment to NATO, including keeping US troops in Germany). In that meeting, Trump said it seems that Putin wants all of Ukraine, an important sign that he is finally understanding that the Russian leader himself is the obstacle to the administration’s efforts to end the war.

All of this is of far greater importance to the diplomacy surrounding the war than the second meeting of Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul on June 2. That meeting went as expected. On the plus side, there was another agreement on a limited prisoner exchange. On the question of a cease-fire, the Russian side finally presented its formal terms. Those terms are for a vindictive, victor’s peace. Ukraine would be required not just to declare neutrality and demilitarize; it would also have to hand over to Russia all the territory in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts—including areas currently controlled by Kyiv. Moscow’s terms were likely on Trump’s mind as he discussed Putin’s policy toward Ukraine with Merz.

Whither the sanctions bill?

Trump’s clearer understanding of the Putin problem and his new respect for Ukraine’s military capabilities—“badass” being a backhanded but clear compliment—is a plus. But it has yet to yield a stronger policy from the White House.

Restive Republicans in Congress have been chafing for months at Trump’s reluctance to do what he promised: to bring pressure on the side blocking peace. Taking a leading position on this, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) along with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) proposed a sanctions bill in early April with fifty cosponsors. That bill now has eighty-two cosponsors. Last week, Graham said that he thought the bill would move forward in the Senate this week. House Speaker Mike Johnson supports the effort for tough sanctions. Strong national security Republicans seem to believe that Ukraine’s successful June 1 strike is making it more likely that Congress will move on the sanctions bill and that the United States will help supply Ukraine with additional military equipment. Deft Ukrainian diplomacy on Capitol Hill this week—led by Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak—has further encouraged this sentiment.

Yet it is still not clear that the administration will move. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 6 that the White House asked for the sanctions bill to be watered down, and Trump indicated in his meeting with Merz that he is considering, for some unknown reason, sanctioning both sides. This means, at a minimum, some delay as Graham, Johnson, and other advocates try to work out their differences with the White House. It might also mean that Trump cannot bring himself to punish Putin.

That can only strengthen Putin’s conviction that Trump will eventually allow Russia to gobble up Ukraine. Reports that the Pentagon, with a leadership that is energetically trying to diminish ties with Ukraine, is transferring desperately needed anti-drone technology from Ukraine to US forces will also be read in the Kremlin as a sign of US weakness.

Ironically, Trump’s success at reaching a sustainable end to the war in Ukraine depends on the efforts of those advocates for pressure on Russia. Kellogg seemed to be making this point in a June 6 statement that the Ukrainian special operation could be a forcing function for peace. If, as Trump admitted, Putin’s goal is not a durable peace but to seize Ukraine, then the only real way to end the fighting is to make it very uncomfortable for Putin to continue fighting. Ukraine’s June 1 attack was a step in that direction. Strong US action in the form of sanctions and military supplies can drive that point home. Without that, the US president does not keep his long-stated promise to bring a stable peace to Europe.

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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The search for safe assets

Hung Tran — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 17:56:40 +0000

The search for safe assets has become acute amidst economic uncertainty and financial market stresses triggered by the tariff war and heightened geopolitical tension. High-quality government bonds have played an important role as anchors in the portfolios of central banks’ reserve assets, as well as other large and long-term institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies. High-quality government bonds have also been in demand to serve as collateral in credit transactions, in part because Basel III financial regulations have incentivized banks to lend against collateral to reduce risk weights when calculating their capital requirements.

At the same time, the quality of government bonds issued by developed countries, mainly the United States, has been questioned. Developed countries face fiscal pressures reflecting demands for higher government spending on defense, infrastructure, and other needs, while their budget deficits and government debts are already at high levels.

The ensuing search for safe assets has come up against the fact that there are no obvious alternatives to US Treasuries. Efforts to deal with the problems of fiscal deterioration in major countries by diversifying safe asset portfolios could lead to market volatility, posing a risk to global financial stability.

US dominance in the global bond market

The global bond market is estimated to be about $140 trillion, dominated by the United States, which amounts to $55 trillion—or 39.3 percent of the total. The bulk of the US bond market is made up of US Treasury securities marketable to the public. These securities are worth $28.8 trillion, and amount to the biggest and most liquid bond market in the world. A total of $9 trillion, or 31.2 percent are held by foreigners and $4.2 trillion, or 14.6 percent, are held by the Federal Reserve. Together with intragovernment holding of US Treasuries totaling more than $7 trillion, US government debt has reached $36 trillion, or 124 percent of US gross domestic product (GDP)—doubling the debt-to-GDP ratio of 62 percent posted in 2007 prior to the global financial crisis.

Moreover, the US fiscal outlook has worsened. The administration’s budget package—named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—has been approved by the House, and is currently under the Senate’s consideration. It makes the 2017 tax cuts permanent and, if enacted, would increase the $1.8 trillion budget deficit in 2024 by $2.4 trillion between 2026 and 2034. These estimates, provided by the Congressional Budget Office, would raise the amount of government debt in the process. The United States’ deteriorating budget deficit trajectory has prompted international investors to share concerns about the sustainability of US public finance, which could lead to upward pressure on yields to compensate for the higher perceived risk. This has been manifested by the fact that, since recent stock market turmoil following the announcement of reciprocal tariffs on April 2, 2025, yields on US Treasuries have risen by forty basis points. The US dollar also weakened by 4.2 percent. If international investors flock to US Treasuries as safe havens, Treasury yields would have risen and the US dollar would have become stronger.

No good alternatives to US Treasuries

The deterioration of the US fiscal outlook has put international investors, especially foreign central banks, in a quandary. There is no good alternative to US Treasuries as safe reserve assets. Other major countries have also been burdened with high budget deficits and public debt levels—albeit generally less acute than the United States. Those markets that have lower deficits are smaller and less liquid than the US Treasury market, making them less attractive as reserve assets.

The euro has been frequently mentioned as an aspirant to compete with the dollar—a point recently emphasized by Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB). However, the public bond markets dominated by the euro are fragmented and collectively smaller than the US Treasury market. They are able to supplement but not replace US Treasuries.

The European Union (EU) has launched three programs to issue joint Eurobonds within its budgetary authority: SURE, a program to support employment during Covid-19, for up to €100 billion; NextGenerationEU, a stimulus package to grow Europe’s economy, for up to €712 billion; and the European Financial Stability Mechanism, which provides assistance to member states in financial distress, for up to €60 billion. To date, about €468 billion ($533 billion) worth of Eurobonds are outstanding—just big enough to be an attractive niche market segment.

The euro area (EA) member states have a combined government bond market of more than €10 trillion ($11.4 trillion), of which about 35 percent is held by the ECB and 22 percent is held by foreigners. Trading, especially by hedge funds, has concentrated on the German, French, Spanish, and Italian markets. However, the EA market is fragmented into national markets, each of which is shaped by different and often divergent domestic economic and fiscal circumstances.

The UK government (gilt) bond market is fairly substantial at £2.6 trillion ($3.5 trillion), with about 30 percent held by foreigners.

The Japanese Government Bond (JGB) market amounts to $7.8 trillion or 250 percent of Japan’s GDP. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) holds 52 percent of the JGB market due to its massive JGB purchases, though the BOJ has been scaling back its purchasing volume while Japan emerges from deflation. Along with prospects of substantial borrowing needs by the Japanese government, this has pushed up yields and stymied demand from foreign investors who already account for only 6.4 percent of the JGB market. Finally, the Chinese bond market—at $21.3 trillion—is the second biggest in the world after the US market. However, the bulk of the public bond segment of $14.4 trillion is in bonds issued through local government financing vehicles, which are fragmented and illiquid. Central government bonds only account for $3 trillion. Foreign investors take up only 7 percent of the Chinese government bond market. Overall, the lack of free convertibility of the renminbi and the closed capital account have rendered Chinese government bonds not completely suitable as safe assets for global central banks.

Some central banks have purchased substantial amounts of gold in recent years to hedge against economic uncertainty and geopolitical tension. This has helped push the price of gold up 42 percent over the past year to record highs around $3,300 per ounce. As a result, the average share of gold at market values in global centeral bank reserves has reached 15 percent. It’s unlikely that this share will continue to rise much further in future, given the limited supply of gold. The costs of holding it also include lack of interest earnings, storage and transportation costs, and the inconvenience in using gold as means of settling international transactions.

Conclusions

The deteriorating fiscal outlook of major countries, especially the United States, has made safe assets more difficult to find. Going forward, there will likely not be an effort to replace US Treasuries with other government bonds—there is simply no viable alternative. Instead, a trend toward diversification to better manage heightened sovereign and credit risks on what used to be thought of as risk-free assets is probable. More frequent portfolio restructuring and the substitution necessary for diversification measures would add to market uncertainty and volatility, at a time when both measures have already been elevated by the tariff war and geopolitical tension. This trend would increase risk to global financial stability.

In particular, the share of the US dollar and US assets, such as Treasury securities in global safe asset portfolios, will likely decline gradually over time as international investors move to diversify their portfolios. When looking at the composition of global central bank reserves, this development is consistent with the gradual decline of the dollar from 72 percent in 1999 to 57.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024. The trend was not in favor of any other major currency such as the euro, whose share has been stable around 19.8 percent in recent years, but to a variety of nontraditional reserve currencies. If the world’s central banks were to maintain a neutral allocation to US Treasury securities in their reserves portfolios, that would be 36 percent—the share of US Treasuries in the global government bond market totaling $80 trillion.

Hung Tran is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center and senior fellow at the Policy Center for a New South; and former senior official at the Institute of International Finance and International Monetary Fund

EconoGraphics May 13, 2025

Basel III endgame: The specter of global regulatory fragmentation

By Hung Tran

Economy & Business Financial Regulation

Econographics May 23, 2023

There is no alternative to US Treasuries

By Josh Lipsky

In the wake of a US default, investors searching for safe assets may have no viable alternative to US Treasuries.

China Economy & Business

New Atlanticist May 27, 2025

What’s the Trump administration’s dollar strategy? It depends on who you ask.

By Alisha Chhangani

Within the White House, there appear to be competing and fractured views of the dollar’s role. This dissonance could result in harm to the currency’s long-term dominance.

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Russian hybrid warfare: Ukraine’s success offers lessons for Europe

Maksym Beznosiuk — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 21:39:11 +0000

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues, the Kremlin is also rapidly escalating its hybrid war against Europe. Intelligence officials from a number of European countries are now raising the alarm and warning that Russian operations are growing in number and becoming bolder, with potential targets including transport hubs and critical infrastructure.

The Kremlin employs hybrid warfare tactics to remain below the threshold that would trigger a unified and potentially overwhelming European response. This has led to a surge in sabotage, cyberattacks, political interference, and disinformation campaigns across Europe, with a particular emphasis on countries closer to Russia.

Moscow’s hybrid war against Europe mirrors the tactics used by the Kremlin in Ukraine following the start of Russia’s invasion in 2014. Ukraine’s response to the often unprecedented challenges posed by Russian hybrid warfare offers important lessons for Kyiv’s European partners.

The Ukrainian experience highlights the gravity of the hybrid threat and the importance of an integrated response. The overall message to Western policymakers is clear: Moscow views hybrid warfare as an important Russian foreign policy tool and will continue expanding its campaign. Europe cannot afford to wait for Russian hybrid attacks to escalate further before building the advanced capabilities required to counter this threat.

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There have been growing reports of Russian hybrid war-style attacks across the EU since the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine eleven years ago. This trend gained significant additional momentum following the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Typical incidents include cyberattacks targeting infrastructure, sabotage including arson attacks, and attempts to disrupt military aid destined for Ukraine. Moscow is also accused of investing billions of dollars in sophisticated social media campaigns to influence the outcome of elections across Europe. The Kremlin’s hybrid operations are concentrated in central and eastern Europe, with Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states among the primary targets.

None of this is new to Ukraine. For more than a decade, Ukrainians have been learning to cope with the full range of Russia’s hybrid warfare toolbox. Russia’s attack on Ukraine began in February 2014 when Russian soldiers without insignias took control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in a lightning operation that was accompanied by a massive wave of targeted disinformation.

Russia’s subsequent efforts to destabilize and subjugate the rest of Ukraine have involved a combination of conventional military aggression, sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and support for pro-Russian actors in Ukraine. Thanks to this prolonged exposure to Russian hybrid warfare, Ukraine has been able to develop countermeasures that have helped build resilience and reduce the impact of Russia’s hybrid operations.

Ukraine’s response has been a collaborative effort involving the Ukrainian government, civil society, and the private sector. In the cyber sphere, efforts to improve Ukraine’s digital security have played a key role, with the launch of the country’s popular Diia platform and the establishment of the Ministry of Digital Transformation helping to drive important digital governance reforms.

This has enhanced Ukraine’s ability to maintain public services amid acts of cyber aggression and has improved engagement with the population. Ukraine’s progress in the digital sphere has been recognized internationally, with the country climbing from the 102 spot to fifth position in the UN’s annual Online Services Index in the seven years between 2018 and 2025.

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Ukraine’s coordination structures, such as the Center for Strategic Communications and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, enable swift and well-coordinated responses across government, media, and digital channels. This offers a number of advantages in a hybrid war setting. For example, it allows the Ukrainian government to synchronize positions with proactive narrative-setting when countering the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

Ukraine has also benefited from a decentralized approach involving digital volunteers, civil society, and public-private partnerships. A wide range of civic tech groups and open-source investigators are active in Ukraine detecting and countering Russian disinformation. These measures have made it possible to expose Russian narratives efficiently, coordinate messaging across government and civil society, and maintain coherence during military operations.

Since 2014, Ukraine has been able to reduce Russia’s overwhelming initial advantages on the information front of the hybrid war. While Russian disinformation tactics continue to evolve and remain a major aspect of the ongoing invasion, Ukraine has managed to increasingly leverage information to shape international opinion and influence diplomatic outcomes.

At present, the European response to Russia’s hybrid war lacks the institutional agility and coordination between public sector and civil society that is evident in Ukraine. Instead, the EU and NATO have developed a number of parallel structures such as NATO’s Joint Intelligence and Security Division and the EU’s East StratCom Task Force. While these agencies continue to make meaningful contributions to the fight back against Russian hybrid warfare, they have yet to demonstrate the kind of real-time operational coordination that has served Ukraine so well.

Ukraine’s model for combating Russian hybrid warfare can’t be replicated in full, but it could serve as a practical reference point for building more adaptive and integrated responses across the West. Given Ukraine’s unique experience, it might make sense to establish a trilateral consultative framework together with the EU and NATO to enable rapid hybrid threat evaluations and coordinate responses.

Ukraine’s long record of countering Russian hybrid warfare has also highlighted the role of civil society. Kyiv’s European partners should consider increasing support for initiatives such as investigative journalism, fact-checking platforms, and technical watchdogs that can serve as support elements in a broader European defense ecosystem. In an environment where information is increasingly weaponized, Ukraine’s experience has also underlined the need to embed media literacy into the education system to ensure European citizens are able to consume information critically and are less vulnerable to Russian propaganda.

Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategic policy specialist and director of UAinFocus, an independent platform connecting Ukrainian and international experts around key Ukrainian issues.

Trump’s Russia policy must be rooted in realism

Agnia Grigas — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 20:50:06 +0000

US President Donald Trump has recently changed his tone toward Russian president Vladimir Putin, suggesting that he has “gone crazy” and is “playing with fire.” This highlights the ongoing difficulties of negotiating with the Kremlin. While the Trump administration broadly favors a realist approach to international relations, a more pragmatic assessment of Russia’s capabilities and objectives could better equip the US to achieve its stated goal of bringing the war in Ukraine to an end.

Almost three months ago, Ukraine accepted a US proposal for a thirty-day unconditional ceasefire. So far, Russia has refused to do likewise. Instead, the Kremlin continues to demand a series of preconditions. Meanwhile, Russia has intensified its missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian civilian targets. When Trump recently backed Putin’s proposal for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian leader then boycotted the subsequent Istanbul talks, sending only a lower-level delegation.

Within the Trump administration, key figures such as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have all articulated their support for a realist view of international relations. This implies sidestepping abstract ideological objectives and focusing on tangible power factors such as economic size, population, geography, and military strength.

The realist viewpoint is reflected in Hegseth’s assertion that Ukraine returning to its pre-2014 borders is “unrealistic.” It can also be seen in Trump’s statements that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “does not have the cards” in negotiations with Russia, an assertion that seems far less certain in the wake of Ukraine’s successful recent strikes on Russia’s long-distance bombers.

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Some advocates of foreign policy realism argue that the US should seek to accommodate Russia, even at Ukraine’s expense. However, this approach tends to exaggerate Russia’s strengths, while underestimating the importance of the Kremlin’s imperial objectives and the relevant fact that Russian national security doctrine identifies the US as its principal adversary. A more comprehensive realist analysis of Russia reveals that, despite its assertiveness, Moscow’s power is in fact often overstated, while its appetite for compromise is limited.

Compared to the United States, Europe, and NATO, Russia simply does not “hold the cards,” to use Trump’s phrase. Its $2 trillion economy ranks outside the world’s top ten, trailing behind the US, China, Germany, Japan, India, and others. Although Russia has weathered sanctions, the prolonged war since 2022 has left its economy overextended and vulnerable.

The Russian population of 145 million is shrinking and ranks ninth globally, far behind the US and the collective European Union. Militarily, Russia’s large conventional forces have under-performed during the invasion of Ukraine while sustaining heavy losses. Russia’s $146 billion military budget, though substantial relative to neighboring states, pales in comparison to the $968 billion US budget in 2023, or even the collective defense spending of EU member states.

Russia remains a formidable nuclear power and frequently reminds the international community of this fact. Since the very first days of the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, Putin and other Kremlin officials have engaged in regular nuclear saber-rattling. But while Russia is the only nuclear power to make such threats, Putin has repeatedly failed to act when his red lines have been crossed by the Ukrainians, and has been publicly warned by his Chinese allies not to cross the nuclear threshold.

Since 2022, Russia has lost much of its energy leverage and is no longer Europe’s key energy supplier. Meanwhile, the United States has consolidated its position as a leading global energy exporter, particularly in liquefied natural gas (LNG). This is enabling Europe to diversify away from Russia while starving the Kremlin of vital revenue and geopolitical influence.

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In realist terms, Russia’s power surpasses that of its immediate smaller neighbors but falls well short of the US or the European Union as a whole. Countries in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe view Putin’s ambitions through a realist lens based on centuries of painful experience with Russian imperialism. They understand that Putin’s current goal of reasserting Moscow’s dominance over the territories of the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire is deeply rooted in the Kremlin’s perception of Russian national interests.

President Trump should not fall into the same trap as his predecessors. Past US administrations, from George W. Bush onward, have sought to normalize relations with Moscow but have consistently underestimated Russia’s enduring imperialist objectives. In 2001, Bush famously called Putin “trustworthy” and said he has been able to “get a sense of his soul.” And yet before the end of Bush’s second term, Putin had become increasingly hostile to the West and had invaded Georgia. US President Barack Obama then pursued a “reset” in relations with Russia, only for Putin to invade Ukraine in 2014.

US President Joe Biden initially adopted a similarly optimistic stance toward Moscow, emphasizing the importance of predictable relations with Russia. In May 2021, Biden canceled sanctions on the Kremlin’s Nord Stream II gas pipeline. The following month, he met Putin in Geneva for a bilateral summit that was widely viewed as a further concession to the Russian leader. Less than a year later, Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Looking back, it is clear that US policy toward Russia has often been shaped by the optimism of incoming administrations rather than a sober, realist understanding of Moscow’s longstanding ambitions. A deeper grasp of Russia’s objectives and capabilities could help the Trump administration, alongside European leaders, to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine and achieve a durable peace. Approaching the Kremlin from a position of strength, through the implementation of new sanctions on Russia and sustained military support for Ukraine, would be essential tools in securing that peace.

Agnia Grigas is senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of “Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire.”

Immediate steps that Europe can take to enhance its role in NATO defense

Franklin D. Kramer, Kristen Taylor — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 20:34:11 +0000

Key takeaways

Despite its three-year war against Ukraine, Russia has significantly reconstituted its forces and could pose a formidable threat to Europe in the near and medium term.
Europe needs to undertake a massive buildup of unmanned vehicles, has too few forces on the borders with Russia, cannot marshal the forces necessary to gain sea control without US support, and is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks on military-critical infrastructure.
Even if European nations commit to boost defense spending dramatically at the 2025 NATO summit, Europe needs to take immediate actions to strengthen deterrence while waiting for bigger investments to come online.

There are four steps that European nations should undertake in the near and medium term to enhance NATO’s deterrence and defense capabilities against the prospect of Russian aggression.

As the European Commission’s plan for strengthening European defense stated, “Russia will remain a fundamental threat to Europe’s security for the foreseeable future,” and one which requires a timely response inasmuch as “Russia has made it clear that according to their understanding they remain at war with the West.” Accordingly, as part of enhancing NATO defense, Europe needs to take prompt action to significantly increase:

the effectiveness of forces at its borders with or near Russia,
its capability for sea control,
the resilience of critical infrastructures necessary to defense operations, and
its defense industrial capabilities.

The importance of Europe taking such actions arises from a confluence of three factors: first, Russia’s willingness as demonstrated by its actions in Ukraine to undertake “major mechanized high-intensity warfare” to achieve its geopolitical aims; second, the challenges facing the United States military with the potential for conflict in the Indo-Pacific that could require resources that heretofore have been focused on Europe; and, third, decades of defense underinvestment by European nations that have left their militaries and defense industrial bases ill-prepared to engage in a sustained conventional conflict.

These concerns are significantly heightened because Russia, despite its more than three-year, ongoing war against Ukraine, has nonetheless been able to reconstitute its land forces and has fully maintained its air, naval, cyber, and space capabilities. In recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander, described Russia’s continuing reconstitution of its military forces:

Despite extensive battlefield losses in Ukraine, the Russian military is reconstituting and growing at a faster rate than most analysts had anticipated. In fact, the Russian army, which has borne the brunt of combat, is today larger than it was at the beginning of the war—despite suffering an estimated 790,000 casualties. . . . Within its air and maritime capabilities, Russia has sustained only minor losses in Ukraine. The Russian Aerospace Force currently retains over 1,100 combat-capable aircraft that include Su-57 stealth fighters and Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers. Aside from some losses in its Black Sea Fleet, the Russian Navy remains intact, with over 60 submarines and 42 surface vessels capable of launching nuclear-tipped Kalibr cruise missiles.

Moreover, in addition to maintaining its force structure, Russia has substantially enhanced its defense industrial capabilities. Again, per Cavoli:

Russia has expanded its industrial production, opened new manufacturing facilities, and converted commercial production lines for military purposes. As a result, the Russian defense industrial base is expected to roll out 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armored vehicles, and 200 Iskander ballistic and cruise missiles this year. (Comparatively, the United States only produces about 135 tanks per year and no longer produces new Bradley Fighting Vehicles.) Additionally, we anticipate Russia to produce 250,000 artillery shells per month, which puts it on track to build a stockpile three times greater than the United States and Europe combined.

Moscow is also marrying its expanded industrial prowess with more sophisticated technological capabilities. For example, Russia is investing significantly in, and having early success with, unmanned vehicle swarming capabilities.

Most significantly, Russia’s threatening activities are not limited to Ukraine. One key concern is that Russia has been building up its infrastructure near the borders of Finland and the Baltic states. As one report describes:

Some 100 miles east of its border with Finland, in the Russian city of Petrozavodsk, military engineers are expanding army bases where the Kremlin plans to create a new army headquarters to oversee tens of thousands of troops over the next several years. Those soldiers, many now serving on the front lines in Ukraine, are intended to be the backbone of a Russian military preparing to face off with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to Western military and intelligence officials. The Kremlin is expanding military recruitment, bolstering weapons production and upgrading railroad lines in border areas. . . .

Most of the manpower expansion will take place in the Leningrad district, which faces Estonia, Latvia and Finland. Smaller brigades will nearly triple in size to become divisions of around 10,000 troops, according to Western military and intelligence officials. . . . Russia is planning to build new barracks and training grounds and to upgrade arsenals and railroad lines to accommodate the swelling troop numbers in and around Petrozavodsk.

It is not clear, of course, whether Russia would choose to attack NATO countries. But what is clear from Cavoli’s testimony is that “Russia’s willingness to employ brutal means in pursuit of its goals,” and that the “Russian regime has refashioned its military, economic, and social structures to sustain what it describes as a long-term confrontation with the West—systemic changes that illustrate Russia’s intention to confront us into the foreseeable future.”

Estimates vary as to when Russia could sufficiently reconstitute from its conflict with Ukraine to undertake an attack against NATO. The uncertainty is rooted in the fact that the duration of the Russia-Ukraine war is itself uncertain, with substantial efforts as of this writing being taken by the United States to bring the fighting to a halt. In that event, a report from Bruegel stated: “A significantly more challenging scenario for Europe would be an unlikely peace deal accepted by Ukraine. In such a scenario, Russia is likely to continue its military build-up, creating a formidable military challenge to all of the EU in a very short period, given current Russian production. The EU and allies including the UK and Norway would need to accelerate their military build-ups immediately and massively.

Specific predictions as to the time needed for full Russian reconstitution generally range from two to five years. Norway’s senior commander has stated that two to three years would suffice; Jack Watling of the United Kingdom’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has noted the importance of “ensuring that the UK’s Armed Forces are contributing to a credible deterrence posture alongside European NATO allies by the end of 2027.” Other estimates fall into a three-to-five-year window.

Timing uncertainties—even at the higher end—should provide little comfort. As retired Maj. Gen. Gordon “Skip” Davis, a former deputy assistant secretary general at NATO, has warned, if Russia is given “two, maybe three to five years” to rebuild its forces while Europe fails to rearm at the same pace, European forces “would be at a significant disadvantage in a high-intensity fight.”

Such a scenario of NATO fighting at a substantial disadvantage is entirely plausible if Europe fails to take action. Most obviously, Russia is fully capable of large-scale warfare with its current capabilities. If full-scale conflict in Ukraine were to end, many of those capabilities could be directed against NATO—perhaps for a relatively limited operation such as against one of the Baltic countries, combined with nuclear threats to dissuade NATO from launching an effective response, or, with longer preparation, possibly a full-scale attack. Moreover, if the United States were facing or actually engaged in a conflict in the Indo-Pacific—keeping in mind that China’s President Xi Jinping has told his forces to be ready to succeed in a conflict against Taiwan by 2027—European nations should have the necessary capabilities to respond effectively against Russian aggression.

European nations are, of course, alert to these issues. As a consequence of the Russian threat, and amid growing concern over US commitments to the North Atlantic alliance, their combined defense budgets (including Canada) are now equal to just over 2 percent of their aggregated gross domestic product. Multiple nations are planning further increases: Poland expects to spend 5 percent of GDP in 2025; Germany recently voted to exempt defense spending from its “debt brake,” and the government announced support for defense spending (including relevant infrastructure and cyber capabilities) of 5 percent of GDP; France has set a target of 3.5 percent; and the United Kingdom has established a target of 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027 and 3 percent thereafter. For its part, the United States has called for “adopt[ing] a new 5-percent-of-GDP Defense Investment Plan,” which will be a central topic at the NATO summit in June.

Additionally, the European Union has determined to become a significant player in the defense arena. There is a newly created Commissioner for Defence and Space, and the EU is undertaking to provide 150 billion euros to member countries for defense. Further, the EU is planning to authorize countries to “trigger an emergency clause allowing them to make defense investments that push them over the bloc’s budgetary spending limits.” Exactly how much additional spending this would generate is not clear since, as of this writing, only twelve of the twenty-seven EU countries plan to use the emergency clause, and three of the larger countries—France, Italy, and Spain—do not plan to. Nonetheless, reporting on the European Commission’s tracking of member states’ defense plans indicates: “The European Commission is sticking to its estimate that member states could spend up to €650 billion on defence over the coming four years despite just half of governments requesting more fiscal headway to boost investments in the sector in time.”

As valuable as these actions are, it is important to recognize that even the most expansive budgetary plans do not translate into prompt, actual military capabilities. Initiatives must be transferred into actual budgets. Budgets must be approved by parliaments and then provided to defense ministries. Ministries must sign contracts. And companies with contracts must undertake production that often requires the scaling up of facilities.

Europe has a very long way to go on defense spending and capability requirements, with NATO asking “alliance members to raise their military capability targets by 30% as the organization seeks to boost its force posture, according to the [Supreme Allied Commander Transformation] in charge of defense planning at the 32-nation alliance.” Accomplishing these upgrades—to achieve a military posture credible and sufficient enough to offset Russian capabilities—demands a strategic approach that can be accomplished in a timely fashion and with a laser-like focus on the most critical and implementable capabilities. European nations are in a race against the clock and, consequently, must prioritize actions in the near and medium term to deliver capabilities that provide the greatest deterrence or, if necessary, actual military defense against a Russian threat.

To achieve this goal, NATO should focus on the four key challenges it currently faces. First, Europe has too few forces on the borders with Russia. Second, Europe, without US support, cannot marshal the forces necessary to gain sea control. Third, European nations are highly vulnerable to cyberattacks on infrastructure that is critical for sustained, effective military operations. Fourth, Europe’s defense industries lack the capacity to provide substantial amounts of effective weaponry in the near and medium term.

The NATO summit in June offers a forum for the alliance, and its constituent members, to adopt the necessary actions in response to these concerns. The required steps are set forth below.

I. Europe needs to promptly boost the efficacy of forces at its borders with or near Russia

As described above, Russia is in the process of enhancing its capabilities near the Baltic states and Finland. Doing so will provide the infrastructure and forces necessary for a conventional attack. But deterring or defeating such an attack—and especially repelling not expelling an attack—requires an effective NATO forward force posture. However, as Cavoli has stated:

Deterrence is most challenging in the land domain. Russia continues to reconstitute its conventional forces, and possesses advantages in geography, domain, and readiness. A conventional fight with Russia will be decided on land, and it would likely begin with a comparatively large Russian force positioned on a NATO border in order to negate traditional U.S. and NATO advantages in, and preferences for, long-range, standoff warfare. Therefore, NATO, including USEUCOM, must be postured to blunt Russia’s ability to rapidly mass numerically superior land forces.

To establish the necessary posture that Cavoli envisions, European nations should take the following actions, all of which can be accomplished in the near and medium term and all within existing or planned budgets. These actions should be undertaken irrespective of any decisions by the current US administration regarding American forces for Europe.

First, NATO European nations need to undertake a massive buildup of unmanned aerial vehicles. The use of drones has completely changed the nature of battle—as demonstrated by their role in the Russia-Ukraine war: Drones now kill more soldiers and destroy more armored vehicles in Ukraine than all traditional weapons of war combined, including sniper rifles, tanks, howitzers and mortars, Ukrainian commanders and officials say.

Just as the United States is planning for extensive use of unmanned vehicles in the Indo-Pacific should there be a conflict over Taiwan, and as Ukraine has done in its own defense, NATO needs to have a large and effective unmanned vehicle inventory available for use in the event of war with Russia. Ukraine is utilizing millions of unmanned vehicles. NATO needs a comparable supply. (A large-scale capacity for ammunition production is also needed—and discussed below in the defense industrial section.)

Second, NATO nations that border Russia and Belarus must establish effective obstacles—including land mines—to blunt a Russian attack. Useful lessons can be drawn from the Ukraine conflict, where mines have been utilized by both sides, and from the Korean context, where the defense of South Korea is supported by mines. Five Baltic nations—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—are in the process of withdrawing from the Ottawa Treaty, which bars the use of anti-personnel mines (anti-vehicle mines are allowed). The sooner mines are emplaced on the borders with Russia and Belarus, the stronger NATO deterrence and defense will be.

Third, some European forces should move forward on NATO’s eastern flank. Germany is planning to have a brigade stationed in Lithuania by 2027. The United Kingdom should position one of its brigades currently in England to Estonia, where the UK already has a brigade headquarters leading a multinational force. In Latvia, where Canada leads a multinational force, France could bring forward a brigade. There could be arrangements other than mobilizing UK or French forces, but the key point is to add forward forces ready for a conflict if necessary. These actions will be necessary to meet the requirements of the NATO Force Model calling for “well over” 100,000 forces in up to 10 days and 200,00 in 10–30 days.

Fourth, equipment for European forces needs to be prepositioned in or near the Baltics and Poland to be readily available in the event of conflict. Prepositioning could be on land—as the United States currently does in several places in Europe—or the equipment could be placed on maritime prepositioning ships, again following the US approach which worldwide includes seventeen prepositioning ships.

Fifth, Europe needs to establish an equivalent to the US Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) pursuant to which US airlines “contractually commit to . . . augment Department of Defense airlift requirements in emergencies when the need for airlift exceeds the capability of military aircraft.” Creating a European equivalent would be particularly valuable for moving personnel to fall in on prepositioned equipment as recommended above.

In terms of the proposed prepositioning and the European version of CRAF, it is worth noting that while mobility by rail and motor vehicle has long been identified as a challenge for NATO, and while the European Union has undertaken a mobility initiative that has reduced a certain amount of bureaucratic obstacles, little has been accomplished to meaningfully enhance physical mobility. For just one example, the “completion of Rail Baltica, an alternative 870km (540 miles) north-south railway link [through the Baltic states], has been postponed from 2025 to 2030 and is facing massive cost overruns.”

II. Europe needs to enhance its capability for sea control

In the event of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific, United States naval forces would play a major role, thereby calling on much or all of those forces for the European theater to be engaged in that arena. European maritime forces would therefore need to make up the resulting gaps in NATO’s four seas—Baltic, Black, Mediterranean, and North—as well as in the Atlantic and in the Barents Sea. European navies have excellent capabilities, including, for example, French and UK aircraft carriers and submarines from multiple countries extending beyond France and the United Kingdom to Norway, Sweden, and Germany, among others. As an illustration of European maritime capabilities, Cavoli testified that NATO operations in spring 2025 relied solely on approximately 20 European ships, and he had “zero U.S. ships working for [him] as SACEUR.”

The issue for NATO maritime forces, therefore, is not so much one of upgrading capabilities but rather one of mass. European navies are relatively small. That challenge is susceptible to solution, however, by utilizing unmanned maritime vehicles as part of NATO’s maritime operations. The value of unmanned surface vehicles has been demonstrated by the United States through Task Force 59 operations in the Gulf and Windward Stack (now transitioned to Southern Spear) operations in Latin America, where USVs have provided highly effective surveillance capabilities critical to maritime domain awareness. More dramatically, Ukraine has utilized USVs successfully to attack and neutralize the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

NATO itself has recognized the value of unmanned capabilities and has begun operations with unmanned surface vehicles through its Baltic Sentry activity: “NATO launched Baltic Sentry, a new military activity in the Baltic Sea which aims to improve Allies’ ability to respond to destabilising acts. The activity brings together Allied navies, maritime surveillance assets, and private sector operators to ensure real-time situational awareness and rapid response capabilities across the Baltic Sea’s vulnerable zones.”

According to media reports, approximately twenty USVs are taking part in Baltic Sentry, and NATO has established Task Force X to further these capabilities. In a conflict, much larger numbers of unmanned vehicles would be required just for maritime domain awareness—and even larger numbers would be necessary if lethal capabilities were to be included, as Ukraine is successfully doing in its conflict with Russia. Accordingly, NATO must urge nations to substantially increase their unmanned surface fleets and to add unmanned lethal capabilities to the existing surveillance capabilities.

III. Europe needs to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructures fundamental to defense operations

NATO’s military capabilities are reliant on the effective operations of key critical infrastructures, including the electric grid, pipelines, transportation capabilities (rail, seaports, and airports), and information and telecom systems. Those systems, however, are susceptible to Russian cyberattack. As the recent US Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community states: “Russia’s advanced cyber capabilities, its repeated success compromising sensitive targets for intelligence collection, and its past attempts to pre-position access on U.S. critical infrastructure make it a persistent counterintelligence and cyber attack threat. Moscow’s unique strength is the practical experience it has gained integrating cyber attacks and operations with wartime military action, almost certainly amplifying its potential to focus combined impact on U.S. targets in time of conflict.”

While the assessment focuses on US infrastructure, comparable vulnerabilities exist in Europe. Moreover, given the “no limits” relationship between Russia and China, it is entirely possible that China’s very formidable cyber capabilities could be used in support of a Russian attack against NATO.

To be sure, in a conflict, cyberattacks are unlikely to be definitive in and of themselves. Ukraine has sustained many such attacks and has continued its defense against Russia. The operational technologies running critical infrastructure are resilient in the sense that they generally get disrupted but not destroyed by a cyberattack—and so can be reconstituted.

Still, disruption can have far-reaching and even catastrophic consequences—especially in the early days of a conflict when NATO would be engaged with bringing the necessary forces into place to repel a Russian attack. Critical infrastructures companies like port or railway operators do not have the expertise to respond to a high-level cyberattack on their own. A coordinated public-private set of actions would be required.

There are currently three overlapping sets of activities intended to bring about the necessary resilient cybersecurity for European private sector infrastructures:

NATO formally recognized the importance of cyber as an operational domain in 2016 and has undertaken a variety of initiatives since then. At the 2023 “Vilnius Summit, Allies . . . committed to more ambitious goals to strengthen national cyber defences as a matter of priority, including for critical infrastructures.” Most recently, NATO has said it will establish the NATO Integrated Cyber Defense Center to combine NATO’s existing cyber efforts and to engage industry partners from across the alliance as well. But this activity is not expected to be complete until 2028, and it is far from clear what degree of effort it will be undertake to ensure the resilience of key critical infrastructures.
Twenty-three of the thirty-two NATO nations are members of the European Union and therefore subject to the EU requirements on cybersecurity. EU regulations require that “essential and important entities should adopt a wide range of basic cyber hygiene practices, such as zero-trust principles, software updates, device configuration, network segmentation, identity and access management or user awareness, organise training for their staff and raise awareness concerning cyber threats, phishing or social engineering techniques.”
NATO nations have national cybersecurity programs, illustrated by France’s National Cybersecurity Agency [ANSSI] and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Defence Centre. Each of these (and the other national cyber agencies) undertakes to provide support to private sector entities, though the specifics vary according to the country. For example, the NCDC “support[s] the most critical organisations in the UK, the wider public sector, industry, SMEs as well as the general public. When incidents do occur, we provide effective incident response to minimise harm to the UK, help with recovery, and learn lessons for the future.”

A recent analysis set forth a series of key actions required to protect critical infrastructures necessary for NATO military operations. None of those actions should wait until 2028 for NATO’s establishment of its Integrated Cyber Defense Center. Most crucially: “NATO ultimately needs a mechanism for planning and implementing cyber operational collaboration among alliance members and with the private sector.”

In establishing such collaboration, NATO should “prioritize involving private sector entities that have a key operational role, including unique insights that could support operational activity as well as direct operational capabilities.” Key aspects of such collaboration would include:

identifying and engaging the highest-priority infrastructure assets to ensure that they are sufficiently investing in resilience and have the highest level of government support in order to protect national security and economic productivity; and
establishing “sector-specific councils or working groups that include representatives from member states, industry partners, and relevant NATO bodies. These groups could facilitate the exchange of threat intelligence and best practices, enhance collective defense capabilities, and streamline coordinated responses to cyber incidents affecting multiple NATO countries.”

Additionally, a focus on technological capabilities will be important. As the report states, “New innovations can help to provide visibility into both operational and information technology, using artificial intelligence to quickly learn what normal activity looks like and detecting anomalous behavior.”

Beyond the foregoing recommendations, four further actions will be important:

NATO networks as well as key critical infrastructures should all strictly adhere to the requirements for “zero trust architectures” that reduce the abilities of adversaries to compromise network capabilities. As noted above, the EU’s NIS 2 standard calls for zero trust, but it will be critically important to ensure that this requirement is being effectively put in place (including for non-EU nations). Achieving that goal will require a certification system backed up by red teaming to determine whether the particular system is in fact highly capable.
NATO should be ready to undertake an expanded effort akin to the United States’ “Hunt Forward” activity, which works with allies and partners to identify and eliminate malware in key cyber systems.
It will be necessary for NATO not only to focus on cyber defense but also to undertake to disrupt the offensive cyber capabilities that Russia would utilize against the alliance. As previously described: “The actual implementation of NATO’s cyber offensive capabilities is by nations through a process described as the ‘sovereign cyber effects provided voluntarily by allies.’ . . [Utilizing] this approach allows allies to support NATO commanders with cyberattacks, but to keep to themselves (as they choose), the particulars of their offensive cyber methods.. . . . However, in conditions of conflict, the value of wartime cyber offensive operations may benefit from broader coordination with kinetic operations.”
NATO should also undertake to ensure that both its own information technology systems and those of the critical infrastructures upon which it relies transition to so-called “memory safe” software inasmuch as two-thirds and more of cybersecurity issues derive from the use of unsafe code. This cannot be accomplished immediately, but the United States Defense Advanced Projects Agency has developed the “TRACTOR” program which will automate the transition from the widely used C language to the memory safe RUST language.

Achieving the NATO-private sector collaboration described above, including the necessary operational and technological changes, is crucial for wartime success. However, while it would be difficult enough to establish an effective NATO-private sector cyber relationship, there are further significant obstacles given both the national and European Union cybersecurity roles. Analytically, a NATO-EU collaboration should be achievable since all share a desired outcome: resilience to a Russian (or Chinese) cyberattack.

Practically, however, NATO-EU collaboration often devolves into multiple meetings without consequential on-the-ground impact—and NATO is not without fault as its approach to national cyber requirements has been more aspirational than operational or technical. It will be a critical test for European defense—and for the leaders of NATO, the EU, and the private sector—to see if cyber resilience can in fact be enhanced or whether it will fall prey to bureaucratic dysfunctionality.

IV. Europe needs prompt enhancement of its defense industrial capabilities

Europe’s defense industrial base needs substantial and immediate enhancement. As the Draghi report on the future of European competitiveness stated, “The defence industry is too fragmented, hindering its ability to produce at scale, and it suffers from a lack of standardisation and interoperability of equipment, weakening Europe’s ability to act as a cohesive power across the bloc.” In recognition of these deficiencies, individual European allies and the European Union have pledged to enhance their defense production and capacity. But many of those much-needed initiatives will take time—to send sufficient demand signals to industry, to ramp up industrial capacity, and to field actual capabilities to ensure allied warfighters are appropriately equipped. Time, however, is a very expensive commodity for a Europe facing a reconstituting Russia. Speed is critically important.

In the short and medium term, European allies need a sober assessment of what capabilities must be fielded quickly and which capabilities can reasonably be produced on the continent. As a first step, Europe should look to Ukraine for lessons learned on how to ramp up defense production quickly and which capabilities have been particularly effective against Russia. As discussed above, unmanned vehicles play an outsized role on the modern battlefield, and maintaining robust ammunition stockpiles is essential. Ukraine mass-produces UVs—at a volume of four million drones annually. European allies should undertake to promote defense industrial initiatives that deliver unmanned vehicle capabilities at comparable scale as promptly as possible.

European allies could use the planned increases in defense budgets for investments in facilities for UV production. Such facilities can be stood up relatively quickly. By way of example, in the United States, Anduril is building a so-called “arsenal plant” to produce tens of thousands of autonomous weapons systems annually. The plant is expected to cost less than one billion dollars and to be operational in approximately eighteen months. Anduril is considering standing up a similar facility in the United Kingdom, but there are a number of European companies, such as Helsing in Germany or Leonardo in Italy, that could step up production of unmanned vehicles with the appropriate financial support. Investing in such facilities, and ramping up capacity across Europe, would dramatically strengthen Europe’s capabilities for any conflict on NATO’s eastern flank.

Alongside an industrial base in need of immediate and substantial enhancement, Europe is woefully low on artillery and ammunition rounds. The Ukrainian military uses approximately two million 155 mm artillery rounds annually. Through the European Act in Support of Ammunition Production, the European continent is supposed to scale up bloc-wide ammunition production efforts to produce two million 155 mm rounds a year. However, this much-hyped initiative has struggled to deliver on its promises—and even if it were able to reach this benchmark, it would still fall short of the necessary artillery production to sufficiently resource Ukraine and allied militaries while simultaneously replenishing allied stockpiles.

Europe struggles to produce the requisite number of artillery rounds, in part due to systemic industrial capacity issues but also because of a global shortage of TNT and gunpowder. In the short term, Europe should authorize around-the-clock industrial shifts in munition factories to ramp up production. Additionally, European allies should explore innovative opportunities to cast artillery rounds and other munitions rather than relying on the traditional method of forging, as proposed in a recent Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report. Forging is a time-intensive process compared to casting, which is more flexible and allows for recyclable metal to be molded in a shorter time frame. Europe has a significant foundry industry that could be redirected to produce artillery rounds and other munitions. Overcoming the global shortage of TNT will require strengthening strategic supply chains with like-minded allies and partners—most notably Japan. In the longer term, European allies should invest in new munition manufacturing facilities and expand the number of TNT production facilities beyond its reliance on the existing Nitro-Chem plant in Poland. To be sure, European munitions troubles extend beyond 155 mm artillery rounds. However, the clear vulnerabilities in this artillery production underscore the necessity for Europe to take prompt and innovative action to scale its munitions production.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that air defense is crucial to safeguarding civilians as well as critical infrastructure. Europe has tried to bolster its air and missile defense through collaborative procurement programs like the European Sky Shield Initiative and now the ReArm Europe plan. However, in the past, such initiatives have had mixed success, as progress stalls over political divergences. For example, France has been openly critical of the European Sky Shield Initiative for prioritizing the purchase of US weapon systems over European systems. As European allies continue to disagree on key issues related to security and defense, allies at the national level must forge ahead by buying individual capabilities that meet NATO’s interoperability standards to ensure these systems can be integrated across the alliance. Some would be US systems, such as Patriot, and some would be European, such as the NASAMS system by Kongsberg or the newer Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG.

Lastly, even if Europe were to adopt all of these approaches tomorrow—at both speed and scale—it would likely fall short of the needed industrial capacity to field sufficient capabilities to deter or defend against Russian aggression. In the short term, Europe must cooperate with its allies and partners, both in North America and the Indo-Pacific region, to fill its stocks and provide other capabilities. Despite political headwinds, the United States remains the strongest defense industrial partner of Europe: Its systems are widely used, trusted, and meet interoperability standards established by NATO. The remedy for laggard defense industrial capacity on both sides of the Atlantic is greater cooperation—not isolationism.

Where national governments diverge on approaches, European military planners and industry partners should explore other opportunities to strengthen industry-to-industry ties. This approach would match European defense industrial ambitions by supporting European efforts to meet short-term capability targets while also investing the necessary capital in facilities to grow a healthy and robust European defense industrial base in the long term. To this end, efforts to harness advantages on both sides of the Atlantic in the form of co-production and co-development facilities are heating up. For example, in December, RTX partnered with MBDA to open the first Patriot missile facility in Germany—which is slated to begin producing over a thousand Patriot missiles for NATO allies annually. Opportunities like this allow Europe to quickly scale up facilities, while allowing European industries to offset some of the steep costs associated with building out new manufacturing plants. In the short term, Europe is equipped with capabilities at an accelerated rate while at the same time developing the requisite infrastructure to create for itself a healthier and more self-sufficient defense industrial base.

V. Conclusion

The transatlantic community agrees: Europe must do more to enhance its role in NATO. Taking the actions set forth in this issue brief will provide the necessary enhancement of European defense capabilities in the short and medium term to deter and, if necessary, defeat a reconstituted Russia.

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The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

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What explains the transatlantic rift? It’s all about threat perception.

Jason Davidson — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:24:49 +0000

NATO allies are preparing for their summit at The Hague this month amid a frenzy of promises about increased defense spending, following US President Donald Trump’s call for allies to spend an unprecedented 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. Since taking office in January, Trump has mused about pulling back US forces from Europe while signaling a willingness to improve relations with Russia and even seize Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark.

European policymakers have reacted to Trump’s moves with shock and doubt about the US commitment to NATO, and some have stepped up their defense pledges accordingly. “We still believe that the ‘N’ in NATO stands for North Atlantic and that our European allies should maximize their comparative advantage on the continent,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last week at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore. “And thanks to President Trump, they are stepping up. An alliance cannot be ironclad if in reality or perception it is seen as one-sided.”

For its part, the European Union (EU) has approved a €150 billion defense funding loan program and allowed its members to exceed normal debt limits for military expenditures. Even before the EU’s moves, allies such as Poland and the Baltic States—who Hegseth called “model allies” in Singapore—were ramping up spending and sounding the alarm over the threat they face from Russia. But too many European allies have not yet increased their defense spending sufficiently.

What explains this contrast? Leading NATO allies (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) diverge from one another because they face different threats and levels of threat perception. These differences explain each ally’s major defense decisions (defense spending, military structure, and military posture) as well as the ally’s role in and relationship to NATO. I explore this issue more deeply in my forthcoming book on NATO, drawing from ninety-eight interviews with current and former policymakers.

NATO allies’ different threat perceptions can explain much of the current crisis within the Alliance, and they provide the backdrop for what could be a contentious summit.

The United States: China trumps Europe

The Trump administration sees China as the most significant state security threat to US interests. The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment says that “China stands out as the actor most capable of threatening US interests globally.” The administration’s Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance reportedly focuses on the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as one of two priorities for the Pentagon, along with combating drug cartels.

The Trump administration has cited the threat from China to explain its European security policy. Hegseth said in February that the United States could not remain the primary guarantor of European security, telling allied military leaders in Brussels: “The US is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognizing the reality of scarcity, and making the resourcing tradeoffs to ensure deterrence does not fail.” The Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance reportedly concludes that because of the focus on China, European allies must do more for their own defense.

This view of China can also explain the Trump administration’s policy toward Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. Melting sea ice means that Greenland’s location will be critical for those seeking to control Artic sea lanes and it is home to large quantities of rare-earth minerals. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stressed that the United States would not use force to seize Greenland but only to protect it from encroachment by China.

This can also explain Trump’s significant, though inconsistent, turn toward Russia. Some have argued that the Trump administration is attempting a “reverse Kissinger,” aligning with Russia to weaken its ties to China. The Trump administration may even be turning toward Russia to pressure NATO allies into taking more responsibility for their own defense, as Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security advisor in Trump’s first term, has argued. Even though Trump has criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, it is reasonable for European leaders to fear that a grand bargain between Washington and Moscow remains a distinct possibility.

Europe: Divided by diverse levels of threat

Europe is unable to defend itself without the United States. Europe lacks integrated air and missile defense, long-range precision strike, transport aircraft, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. European allies are struggling to recruit, train, and equip sufficient troops for NATO’s new force model—doing so in the next decade without the United States would most likely be a bridge too far.

But even faced with these challenges, not every European NATO ally has shown the same level of urgency when it comes to increasing defense spending. The reason is that leading European allies face different threats and levels of threat, limiting the incentives of some allies to act.

The overwhelming consensus among Italian officials, for example, is that instability in the wider Mediterranean is the most important security threat facing the country. Because addressing this threat does not primarily entail military means, Italy has not felt an urgent need to increase defense spending in response to Trump’s policies. While Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced in April that Italy would spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense this year (up from 1.5 percent in 2024), no new funding has been allocated for this yet. What’s more, reporting suggests that the government could reach the 2 percent benchmark largely through accounting changes, such as including its Coast Guard in defense spending.

Meanwhile, from strategy documents and official statements, it is clear that Poland, Germany, France, and Britain all view Russia as their greatest security threat. However, they each have different levels of threat perception, which informs the differing approaches they have taken toward military spending.

Poland provides the starkest contrast with Italy. Warsaw plans to spend 4.7 percent of GDP on defense this year, up from 4.1 percent last year. Poland’s level of defense spending makes sense given the intensity of the threat it faces from Moscow and its proximity to Russia. Poland’s view is that only a US-led NATO can provide collective defense against the threat from Russia, so it is focused on pushing allies to comply with US demands to keep Washington committed to European security.

Concern that the United States could shift away has also led Germany to spend more on defense. Following Germany’s February election, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz led a successful effort to revise Germany’s constitution to allow borrowing above 1 percent of GDP for defense spending. On April 9, Merz announced a coalition agreement with the Social Democrats, which included a pledge to ramp up defense spending “significantly” to fulfill Germany’s NATO commitments. Germany views any US moves to withdraw from Europe with alarm, and Merz continues to insist that Germany and Europe do more to keep the United States engaged in NATO. Last month, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Germany will “follow” Trump’s demand that allies spend at least 5 percent of GDP on defense.

France’s independent nuclear arsenal gives it an added degree of security against the threat from Russia. While France has used the Trump administration’s statements to push for European defense independence, Paris has not reacted with urgency in terms of its own defense spending. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a new NATO spending target of 3 percent of GDP on defense but has not proposed a new figure for French defense spending (currently at 2.1 percent of GDP).

While Britain’s nuclear arsenal would normally provide it with an extra measure of security against Russia, the United Kingdom relies on the United States for its nuclear submarines. As such, the British government has doubled down on its relationship with the United States. British officials have embraced Trump’s criticism of allies who underspend on defense, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy has called for a NATO that is “stronger, fairer, and more lethal.” Just prior to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to the United States in February, the British government announced that Britain will spend 2.6 percent of GDP on defense by 2028, up from 2.3 percent this year.

Preserving a mutually beneficial relationship

The United States’ greater focus on China and push for Europeans to take more responsibility for their defense are likely irreversible trends. But the NATO Summit in The Hague later this month provides an opportunity for the United States and its European allies to reaffirm their commitments to the Alliance amid these shifting dynamics.

First, the Trump administration should use the summit to work with its European allies on a phased and structured exchange of responsibility for European security over the next decade. Under such a plan, the United States would work with European allies to develop defense capabilities they do not currently have while maintaining the commitment of the US nuclear deterrent.

Second, Trump should take the opportunity to reassure European allies. He should affirm that the United States would come to the aid of any NATO ally that is attacked. Trump should also state plainly that his administration will work with Denmark to bolster the defense of Greenland and that it does not intend to acquire the island by force.

Third, European countries should use the summit to announce further commitments on defense spending. Following through on such commitments will entail costly domestic tradeoffs. The present moment requires courage: European leaders must make the case that significantly more defense spending is necessary because of the threat Russia poses and the United States’ turn toward the Indo-Pacific. Italy’s government in particular will have a challenging task. Because Italians are focused on threats from the Mediterranean, officials in Rome will have to make the case that Russia’s threat to European security matters for Italy. European governments like Italy’s can also make a compelling case that spending more on defense may boost overall economic growth.

If NATO allies take these steps at this year’s summit, they can help build a future Europe more capable of defending itself and an Alliance that better serves both US and European interests.

Jason Davidson is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is also a professor of political science and international affairs and director of the Security and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

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Ukraine just gave us a glimpse into the future of European defense

Frederick Kempe — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Ukraine’s audacious attack on Russian strategic bombers this past weekend, damaging more than a third of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s capabilities, provided an encouraging glimpse into what should be the future of European and transatlantic defense.

Imagine a world in which Ukraine, working alongside European and North American partners, so convincingly wields advanced technological and defense capabilities that Putin stops his murderous war and agrees to a sustainable peace. That also would send an unmistakable message of transatlantic common cause to Russia’s partners: China, North Korea, and Iran.

However, that outcome can only be achieved if the European Union (EU), after decades of neglect, turns Ukrainian inspiration and a flood of new defense spending announcements into real capabilities and technological innovation. It will also require that the Trump administration unambiguously back its European allies at the June 24-25 NATO Summit in The Hague as the Alliance makes new spending and defense production commitments.

‘A fusion of World War I and World War III’

The good news is that most NATO countries appear ready to agree at the summit to increase their defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2035, along with an additional 1.5 percent for defense- and security-related infrastructure. For its part, the EU has already approved 800 billion euros in new defense spending across the bloc over the next four years.

The bad news comes in three categories: production, policies, and politics. First, even a great deal more money won’t necessarily result in the production, innovation, and capabilities required to deter Russia. Second, policies and regulations on both sides of the Atlantic provide impediments to effective defense industrial cooperation. Third, political strains and distrust have increased across the Atlantic over US President Donald Trump’s trade wars and his administration’s decision to withhold arms and intelligence from Ukraine for about a week in March.

Trump’s phone call with Putin yesterday, after which he said without comment that the Russian leader felt a strong need to respond to Ukraine’s strikes inside Russia, didn’t help. Ukraine and its European partners would have preferred clear recognition that Putin started the war, has the power to end it, and should do so now.

Even with all of that said, Europe’s most immediate and important task is to demonstrate that it can provide for its own security, given the Trump administration’s understandable reluctance to do more for US allies than they are willing to do for themselves.

“Ukraine has shown that modern warfare is a fusion of World War I and World War III—combining trench warfare with cutting-edge technologies,” write Ann Mettler and Mark Boris Andrijanič in a must-read piece in Euractiv. “Unless Europe learns to master both, its security, sovereignty, and very survival will be at stake.”

Few know the stakes better than Mettler, a former director-general at the European Commission, and Andrijanič, a former Slovenian minister for digital transformation and a current Atlantic Council Europe Center senior fellow. They outline a compelling course of action to reverse EU security weaknesses.

“As Russia’s aggression edges closer to EU borders and the transatlantic alliance weakens,” they write, “Europe stands at an inflection point.” European defense budgets are finally increasing, they note, “but if past performance is any indication of future results, there is cause for concern.”

For example, despite hundreds of billions of euros of investments into digital and green agendas, the EU remains reliant on American software and Chinese hardware, from solar panels to batteries. “This reveals a harsh truth,” they write, “spending alone doesn’t guarantee innovation. And in defence, failure won’t just be costly—it could be fatal.”

‘Something we should have done years ago’

I came away from a recent Atlantic Council delegation trip to Brussels, where we met with top NATO and EU defense planners, with new hope for European security but also growing concern about transatlantic division in the face of persistent Russian threats.

It’s clear that Europe has been shocked into action by two leaders: Putin and Trump. The Russian president’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a wake-up call for a complacent Europe. Yet it was only Trump’s return to the presidency this year that injected Europe with a greater sense of urgency.

It’s telling that Mettler and Andrijanič don’t include a transatlantic dimension in their proposals in Euractiv. I asked Andrijanič about this omission, and he said, “Unless Europe gets serious about defense, we can’t be a credible partner for the United States.” He added, “Suddenly we are doing something we should have done years ago. Europe is now laser-focused on developing as many critical capabilities as possible—and doing it fast.”

In their Euractiv article, Mettler and Andrijanič list as their priority the creation of a common market for defense, stretching from the EU to partners such as the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, and, in particular, Ukraine. For the moment, the only European-headquartered company among the global top ten defense firms is the United Kingdom’s BAE Systems.

The authors also call for new EU regulatory guidance that would remove the stigma against defense and dual-use investments to unlock private and institutional capital. They also want to shake up Europe’s “sluggish defense procurement rules and procedures.”

To achieve greater innovation, the authors want to create a European ecosystem of “established industry players, startups and scaleups, investors, governments, and research institutions.” One intriguing proposal is for a dedicated collaboration platform to create a “wall of drones” along Europe’s eastern flank, so that Ukraine’s weekend success isn’t a one-off but is underpinned by “a coordinated deployment of autonomous drone swarms for surveillance and defense.”

The authors seize upon two successful US models to accelerate this European effort. One would be the creation of a European DARPA, modeled on the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has focused on developing emerging technologies for national security. They would do that through transforming the existing European Defence Fund into “a better-resourced, more agile, and mission-driven institution.”

A second idea would be to use the US Defense Innovation Board, first chaired by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, as a model for a European Defence Innovation Council. This high-level, independent group would provide strategic advice to the EU and member states on defense-related tech.

Write the authors, “The good news for Europe is that the world’s leading defence innovator is already among us, and on our side—Ukraine. Despite intense wartime pressures, the country has emerged as a frontrunner in drone technology, cyber warfare, and the integration of artificial intelligence on the battlefield. In contrast to Europe’s slow and costly model of incremental innovation, Ukraine excels in frugal innovation to rapidly deliver scalable, cost-effective, and highly impactful solutions.”

Two awful words

One way or the other, the upcoming NATO Summit will be one of historic importance. What’s positive is an Alliance-wide commitment, after pressure from Trump, for greater spending aimed at producing cutting-edge capabilities. What’s negative is insufficient recognition that transatlantic common cause on Ukraine and beyond is more crucial than ever.

Speaking to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Dayton, Ohio, last week, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte put it this way: “Russia has teamed up with China, North Korea, and Iran. They are expanding their militaries and their capabilities. They are preparing for long-term confrontation.”

Quoting Winston Churchill from 1936, Rutte asked, “Will there be time to put our defenses in order? . . . Will there be time to make these necessary efforts, or will the awful words ‘too late’ be recorded?”

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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The UK Strategic Defence Review lays out an ambitious roadmap for reform. Will the government deliver?

AM Sir Christopher Harper, KBE, RAF (Ret.) — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 15:06:10 +0000

By publishing its long-awaited Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday, the United Kingdom has taken a positive step toward the reinvigoration and reform of its defense posture. Recognizing the perilous nature of the geostrategic scene, drawing lessons from the war in Ukraine, and seeking to enhance its leading role in NATO, the review is rigorous, thoughtful, and compelling; it offers one of the more realistic assessments of the United Kingdom’s security posture in recent memory. Its success, however, will hinge on funding and follow-through.

The SDR was written independently by Lord George Robertson, a former UK defense secretary and NATO secretary general; General Sir Richard Barrons, a former commander of the UK Joint Forces Command; and Fiona Hill, a foreign policy expert and former senior director for Europe and Russia at the US National Security Council. It benefits from the authors’ deep expertise and freedom to speak frankly.

In my assessment as a former Royal Air Force senior officer and director general of the NATO headquarters International Military Staff, I find the review blunt and refreshingly free of political gloss while still being infused with strategic depth. It offers a sobering analysis of the threats Britain faces and a coherent and comprehensive plan to deal with them.

If the UK media coverage of the review is anything to go by, then it has already been successful in promoting a national debate on the severity of the strategic risks the United Kingdom and its allies face. One of the review’s core aims is to foster a “total defence” culture, an understanding that security is not the sole preserve of the armed forces but a collective national responsibility.

No more “hollowing out”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed this whole-of-society message in a speech he delivered in Glasgow on Monday to launch the SDR. In the speech, he warned that the United Kingdom must prepare for a dangerous decade ahead. The United Kingdom would become, he said, “a battle-ready, armor-clad nation, with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities, equipped for the decades to come.” Indeed, the review is laced throughout with the concept of “NATO first” and the United Kingdom’s aspiration to play a leading role in the Alliance.

On capabilities, the review outlines a serious agenda for restoring UK military strength after years of “hollowing out.” Among the most significant commitments is the acceleration of the United Kingdom’s sovereign nuclear warhead program (at a cost of £15 billion) to ensure that the country maintains an independent and credible deterrent. This is paired with equally serious investment in conventional capabilities, including the commitments to produce seven thousand long-range and cruise missiles and to construct six new munitions factories.

The SDR further calls for the United Kingdom to become a leading technology-enabled defense power, with an integrated force that deters, fights, and wins through constant innovation at wartime pace. To achieve that, it proposes a “three Is” model: integrated (rather than joint) forces, which are innovation-led and backed by industry. It emphasizes that greater attention must be given to the space, cyber, and electromagnetic domains. It also proposes making the army ten times more lethal by 2035 by exploiting autonomous systems and a “digital targeting web,” all informed by lessons learned from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The government has also pledged £1.5 billion for the modernization and refurbishment of military living accommodations. This, together with a move to take a whole-force, skills-based approach to workforce planning, would constitute long-overdue investments that could begin to address the current crisis surrounding the recruitment and retention of personnel.

None of the review’s recommendations reflect a marginal upgrade. Striking the appropriate balance between mass, speed, and resilience has returned to relevance alongside the need to reinvigorate stockpiles, munitions manufacturing, autonomous systems, and the United Kingdom’s technological edge. As demonstrated by the war in Ukraine, all these factors will increasingly define combat effectiveness. The SDR further recognizes the need to radically transform defense procurement processes and practice. For Britain to remain a serious military power, addressing these issues is both overdue and essential.

Finding the funding

Crucially, all sixty-two of the SDR’s recommendations have been accepted by the UK government—an indication, at least on paper, of genuine resolve.

And yet, despite the soundness of the review and the seriousness of its ambitions, an inevitable question mark remains over how these recommendations will be funded.

The government’s pledge to raise defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027 is a step in the right direction. This review is unique in recent British history for being accompanied by increases rather than cuts in the budget. But this is still only a step. The longer-term ambition to reach 3 percent of GDP is not backed by binding Treasury policy or formal financial commitment. Moreover, it seems to hinge on a “defence dividend” of economic growth from a revitalized defense industrial base. Such an aspiration is not enough. In the face of a deteriorating strategic environment, Alliance members are likely to demand a minimum of 3.5 percent of GDP expenditure on defense at the upcoming NATO Summit in The Hague, which could lead to the United Kingdom falling behind the level of spending expected of a leading NATO power. Effective deterrence depends on credibility—and credibility hinges not on promises but on funded and delivered capabilities.

This financial dimension is especially critical in light of shifting US priorities. While the United States is unlikely to totally withdraw from NATO, there is a looming sense that Washington’s focus is inexorably moving away from Europe and toward the Indo-Pacific. Successive US administrations—regardless of party—have made clear that they expect European allies to carry more of the burden for their own defense. This has been brought into stark relief by the current US administration. A more self-reliant and militarily capable Europe is, therefore, no longer a theoretical objective—it is a strategic necessity.

For Britain, this means more than incremental increases in spending. It means making hard political choices and long-term industrial commitments now. The SDR lays out what needs to be done. The government has signaled its agreement. The next step—the most important one—will be putting money behind this critical endeavor.

Air Marshal Sir Christopher Harper is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served in the Royal Air Force, including as the UK military representative to NATO and the EU in Brussels and as director general of the NATO headquarters International Military Staff.

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Putin’s punitive peace terms are a call for Ukraine’s complete capitulation

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 21:42:17 +0000

Russian and Ukrainian delegations failed to achieve any meaningful breakthroughs when they met for peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. The event was not a complete waste of time, however. Aside from agreeing on another welcome round of prisoner swaps, the two sides also exchanged peace proposals that confirmed the complete lack of middle ground for any kind of meaningful compromise to end the fighting.

While Ukraine’s proposal laid out a fairly pragmatic vision based on battlefield realities and security concerns, Russia presented punitive peace terms that would reestablish Kremlin control over Kyiv and doom the postwar Ukrainian state to a slow but inevitable death. This uncompromising Russian position should serve as a wake-call for anyone who still believes Putin is negotiating in good faith. In reality, the Russian dictator is more determined than ever to destroy Ukraine, and is merely exploiting US-led peace talks in order to strengthen his hand and divide the West.

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The demands unveiled by the Russian delegation this week in Istanbul came as no surprise and closely mirrored the conditions outlined on numerous prior occasions by Putin and other Kremlin leaders. Nevertheless, at a time when US President Donald Trump is publicly pressing for progress toward peace, the Russian decision to deliver such a maximalist memorandum sent a clear message of defiance to Washington DC.

As expected, Moscow reiterated its call for Ukraine to withdraw completely from four Ukrainian provinces that Russia currently claims as its own but has been unable to fully occupy. This would oblige the Ukrainian authorities to hand over a number of major cities and condemn millions of their compatriots to indefinite Russian occupation. Kyiv would also be expected to officially cede these regions together with Crimea, paving the way for international recognition of Russia’s conquests.

This crushing territorial settlement is only one aspect of Russia’s vision for the comprehensive dismantling of Ukrainian statehood. In line with Putin’s peace terms, Ukraine would be forced to accept limitations on the size of its army and on the categories of weapons it is allowed to possess. The country would be also be barred from joining any military blocs or concluding alliances with foreign nations. It does not take much imagination to guess what Putin has in mind for Ukraine once it has been successfully disarmed and internationally isolated.

Nor is that all. The Kremlin’s conditions actually go much further and aim to transform Ukraine from within in ways that would erase Ukrainian identity along with the country’s political independence. Moscow’s memorandum called on Ukraine to grant Russian the status of official state language, reinstate the privileges of the Russian Orthodox Church, and adopt a Kremlin-friendly version of Ukrainian history. Meanwhile, all so-called “nationalist” Ukrainian political parties would be banned, paving the way for the installation of a puppet regime in Kyiv.

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On the morning after this week’s bilateral meeting, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed the true objective of Russia’s participation in peace talks. “The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms,” commented Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s powerful National Security Council. Instead, Medvedev stated that Russia’s goal was to secure victory and ensure “the complete destruction of the neo-Nazi regime,” which is widely recognized as Kremlin code for the Ukrainian state. “That’s what the Russian memorandum published yesterday is about,” he noted.

Medvedev’s frank appraisal of the Russian position won him sarcastic praise from US Senator Lindsey Graham. “Congratulations to Mr. Medvedev for a rare moment of honesty coming from the Russian propaganda machine,” commented Trump ally Graham. “I appreciate you making it clear to the world that Putin and Russia are not remotely interested in peace.”

It is hard to argue with Graham’s assessment. For the past few months, Putin has gone out of his way to demonstrate that he has absolutely no intention of ending the war. While Ukraine has accepted a US proposal for an unconditional ceasefire, Putin has repeatedly refused to do so. Instead, he has engaged in transparent stalling tactics that make a mockery of the entire peace process.

Away from the negotiating table, Putin has dramatically increased drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding hundreds of civilians. On the battlefield, his armies are currently engaged in the early stages what is shaping up to be one of the biggest Russian offensives of the entire war. These are not the actions of a man who seeks peace.

After this week’s fresh confirmation of Moscow’s undiminished imperial ambitions in Ukraine, it is now surely time to abandon any lingering delusions and accept that the Russian dictator will not stop until he is stopped. Putin believes he is on a messianic mission to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and revive the Russian Empire. He currently thinks he is winning this historic struggle and will not be swayed by Trump’s comparatively trivial talk of tariffs and trade deals.

The only thing that can change Putin’s mind is Western strength. As long as Putin is confident of eventual victory, he will continue. But if the alternative to a peace deal is a potentially crushing defeat, he may reconsider. To achieve this change, Western leaders must demonstrate a degree of collective resolve that has often been absent over the past three years. They must sanction Russia to the max and arm Ukraine to the teeth. This will require considerable political will and good old-fashioned courage in Western capitals. Ukraine will do the rest.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

How Kazakhstan can anchor a resilient rare‑earth supply chain for the West

Miras Zhiyenbayev — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

The rare-earth supply crunch underscores a critical lesson: The United States cannot afford to rely on China’s goodwill for minerals essential to its economy and security.

China dominates the rare-earth supply chain, with Beijing supplying about 60 percent of global rare-earths output and controlling up to 90 percent of refining capacity. For the United States, which needs neodymium and dysprosium for F‑35 fighter jet engines as badly as it needs lithium for electric vehicles, continued dependence on Beijing is impossible. The solution is not wishful “onshoring” to the United States alone; it is establishing a portfolio of reliable partners. Kazakhstan, already the world’s leading uranium producer and a top‑ten copper and zinc exporter, is a prime candidate for such a partnership.

Rare earths have become a geopolitical flashpoint. In practice, that means Beijing can throttle supply at will. In April, for example, China abruptly restricted exports of several important rare earths and permanent magnets—actions triggered by trade disputes with the United States under the pretext of “energy security.” US firms and strategists described the move as China’s latest attempt to weaponize its rare-earths dominance.

Supply shocks will recur, not recede. After Beijing halted exports of rare-earth refining technology to the United States in late 2023, it spent 2024 steadily ratcheting up export-license requirements on strategic rare-earth oxides or outright banning its exports. These moves culminated in April of this year, with Beijing placing export restrictions on seven heavy and medium rare-earth elements (samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium) on dual-use national-security grounds.

The United States has only just begun to free its high-tech supply chain dependence on China. Over the past few years, for example, US policymakers have launched some domestic projects and lured allies in Europe and Australia to develop alternatives, but many of those efforts are still nascent. New supply lines will take years to mature. Washington needs a long-term partnership strategy that goes beyond homespun mining; it needs countries capable of supplying rare earths at scale. Since 2020, Kazakhstan has ramped up rare-earth mining, increasing its exports nearly fivefold by 2024. Still, both in 2023 and 2024, 100 percent of its rare-earth output is exported to China—a telling indicator that the resource is there, but does not currently flow to the West. By moving swiftly, the United States could hedge against future Chinese disruptions—and help build a secure, diversified global supply chain for these critical minerals.

Kazakhstan’s rare earths

Unlike some prospective supplier countries, Kazakhstan already knows it has rare-earth wealth. In early April, geologists in the country announced the “Zhana Kazakhstan” discovery: an estimated twenty million metric tons of rare-earths‑bearing ore in the Karagandy region, including sizable heavy‑rare‑earth concentrations. If even 10 percent of the ore proves recoverable at today’s grades, that equates to around 200,000 tons of rare-earth oxide content—enough to meet current US neodymium magnet demand for a dozen years. If validated, the site would give Kazakhstan the world’s third‑largest rare-earth element reserves, trailing only China and Brazil. While promising, these preliminary findings are no sure thing and will require deeper study.

This find is not an outlier. Soviet‑era data and recent airborne surveys point to additional prospects across southern and eastern Kazakhstan. The geology has been there; what was missing was investor certainty. That is changing fast. In just the past few years, the government has opened scores of new exploration projects.

Kazakhstan is no newcomer to big mining. In 2024, the country led the world in uranium output (about 38 percent of global supply) and ranked among the top ten producers of copper and zinc. The national mining concern, Tau-Ken Samruk, consolidates dozens of mines and has global joint ventures in everything from gold to base metals. Kazakhstan’s energy and transport infrastructure likewise favors large-scale mining, as it already accounts for 14 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Kazakhstan’s “multivector” diplomacy also plays a factor. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev courts Beijing and Moscow, yet he also seeks deeper ties with Washington and Brussels to balance against those giants. That instinct makes Astana a willing partner for the United States, and a less risky one than conflict-scarred alternatives such as Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the same time, the United States should not expect Kazakhstan to choose only Western partners over the major powers along its eastern and northern borders.

Since 2018, Astana has overhauled its subsoil code on a “first come, first served” model. New legislation helps promote fiscal stability, offers value-added tax holidays on exploration equipment, and caps royalties. As a result, majors from Rio Tinto to Fortescue have launched joint ventures, while US‑backed Cove Capital began drilling rare-earths targets near Arkalyk in 2024.

Kazakhstan also has an edge in infrastructure. The Middle Corridor rail‑and‑port network—which runs from western China through Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea and onward to Europe—was expanded last year with European Union (EU) financing. Aktau’s Caspian port already handles uranium concentrate bound for Canada and France; rare-earths concentrates could follow the same route with minimal modification.

In short, Kazakhstan offers what many mining countries do not: favorable geology and the business environment and infrastructure to exploit it. Kazakhstan already has smelters and refineries for many ores, and it boasts production of advanced materials such as purified manganese sulfate and titanium metal. It even produces gallium (used in semiconductors) and recycles rhenium, though admittedly it still lacks deep processing for rare-earth oxides.

The way forward

Washington has learned the hard way that pledges alone won’t break Beijing’s monopoly, and its next move should elevate quiet deals into an explicit strategy. On the Kazakh side, top leaders have made it clear that developing mining for Western markets is a priority. For example, Tokayev has called critical minerals the country’s “new oil,” and he has signed a number of memoranda with foreign partners on exploration and processing. Kazakhstan’s September 2024 “Kazakh-German” forum alone produced twenty-three agreements in mining, including rare-earth joint ventures.

Here are the three critical steps Washington and Astana should take next:

Unlock normal trade by repealing the Jackson-Vanik Amendment and grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to Kazakhstan. The United States should finish what H.R. 1024 has already teed up: removing Kazakhstan from the Soviet-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment and extend PNTR to Kazakhstan. Scrapping this relic costs no money, instantly signals strategic seriousness, and eliminates the legal ambiguity that still shadows US financing and offtake contracts with Kazakh mines. PNTR lets both sides write binding long-term supply agreements.
Set up a US–Kazakhstan rare-earth task force to drive the deals. The United States and Kazakhstan should co-chair a cabinet-level task force comprised of the US State Department and US Commerce Department, as well as Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Industry. This task force would set annual, public targets for the number of exploration licenses issued to Western consortia, the amount of pilot separation plants financed and built on Kazakh soil, and the export tonnage of heavy and medium rare-earth elements to non-Chinese markets. The task force could instruct the US International Development Finance Corporation and Export-Import Bank of the United States to prioritize Kazakh rare-earth projects, while Kazakhstan fast-tracks permitting and guarantees site security. Early co-location of processing near the mine head would lock in long-term offtake for US buyers and complement EU infrastructure money already pledged for the Aktau port.
Deploy a blended-finance and technology package along the full value chain. Washington should pair loan guarantees with technical assistance from the US Geological Survey, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute. Kazakhstan should match that support by streamlining visas for engineering teams and auctioning new mine blocks on transparent terms. The Pentagon’s National Defense Stockpile could start purchasing Kazakh oxides, while the Department of Energy and Nazarbayev University co-fund recycling research and development to close the loop at home.

To be sure, there are challenges ahead, and mining remains a difficult, uncertain venture. Bringing a greenfield rare-earths mine to commercial output can take more than a decade. But doing nothing cements Beijing’s leverage for that same decade and beyond. By acting now, Washington can buy future resilience and signal to market actors that rare-earths diversification is real.

Miras Zhiyenbayev is the advisor to the chairman of the board for international affairs and initiatives at Maqsut Narikbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. He is also co-sponsoring the June 4 US-Central Asia Forum at the Atlantic Council.

The post How Kazakhstan can anchor a resilient rare‑earth supply chain for the West appeared first on Atlantic Council.

For NATO in 2027, European leadership will be key to deterrence against Russia

Scott Lee, Andrew Michta, Peter Jones, and Lisa Bembenick — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 17:00:00 +0000

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Key takeaways

If Russia were to move rapidly against the Baltic states, NATO could not defend its territory effectively without the United States.
European allies need to rearm quickly, but a push for full “strategic autonomy” from the United States risks destabilizing the continent and the Alliance.
The United States and NATO need to make smarter, faster decisions about who buys what and how the hardware, software, and data operate together. A Force Mix Analysis can point out the choices needed so that by 2027 European NATO states can independently defend their northeastern border.

NATO faces a growing threat from a resurgent Russia capable of hybrid and kinetic aggression across the Northeast Corridor—from Finland, the Baltic region, and Poland to the Black Sea. Currently, NATO’s defense posture relies heavily on US military support for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), strategic lift, command and control (C2), and the extended deterrence provided by the US nuclear umbrella. With the United States increasingly focused on the Indo-Pacific region and committed to burden sharing, and with growing calls for European strategic autonomy, NATO must be able to deter and respond to threats as a unified entity—one not effectively dependent on US warfighting capability and capacity. Regardless of spending levels, NATO must shift from a national-centric approach to an Alliance-wide mindset. This requires a shared engineering and analytics methodology to optimize defense resource allocations with a focus on speed, precision, and collaboration.

To assess the transatlantic geostrategic environment and explore strategic options available to NATO, MITRE and the Atlantic Council partnered to conduct a NATO Force Mix Analysis (NFMA). The findings of this analysis call for accelerated capability development, institutional reform, and operational integration under a forward-leaning, data-driven, mission-engineering framework. This framework would enable NATO to make data-informed decisions to:

Adaptively evolve concepts, operational decision making, and assignment of authorities toward more effective strategic outcomes.
Optimize funding investments and deliver unified capabilities that produce the best mission effects required for operational success.
Effectively leverage technology to achieve mass.

By 2027, NATO must strengthen the Baltic Defense Line. Timely action is essential to ensure credible deterrence, reassure frontline allies, and deny Russia any opportunity to test NATO’s resolve or readiness in a high-threat environment. To achieve this, the following actions are essential:

Prepare a warfighting burden-sharing roadmap.
Establish a unified NATO multidomain warfare doctrine.
Invest in multidomain C2 and ISR infrastructure.
Establish a NATO multidomain open system architecture.
Accelerate forward posture of heavy forces and integrated air and missile defense.
Enhance military mobility and industrial coordination.
Establish additional joint ISR fusion centers.
Develop a pan-European logistics control network.
Form multidomain operations (MDO) and cyber/influence task forces.

Together, these initiatives offer a blueprint for a more self-reliant, capable, and unified NATO in 2027—ready to meet emerging threats head-on.

Introduction

NATO’s deterrence posture in the Baltic states is undermined by an overreliance on US military capabilities. In a crisis where the United States were focused elsewhere, European NATO nations may therefore be unable to mobilize a timely, effective response. This overreliance creates both strategic and operational vulnerabilities that can be exploited by Russia to challenge the Alliance’s credibility and threaten national sovereignty.

NATO’s ability to deter or respond rapidly to Russian aggression is limited by:

A lack of massed, ready combat forces in the theater.
Insufficient integrated air and missile defense.
Slow logistics and reinforcement timelines.
A lack of organic strategic mobility with a reliance on US air and sealift.
A reliance on US enablers for theater integrated C2, ISR, and mission networks.

Without the United States, NATO remains superior in numbers and technology on paper but lacks the operational integration, logistics, and joint force capabilities to rapidly match Russian mass and tempo near its borders. NATO must develop a force structure and a mix of capabilities that allow for the execution of regional defense plans with an emphasis on burden sharing. This modernization strategy must be objective, threat-based, and resource-informed.

The strategic context: A geopolitical landscape shaped by the orders forming around the US and China

The next few years will be pivotal for Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community, as shifting US geostrategic priorities toward the Indo-Pacific, persistent Russian threats, the rise of authoritarian powers, and a rapidly changing global order redefine the political landscape.

Alongside changing US and European Union (EU) defense priorities, the outcome of the war in Ukraine will be a critical factor in shaping NATO’s strategies. As the devolution of the post–Cold War liberal international order accelerates, with increasingly fluid relations between states, a new geopolitical landscape looms over the horizon, shaped by the bounded orders that the principal great powers, the United States and China, are forming around them. To address the challenges facing the United States in key theaters, adaptability and robust multidomain capabilities will be paramount in ensuring both regional stability and the protection of democratic values. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the Euro-Atlantic theater, as resource requirements in the Indo-Pacific region will continue to divert US resources there, making technology a key multiplier for the US European Command (EUCOM) and NATO.

Russia’s aggressive regional actions show no sign of slowing, with Moscow targeting Europe through both direct and indirect methods. As General Christopher Cavoli, EUCOM commander and the supreme allied commander Europe, recently testified before the US Senate, Russia has been and will likely remain a chronic threat to NATO. From military threats to hybrid warfare tactics—such as cyber-attacks, information campaigns, and economic pressure—Russia is further consolidating its influence in countries like Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. As it rebuilds its military capabilities and doubles down on nuclear reliance, Russia is strengthening its ties with authoritarian regimes, creating an emerging “axis of dictatorships” alongside China, Iran, and North Korea.

The growing Russia–China partnership poses a unique challenge to NATO, particularly as China expands its influence globally and engages in economic warfare. That country also benefits from its de facto alliance with Russia by gaining access to some of Russia’s modernized military technology, while China, in turn, provides a vital economic lifeline to Russia and a “moral legitimacy” for Russia’s actions in Europe, which align with China’s designs on Taiwan. This fusion of economic and military power, coupled with assertive moves in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, is reshaping global dynamics and testing NATO’s reach and resilience. The West faces a rapidly evolving challenge, requiring swift, strategic responses to counter the growing authoritarian alliance that threatens global stability.

As Europe confronts an increasingly precarious security environment and potential friction in relations with the United States, the European Union appears to be doubling down on its efforts to achieve strategic autonomy. In March 2025, the EU unveiled a bold white paper outlining plans to significantly boost defense spending, foster collaborative defense projects, and shift toward purchasing European-made arms. This move is designed to close critical capability gaps in missile defense, drones, and cyber warfare, while also pooling resources to create a more unified defense infrastructure. The proposal even includes borrowing up to €150 billion for defense loans, aiming to reduce fragmentation in Europe’s defense industry and enhance the continent’s self-reliance. At the same time, recent elections in Germany have introduced new dynamics into that country’s defense policy. The newly elected leadership is reevaluating its defense priorities, a shift that could have significant implications for Germany’s role within NATO and its contributions to collective defense. Friedrich Merz, the incoming chancellor, has successfully lobbied the Bundestag to lift the legal deficit spending restrictions on defense, while repeatedly underscoring that Europe must chart an independent course. How Germany navigates this shift will be crucial in shaping Europe’s defense future and the tenor of transatlantic relations.

NATO, meanwhile, remains focused on deterrence and collective regional defense. With an emphasis on burden sharing and joint procurement of critical systems, the Alliance is rapidly expanding its combat-ready, forward-deployed forces in Poland and the Baltics, underpinned by a robust training and sustainment hub in Germany. The outcome of an ongoing US defense-posture review may drive additional modernization and deployment efforts, but this “fight tonight” readiness reflects NATO’s shared vow to defend European borders and ensure security. As NATO defense ministers have pointed out, these efforts demonstrate Europe’s increasing commitment to sharing the transatlantic defense load.

However, to truly succeed in its mission, NATO’s efforts must be underpinned by a data-driven approach. Modernization planning for its MDO strategy must integrate cutting-edge data analytics to ensure that defense initiatives are not only effective but responsive to the emerging threats of today and tomorrow. This strategy must be backed by a comprehensive Alliance-wide effort and a coordinated whole-of-government response to address NATO’s most pressing security challenges with agility and precision.

Europe stands at a critical juncture. There is potential tension inherent in Europe’s evolving commitment to strategic autonomy and strengthening NATO’s collective defense, as both ultimately rest on the ability to generate relevant, usable integrated capabilities. This demands a warfighting mindset, and an understanding of the acquisition, integration, and training required to be successful.

As Europe grapples with the challenges of an increasingly unpredictable world, the key question for NATO and collective defense will be what capabilities Europe can contribute to offer credible options to NATO. Success will hinge on how swiftly and effectively these efforts are coordinated and implemented, as they will significantly shape political decisions in the years ahead.

The war in Ukraine

Russia’s war on Ukraine has redrawn the European security map. It is a system-transforming conflict with asymmetric technology offsets, notably the emergence of drones and drone warfare. Regardless of the outcome, preexisting assumptions about transatlantic security and power distribution in Europe no longer hold. It is a litmus test for both NATO’s unity and the EU’s ability to sustain its support for Ukraine—especially as US military priorities shift toward Asia.

The coming months will be pivotal in determining how both institutions adapt to these pressures. NATO must reconcile the diverging priorities among its members, while the EU needs to strengthen its defense industrial base (DIB) to supply Ukraine, advance its own rearmament, and contribute to regional stability. As the crisis unfolds, the world will be watching how NATO and the EU respond—and whether they can navigate their internal divisions to confront the broader challenges ahead. Most of all, as the Trump administration endeavors to broker a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine, the outcome of that process will likely be a defining factor in how the conflict unfolds in the coming months.

NATO’s cohesion is being put to the test, as the Trump administration’s pressure on allies to rearm generates a positive but uneven response. While some member states have stepped up defense spending, others remain hesitant, citing economic pressures and varying threat perceptions. The countries in the Baltic area and the Northeast Corridor have significantly increased their defense spending, while countries farther away from NATO’s eastern frontier have been less forthcoming. This divergence risks weakening unity and effectiveness. NATO must address internal tensions to remain a credible force.

The EU’s push to rearm is also being challenged. Economic strains, particularly in major European economies, threaten the EU’s ability to sustain a unified defense approach. The EU’s ambition to reduce dependency on the United States and bolster its defense capabilities is at risk unless it can harmonize the defense priorities of its member states. It also fails to address the most fundamental question of which country—absent a US nuclear umbrella—would provide a nuclear deterrent and in what fashion. This highlights the critical need for the EU to present a cohesive yet realistic program to address a dynamic regional and global security environment. While NATO remains the cornerstone of collective defense and deterrence in Europe, the EU can and must play a complementary role by strengthening defense industrial capacity, improving military mobility, and reinforcing political cohesion across the continent. The EU must use the financial and regulatory levers at its disposal to enable member states to meet their key capability requirements, as defined by NATO planning.

With the Ukraine conflict exposing vulnerabilities, NATO’s reinforced presence in the Baltic area and Poland has never been more essential. These regions are key to deterring further aggression and ensuring that European borders remain secure. At the same time, the war’s impact on energy security and global supply chains has pushed Europe to rethink its transition to green energy. No longer willing to rely on Russian energy, European nations are diversifying their sources and debating the future of clean energy initiatives. Some EU members have mooted the idea of reopening the Nord Stream pipelines and at least partially normalizing economic relations with Russia once a ceasefire in Ukraine has been put in place. But Europe’s challenges go beyond energy: NATO and the EU face the rise of hybrid warfare, autonomous systems and drone warfare, cyber threats, and false information campaigns—all of which undermine stability and test the Alliance’s adaptability.

Defense spending dilemmas, shrinking and fragmented defense industries

As global security challenges intensify, both US and European DIBs are grappling with serious capacity and scalability issues. The US DIB, now only 30 percent of its Cold War size, is strained by contractor consolidation and growing supply-chain vulnerabilities. Europe’s defense sector remains fragmented, hampered by disconnected industrial policies that stifle cross-border collaboration and scalability, with lead times from orders to delivery still unacceptably long.

To maintain strategic readiness and counter growing threats, both the United States and Europe must urgently come up with bold solutions:

Modular, scalable production facilities and additive manufacturing must be prioritized to rapidly adapt to shifting demands.
A significant boost in munition manufacturing capacity is needed to sustain large-scale conflict operations.
Cybersecurity enhancements across industrial and critical infrastructure networks are paramount to safeguard against emerging digital threats.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and autonomous systems will empower defense forces to deliver rapid effects with minimal manpower.
Improved NATO coordination and interoperability are essential to ensure defense production is optimized, maximizing collective industrial capacity.

In President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States faces a critical defense spending dilemma exacerbated by fiscal constraints, military recruitment challenges, and the demands of potential simultaneous conflicts in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. These factors present significant risks to NATO, transatlantic relations, and global security. To address these challenges, NATO must move from the perennial talk about burden sharing to burden shifting and focus on transferring conventional combat capabilities from the United States to Europe. This shift will require deeper military integration and force modernization to maintain NATO’s effectiveness against growing threats from Russia and China. The United States must capitalize on its technological advantages while strengthening cooperation with European and Indo-Pacific allies. This approach will ensure the United States can balance its global commitments and continue to take the lead in maintaining international security. As a result, NATO’s collective defense efforts will remain robust amid evolving geopolitical pressures. In a nutshell, technology must be a critical force multiplier for the Alliance, helping to offset at least some of Russia’s advantage in mass.

Since its founding, NATO has depended on US leadership and military power. With the United States less able to provide the same level of conventional forces and infrastructure in Europe as it did during the Cold War and the 2000s, key NATO members—particularly Germany, France, and the United Kingdom—will have to significantly ramp up defense spending and military readiness. The key challenge will be to ensure that the EU doesn’t veer into a full-blown “strategic autonomy” project, as that would inevitably drain real resources from NATO. Instead, efforts at deeper European defense industrial integration should allow Europe to take greater responsibility for its security by resourcing core conventional deterrence capabilities within NATO, while still benefiting from US strategic support. In this new landscape, NATO’s collective defense would benefit, as regional defense plans would be backed by real, exercised capabilities—ensuring NATO is once again up to the task. Should the opposite happen—i.e., if Germany decides to push the EU to chart an independent course from the United States—the ensuing stresses in transatlantic relations would further fracture European politics and likely make the continent more vulnerable to Russian blackmail or all-out aggression down the line.

European NATO nations have pledged to increase defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product, and many exceed that benchmark. Yet current European force posture in the Baltic states and elsewhere in the Northeast Corridor is insufficient to deter or respond to a rapid Russian incursion without significant external reinforcement. NATO needs to:

Approach European rearmament in a way that builds credible, multidomain, combat-ready formations while keeping the United States engaged.
Conduct a comprehensive review of capabilities and gaps (where the United States is engaged) to inform future force design and new operational concepts and doctrine to underpin collective defense.
Develop a capability roadmap that enables burden sharing across the Alliance.

The view within NATO: What the Alliance needs by 2027

In response to Russia’s expanding capabilities, NATO has embraced a deterrence-by-denial posture, focusing on MDO to counteract aggression. This includes deploying forward forces, pre-positioning critical equipment, and developing operational concepts that prioritize holding the line and achieving rapid victory. Success will depend on massed effects and orchestrated battlefield efforts, with the unique strengths of each NATO member synchronized to support one another.

To counter emerging threats, NATO must urgently strengthen its logistical networks and mobility, ensuring rapid reinforcement of its eastern borders. Investment in key north-south road and rail corridors to enhance mobility along the eastern flank—from Scandinavia to the Baltic and Black seas—is essential for seamless troop and resource movement. Equally critical are interoperable C2 systems, designed with a data-centric, on-demand capability approach. These systems must integrate multidomain forces across nations, services, and echelons to maintain cohesion and operational effectiveness. To meet these challenges, NATO must modernize its infrastructure and adopt a wartime mindset, focusing on resilience, readiness, and strategic investments in critical capabilities. The Alliance must establish the necessary authorities to institutionally act with specific member states working in tandem with the EU to invest in critical infrastructure upgrades that support NATO operational requirements.

Russia’s military modernization efforts include enhancing unmanned systems for ISR and attack operations, networked fires, advanced weapons like hypersonic missiles, and robust cyber capabilities. Coupled with hybrid tactics such as false information campaigns, cyber-attacks, and sabotage, Russia poses an increasingly complex threat—especially with its use of “gray zone” strategies designed to blur the lines between conventional and irregular warfare. To counter these threats, NATO must be able to rapidly mobilize and deploy forces, emphasizing massed effects and MDO to blunt Russia’s initial momentum. The first seventy-two hours are critical, as Russia would aim to quickly seize territory and key infrastructure. Denying Russia these early operational gains could provide a critical off-ramp to avoid a protracted conflict. The following operational needs are key to NATO’s success:

Track and target key Russian units by using advanced C2 and ISR capabilities, holding them at risk before conflict escalates.
Surge reinforcements to hot spots through enhanced rapid deployment mechanisms as tensions rise.
Deploy highly lethal forces, supported by unmanned systems, to halt Russian advances at the point of contact, using well-coordinated defensive positions and preplaced forces.
Counterattack through multidomain orchestration and converged effects, targeting Russian C2 and employing anti-armor and long-range precision fires systems to disrupt rapid advances.
Build integrated, trained formations capable of maneuvering and attacking Russian forces, logistics, and C2 systems to reclaim territory and reestablish international boundaries.

NATO must continue to strengthen its forward combat-ready presence with balanced rotational and permanently stationed forces, while investing in fires and defensive capabilities that provide a reinforcement window from the United States and other NATO nations. Critical to ensuring deterrence by denial is the top-down commitment from member states to operationalize multidomain C2, NATO’s unified networking and digital infrastructure.

Building an effective NATO force design

The Alliance must ensure that procured systems are the right systems based on regional plans, capability targets, and desired mission effects and work together seamlessly to create an integrated and interoperable multidomain force. To that end, NATO must:

Deploy multinational MDO groups with shared ISR, C2, and kinetic/nonkinetic fires to overwhelm Russian forces and halt their advance.
Expand integrated air and missile defense systems to counter advanced threats, including drones.
Enhance rapid deployment and mobility through improved multimodal transport corridors and strategic airlift capabilities.
Implement layered force protection and counter-mobility measures along NATO’s borders, buying time for multidomain forces to strike Russian formations deep inside their territory.
Pre-position critical supplies (ammunition, fuel, heavy equipment) along the eastern flank.
Invest in pooled and shared resources across member states, particularly in high-tech areas like satellite communications, drones, AI, and surveillance platforms.
Invest in integrated training and experimentation to create strategic deterrence.

Establishing a NATO multidomain operations strategy

NATO’s ability to conduct effective MDO has never been more crucial. To counter Russia’s expanding military capabilities, NATO must integrate and leverage all domains—land, air, sea, cyber, and space—into a unified, cohesive strategy. MDO allow NATO to rapidly respond, disrupt enemy operations, and maintain strategic advantage. By improving interoperability, developing common standards, and building a seamless digital ecosystem, NATO can enhance its operational effectiveness and ensure rapid, coordinated action across all member nations. To counter Russia’s aggression and to reinforce its role as the cornerstone of global security, NATO must put forward an MDO strategy focused on a range of critical capabilities:

A next-generation multidomain C2 system: This system must integrate all operational domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyber—into a single, unified interface for commanders. It should be fully interoperable across NATO member states and their national C2 architectures, enabling seamless cross-domain integration and battlefield orchestration, regardless of time, geography, or mission requirements.
Integrated multidomain C2 operations centers: Within NATO’s multinational divisions, corps, and joint force commands, these centers can help to integrate situational awareness of national forces. Progress must continue to enable them to be networked to orchestrate operations across all domains, ensuring quick, coordinated action.
Integrated ISR fusion centers: These centers must break down information-sharing barriers and integrate intelligence from multiple domains to provide real-time, actionable insights that are essential for swift decision making that enables expanded maneuver and cross-domain fires.
AI (algorithmic warfare): AI will be pivotal in predictive analytics, persistent targeting, effects planning, and operational decision support. These algorithms can enhance decision making by providing commanders with insights on potential outcomes and courses of action.
Cyber-resilient digital architectures: The zero-trust model secures critical systems and data by minimizing attack surfaces, enforcing least-privilege access, and enabling resilient, segmented networks. NATO’s digital infrastructure must employ this cybersecurity model to be protected from adversarial attacks that could disrupt or manipulate critical data, AI algorithms, and operational capabilities, ensuring system integrity and operational continuity.
Autonomous systems: Leveraging low cost, expendable systems for reconnaissance, targeting, maneuver, lethal and nonlethal fires, and logistical support will significantly increase operational efficiency and reduce risks to personnel in contested environments.
Unified networking and digital infrastructure: A data-centric approach will enable plug-and-play software development tailored to mission needs, ensuring NATO’s digital systems remain agile and responsive to emerging threats.

NATO must prioritize systems thinking, integration, and data interoperability within a unified, multidomain digital architecture. This approach is vital to ensuring that collective defense and deterrence capabilities are effective and adaptable to the complexities of modern warfare. These measures can significantly enhance NATO’s deterrence posture by leveraging technology to achieve mass and counter emerging threats. Success hinges on developing common standards, fostering interoperability across national systems, and creating a robust digital ecosystem that facilitates seamless data flow and decision making.

Envisioning NATO’s future through mission engineering

The United States and NATO must make smarter, faster decisions about what capabilities to acquire and how to integrate them within an multidomain force design. Every acquisition and force-development decision should be driven by a clear understanding of why it’s needed, when it’s needed, where it will be deployed, and what mission outcomes are expected. Only by focusing on these key factors can NATO build the warfighting capability and capacity needed for future success within the urgent timelines required.

NATO force modernization is not just about increasing defense spending—it is about spending smarter and optimizing the resources in hand more effectively. Regardless of spending levels, NATO must shift from a national-centric approach to an Alliance-wide mindset. This requires a shared engineering and analytics methodology to optimize defense resource allocations with a focus on speed, precision, and collaboration.

By investing in forward-deployed forces, integrated air and missile defense, multidomain warfare enabled by integrated C2 and ISR, autonomous systems, and resilient logistics, European NATO nations can strengthen deterrence and response capabilities—without relying on immediate US military intervention.

NATO, especially NATO European nations, must rapidly transform warfighting concepts and capabilities to counter a resurgent Russian threat by 2027. This demands agile decision making and investment in technological innovation, seamless integration, and interoperability—all essential to generate combat mass and achieve dominance in multidomain warfare.

MITRE’s data-driven, systems-thinking approach coupled with the Atlantic Council’s Euro-Atlantic strategic knowledge revolutionizes multidomain force design by combining scenario-based mission engineering and operational analysis. Known as the NATO Force Mix Analysis, this powerful methodology assesses and optimizes military force structures, C2, ISR, and fires architectures, all aligned with strategic capability options in a threat-driven context to help inform coordinated, future-ready investment strategies across the Alliance.

If broadly adopted, the NFMA can help NATO—especially European members—accelerate capability development, respond more effectively to current and emerging threats, and validate new technologies through continuous, real-world analysis and experimentation. This, in turn, would enable faster deployment of critical systems and smarter operational decisions. Specifically, the NFMA could support NATO in the following ways:

Inform early deployment of experimental platforms and operational concepts. Prototypes will be evaluated in both live exercises and fielded operational environments to test performance, uncover capability gaps, and refine tactics. This would enable NATO to assess the real-world effectiveness of emerging technologies and operational concepts before full-scale integration.
Provide the foundation for continuous testing and evaluation of tactics, techniques, and procedures in varied operational scenarios. Through persistent experimentation, NATO will remain adaptable, learning and evolving in response to new threats and opportunities for innovation.
Enable rapid development and procurement of new capabilities to ensure NATO can meet evolving defense needs. Employing open architectures and agile acquisition for fielding critical capabilities will reduce time to implementation and enhance operational flexibility.
Help NATO collectively identify and field the right combination of force structures, technologies, and operational strategies to strengthen its deterrence posture while maintaining agility and readiness. Through mission engineering, operational prototyping, persistent experimentation, and agile acquisition, NATO can test new capabilities and refine operational strategies to ensure sustained deterrence and rapid response in the Baltic region.

The Alliance must assess and adapt its force mix to operate in a contested, multidomain environment. The following analytic questions are critical to guiding NATO’s posture, readiness, and resilience amid evolving threats and uncertain US. force commitments.

How can NATO combat readiness and forward presence be improved?
How can NATO establish a resilient, multidomain C2 and ISR architecture and how does NATO best offset a reduction in US commitment of its capability and capacity?
- How resilient is European C3 and ISR under cyber and kinetic attack?
- What data integration and decision processes enable NATO unity and speed?
How can NATO improve persistent targeting and lethality?
- How can NATO establish a joint fires network?
- What is the role of AI and autonomous systems in targeting and lethality?
What is required for integrated air and missile defense (including counter-unmanned aircraft systems) to hold the line?
What is required for NATO to successfully execute contested logistics forward in the battlespace? Can NATO sustain thirty-plus days of combat operations without US strategic lift, theater lift, and logistics assets and expertise?

The NATO 2027 use case: Insights and priorities

Initial insights from the NFMA underscore several operational priorities critical to NATO Europe’s ability to independently deter or defeat a Russian offensive in the Baltic region by 2027, particularly in scenarios with limited or delayed US engagement. These insights highlight the importance of integrating advanced fires, mobility, survivability, and C2 capabilities into a cohesive, MDO concept.

Key findings and operational priorities include:

Countering Russian mass and tempo with integrated fires: NATO must pair long-range precision fires with close-combat drone swarms to disrupt and degrade Russian force concentration and tempo. This layered approach enhances survivability while enabling rapid effects across the depth of the battlespace.
Persistent targeting via multidomain fires and C2 networks: Success in a high-threat environment requires a persistent, integrated “kill chain” linking ISR, C2, and fires across all domains. NATO must be capable of delivering operational-level fires from standoff range to neutralize Russian anti-access/area-denial systems, command nodes, and massed maneuver forces within key mobility corridors.
Overmatch in mobility, countermobility, and survivability: NATO forces must dominate the terrain through superior mobility and countermobility operations, creating choke points and engagement zones that slow Russian advances and funnel them into preplanned kill boxes. Critical targeting priorities include Russian combat engineering units that enable cross-country movement and breaching operations, in addition to traditional C2 and logistics nodes.
Integrated, layered force protection and terrain shaping: A combination of physical border fortifications, camouflaged forward positions, and active defense systems is required to delay Russian momentum and generate tactical opportunities—creating conditions for NATO forces to strike with precision anti-armor fires, loitering munitions, and coordinated drone swarms, especially at choke points and terrain seams.

These insights reinforce the need for NATO to invest in operational prototyping, joint experimentation, and rapid fielding of advanced fires and survivability capabilities. Implementing these priorities through a data-driven, mission-engineering approach will ensure NATO Europe is postured for success in a contested, near-peer conflict environment.

Recommendations

Building on the operational insights from the NFMA, the following recommendations are aimed at enabling NATO Europe to independently deter, respond to, and potentially defeat Russian aggression in the Baltic states by 2027. These measures are designed to accelerate capability development, institutional reforms, and operational integration in line with a forward-leaning, data-informed, mission-engineering framework.

Prepare a warfighting burden-sharing roadmap: NATO must develop a capability roadmap that enables burden sharing and, where appropriate, burden transfer from the United States to Europe for critical warfighting capabilities while addressing gaps to achieve threat overmatch.
Establish a unified NATO multidomain warfare doctrine: Develop and implement a multidomain operational concept, aligning land, air, maritime, cyber, and space operations across regional defense plans and force structures.
Invest in multidomain C2 and ISR infrastructure: Build a resilient, interoperable digital architecture to support real-time C2, dynamic targeting, and cross-domain ISR sharing among allies.
Establish a NATO multidomain open system architecture: Create an open system test and experimentation architecture to drive C2 interoperability and rapid deployment based on mission and user need.
Accelerate forward posture of heavy forces and IAMD: Pre-position armored units and layered air and missile defenses in key forward areas to enable rapid combat mass and early crisis response.
Enhance military mobility and industrial coordination: Improve cross-border military transit and align defense industrial base efforts for surge production of critical systems and munitions.
Establish additional joint ISR fusion centers: Set up additional ISR hubs in Germany, Poland, and Finland that build on existing Baltic centers to provide persistent battlespace awareness and theater-level targeting.
Develop a pan-European logistics control network: Create a secure, integrated logistics system to sustain operations under contested conditions, incorporating civilian and military infrastructure.
Form MDO and cyber/influence task forces: Deploy specialized units to coordinate cross-domain fires and information operations, supported by integration cells at corps and division levels.
Conduct no-notice Article 5 rehearsal war games (without US surge forces): Routinely execute unscripted, short-notice multinational exercises to test NATO’s ability to respond to aggression under Article 5. Use outcomes to inform force posture and capability investments.
Build a NATO integrated training and validation program: The joint training architecture, in coordination with Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, will validate unit readiness and interoperability in line with the 2027 vision. This program should emphasize realistic, threat-informed scenarios and integration of new technologies and concepts.

Conclusion

To maintain NATO’s deterrence credibility and defend national sovereignty in the face of a reconstituted Russian threat, Europe must assume greater responsibility and operational capability. Achieving this NATO Europe 2027 vision requires more than policy alignment—it demands a mission-driven, technically grounded approach to force design, readiness, and modernization. In support of operationalizing this vision, the MITRE–Atlantic Council collaboration on the NATO Force Mix Analysis offers a reusable, scalable technical framework to guide strategic defense decisions through 2027 and beyond.

This framework integrates advanced digital engineering tools, mission-level modeling, and decision analytics to continuously evaluate NATO’s defense needs, mission requirements, and acquisition priorities in a dynamic threat environment. It provides a rigorous, evidence-based foundation for aligning strategy with capability development—supporting faster, smarter, and more resilient force planning across European allies.

Key enablers of the NATO 2027 vision include:

Mission-driven analysis: NFMA supports an ongoing assessment of force mix options aligned with strategic objectives, enabling nations to prioritize investments that close capability gaps and build operational mass.
Digital engineering and modeling: High-fidelity simulation and modeling environments allow planners to visualize and evaluate operational concepts, logistics, and reinforcement timelines under contested conditions—before investments are made.
Operational prototyping and experimentation: The NFMA approach enables early testing of new operational concepts and technologies through simulation, live exercises, and real-world experimentation—de-risking decisions and informing doctrine.
Agile acquisition support: Insights from the NFMA can guide iterative acquisition decisions, accelerating the deployment of high-impact capabilities such as ISR, integrated air defense, mobility assets, and interoperable C2 systems.

About the authors

Scott Lee is the chief engineer for multidomain operations and C2 at MITRE. In this role, he leads MITRE’s efforts to develop solutions that address the defense challenges and operational requirements of next-generation command and control and enabling systems in support of US and allied and partner warfighting concepts. He previously led MITRE’s Joint All-Domain C2 (JADC2) Cross-Cutting Priority.

Andrew Michta is a senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the former dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He holds a PhD in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. His areas of expertise include international security, NATO, and European politics and security, with a special focus on Central Europe and the Baltic states.

Peter Jones retired from the Army as a brigadier general and is a contract engineer at MITRE, providing broad support to the Army portfolio especially in the area of future concept development and experimentation in support of Training & Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and now predominately Army Future Command’s Future Concept Center. Prior to his retirement, Jones served for two years as the U.S. Army Infantry School Commandant and 56th Chief of Infantry.

Lisa Bembenick is the executive director of international security affairs for MITRE. She is responsible for MITRE’s international strategy and senior level relationships on defense issues related to the United States, Europe, and NATO, and positions MITRE to bring its technical capabilities to bear on critical security outcomes faced by NATO countries. She was previously director of strategy for MITRE’s National Security Engineering Center.

Acknowledgements

As part of their strategic partnership, the Atlantic Council and MITRE have conducted a NATO Force Mix Analysis, examining ways to harden the Alliance’s eastern flank, measure the value of multidomain operations, and deter Russian aggression. This paper is jointly produced by the Atlantic Council and MITRE.

MITRE and the Atlantic Council gratefully acknowledge Meg Adams, Greg Crawford, LeAnne Howard, Jackson Ludwig, and Matt McKaig for their valuable contributions to the publication of this paper.

The authors would also like to thank Paul O’Donnell, Lori Fermano, Phillippe Dickinson, Sheila Gagen, Bailey Galicia, and Sydney Sherry for their editorial assistance.

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The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

Daniel Fried: Nawrocki is well placed to encourage Trump to back Ukraine and European security

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Experts react: Conservative Karol Nawrocki is Poland’s next president. What does it mean for Poland, Europe, and the world?

Atlantic Council experts — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 16:56:09 +0000

The polls have spoken. Karol Nawrocki, a historian and former boxer backed by Poland’s conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, narrowly triumphed over Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski in Sunday’s presidential election. Nawrocki, whose candidacy was embraced by the Trump administration, will be the head of state opposite the centrist, pro-European head of government, Prime Minister Donald Tusk. With war still raging in next-door Ukraine and US-European relations under strain, what should the world expect from Nawrocki? We turned to our Poland experts for answers.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Aaron Korewa: Poland’s conservative nationalism is pro-American and pro-NATO

Marek Magierowski: Nawrocki’s politics defy hysterical labels

Danuta Hübner: Will the new president overcome Poland’s polarization?

Mark Scott: Social media was rampant in this election. But how much impact it had is unclear.

Nawrocki is well placed to encourage Trump to back Ukraine and European security

Some initial analysis may depict the Polish presidential election as a fight between democracy and autocracy, or between a pro-Trump and pro-European candidate. This seems exaggerated. The real challenge for Nawrocki will be deciding whether to find common ground with the Tusk government in the face of the threat from Russia and the need to work with the Trump administration on behalf of European and Ukrainian security.

There are substantive grounds for at least some cooperation across partisan lines in Poland to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression and, to this end, to work with key European allies, such as Britain, France, and Germany, as well as with the United States. Unlike the Hungarian nationalist leader Viktor Orbán, Polish nationalists and outgoing President Andrzej Duda generally support Ukraine and resolutely oppose Russian aggression. In early 2022, for example, PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński publicly broke with Orbán over the latter’s lack of support for Ukraine at the time. Poland’s current rapid military buildup began during the previous PiS government and continued under the Tusk coalition. Both political camps support NATO and strong relations with the United States.

The Trump administration backed Nawrocki during the election campaign. However unwise US official partisanship during an election might have been, this will give Nawrocki advantages as a perceived ideological ally making the case in Washington for continued US military presence in Poland and US support for NATO and Ukraine. Nawrocki may face challenges working with the European Union (EU), which is still a source of significant funding for Polish development and is trying to support military buildup in Europe, an objective Poles across the political spectrum tend to support. He will also have to contain the anti-German rhetoric common to much of the Polish nationalist right. Poland has had legitimate complaints about German policy toward Russia. But it has won those arguments, as many Germans themselves recognize; Nawrocki would do well to take the win and work with Germany to counter the Russian threat both countries face.

Many Poles were supportive of Ukraine in the initial phases of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, providing extensive benefits to Ukrainian refugees and taking hundreds of thousands of them into their homes. While the presence of so many Ukrainian refugees has grown less popular over time, Polish support for Ukraine has remained steady. Still, influential Polish constituencies, such as farmers and some groups concerned with the difficult historical issues between Poles and Ukrainians, have been skeptical about the extent of Polish support for Ukraine. During the campaign, Nawrocki declared that he does not currently support Ukraine’s NATO accession. Now, Nawrocki will have to find a way to balance strategic and political imperatives on support for Ukraine.

As president, Nawrocki will have to balance his campaign rhetoric and partisan interests with broader national interests. He’s hardly the first winning candidate to have to do so.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US ambassador to Poland.

Poland’s conservative nationalism is pro-American and pro-NATO

The Poles showed their dissatisfaction with the current government and the political establishment. Nawrocki was an outsider and that paid off. He managed to attract the voters who chose far-right candidates in the first round, while Trzaskowski did not manage to mobilize enough of the voters who supported Tusk’s coalition in October 2023.

For Europe, this could mean that Poland will become more inwardly focused. At the same time, Tusk has previously signaled that he believes beating populism requires addressing some of the issues that drive it. Expect Poland to take a turn for the right on matters such as migration and the European Green Deal.

Nawrocki was the only candidate who visited US President Donald Trump in the White House and received his endorsement. In late May, the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, also held a rally in the southeastern town of Rzeszów that featured US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Nawrocki’s people made conscious outreach to the US administration. In Poland, the movement that backs Nawrocki is very pro-American and pro-NATO, unlike several other parties in Europe that stand for conservative nationalism. The optimistic scenario is that as president, Nawrocki will establish a connection with Trump that will prevent any plans to withdraw US troops from Poland. At the same time, Tusk’s government will continue forging partnerships with other relevant European states, such as France and the Nordic and Baltic countries.

—Aaron Korewa is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Warsaw Office which is part of the Europe Center.

Nawrocki’s politics defy hysterical labels

First and foremost, branding Nawrocki as “populist,” “hard-core Euroskeptic,” “far right,” “pro-Putin,” or “Trumpian” is preposterous. Polish politics is too complex to indulge in such simplistic terms.

Poland’s president-elect is probably as “pro-Kremlin” as his entire political camp, which, while in power, provided Ukraine with hundreds of tanks, aircraft, howitzers, and communication gear, while pressuring all European partners to ramp up sanctions against Russia.

Nawrocki is also as “Euroskeptic” as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, given the attitude of both politicians toward migration policies and EU climate regulations. And he is as “Trumpian” as his Finnish soon-to-be counterpart Alexander Stubb, who charmingly played a spot of golf with the US president a few weeks ago.

Nawrocki is doubtless a staunch conservative who adroitly capitalized on the nature of wide swaths of the Polish electorate, which, contrary to European trends, has remained—politically, socially, and emotionally—attached to the notion of freedom, sovereignty, tradition, and Christian values. The PiS-backed candidate has also largely banked on the rising unpopularity of Tusk’s government, especially among young voters (Nawrocki won the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-old cohort).

Another major factor in Nawrocki’s win was the aristocratic style and aloofness of his rival, Trzaskowski, who was unable to connect with the working class and Poland’s rural constituency. This stood in contrast to Nawrocki, the former boxer and son of a toolmaker and a bookbinder.

—Marek Magierowski is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and the director of strategy for the Poland program at the Freedom Institute in Warsaw. He previously served as Poland’s ambassador to the United States and to Israel.

Will the new president overcome Poland’s polarization?

Poles know that their vote can change the course of the history of their country. And they have known from day one of this presidential campaign that this election matters deeply for our future. However, as, sadly, the campaign was about preventing the other side from coming to power, it is an open question whether the president we have just elected will understand what is good for Poles in these times of uncertainty. 

Will our new president spare no effort to overcome the deep polarization of the Polish people? A polarized society is easy to manipulate and an easy target for Russian disinformation. This is the biggest challenge for the new president—understanding the importance of building bridges between Poles. It is an extremely difficult task, especially in times when many political careers have been built for decades on societal divisions. And I worry that this president-elect comes from a political tradition with little propensity to seek compromise. The presidency is an important part of the Polish system of checks and balances, and the new president will need to support the government in building a democratic Poland where everyone can live.

Poles need a president who will understand that isolation has never done Poland any good, that the European Union is our place, and that it is crucial that Poland takes its share of responsibility for Europe. Will the new president support European efforts to build its defense capabilities and its security-based economic competitiveness? Will he work for peace on our continent? 

In addition, my hope is that the new president will work to keep the United States and Europe together. They need each other. 

—Danuta Hübner is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. She was Poland’s first-ever European commissioner, responsible first for trade, then with regional policy. She also established and oversaw the institutional structure to deliver Poland’s accession to the EU.

Social media was rampant in this election. But what impact did it have?

The narrow victory for Nawrocki in Poland’s presidential election is the latest example of why it’s hard to directly link any country’s electoral outcome with how voters engage with candidates, political operatives, and others across social media. There was a significant amount of hyper-partisan attacks across social media, from both sides, ahead of Sunday’s vote in the Central European country. There was also evidence—including via research from the Atlantic Council—that foreign governments attempted to sway voter outcomes.

But how successful these efforts were, as well as the ongoing interventions from social media companies to possibly reduce such content’s impact, are almost impossible to quantify. Given the tightly run race, small shifts in voters’ behavior—potentially spurred on by what people may have seen in their online feeds—could have played a role. But, at this stage, that is more a theory than confirmed reality.

The most recent Polish presidential election joins a growing list of both European and non-European elections in which social media and its impact on how people voted remain a black box. As much as EU policymakers have centered their attention on how the likes of TikTok and YouTube may have amplified anti-EU voices ahead of national elections, there has been a growing offline shift in public opinion across the bloc away from greater EU alignment that has nothing to do with the digital world.

At best, this weekend’s vote is another example of how, in the middle of 2025, these digital platforms are now part of every country’s election cycle. But social media’s impact on such a closely fought election is mostly unknown.

—Mark Scott is a senior resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab’s (DFRLab) Democracy + Tech Initiative within the Atlantic Council Technology Programs.

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Turkish-American defense and energy partnerships suit the new transatlantic landscape

Gregory Bloom — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

The week following last November’s US elections, the newly formed American Turkish Business Roundtable (ATBR) gathered in Istanbul for a press event where ATBR directors, General Jim Jones and General Tod Wolters (both retired and both former SACEURs), addressed the impact of Donald Trump’s election victory on US-Turkey relations. At that moment, bilateral ties were strengthening, primarily through defense partnerships in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine. The announcement of a joint venture between Repkon and General Dynamics, known as Repkon USA, to manufacture 155 millimeter ammunition for Ukraine underscored both the fragility of the US defense industrial base and the advantages of accelerating the partnership with Turkey and deepening its role in NATO’s supply chain.

The consensus at the Istanbul meeting was clear: The US-Turkey relationship was poised for further improvement. This expectation was based not only on the historically positive relationship between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Trump, but also on their shared approach to foreign policy: pragmatic, transactional, and focused on strategic economic and security interests. Yet, four months later, the transatlantic security landscape has again undergone a dramatic shift.

Trump’s foreign policy signals a shift toward burden sharing among NATO allies, prompting European nations to assume greater defense responsibilities and reconsider US defense partnerships. This shift has forced European leaders to take greater responsibility for their own security needs, significantly increasing pressure on NATO members to boost defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product—a level that many European governments had previously resisted. As a result, European defense markets are undergoing a transformation. European countries, once heavily dependent on the United States for defense procurement, are now directing increased defense spending toward their domestic industries rather than US firms. This is evidenced by the decline in US defense stocks and the rise in European defense stocks in recent months.

For US defense firms, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. If American companies want to remain competitive in the European market, they might be well-served to partner with Turkish firms to access European domestic procurement programs. Turkish defense firms, already well-integrated with NATO supply chains, provide an ideal platform for US companies to keep a foothold in Europe. Turkish manufacturers like Baykar, Aselsan, and Roketsan produce cost-effective, high-quality systems that European nations increasingly need. The Repkon USA partnership is just the first step, and other joint ventures could enable US firms to leverage Turkey’s industrial base while meeting Europe’s demand for non-American suppliers.

Over the past month, European defense stocks have outperformed US defense stocks due to concerns over NATO’s future following Trump’s remarks suggesting the United States might not defend allies that do not meet spending targets. This has driven European nations to accelerate defense investments, with spending projected to rise dramatically. Countries across Europe are prioritizing domestic production to reduce reliance on US suppliers, while Turkey is expanding its defense industrial base and exploring partnerships with US firms. As a result, US defense companies are seeing declines in value amid expectations that European nations will shift procurement away from direct US purchases in favor of European suppliers.

Turkey’s role as an energy hub and regional leader is becoming more critical, serving as a key transit point for resources from Iraq, the Caspian region, and the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe. The expected reopening of the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) and the potential expansion of Trans-Caspian energy routes further reinforce Turkey’s strategic importance. In March, Turkey reinforced its regional energy leadership as Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to discuss resuming Kurdish oil exports and exporting Basra oil via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline. With the United States revoking Iraq’s waiver to import Iranian electricity, talks also focused on expanding Turkey’s electricity and gas supplies to Iraq. In Erbil, Bayraktar and Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani agreed to remove barriers to Kurdish oil exports through Turkey’s Ceyhan port. These efforts reflect Turkey’s strategy to deepen regional energy ties and enhance regional energy security. As US firms look to offset margin pressures at home, investment in Turkey’s energy sector will only increase, aligning with Ankara’s ambitions to diversify its energy partnerships and solidify its role as a key transit hub for Europe.

The Trump administration’s focus on reducing inflation by lowering oil prices has also had significant consequences for global energy markets. As expectations for cheaper oil rise, many US producers are hesitant to expand domestic drilling, knowing that lower prices will reduce their profit margins. Instead, US energy firms are seeking new markets abroad, with Turkey, Iraq, and Libya emerging as key investment destinations. Recent deals underscore this trend, including the Continental Resources-TPAO partnership, which will explore and develop unconventional energy resources, and the ExxonMobil-BOTAS liquified natural gas agreement, which expands gas trade between the two countries.

The US-Turkey relationship is evolving in response to shifting transatlantic dynamics in defense and energy. The withdrawal of US financial and intelligence support for Ukraine amid Trump’s ceasefire push, later restored, pushed European nations toward self-reliance, creating both risks and opportunities for American defense firms. To maintain access to European defense markets, US companies will need to adapt by forming strategic partnerships including with Turkish firms. At the same time, the changing energy landscape is driving American energy firms to invest in Turkey and the broader region, ensuring continued economic ties between the two nations. While geopolitical tensions remain, defense and energy cooperation offer a pragmatic path forward for US-Turkey relations in this new era.

Few things are simple in US-Turkish relations, and the current environment presents obstacles as well as opportunities. Tariff effects on transatlantic trade remain uncertain in the first half of 2025, including in the area of defense industrial cooperation, though for now it seems the 10 percent tariff on Turkey may end up being relatively advantageous compared to some markets. The instinct to localize and nationalize industrial production in both the United States and Turkey represents something of a headwind for larger projects. Domestic political unrest in Turkey may also create caution in Washington or hesitance among US firms out of concern over instability impacting Turkish markets or suppliers.

Yet these concerns, while real and significant, do not outweigh the glaring and growing need that prompted formation of the ATBR. Greater US-Turkey engagement is essential for maintaining US strategic influence in NATO, European defense markets, and regional energy security; that engagement also facilitates supply chain resilience and surge capacity for future military contingencies.

Congress would be wise to support deeper defense industrial cooperation, including joint production agreements, to keep US firms competitive in Europe and engaged with Turkey. Strengthening US investment in Turkey’s energy sector would bolster transatlantic energy security and reduce reliance on adversarial suppliers. Additionally, renewed high-level diplomatic and security dialogues would help counterbalance Russian and Chinese influence while ensuring long-term US economic and security interests. A stronger US-Turkey partnership is not just beneficial—it is in many ways a strategic necessity.

Gregory Bloom is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Turkey Program. He also serves as the chief operating officer of Jones Group International (JGI).

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2024 in the rear view

Rich Outzen — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

2024 brought a host of developments and changes in the security and defense environment facing the United States, Turkey, and their NATO partners. Some of these dynamics were political and geopolitical in nature, some operational, others military and technical. As the Defense Journal assesses and describes the state of the Alliance in 2025 for its readers, a brief retrospective on the year just passed and its impact provides a part of the necessary context.

Geopolitical shaping events

Momentous geopolitical events since our winter issue have included the advent of Donald Trump’s second term as US president, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, and the apparent revelation in Europe that conventional military defense is a sovereign responsibility that cannot be outsourced in perpetuity. These events have had significant implications for the security of NATO, Turkey, and the United States.

Trump’s return has had several immediate effects on the United States (and thus the global) security environment. His approach narrows the US global mission from maintaining a liberal world order to pursuing US national interests, while adopting a tone of strategic ambiguity toward both rivals and allies. He has simultaneously directed reform of the US military to reemphasize combat readiness and lethality while minimizing social or ideological programs. As commander in chief, Trump has directed US soldiers to conduct counterterror strikes in places like Somalia and Yemen even as his negotiators seek to defuse conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad after an eleven-day rebel offensive reshaped the strategic map of the Middle East. Iran lost a valuable strategic position in its multidimensional “resistance” against Israel and Western influence. Russia lost its sunk investment in Assad and a degree of its influence in the Middle East. Turkey has gained greater stability on its southern border, close defense and intelligence ties with the new Syrian authorities, and prospects for expanded regional trade and a leading role in Syrian reconstruction. The challenges of stabilizing Syria, and tensions between Israel and Turkey stemming from their respective threat perceptions, have no immediate or apparent solution, and will require deft diplomacy to manage.

Shifts that might have attracted more attention in other times were easy to miss, but still noteworthy in terms of global security. China and Russia took steps to bolster the military junta in Myanmar that is teetering on the edge of collapse against a rebel coalition. Battles between the Sudanese army (backed by Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) and the antigovernment Rapid Support Forces (supported by Russia and the United Arab Emirates) have shifted decisively in favor of the army, though not yet presaging an end to the civil war. The war in Ukraine grinds on amid serious attempts by Trump to forge a ceasefire. Early 2025 continues to be an era of persistent conflict and great power competition, but one with dramatic developments that will echo throughout this and future years.

Strategic alliance development

International patterns of alliance and armament over the past half-year have reflected the weight of geopolitical changes noted above. Deep and effective US support to Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression has led to a tighter convergence of what has been referred to as the axis of upheaval, with China, Iran, and North Korea sending weapons, supplies, and even soldiers to aid the Russian war effort. A dozen or more other countries have provided diplomatic support to Moscow, but these three have become critical suppliers of weapons and cash for the Kremlin. This is a trend that began before 2024, but has only accelerated in recent months.

The global arms market continues to shift in other significant ways. The United States in 2024 cemented its leading position in arms exports, accounting for 43 percent of global exports. Russian exports have sharply decreased as domestic production has been consumed by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Italy and Turkey have more than doubled their national shares of global exports over the past several years (2 percent to 4.8 percent for Italy and 0.8 percent to 1.7 percent for Turkey). Five Turkish defense firms rank among the one hundred largest in the world—and a sixth, Baykar, would almost certainly be high on the list if all of its sales data were publicly released. Only the United States, China, Germany, and the United Kingdom match or exceed this number. Of particular note has been the continued rise in demand for Turkish armaments from Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.

Europe, for its part, has shown signs of finally getting serious about developing its own conventional military deterrent vis-à-vis Russia—or at least talking about doing so. Shocked by Trump’s heavy-handed conditionality on future aid to Ukraine, Brussels and its member states have drawn up plans for massive new defense spending and other deterrent steps—if taxpayers and military-age youth prove willing. Yet the European Union’s initial formulation of deterrence against Russia independent of Washington and without integrating Turkish geography, military capabilities, and strategic resources does not inspire confidence, especially given the long years needed to restore defense industrial capacity even assuming consistent commitment. European firms and national leaders would do well to welcome Turkish contributions to European defense planning and resourcing both in NATO and in EU planning by following through on plans to sell Ankara Eurofighters and encouraging more collaboration like that between Italy’s Leonardo and Turkey’s Baykar.

While the past half year has demonstrated volatility at the geopolitical and political levels, it has brought multipolarity and diffusion of power at the strategic level. This has played out in the evolution of alliances and the flow of arms and trade more broadly. In mid-2024 dualistic constructs (autocracy versus democracy, the US-led Alliance against an axis of evil) retained some utility. The current environment is messier, with issue-specific coalitions and transactional diplomacy creating a kaleidoscope of rivals, partners, and targets that, for now at least, deny predictable patterns and lead some to question the credibility of the international system’s most potent actor.

Operational trends

As geopolitics and alliances continue to evolve, so, too, does war in operational terms. In a world with ongoing “hot wars” in Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere, several discernible trends can be identified. These include diminishing returns for artillery as seen in Ukraine, failure to achieve military victory through ground maneuver forces for Russia and Israel, and the fragility of lightly armed proxy forces in various theaters.

Russia since 2022 has compensated for shortcomings in its infantry, armor, and air forces through reliance on superior tube and rocket artillery, exacting a heavy toll on Ukrainian defenders in the process. Yet in late 2024, losses among Russian artillery units rose as Ukrainian drone tactics and counterbattery fire became more effective. While Russia still outproduces NATO in artillery ammunition and continues to fire it at prodigious rates, its advantage is decreasing in relative terms.

Russia has continued to advance at high cost to try and consolidate control over the nearly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory it occupies, but has failed to end the war via ground maneuver after three years. The difficulty of ending wars through ground maneuver even against inferior opponents can also be seen in Gaza, where operations which have continued for eighteen months are not yet meeting the stated war goals of military and political leaders. Both the Russian and Israeli campaigns reflect the historical difficulty of reconciling the political nature of conflict termination with the operational conduct of wars, and a resultant tendency for destructive wars to yield stalemate when that task remains incomplete.

The recent period produced impressive operational results in other cases, notably Israel’s campaign against Iran’s regional proxy network and the Sudanese army’s efforts to regain control of the national capital region from the insurgent Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. In late 2024 Israel crippled Lebanese Hezbollah and struck Iranian-supported militia targets in Syria and Iraq during an audacious campaign involving air strikes, ground maneuver, and exploding cellphones. Between November 2024 and March 2025 the Sudanese Army routed the RSF from Khartoum and other areas in central Sudan. The RSF had been supported by a number of foreign sponsors, including the United Arab Emirates and several other regional countries, but ultimately failed to achieve local or regional legitimacy—as had the Iranian proxy groups in Lebanon and Syria, and arguably in Iraq and Yemen as well. The past several months have badly undermined the notion popular over the past decade that proxy wars can effectively “enable intervention on the cheap.”

Military technical developments on the horizon

Over the past several months sixth-generation fighter aircraft have moved from concept to reality. China flew two prototypes in December 2024, one produced by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group and the other by AVIC Shenyang Aircraft. US prototypes for a Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) aircraft have been under evaluation since 2020, but in March 2025 the Boeing F-47 was officially selected as the program’s platform. A half-dozen other countries have done some sixth-generation work—integrating advanced stealth, artificial intelligence, manned-unmanned teaming, and other advanced technologies—though even for those with the deepest pockets, fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft will be mainstays for the foreseeable future.

Artificial intelligence is a growing element in military planning and readiness. While the United States and many of its allies have endorsed the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy, many potential adversaries and rivals have not. Military applications for AI focus at present on information processing, threat identification, and decision-making, areas in which the United States has relative advantage. The Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit is implementing a project, Thunderforge, to deploy such capabilities to headquarters in Asia and Europe. The military services each have designated units to test concepts and systems related to AI in the field. The drive to develop effective defenses against small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has gained urgency with the continued broad proliferation of cheap, easy-to-use, lethal UAS around the world. The December 2024 Department of Defense adoption of a classified strategy to accelerate counter-UAS development signals the rising criticality of the need for cost-effective and combat-effective counters to the cheap and plentiful threat. This is an area ripe for technical development and fielding in the near future.

Adaptive Alliance

The shifting dynamics at all these levels—geopolitical, strategic, operational, and technical—shape the contours of defense and security challenges for the United States and its NATO allies. These are certainly challenging times, yet the Alliance has endured for over seven decades through other chaotic and difficult periods because the basic value proposition of mutual defense among the members remains sound. Secretary General Mark Rutte strikes the right tone with his assessment that “there is no alternative to NATO” for either the United States or its partners, and that despite frictions related to burden sharing, domestic politics, and sometimes divergent national interest, NATO’s summit in The Hague in late June will show the Alliance evolving rather than dissolving.

Rich Outzen is a geopolitical consultant and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Turkey with thirty-two years of government service both in uniform and as a civilian. Follow him on X @RichOutzen.

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Q&A with Dov Zakheim

Atlantic Council Turkey Programs — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

The Defense Journal of the Atlantic Council in Turkey recently interviewed former US Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim, a longtime observer of US foreign and national security policy, regarding recent tensions between US allies Israel and Turkey. Those tensions have received extensive media coverage, including the remarks of both President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the latter’s April 7 visit to the White House—which featured Trump expressing optimism that tensions were manageable and that he might play a mediating role.

This interview has been lightly edited for style.

DJ: Thank you for your time in speaking with us. Israel and Turkey have had alternating close and tense relations for decades but maintained discrete contacts throughout the cyclical ups and downs. Are they still talking?

Zakheim: It’s hard to know because if they are talking it’s probably through intelligence channels, which get reported the least. My guess is that they probably are, if only to deconflict over Syria. There was a report commissioned by Prime Minister Netanyahu that said tensions over Syria could create a dangerous situation. Regional press reported a conclusion that the countries “could go to war,” but that’s not what the report said—just that the tensions were potentially quite serious. Turkish hard-right commentators from MHP [Milli Hareket Partisi, the National Movement Party, of Turkish nationalist] and HUDA PAR [Hür Dava Partisi, the Independent Cause Party, of Kurdish Islamist] have pretty much said the same thing; even President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said similar things. The tensions are worse than what happened after the Mavi Marmara incident in some ways¹. The military and security establishments in both countries tend to be more realists and to seek de-escalation, though; so, they are probably still talking.

DJ: After the very tense period between 2009–2014, President Barack Obama and later Trump worked to ameliorate Turkey-Israel tensions, leading to a rapprochement of sorts. This contributed to a softening of tensions over time. Without US involvement, the two countries pursued a diplomatic reconciliation in 2023 that was interrupted by the Hamas attacks of October 7 and the Israeli response. Do the two countries need the United States as a mediator or are they better off together proceeding at their own pace and modalities?

Zakheim: Trump has offered to mediate between Israel and Turkey so as to improve their relationship. But Washington might be too distracted by the president’s other priorities. President Trump has focused on de-escalating the situation in Gaza, which could indirectly benefit Israel-Turkish tensions stemming in part from the conflict there. In addition, the Trump administration also has Ukraine, tariffs and trade, and a lot of things competing for the attention of the president and his key advisers. It is not surprising that Netanyahu raised Syria with President Trump, because Israelis take a different view of what’s going on there and are concerned about the Turkish role: They are not comfortable with what they see as growth in Turkish influence there. Discontent in Jerusalem can’t be ignored, though it appears that President Trump’s initial response was balanced and that Netanyahu didn’t get the backing for his position that he might have wanted.

DJ: Syria is a unique challenge between Israel and Turkey now because it essentially makes them neighbors—tense and distrustful neighbors—not just countries in the same region. How do both countries meet their minimum interests in Syria?

Zakheim: It shouldn’t be zero-sum between these two, because there are other players in the equation. The Iranians are still present in Syria to a degree, and the Russians of course hope to keep air and naval bases [there]. Israelis are divided as to whether it is good or bad for Russia to stay or go. It appears Netanyahu thinks it may not be a bad thing to use the Russians to balance Turkish influence. Then there is the question of Damascus, the transitional government, itself. Some think they haven’t really evolved from their roots in al-Qaeda, while others say Damascus—especially transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa—have been signaling moderation and reaching out to the West because they know that they need Western support. Where there are many players, a modus vivendi is possible, especially if Sharaa wants to move toward the West more than the Assad regime did. There is great fluidity in Syria now. The Kurdish factor still has to play out as well and the success or degree of their reintegration affects Ankara’s positioning. Abdullah Öcalan may want to disarm the movement he founded, the PKK [Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan, or Kurdish Workers’ Party], but it is possible that parts of the movement in Iraq or Syria do not². With so many possibilities, Jerusalem and Ankara both would do well to show flexibility.

DJ: Is Syria without Assad better for Israel than Syria with Assad?

Zakheim: I think it will very much depend on where the Syrian government goes. We haven’t heard the same sort of vitriol out of Damascus as under Assad, despite Israel taking more territory and conducting air attacks. It may be that the Israel-Syria border becomes a quiet border like it was under Hafez al-Assad as opposed to the more dangerous border that became the norm under Bashar and his backers, Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Bashar was a slimy figure to the Turks as well: He lied to Ankara and was problematic for Israel. It may well be that a government that proceeds the way al-Sharaa says he wants to go could be a plus for both Israel and Turkey.

DJ: How much of the current Turkey-Israel tension do you see as structural or systemic, and how much personal (i.e., a product of the combative Netanyahu-Erdoğan relationship)?

Zakheim: There is no doubt that the personalities don’t line up very well. For comparison, though, we can look at the relationship between Netanyahu and former President Joe Biden—they were not fond of one another, but the two countries remained close. It was Erdoğan who patched things up gradually with Netanyahu over a decade. Erdoğan is a realist, and he knows very well that Israel has a number of things to offer and is an important market. Remember that Turkey is developing a very high-tech military and other industries, and there are many areas where they might partner with Israel. There was over $1 billion in bilateral trade that has now been cut off—though some still comes through third countries. The fact remains that Erdoğan is a pragmatist. If Gaza is somehow settled, that is a way for trade relations to be restored, and these two countries are potentially very important partners for trade and security cooperation.

Overall, despite the ups and downs there is a degree of complementarity. Both leaders are survivors and have pragmatist streaks. Gaza is a place where the United States can clearly play a major role in reconciling interests. If there is reconstruction, Turkish companies, especially in infrastructure, can have a role. A Turkish constructive role in stabilizing Gaza could be a new pivot point. It is true that Erdoğan plays to his base, but both he and Netanyahu remain less vitriolic about “the other” country in the equation than the hardliners in their own coalitions.

Dov S. Zakheim is a member of the Atlantic Council Board of Directors. He was US undersecretary of defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer from 2001-04. He is a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and senior fellow at the CNA Corporation.

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1 The Mavi Marmara incident involved Israeli Navy interdiction of civilian ships trying to break a blockade of Gaza, which resulted in the death of nine Turkish activists and ended with a 2013 apology by Netanyahu.

2 On May 12^th 2025, following a congress of PKK leadership, the organization announced a decision to disarm and dissolve organizationally. The impacts of this decision on the ground in Iraq and Syria remain to be seen, as noted in the interview.

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Why the Middle Corridor matters amid a geopolitical resorting

Karel Valansi — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Geopolitical earthquakes are redrawing trade routes across Eurasia. Russia’s war in Ukraine has awakened Central Asian countries, which have discovered their strength through cooperation to develop their economies and attain independence. Without the constant attention of Russia, this cooperation contributes to developing the Middle Corridor, a key trade route linking China to Europe via Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, and the South Caucasus. It is an alternative to traditional east-west trade routes that bypasses Russia and Iran. The Middle Corridor is a regional initiative, not an external, imposed idea. It boosts regional cooperation, flexibility, economic growth, and diplomatic dialogue. While Russia and China try to maneuver according to new geopolitical developments, Iran is ignored in these initiatives.

The Middle Corridor creates a strategic role for Turkey as a central energy hub connecting Europe to additional suppliers. The European Union (EU) has recently increased its interest and investment in the corridor. However, the United States is still sitting on the sidelines even though the Middle Corridor presents a vital opportunity to counterbalance Russian and Chinese dominance in the region and limit Iran’s desire to mitigate the effects of economic sanctions. Moreover, greater connectivity means access to Central Asia’s vast deposits of rare earth elements crucial for civilian and defense products, new energy, and information technology. As corridor countries seek to reach new markets and lessen their dependence on Russia and China, Turkey, the EU, and the United States share a common interest in increasing cooperation and counterbalancing the power of Russia and China.

The rise of trade corridors

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the European Union faced unprecedented precarity and had to reconsider its energy structure to diminish its vulnerable interdependence on Russia’s asymmetrical control over pipelines and weaponization of energy. China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Europe’s urge for diversification increased the need for connectivity and shifted international attention toward trade corridors. As corridor wars intensify and become the new scene for great power competition, the United States needs a more assertive policy concerning Central Asia. This is especially true as the growing cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and, to some extent, North Korea aims to challenge Western influence by building alternative trade routes aligned with their political agenda. Washington must actively engage in infrastructure initiatives across Central Asia to counterbalance this trend.

The Middle Corridor: A strategic alternative

The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), or the Middle Corridor, is a multimodal trade route connecting Europe and China via Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its strategic importance has grown as it bypasses both Russia and Iran. The Middle Corridor relies primarily on existing rail and port infrastructure and requires further development and investment. Countries along its path are working to position it as an alternative to the Northern Corridor (the traditional route through Russia) and the Southern Corridor (which runs through Iran).

Before 2022, the Northern Corridor carried more than 86 percent of transport between Europe and China, while the Middle Corridor constituted less than 1 percent. Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Northern Corridor became a financial and political liability, especially for Western countries aiming to counter Russian control over trade routes. Shipping volumes of the Northern Corridor dropped by half in 2023 compared to 2022. Part of this traffic moved to the Middle Corridor, with increases of 89 percent and 70 percent in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

The Middle Corridor has many advantages. It is a relatively safer route, especially given the disruptions along the Northern Corridor due to Western sanctions on Russia and those in accessing the Suez Canal through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait due to increased Houthi attacks on vessels. In addition to providing economic revenues to corridor countries, some define the Middle Corridor as a “crossroads of peace,” echoing the “peace pipelines” strategy of the past.

According to the World Bank, by 2030, the Middle Corridor can reduce travel times, while freight volumes could triple to 11 million tonnes, with a 30 percent increase in trade between China and the EU. However, progress in the Middle Corridor is slow, and various operational and regulatory problems are causing unpredictable delays. There are still logistical and infrastructural challenges. Most importantly, its annual capacity (6 million tons in 2024) is drastically below the Northern Corridor’s annual capacity of over 100 million tons.

Corridor wars through connectivity

Recently, connectivity and diversification have become key drivers in international politics, with regional and global powers seeking to expand their influence in the Middle Corridor. Japan is following these developments to diversify its trade routes while countering Russia and China. Although the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is not yet a key player in the Middle Corridor, various summits between GCC and Central Asian countries since 2023 have manifested growing cooperation and increased GCC investments in the region’s infrastructure.

As the natural entry point into Europe, Turkey understood the importance of connectivity to sustain economic, commercial, and investment relations and political and cultural ties within the region. In line with its geostrategic location, Turkey has invested in many connectivity projects since the 1990s, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the International Transport Corridor, the Black Sea Ring Highway, the Eurasia Tunnel, the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, the Edirne-Kars high-speed railway, and the Northern Marmara Motorway.

The Middle Corridor, as “the most reliable trade route between Asia and Europe,” presents Turkey with a historic opportunity to establish itself as a strategic transit hub in Europe-China trade. Diversifying its energy suppliers could reduce Russian influence in Turkey’s energy policy while expanding its influence in Central Asia and strengthening its economic ties with the EU. From the Turkish perspective, the corridor would improve its strategic position and strengthen its relations with Turkic-speaking countries in the region.

For the European Union, the Middle Corridor aligns with its Global Gateway strategy. The EU defined the development of the Middle Corridor as a priority to secure connectivity in the transport and energy sectors and promote sustainable economic growth in the region. While current global challenges increase the need for solid partnerships, Central Asia is a €340 billion economy, growing at an average rate of 5 percent annually, with further potential for collaboration. The EU sees the Middle Corridor as a fast and safer route connecting Europe and China, which helps diversify supply chains.

The Middle Corridor serving Russia, China, and Iran

For China, the development of the Middle Corridor is an opening to integrate into global markets and supply chains, an opportunity to reduce its financial burden and dependence on routes controlled by Russia, and also an escape from US sanctions.

Russia remains a major obstacle in developing the Middle Corridor. For regional countries, Moscow would “do everything in its power to control overland trade flows.” While Russia is currently distracted with its war against Ukraine, considering Russia’s sensitivities, it will at some point want to disrupt Western involvement in the region or even exploit the corridor for its own benefit. Russia has already begun exploiting the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan to bypass Western sanctions. Moscow aims to leverage the enhanced connectivity of the Caspian Sea for military purposes, including the transport of Shahed drones from Iran. Additionally, since 2022, Russia has increased its investment in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) to diversify its trade routes, reducing its reliance on East-West routes. Iran’s neighbors and even its allies bypassed Iran in current connectivity projects. This result is mainly due to international sanctions, Iran’s poor infrastructure, and a lack of investment. In 2023, representatives from Turkey, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan met to discuss the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan Route, and Tehran immediately proposed a third alternative connecting this route to Iran. Tehran also invests in routes linking Iran to China via Afghanistan to secure a stronger foothold and influence the balance of power within regional trade routes. Iran perceives the Zangezur Corridor as a potential threat that might increase Turkey’s presence near its borders. For Tehran, this project is “Turkey’s highway to Turan.”

Potential strategy for the United States, the EU, and Turkey

Although Central Asia is pivotal in ongoing corridor wars, the region is still not an American priority. The United States needs a comprehensive and updated Central Asia strategy. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently signaled, a first step could be to end the Jackson-Vanik Amendment , which restricts formal trade relations with nonmarket economies such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The region also needs American investment to modernize the Middle Corridor. In addition to direct economic benefits, the United States could counterbalance the influence of Russia and China. While great connectivity would enable regional countries’ ambitions, for the United States, it would facilitate access to vast mineral and rare earth reserves, which globally are under significant Chinese control.

The Middle Corridor serves as a lifeline for the landlocked region. Regional countries have the political will and determination to develop the corridor’s potential. In the age of great power competition, these countries have significant room for maneuvering, and they benefit from the multidimensional foreign policy they pursue to enhance their autonomy. However, there is a growing mismatch between expectations and the capacity of the Middle Corridor.

The United States, the EU, and Turkey should cooperate and intensify their engagement with these countries to cultivate mutually beneficial partnerships. Turkey is wildly successful as Ankara invests political capital in strengthening relations. Enhancing partnerships with regional governments and investing in infrastructure would benefit regional governments and the West, as they can maintain their influence in shaping global trade routes. Given that Russia, China, and Iran are trying to prevent the growing Western influence in the region, the West must immediately recognize the strategic importance of transit corridors. As an influence war is intensifying over transit routes, the United States should be at the center of these developments—and not in the periphery—to benefit and counter the geopolitical challenges of Russia, China, and Iran.

Karel Valansi is a political columnist who analyses the Middle East and foreign policy issues in Şalom Newspaper and T24. Follow her on X @karelvalansi.

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Transatlantic relations and a region in flux

Atlantic Council Turkey Program — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Foreword

Dramatic events altered the geopolitical landscape, affecting Turkey, the United States, and NATO in late 2024 and early 2025. The election of Donald Trump as the forty seventh president of America, a ceasefire in Gaza after months of showdown between Israel and Iran’s Axis of Resistance, and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria have challenged many assumptions and regional political-military considerations. The fifth issue of the Defense Journal assesses key dynamics as we enter a new era. The Defense Journal team examines the rise of the hyperwar concept via military applications of artificial intelligence and the frontier of development for robotic systems. We also look at trends in key US policy concerns in the region to the south of Turkey, including Israel and Syria. If the first months of the second Trump administration are any indication, rapid change and a high tempo in US foreign policy decisions affecting Washington, Ankara, and their shared interests across several regions is the new normal. The Editorial Team hopes you find these contributions interesting and useful.

Rich Outzen and Can Kasapoglu, Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY Co-managing editors

Articles

2024 in the rear view

By Rich Outzen

Hyperwar, artificial intelligence, and Homo sapien

By Can Kasapoğlu

Turkish-American defense and energy partnerships suit the new transatlantic landscape

By Greg Bloom

Q&A with Dov Zakheim

By Atlantic Council Turkey Program

In Syria’s fragile transition there’s a glimmer of a more stable Middle East

By Charles Lister

Q&A with Haluk Bayraktar

By Atlantic Council Turkey Program

Why the Middle Corridor matters amid a geopolitical resorting

By Karel Valansi

Honorary advisory board

The Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY‘s honorary advisory board provides vision and direction for the journal. We are honored to have Atlantic Council board directors Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former commander of US European Command; Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Gen. James L. Jones, former national security advisor to the President of the United States; Franklin D. Kramer, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, former US Ambassador to NATO; and Dov S. Zakheim, former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Defense.

Gen. Wesley K. Clark

Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO

Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow at Harvard University JFK Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs; Board Director, Atlantic Council; former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs (2001-2009)

Gen. James L. Jones

President, Jones Group International and Executive Chairman Emeritus, Atlantic Council; former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States

Franklin D. Kramer

Distinguished Fellow & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Assistant Secretary of Defense

Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute

CEO, Cambridge Global Advisors & Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Permanent Representative to NATO

Dov S. Zakheim

Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Senior Fellow, CNA Corporation; Board Director, Atlantic Council; former US Under Secretary of Defense

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Q&A with Haluk Bayraktar

Atlantic Council Turkey Programs — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Haluk Bayraktar is the CEO of Baykar, an autonomous technology company based in Turkey. He began his tenure at Baykar in 2004 as an engineering manager, when Baykar’s autonomous technology efforts were still nascent, and has been involved in every aspect of the business’s growth into a leading firm in the Turkish defense sector: project management, logistics, and business development. Baykar’s pioneering role in the rise of the Turkish drone industry makes Bayraktar a fascinating and well-informed observer on security and alliance dynamics affecting Turkey, NATO, and the region.

This interview has been lightly edited for style.

Defense Journal by Atlantic Council IN TURKEY (DJ): Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Let’s start with developments of common interest to readers in Turkey, the United States, and Europe. Following the industrial and technology cooperation deal with Italian defense and aerospace group Leonardo, what’s next for Baykar in the Western market?

Bayraktar: Baykar has become the world’s biggest drone maker, with thirty-eight international partners now—from Europe and NATO to the Turkic countries, Africa, and the Middle East. Among NATO allies, we have partnered with Poland, Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, and of course, Turkey’s military, law enforcement, and disaster relief agencies. Turkey is a NATO ally, so all our products and technologies follow the technical standards and military specifications of the West and are entirely compatible with Western systems. The Western market is critical for us.

As for Leonardo, we are on the path to establishing a joint venture (JV). They are a major player in Europe, and their work areas are highly compatible with ours—a lot of synergies and complementarity. We were already working with them, integrating payloads and systems with our products: This has become a very strong bond or marriage. A JV is a great opportunity/potential to bring robust, field-proven systems to a broader market. Baykar has drones all around the world, including tactical and strategic platforms. Leonardo produces critical subsystems with great potential for Europe and broader markets where they have a presence, including South America and elsewhere, but Europe is our main focus. In Europe, there is no other mature alternative to what we have.

DJ: What differentiates your approach to manned technology? What is the key to your value proposition?

Bayraktar: We are a tech developer but not just tech. It’s about tech but also about ways to use that technology—about operational employment. Our approach centers on reliability, safety, and robustness. Our experience brings lots of feedback from various areas, which makes our products even more robust. So, we combine technology with real-world experience. Our fleet now exceeds 300,000 flight hours per year, so there is a lot to analyze. Our systems offer the highest performance-to-cost across the market. They are the most adaptable with continuous innovation, and they are equipped with the most advanced technology. In the defense sector, there are huge manufacturing capacity challenges everywhere, whereas there has been a great buildup in Turkey in the last twenty-five years. Over just twenty years, we’ve gone from roughly seventy to over 3,000 companies in the sector, with thousands of products. It’s a great ecosystem with important internal synergies. Baykar has established mass production capacity for unmanned systems. Our Istanbul base is the biggest facility of its kind in the world. So, potential customers know we can deliver quickly. We produce 250 Bayraktar TB2 [unmanned combat aerial vehicles] per year, fifty Akinci [high-altitude, long-endurance] UCAVs per year, and we’re ramping up to support larger capacity as the Bayraktar TB3 UCAV and the Kizilelma unmanned fighter jet move from development to production.

DJ: What is your conceptual and defense technological approach to Kizilelma? Do you see it as a loyal wingman to the fifth-generation Kaan fighter or a pathway to replace Kaan in the future?

Bayraktar: Kaan is a national manned fighter program, funded by the government. Kizilelma is Baykar’s own design and project. It is our final target on the unmanned family of products—a fighter with both subsonic and supersonic capabilities. We do not envision it as a loyal wingman, though it can work as an integrated adjunct in theory, if one were to couple it and use it with manned fighters in risky environments. US President Donald Trump recently introduced the American F-47 as a mothership controlling other fighters, and the consortium developing [the Global Combat Air Program involving Italy, the United Kingdom, and Japan] conceived it in similar fashion. But we envision Kizilelma as operating on its own with a fleet control system. As a company, we don’t develop manned systems. We exclusively invest in drones. That is our focus. Kizilelma is an aircraft with aggressive maneuvering, autonomous operation, and controls that can be flown by few operators. It completed its first flight in 2022, and we see that as a revolution. Bayraktar TB3 has the capability to take off and land on short-runway aircraft carriers. Kizilelma will have this feature too.

Fighter pilots stationed at aircraft carriers have to fly every single day and complete a certain number of sorties annually to stay current. That’s perhaps fifty training flights per day. By contrast, unmanned platforms do not require as much effort or so many daily landings to be certified for carriers. Moreover, Kizilelma will integrate artificial intelligence to assist with delegation of command and other operational aspects.

DJ: How do you view the F-35 debate in the United States, especially Elon Musk’s view that manned aircraft are not the best path forward?

Bayraktar: There are about 13,000 manned fighters worldwide right now–Russian, Chinese, US, and other systems combined. We believe that all those platforms will eventually be converted to unmanned systems, even though one cannot prove that point just yet. But when you look at the field, it’s clearly headed in that direction. To be clear, they may not be replaced one for one. It may be more like three to five unmanned platforms to replace each manned fighter. Unmanned systems will be everywhere, and it will be a crowded airspace—not just unmanned fighters but smaller first-person view drones and loitering munitions. They will be everywhere, and every country will need the ability to build and use these things. For nations to defend themselves in this century, this is a necessary capability—much like the ability to produce bullets.

DJ: Turkey has shown great agility in what has been termed “drone diplomacy,” or complementing regional policy initiatives with defense sales. What is the nature of public/private partnership in Turkish drone diplomacy?

Bayraktar: Overall, the major players in the Turkish defense ecosystem are still government-owned institutional firms. The private sector is smaller but dynamic and growing. Of course, I think that the private sector’s dynamism is preferable. SAHA is the industry group representing the smaller and midsize firms that comprise most of our private sector, and I am currently serving as the chairman.

Still, the system operates similarly for public and private firms. Anyone wishing to export applies to the Ministry of National Defense, which in turn coordinates with the Foreign Ministry and the intelligence community to issue an export license. It is the government’s decision at the end of the day. The government doesn’t promote private-sector firms per se. The Defense Industry Agency (SSB) has foreign relationships and partnerships, and they generally favor government-affiliated companies. One of the objectives of SAHA has been to help small and medium-sized companies become more visible. Our annual exhibition helps smaller players. Baykar is an example of successful growth: We’ve gone from five employees in 2004 to over 6,000 today. We know how important it is to become more visible, and we support other firms doing that. We try to make it easier for the newcomers. That is my responsibility as SAHA chairman.

My view is that European countries are better at using governmental influence to promote national commercial products. Baykar’s products promote themselves through their unique utility as well as aggressive marketing and social media presence. The Turkish government doesn’t subsidize sales, although other countries may. But we don’t rely on public credit or government grants. This is unique to Baykar: We’ve developed an unmanned fighter with the company’s own money. At the end of the day, since companies are required to receive a permit to export, the government plays an important role. The higher levels [of government officials] do talk about it and the firms need approval. The government spending environment matters greatly for domestic firms, too. And while Turkey spent 4.5 percent of its [gross domestic product] on defense before 2000, that number has remained close to 2 percent for two decades now. It was just in the last two years that it approached 3 percent.

The bottom line is that drone diplomacy is a reality and the Bayraktar TB2, in particular, has proven that. But the government doesn’t lead: market demand leads, the company follows, and the government supports.

DJ: Can you talk a little bit about the price/performance balance for Baykar systems?

Bayraktar: The Bayraktar TB2 is a very good example for price/performance balance. The initial purchase price or acquisition cost is one factor, but the life cycle, including maintenance and durability, has to be considered as well because reliability affects long-term costs. Let’s say you procure an alternative to Bayraktar TB2 for half the price. In reality, this is not an advantage if this “alternative” has double the crash rate. So, Bayraktar TB2 has a reliability advantage because you don’t face as many crashes and the cost consideration changes.

Unmanned systems represent a new niche in the defense ecosystem. Aerospace is conservative, especially for manned systems: extensive certifications and regulations serve to protect human life. But unmanned [aerial] vehicles are a different paradigm—you can add new sensors, new technology, and new operational approaches rapidly. An example is the fact that manned systems still use mechanical gyros, whereas the technologically advanced UAVs are currently using even cheaper MEMS [i.e., microelectromechanical system) sensors, fiber-optic alternatives with high-end software systems. You can easily innovate in the unmanned realm with the latest technology, whereas you need to be conservative in the manned domain because you need to make sure that each new step complies with the certification and safety standards of manned aviation. You can qualify unmanned systems with very high-end software—even AI software—and hardware much more quickly.

Baykar has a price advantage because we are vertically integrated. We have strong in-house avionics, power systems, and ground element design. This allows us to tailor critical subsystems and enable attractive pricing with high-end capability. The TB2, with a six-unit ground system and everything, still costs less than a manned platform. Our TB2 fleet recently passed the one-million-hour milestone, so our operating cost is just several hundred dollars per hour—compared to a minimum of $20,000 per hour for a single manned F-16. When you can mass produce, availability and reliability turn into a potent combination. Additionally, customers benefit from the rapid in-service schedule compared to a manned system. A country can field a full UAV system with trained people within a year, providing a very quick and affordable defense capability compared to a manned system, which is a multiyear exercise.

DJ: You mentioned thirty-eight international partners earlier. Ukraine was one of your earliest: Have you been able to apply lessons from that partnership with newer programs, such as those with the Gulf countries?

Bayraktar: Ukraine was Baykar’s first export customer. Our cooperation with Ukraine opened up the strategic level of cooperation for us. We had been working with them since 2011, but things moved rapidly after 2014. In 2014, no one else would sell them armed drones. We didn’t yet have a mature system, but we agreed to help. They were in need, huge need, and searching. That was more than ten years ago. They couldn’t get what they wanted elsewhere either, so they came to Turkey. President Erdoğan’s leadership mattered at that point, as he considered Ukraine a neighbor and friend in need. With the government’s support, we supplied armed drones starting in 2019—the order was placed in 2018. They were very happy and this was very important. President Zelensky visited in August 2019 after taking office. At his request, we agreed to build a factory in Ukraine. He acquired more systems, and we discussed an offset-type obligation. I told them: “You have very good engines. Maybe we can figure out a way to use your engines on our platforms.” So, we created effective cooperation with Motor Sich and others. In a sense, Turkey and Ukraine are complementary countries. When the war escalated in 2022, we did our best to support Ukraine. You may remember the European crowd-sourcing campaigns for Europeans to buy TB2s on Ukraine’s behalf, but we never accepted the money. We donated the platforms, giving up over $110 million in income that we chose not to generate. We are not war profiteers. We delivered all Bayraktar TB2s free of charge as part of those campaigns and the campaign funds were used for humanitarian aid and other pressing needs to support Ukraine.

Haluk Bayraktar is the CEO of Baykar, an autonomous technology company based in Turkey. Follow him on X at @haluk.

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Hyperwar, artificial intelligence, and Homo sapiens

Can Kasapoğlu — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Rethinking the modern neuroanatomical charts of warfare

According to Napoleon, an army walks on its stomach. War, nonetheless, chiefly revolves around cognitive functions. Take a nineteenth-century Napoleonic artillery officer calculating the range of his guns to the target, for example. The officer’s prefrontal cortex hosts three major components: control, short-term memory, and arithmetic logic. This prefrontal exercise operates on the data provided by two other sources: a premotor-parietal top-down system optimized to update and continuously transform external data into an internal format, and a hippocampal bottom-up system to serve as an access code to memory from previously acquired knowledge or to detect novel information. In other words, an army fights on mathematical military data processing systems of the parietal and prefrontal brain regions. No matter how technological improvements have run extra miles to the present day, this cognitive formulation has not changed even on the margins. A contemporary F-35 pilot, assessing the processed situational data harvested by the aircraft’s AN/AAQ-37 Distributed Aperture System showcased on the helmet-mounted display, uses precisely the same biological decision-making algorithms as the Napoleonic artillery officer posited above—albeit on steroids and with a high-performance computing edge.

Today, mankind stands on the eve of a great change in this oldest cognitive tradition of warfighting. For the first time in military history, parietal and prefrontal brain regions may take a back seat in deciding concepts of operations and concepts of employment, perhaps even strategic planning prior to combat operations, while artificial intelligence will likely assume the lead. With the rise of autonomous weapon systems in distributed battlegrounds, the neuroanatomical outlook of warfare may be evolving into a new reality.

Smart digital algorithms and autonomous robotic warfighters are poised to replace not only the muscles but also the brains of warfare. This can occur because they can replicate electronically what our brains do in the biological realm and thus can overtake us by simply performing better, not differently. Robotics and artificial intelligence mimic the core characteristics of nature. Machine-learning and artificial neural networks are good examples of this mimicry. Our everyday AI features of facial and voice recognition and smart internet search predictions function in the virtual world much as they do in the human brain. Likewise, swarming is not merely a robotic function. Birds, bee colonies, and even bacteria swarm. AI might be “smarter” than humans through faster processing of effective mimicry, and robots similarly may swarm in a more coordinated and agile manner than biological agents.

AI and hyperwar: Data, robots, and satellites

In their 2017 Proceedings article released by the US Naval Institute, US Marine Corps General John Allen and high-technology entrepreneur Amir Husain described “hyperwar” as an emerging type of armed conflict that significantly reduces human decision-making. In the new type of wars, the authors argued, Homo sapiens’cognitive function of decision-making will nearly disappear from the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act). Autonomous swarms of robotic warfare systems, high-speed networks married to machine-learning algorithms, AI-enabled cyber warfare tools, and miniaturized high-powered computing are likely to assume the lead roles in fighting wars. More importantly, humans might be removed from operational planning, with their role to be confined to merely very high-level and broad input. The rise of hyperwars will essentially bring groundbreaking combinations of emerging technologies, much as the German blitzkrieg combined in novel ways fast armor, air support, and radio communications. General Allen and Husain concluded that the gap between winners and losers would very likely resemble that of Saddam’s Iraqi Army facing the “second offset” technologies of electronic warfare, precision-guided munitions, and stealth platforms.

The Russo-Ukraine War serves as a battlefield laboratory to test possible elements of the coming hyperwars and the impact of artificial intelligence on conducting and analyzing warfare. First, the integration of satellite imagery intelligence and target and object recognition technologies has provided the Ukrainian military with a very important geospatial intelligence edge in kinetic operations. Second, the Ukrainian intelligence apparatus has resorted to neural networks to run ground social media content and other open-source data to monitor Russian servicemen and weapons systems, then to translate the input into target acquisition information and military intelligence. Third, playing smart with data has also sparked a capability hike in drone warfare. Open-source defense intelligence studies suggest that Ukrainian arms makers used publicly available artificial intelligence models to retrain drone software applications with the real-world data harvested from the conflict. This modified data has then been used to operate the drones themselves. Ukrainian robotic warfare assets have seen a capability boost in precision and targeting with the help of the data-mastering process. In the future, some robotic baselines will likely see a faster and more profound improvement with the new leap in AI and information management. Specific drone warfare systems, such as the American Switchblade and Russian Lancet-3, already have design philosophies that prioritize computer vision to run target identification.

It appears that the zeitgeistis on the side of the hyperwar. After all, digital data has been on a huge and exponential growth trend for at least one decade. In 2013, the world generated 4.4 zettabytes of data—with a zettabyte amounting to 10²¹ bytes. Estimates from that period forecast 163 zettabytes of global data to be produced in 2025, which was considered a gigantic magnitude. At current rates, the reality this year will be even higher, at 180 zettabytes of data, or even more. The climb in data generation is intertwined with a rise in drone warfare systems proliferation and employment globally, as well as the production of robotic warfare systems. The dual hike in data and robots forms the very basis of hyperwars.

Other areas to monitor are orbital warfare and space warfare systems. Unlike warfighting and maneuver warfare on the planet Earth, the space operational environment presents technical challenges rather than strategic ones. Satellites are very vulnerable to offensive action since their movements are very limited and incur massive technical requirements for even small moves. A recent war-gaming exercise by American space and defense bodies showcase that one way to boost survivability in space warfare is to reposition “bodyguard satellites” to block access to key orbital slots. AI would be a key asset in accomplishing this concept in a preventive way. Being able to process very large data accumulations to detect hostile action patterns invisible to intelligence analysts, AI offers a new early-warning set of capabilities to decision-makers on Earth.

Horses, dogs, and human warfighters

Mankind as a species has long been fighting in cooperation with other members of the animal kingdom. The cavalry, for instance, for centuries leveraged the synergic warfighting mix of the domesticated horse—Equus ferus caballus—and Homo sapiens. Dogs—Canis lupus familiaris—are another example, as the first species domesticated by our kind and thus long-accustomed to fighting at our side. The role of war dogs is not restricted to history books or ceremonies and parades: a Belgian Malinois took part in the US killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), back in 2019. Another dog of the same breed operated alongside the American Navy Seals in 2011, during Operation Neptune Spear, to kill the mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attacks, al-Qaeda ringleader Osama bin Ladin.

Scientifically speaking, Homosapiens not only befriended horses and dogs—we neuroscientifically altered these domesticated species’ decision-making algorithms through selective breeding. Scientific experiments showcase that domesticated horses have learned to read human cues to adapt their behaviors. War dogs are the product of key manipulations via human intervention across generations of deliberate breeding. Magnetic resonance imaging studies have proven that through selective breeding over centuries, humans have significantly altered the brains of domestic dog lineages to achieve behavioral specialization, such as scent hunting or guard capabilities and tasks.

The advent of AI requires us to accept that human brains, like those of domesticated animals with military utility, have adapted and will continue to adapt in response to neural stimuli. Combat formations, ranging from mechanized divisions to fighter squadrons, function as the musculoskeletal frame of warfare, while the human decision-making system functions as the brains and neurons. Throughout military history, the brain and the limbs interacted with various ways of communications—be it trumpets of military bands ordering a line march or contemporary tactical data links of modern warfare sharing real-time updates between a fifth-generation aircraft and a frigate’s onboard systems. Homo sapienshas been at the very epicenter of the equation no matter what technological leaps have taken place and will adapt in unpredictable ways to being the slower and more marginal element in decision architecture. Drone warfare has not led to autonomous killer robots but to the rise of a new warrior class: drone operators with massive kill rates, seen both in Putin’s invading army and the Ukrainian military. The rise of hyperwars may produce even further change to the human role, though, as the biological brain races to compete with accelerating decision cycles and nonbiological elements that outpace us. Domesticating AI in warfare will prove more challenging than either dogs or horses, and it is not yet clear what would ensue if we were to design servants quicker and more agile than the masters.

Implications for US-Turkish defense cooperation

The United States and Turkey are not only the two largest militaries within NATO; they have the broadest and most combat-proven drone warfare prowess. Their robotic warfare solutions have been rising quickly in autonomous characteristics and have already reached the human-in-the-loop level in combat operations. In the coming decades, human-out-of-the-loop CONOPS (concepts of operations) will likely emerge for both the US and Turkish militaries. This common feature of defense technology and geopolitics presages a lucrative path for cooperating within the hyperwar environment.

Moreover, Washington and Ankara can enhance their respective collaborations with Ukraine, a nation with the most recent drone warfare experience against the Russian Federation—a direct threat to NATO member states, as officially manifested by the alliance’s incumbent strategic concept. The Ukrainian case extends to utilizing satellite internet connection in the C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) aspect of robotic warfare, as well as employing private satellite imagery in target acquisition widely.

Kyiv has already developed close defense ties with the United States and Turkey—even taking part in the latter’s drone proliferation, particularly in the engine segment (for example, Baykar’s Kizilelma). Establishing a trilateral lessons-learned mechanism, which would incorporate defense industries alongside government agencies, would boost such an effort.

Overall, hyperwar seems to be paradigm for future warfare. The United States and Turkey make it possible, and through collaboration perhaps likely, that NATO will retain the upper hand in the hyperwars of the future.

Can Kasapoglu is a non-resident senior fellow at Hudson Institute. Follow him on X @ckasapoglu1.

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Murray in Sky News on UK’s Strategic Defence Review

Atlantic Council — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Original Source

On June 2, Rob Murray, non-resident senior fellow at Forward Defense and the Transatlantic Security Initiative, appeared on Sky News to offer his insights on the UK’s Strategic Defence Review. Murray emphasized the importance of re-drawing financial architectures and increasing credit flow into supply chains to effectively finance the Review’s ambitious armament procurement goals.

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MDBs must finance nuclear power—or Russia and China will

Juzel Lloyd — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 13:23:32 +0000

The world is entering a new age for nuclear energy, as developing nations like India, Argentina, Egypt, and Pakistan consider adding nuclear power to their energy mix to rapidly increase domestic energy access. Multilateral development banks (MDBs) are in a position to enable this expansion of energy in their mission to help developing economies achieve economic growth and energy access, but the banks are hindering the use of nuclear power. Meanwhile, Russia and China, both nuclear technology export leaders, are filling the gap and gaining geopolitical influence. Other countries, such as France and the Republic of Korea, have state-owned nuclear enterprises, but they are market competitors and not geopolitical adversaries. As developing nations seek nuclear power to meet rising energy needs, MDBs must revise their outdated and politicized views of the technology—or risk ceding political capital to autocratic actors.

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An essential tool in the development toolkit

Developing countries’ energy demand is rising, requiring more firm power generation. Nuclear energy offers a reliable baseload critical for economies industrializing with energy-intensive sectors such as manufacturing and data centers. A 900-MW nuclear reactor can produce—with a much smaller footprint—the same power as 8.5 million solar panels or 800 wind turbines. And, unlike hydropower and geothermal energy, nuclear power is much less geographically constrained, enabling it to be sited in many locations.

Major economies are exporting their nuclear aversion

Currently, most MDBs do not fund nuclear energy projects. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) refuses to finance nuclear energy projects due to issues such as waste management and high investment costs. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) prioritizes its energy strategy for “scaling up renewables,” supporting nuclear projects solely in areas of safety like decommissioning, with no involvement in construction. EBRD states it is neither in favor of or opposed to nuclear energy; it is simply operating within the mandate determined by its shareholders. The World Bank—the largest and arguably most influential MDB—cites a lack of expertise as its reason for not funding nuclear energy projects, although it frequently relies on external contractors for expertise in other sectors.

However, the World Bank’s president, Ajay Banga, recently signaled a potential shift by pushing the board to reconsider its stance on funding nuclear energy projects. In reality, the World Bank’s voting structure, which allocates voting power according to how much funding a country provides, grants its biggest funders with veto power. Germany serves as a key example: it shut down its nuclear reactors and opposed the inclusion of nuclear power in the European Union’s green investment taxonomy. The World Bank is held hostage by this tunnel vision, which supports only renewable projects, even though these technologies alone cannot meet the growing energy demands of developing nations.

MDBs’ refusal to fund nuclear power projects exacerbates the geopolitical divide between developing economies and the developed nations. This results in missed opportunities to expand energy access in poorer nations based on the prejudices of wealthier nations.

Lenders of last resort

MDBs’ current failure to finance nuclear projects cedes opportunities to other lenders. Western banks, including Goldman Sachs and Barclays, recently announced their support for nuclear energy, but this long-term commitment is questionable given private lenders’ risk-averse nature. Prolonged construction timelines and high capital costs for nuclear energy projects in countries like the United States may eventually deter commercial banks from maintaining their support for the technology.

Russia and China could fill the gap if the West leaves nuclear financing to others. Russia leads global nuclear power plant construction, accounting for about 60 percent of reactor exports, with ongoing projects in nations like Turkey, Bangladesh, and Egypt. Similarly, China is rapidly building out its domestic nuclear capacity—targeting over 100 new reactors by 2035—and leveraging the technology as a geopolitical tool under its Belt and Road Initiative, establishing projects in nations such as Pakistan and Argentina.

The MDBs’ absence in nuclear financing starkly contrasts with the generous loans offered by Russia and China. By leveraging state funding, Russia offers highly attractive terms, covering up to 85 percent of total project costs, as seen in Egypt’s loan, with lower interest rates and longer repayment periods than those required by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for its members—an organization that does not include Russia or China. Russia is also expanding its equity stakes in international nuclear projects, such as Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant, where it holds a majority stake, fostering closer geopolitical ties and exerting influence over critical energy infrastructure.

Similarly, China extends significant financial support, covering 85 percent of construction costs for Pakistan’s Chasma 5 reactor along with a $100 million discount on the total project cost. China has also offered to cover 85 percent of costs in loans for Argentina’s Atucha III reactor.

By refusing to finance nuclear projects, MDBs force developing nations to rely on Russian and Chinese nuclear exports. Both nations’ dominance in nuclear energy exports risks creating significant geopolitical imbalances, expanding their grip on critical energy sources while weakening Western influence over international energy security. The MDBs must rectify this problem to ensure a more geopolitically diverse financing model for nuclear power construction and operation in developing nations.

Breaking the logjam

MDBs must consider structural changes to bypass the veto power of its major players and begin funding nuclear energy projects. One option is to create a consortium of pro-nuclear states within the MDBs. These nations could create a separate fund for nuclear energy financing, independent of contributions from anti-nuclear nations. This would not be a complete fix—the bank’s broader policy against nuclear finance would remain unaffected—but it’s a crucial step in the right direction.

Outside of direct financial support, development banks do have other options. They can establish pathways for technical assistance for nuclear projects, similar to the Energy for Growth Hub’s nuclear trust fund proposal for the World Bank. This can include enlisting expert contractors as advisors to governments building nuclear power plants and fostering open dialogues on nuclear energy. By taking these steps, development banks can empower developing nations to harness nuclear power and create a more equitable energy future.

Don’t hand adversaries a nuclear victory

The increasing dominance of Moscow and Beijing in global nuclear energy finance risks reshaping future energy affairs. It is time for MDBs to acknowledge nuclear energy as an essential tool to expand energy access. The World Bank and other multilateral organizations must reform their antiquated policies to support nuclear energy deployment and allow developing countries to more readily achieve economic growth. If they don’t, autocratic regimes willing to weaponize their energy dominance will eagerly fill the void.

Juzel Lloyd is an energy/environmental technology researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a former Atlantic Council Global Energy Center Women Leaders in Energy and Climate fellow.

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Dispatch from Kyiv: Ukraine’s daring drone attack gives Trump leverage against Putin

John E. Herbst — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 03:26:24 +0000

KYIV—It was a surprising and devastating attack that some hysterical Russian war bloggers are calling the country’s Pearl Harbor. But the assault on Pearl Harbor occurred when there was no war between Japan and the United States.

Having spent the last four nights in a bomb shelter in Odesa and Kyiv as the Kremlin continues its massive missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s cities, in a war of aggression that Moscow launched, I can assure you that Ukraine had every right to do what it did on June 1: Strike strategic bombers at five bases across the breadth of Russia.

In contrast to Moscow’s targeting of Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, Ukraine committed no war crime or breach of international law in destroying those Russian planes, which are regularly used against civilians.

Rather than recalling the Pearl Harbor attack, the complexity and boldness of Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb”—which involved smuggling drones into Russian regions from Murmansk to Irkutsk, and launching them against advanced Russian Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers and A-50 intelligence planes—rivals the now legendary Israeli intelligence operation against Hezbollah fighters’ pagers last year. It has underscored once again that ingenuity along with determination are Ukraine’s strategic advantages in stopping Moscow’s war of aggression.

According to media reports, as many as forty planes have been hit. The Security Service of Ukraine—which planned and executed the operation—claims that the attack destroyed 34 percent of Russia’s strategic bombers capable of carrying cruise missiles. Russian defense sources say that while some planes were on fire as a result of the attack, no real damage was done. Some Russian war bloggers, however, are writing as if the damage was major, and video evidence on social media show the destruction of at least some planes.

Whatever the number of destroyed planes, it is safe to conclude that Moscow will be more cautious about the basing of its remaining bombers, as it was last year when Ukrainian drones began to target Russian military assets. This will further reduce the role of Russian bombers in attacking Ukraine’s front lines, infrastructure, and cities. Of course, Moscow still has plenty of missiles and drones to continue its murderous campaign against civilian targets in Ukraine. But Operation Spiderweb revealed how vulnerable Russia is to unconventional Ukrainian attacks. This has been a major feature of the war evident in Ukraine’s successful 2022 counteroffensive, sweeping of the Russian navy from the central and western Black Sea, and Kursk offensive last year.

It is also important to note that the Tu-95s and Tu-22s are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Their loss could weaken the aerial component of Moscow’s nuclear triad, which also has ground (missiles) and sea (submarines) components. Moscow considers the United States its principal adversary. As US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard noted in this year’s national intelligence assessment, Russia, like China, is an adversary of the United States. As with Ukraine’s chewing up of Russia’s conventional military in the war, this operation proves another Ukrainian contribution to US security.

Beyond the battlefield, the impact of this operation is perhaps even more significant. It is a strong counter to the dubious “common wisdom” that the war is moving inevitably in Moscow’s favor. This same assumption explains why Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected numerous proposals for a cease-fire by US President Donald Trump, and why he has refused to send a paper with the Kremlin’s terms for a cease-fire to Ukraine before the June 2 peace talks in Istanbul that he proposed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy correctly described that proposal as a stalling tactic, but against the backdrop of this daring operation finally announced that Ukraine would attend the talks. At this point, Moscow is not talking about boycotting them.

Most observers expect some form of Kremlin response to the Ukrainian attack. While some unhinged Russian war bloggers are calling for the use of a tactical nuclear weapon, it is more likely that Moscow will respond along current operational lines—for example, by conducting even more massive air attacks. While the destruction of the planes is a serious blow against Russia’s air force and Putin’s own prestige, it does not compare in importance to the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the fall of 2022. When it comes to Putin’s calculations in this war, nuclear weapons are principally a rhetorical tool to intimidate Western leaders from backing Ukraine more firmly.

A key question is how the Trump administration will respond to this operation. Several hours after the news broke, the only word from the White House was that Kyiv did not let it know of the operation in advance. The attack occurred just days after the visit of Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal to Ukraine, where they announced that the Senate will move ahead this coming week on their long-awaited bill to impose major additional sanctions against Russia.

Trump has been coming under increasing criticism for his reluctance to put real pressure on Putin for the Russian president’s failure to accept cease-fire terms proposed by Washington and accepted by Kyiv. Will Trump let the sanctions bill—which has eighty-two co-sponsors—pass the Senate? He could call Putin, point to Ukraine’s latest military accomplishment as one more reason to accept Trump’s compromise solution for a cease-fire, and note that political pressure in Washington to take more action against Russia is growing. (The US president can also point to Ukraine’s effective operation, which flummoxed Russian air defenses, as one more reason the United States needs his proposed Golden Dome missile defense system, which Ukraine could be a uniquely capable partner in building.)

Trump could convey the message that if Putin cannot bring himself to accept a cease-fire, significant new sanctions are coming. That would be a clever way to leverage Ukraine’s battlefield success to achieve Trump’s own goal: a durable peace in Ukraine.

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Experts react: How the world is responding to the courtroom drama around Trump’s tariffs

Atlantic Council experts — Fri, 30 May 2025 22:50:44 +0000

From Beijing to Buenos Aires, they’re glued to US court dockets. US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime was thrown into legal limbo this week, thanks to decisions from the New York–based US Court of International Trade and a Washington, DC–based US district judge. Both rulings found that Trump overstepped with the emergency authorities he used for his April 2 “liberation day” tariffs, but the tariffs remain in place for now thanks to a stay granted by a Washington–based appeals court—with this battle likely heading to the US Supreme Court. The legal whiplash comes as countries around the world scramble to negotiate deals with the Trump administration before the global “reciprocal” tariffs kick in on July 9. But are their calculations now changing? We turned to our network of global experts to explore how the courtroom drama is playing among US trading partners.

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European Union: New US tariffs unaffected by the courts could have the biggest bite

United Kingdom: The UK-US deal continues to provide certainty and some unique advantages

Mexico, Canada, and the Americas: While some countries may be in less of a rush, USMCA negotiations will ramp up

India: Its special position means New Delhi should press ahead on a deal

China

There is no cooling off this trade war.

With the future of many of Trump’s tariffs in legal limbo following the Wednesday ruling by the Court of International Trade, including the 30 percent levies recently imposed on China, one might think US-China tensions were in for a cooling-off spell.

They would be wrong.

That’s because it’s become abundantly clear that Washington and Beijing aren’t just involved in a trade and tariffs spat, but instead are competing in a head-to-head, existential struggle over which country gets to rule the future of advanced technology and global supply chains.

In the less than one month since both sides issued a joint statement recognizing the importance of a “sustainable, long-term, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship,” Washington has warned companies not to use chips from Huawei, China’s national champion, and has restricted Beijing’s access to airplane technology, software used for advanced semiconductors, and chemical products. And in a bombshell move on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Washington would begin to “aggressively revoke” the visas of some of the 277,000 Chinese students in the United States, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in “critical fields.”

For its part, Beijing has threatened firms and individuals with its Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, if they “implement or assist” US curbs on Huawei. And most egregiously from Washington’s perspective, Beijing hasn’t lifted restrictions on the export of rare earths, following negotiations between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng in Geneva earlier this month.

Trouble is, all these hostile trade actions make perfect sense in the context of the larger battle between the two countries over tech and supply chains. And that was obvious from the beginning. China’s dominance over rare earths is an incredibly important source of leverage over the United States and the rest of the world—one that it won’t give up willingly.

Now fissures in what the US president hailed as a “total reset” in relations are becoming public. On Friday, Beijing accused the United States of “[weaponizing] trade and tech issues” and “malicious attempts to block and suppress China.” And Trump vented in all caps on social media that China “HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US.”

My answer to both sides: You should have seen it coming.

— Dexter Tiff Roberts is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, which is part of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served for more than two decades as China bureau chief and Asia News Editor at Bloomberg Businessweek, based in Beijing.

European Union

New US tariffs unaffected by the courts could have the biggest bite.

The European Union’s (EU’s) negotiations with the United States continue despite this week’s court rulings for multiple reasons.

Countries should assume that the US government will use another legal vehicle to impose tariffs regardless of the outcomes of the legal challenges on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). For example, as referenced in the Court of International Trade’s ruling, it is perfectly legal for the president to invoke Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to address balance of payments issues. This law allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 15 percent for a period of five months. During those five months, the government can launch an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, investigating unfair trade practices that burden or restrict US commerce. 

An additional pressure point is the ongoing Section 232 cases on sectors that comprise the majority of US-EU trade. The completed cases on steel, iron, and aluminum, as well as on autos and auto parts, levied tariffs of 25 percent. But the outstanding cases, including cases that could be decided in the next month, on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, could be at different levels. The investigations are also broader in scope, going after “derivative” products, which can include downstream products as well as any supplies needed to make the covered products. The EU’s largest trade deficits in goods with the United States are autos, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals, so these investigations could have a significant impact on the European economy.     

The current situation is hurting transatlantic investment and businesses, and European economic actors are demanding certainty. While EU officials may be reviewing and recalibrating their offer to reflect the current circumstances, they are continuing to negotiate with the United States. With world leaders gathering at the Group of Seven (G7) and NATO summits in June, the time to negotiate an agreement and provide clarity for the transatlantic economy is now. 

—Penny Naas is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

United Kingdom

The UK-US deal continues to provide certainty and some unique advantages.

Trump instinctively likes the United Kingdom and it so happens that, within his paradigm of global trade, the United Kingdom does no harm, as it doesn’t have a large trade surplus with the United States. This meant the United Kingdom was only given the 10 percent “baseline” tariff on the notorious liberation day foam boards, a competitive advantage that has been lost—temporarily at least—since Trump announced a ninety-day pause on “reciprocal” tariffs. Still, the British government plowed ahead with its bilateral negotiations and was the first to secure a deal, albeit one that entrenched the 10 percent baseline.

London feared other countries might blame the United Kingdom for enabling this, but they haven’t. Instead, the US Court of International Trade ruled that blanket tariffs, including the 10 percent baseline tariffs, are illegal. This suggests that the United Kingdom might again be deprived of the hard-fought edge it has with the Trump administration. Only last week, Trump threatened the EU with a blanket 50 percent tariff because he had been briefed that negotiations were not advancing. Still, London can be satisfied with a few of the deal’s achievements. First, it provides most of its firms with certainty that exporting to the United States will involve either the 10 percent baseline or, ideally, no new tariff if the court ruling survives appeals. Second, the deal offers the United Kingdom exemptions within certain quotas from higher sectoral tariffs on cars and steel. These advantages exempt the United Kingdom from tariffs that were not struck down by the court ruling and make the deal worthwhile no matter what happens in the courts.

—Charles Lichfield is the deputy director and C. Boyden Gray senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

Mexico, Canada, and the Americas

While some countries may be in less of a rush, USMCA negotiations will ramp up.

The back and forth on broad-based US tariffs has trading partners around the world, including in the Americas, scratching their heads about what to do next. And it’s not just at the technical level. US judicial processes and court jurisdictions on trade have quickly become front-page news across the hemisphere. But without clarity on how additional courts may rule, and how Trump may then respond, Latin American trade ministers are forced to play out scenarios of what may come next and to try to base their commercial outlook on their preferred hypothesis.

The implications of this uncertainty have direct impacts on Americans. As research from the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center has recently shown, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), particularly Mexico, import more (in value) of US products per capita than other countries of similar income and development levels. And while tariffs are directed at US imports, the recent court decisions will continue to drive trade uncertainty as decision makers adapt their strategies to this new complex scenario.

Since “liberation day,” many LAC countries have rushed to try to line up meetings with the Office of the United States Trade Representative to see what actions can be taken to get a suspension of the 10 percent tariffs. Clarity on a path forward is particularly important for the region since US trade deficits—the top reason for Trump’s tariffs—do not generally apply to LAC. In fact, the United States had a $47 billion trade surplus with South and Central America in 2024—the only major region with such a surplus. With the seesaw in the judicial determination of the president’s legal authority, countries may now be in less of a rush to see what needs to be done to get out from underneath the tariff cloud. Why make concessions if the legality of the original determination is up in the air?

For Mexico, the largest US trading partner in the world, it’s important to remember that goods that comply with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) are exempt from additional tariffs. However, non-USMCA-compliant goods are subject to a 25 percent tariff, which in Mexico’s case was about half of all its exports to the United States (or around 40 percent of its global exports) in 2024. This situation has introduced uncertainty for businesses engaged in US-Mexico trade, particularly those dealing with noncompliant goods. To avoid what will likely be continued uncertainty, negotiators are looking to expedite USMCA review discussions that were originally supposed to ramp up in 2026, with a mid-2026 deadline for that process to conclude.

—Jason Marczak is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

India

Its special position means New Delhi should press ahead on a deal.

With the decision by the Court of International Trade that Trump’s tariffs invoked under IEEPA are illegal, many capitals around the world are recalculating their risk if they fail to (or choose not to) negotiate a reciprocal tariff deal by July 9. It appears the balance of leverage has shifted, especially if new tariffs are temporarily paused. My advice, as a former US trade negotiator, is to exercise caution in abandoning these negotiations or even slowing them down. One way or another, the Trump administration is likely to find ways to continue to threaten these tariffs (whether under other statutes or by winning a reversal of the Court of International Trade’s judgement) and will be keeping tabs on those who stop playing ball during this new period of uncertainty and instability.

In fact, India is in a special position, although it too seeks relief from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. The current negotiation is recognized by both sides as the first phase of a larger, comprehensive “Bilateral Trade Agreement,” or BTA. While it is not being called a free trade agreement, its substance looks a lot like one, and India has pushed for this going all the way back to the first Trump administration. As such, the negotiations are not so one-sided—the Trump team has made it clear that the outcomes must be win-win and that it understands that Prime Minister Narendra Modi must show his electorate that he achieves concrete gains beyond avoiding new US tariffs.

I expect India will stay committed to pursuing a first-phase reciprocal tariff deal and build on this to eventually accomplish a fully cooked BTA, which could take several years of negotiations. India will gain new market share in the United States and increased investment in its economy, even as it opens up to more imports of goods and services from the United States.

—Mark Linscott is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. He was the assistant US trade representative for South and Central Asian Affairs from 2016 to 2018, and assistant US trade representative for the WTO and Multilateral Affairs from 2012 to 2016.

Trump Tariff Tracker

The second Trump administration has embarked on a novel and aggressive tariff policy to address a range of economic and national security concerns. This tracker monitors the evolution of these tariffs and provides expert context on the economic conditions driving their creation—along with their real-world impact.

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How NATO’s eastern flank is setting the standard for collective defense

Justina Budginaite-Froehly — Fri, 30 May 2025 16:04:21 +0000

“I am glad to be in Vilnius today,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on May 22. “Because it is right here, in Lithuania, where we are taking the defense of NATO’s eastern flank into our own hands.”

Merz was in Vilnius to formally inaugurate the 45^th Armored Brigade in Lithuania, which will embed German combat power at the heart of Baltic defense. Germany will implement a phased deployment—it sent advanced elements in early 2024 and formally activated the brigade on April 1. The brigade is expected to reach full combat readiness by 2027. Once complete, this will offer Lithuania and its neighbors a sustained, high-end deterrent anchored in the NATO framework.

But it’s not just Germany that is helping bolster the defenses of NATO’s strategically exposed eastern flank. The eastern flank countries themselves are implementing concrete measures to overcome Europe’s entrenched defense fragmentation. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—all located along the eastern border of both NATO and the European Union (EU) with mainland Russia, its Kaliningrad exclave, and Belarus—are emerging as leaders in bolstering regional defense integration, the benefits of which could extend throughout Europe. This shift is especially significant amid growing transatlantic tensions and renewed calls from the United States for Europe to assume greater responsibility for its own security and conventional defense.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, these countries have aligned their border protection efforts by integrating their counter-mobility measures. They have initiated the process of cooperatively developing deep-strike capabilities. They have also started the procurement process for German weapon systems, introduced the German defense industry to the region, and will soon host the first-ever permanently deployed German brigade. All these initiatives show that Europe’s defense efforts are well-positioned to grow together and consolidate from the epicenter in the northeast of the continent. By anchoring their defense planning in regional realities, the eastern flank countries are demonstrating that regional coordination, backed by political determination, can transform exposed vulnerabilities into strategic assets that enhance deterrence and operational readiness.

Integrating counter-mobility systems

Faced with growing geostrategic pressure along their borders with Russia and Belarus, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have taken decisive, coordinated steps to reinforce border protection and defense. Increasingly aligned in their strategic approach, these countries are developing integrated fortification systems that form a continuous defensive line along the eastern border of NATO and the EU.

Two major initiatives launched in 2024—the Baltic Defense Line covering Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and Poland’s East Shield—share the common goal of strengthening deterrence and denying adversaries access to NATO and EU territory. These efforts include expanding existing forested areas, deepening drainage ditches, building engineering depots to store physical barriers such as “dragons’ teeth,” “hedgehogs,” “Spanish horse,” and solid concrete road barriers, as well as installing anti-tank landmines and mine-laying equipment. There are also plans for developing reinforcements with drone and anti-drone technologies. The overall goal is to ensure the two defense initiatives’ integrity, especially as they converge at the Suwałki Gap, a security chokepoint and the primary axis for NATO’s land reinforcement to the Baltic states.

Finland’s accession to NATO added 1,340 kilometers to the Alliance’s border with Russia. Unlike the more exposed terrain of the Baltic states and Poland, Finland’s border region is naturally defensive, dominated by forests, lakes, and wetlands, which would complicate a large-scale Russian ground incursion. Accordingly, Finland has chosen not to build physical fortifications along the border.

However, to reinforce deterrence and secure vulnerable segments, Finland aligned itself with the regional consensus by withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention banning the use of anti-personnel landmines. This means the eastern flank countries can jointly deploy and stockpile anti-personnel landmines as a shared border defense tool against Russia. Both Russia and Ukraine have used anti-personnel landmines in Ukraine.

The regional integration of border defense has triggered broader EU interest. Following Baltic and Polish calls for a collective response, the European Council’s conclusions on European defense, released on March 6, recognized the importance of EU border defense. The EU’s White Paper on Defense, published in late March, endorsed the idea of creating an “Eastern Border Shield” and in April, the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the East Shield and the Baltic Defense Line as flagship projects for common security. This momentum must now translate into concrete EU support—and funding—for transforming the eastern flank countries’ national efforts into a unified, layered European border defense architecture.

Coordinated development of deep strike capabilities

The Baltic states, Poland, and Finland are also integrating their long-range firepower into a regional deep-strike architecture, which significantly raises the threshold for aggression along the eastern flank of NATO and the EU.

Since Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have each contracted High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers and committed to trilateral cooperation with the United States on HIMARS integration, personnel training, system maintenance, and service. Embedding HIMARS into a joint operational concept will allow the Baltic states to conduct combined live-fire exercises and harmonize sustainment through shared maintenance, training, and logistics chains. Estonia’s six launchers, delivered in April, now reach well beyond four hundred kilometers. Lithuania’s eight launchers, due to arrive by 2026, will achieve a similar reach. Latvia is set to receive six launchers in 2027, which will complete the Baltic deep-strike firewall.

This Baltic cluster is dovetailing with Poland’s even larger “Homar-A” deep-strike program, under which some 486 additional HIMARS variants will be mounted on Polish Jelcz trucks and integrated into Poland’s Topaz command system. Together, Poland and the Baltic states are planning a joint logistics hub to manage munitions stockpiles, spare parts, and forward displacement. They are also planning to exercise joint targeting and coordinate fire support across borders.

Finland has opted to upgrade its M270 multiple-launch rocket systems rather than buy HIMARS. The upgrade, approved in 2023, allows Finnish M270s to fire the same munitions as their Baltic neighbors. This technical alignment transforms Finland’s forces into a seamless fourth pillar of the regional deep-strike ensemble, enabling integrated planning, data‐sharing, and cross-border reinforcement exercises.

By integrating US-provided launchers, coordinated doctrine, shared logistics, and interoperable fire-control standards, the five eastern flank nations are establishing a continuous, multi-tiered long-range fire network that spans from Finland to Poland. This network helps project deterrence and complicate adversary planning, solidifying a new level of collective defense integration on the eastern flank.

Regional consolidation with German weapon systems

The eastern flank countries have also deepened their partnerships with German weapon manufacturers. Lithuania is aligning its force modernization with the German brigade’s forward posture in the Baltics. In December, Lithuania’s defense ministry signed a €950 million contract with for forty-four Leopard 2 A8 main battle tanks—its first indigenous tank battalion—which will arrive through 2030, alongside an expanded fleet of twenty-seven additional Boxer “Vilkas” infantry fighting vehicles, which will arrive by 2029. Finland and Poland likewise use Leopard 2 variants, creating a shared main battle tank backbone across the eastern flank.

In the air defense domain, Estonia and Latvia will each field three IRIS-T surface-launched missile batteries this year, while Lithuania has bolstered its two national advanced surface-to-air missile systems (NASAMS) batteries (initially deployed in 2020) with additional systems due to arrive in 2026. To underpin sustained operations, German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall’s new NATO-standard 155 mm ammunition plant in Lithuania, scheduled to be online by mid-2026, will produce tens of thousands of shells annually, significantly enhancing regional munitions resilience.

In the defense innovation field, Lithuanian laser technology firm Aktyvus Photonics has partnered with German drone manufacturer Quantum Systems, having signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic collaboration in unmanned systems this month. Together, they will codevelop and field-test unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with laser capabilities, aiming to expedite deployment timelines and establish a standard for next-generation, networked unmanned systems in NATO’s eastern defenses.

Beyond procurement, production, and innovation, Lithuania has also positioned itself as a regional arms maintenance hub: Through the establishment of Lithuania Defense Services—a joint venture between Rheinmetall Landsysteme and French-German defense manufacturer KNDS—it provides repair, overhaul, and upgrade services for German vehicle platforms, including Boxer Vilkas IFVs, PzH 2000 howitzers, the Leopard main battle tank family, and tactical logistics vehicles.

Collectively, these deployments, procurements, and industrial partnerships do more than fill capability gaps: They forge a contiguous eastern flank defense ecosystem. By standardizing on German platforms, harmonizing training and logistics, co-locating production and repair facilities, and co-training under unified command structures, Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland, together with Germany, can achieve unprecedented interoperability and strategic depth. These initiatives are transforming NATO’s eastern flank into a seamless, multi-domain bulwark.

Strategic depth through regional alignment

The eastern flank’s transformation from a collection of fragmented national postures into a cohesive, multi-domain defense network exemplifies how sustained regional integration can overcome long-standing capability gaps. By aligning border defense, harmonizing long-range fires, and embedding German heavy armor and sustainment infrastructure, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are creating a continuous belt of deterrence that leverages shared doctrine, logistics, and industry. This holistic approach raises the cost of aggression and sets a new standard for European collective defense: one where interoperability and joint capacity-building replace duplication and dependency, anchoring strategic depth at NATO’s most exposed frontier.

Justina Budginaite-Froehly, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

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UN probe: Russia’s ‘human safari’ in Ukraine is a crime against humanity

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 29 May 2025 21:46:50 +0000

Russia is guilty of committing crimes against humanity in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to a new report by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. The report comes following an extensive investigation into a campaign of Russian drone strikes on Ukrainian civilians over a ten-month period beginning in July 2024, with the probe focusing on an area of southern Ukraine stretching more than 100 kilometers along the right bank of the Dnipro River around the city of Kherson.

Members of the UN Commission determined that Russia was engaged in the deliberate targeting of civilians and concluded that the drone attacks were “widespread, systematic, and conducted as part of a coordinated state policy.” The report detailed how civilians were targeted “in various circumstances, mainly when they were outdoors, both on foot or while using any type of vehicles,” and noted that on a number of occasions ambulances had been struck by drones in an apparent bid to prevent them from reaching victims and providing vital medical assistance.

During the ten-month period covered by the United Nations probe, Russian drones killed almost 150 Ukrainian civilians in and around Kherson, while leaving hundreds more injured. The constant threat of attack has created a pervasive climate of fear throughout the region, with people afraid to leave their homes. Terrified locals say they feel hunted and refer to the drone attacks as a “human safari.”

In addition to daily drone strikes, Russia has sought to maximize the psychological pressure on residents of the Kherson region via social media channels. UN investigators reported that video footage of drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians is regularly disseminated on Russian Telegram channels, some of which have thousands of subscribers. This video footage shows drone strikes along with the resulting deaths and destruction in the style of video games, often accompanied by background music. Meanwhile, menacing messages posted on Telegram call on Ukrainians to flee the region. “Get out of the city before the leaves fall, you who are destined to die,” read one message quoted in the UN report.

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This is not the first time UN investigators have accused Russia of committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine. A March 2025 UN report reached a similar conclusion regarding the Kremlin’s large-scale program of detentions and deportations targeting Ukrainians living under Russian occupation. “The evidence gathered led the Commission to conclude that the enforced disappearances against civilians were perpetrated pursuant to a coordinated state policy and amount to crimes against humanity,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued a number of arrest warrants for senior Russian officials in relation to alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine including the targeted bombing of civilians and critical civilian infrastructure. The most high-profile ICC arrest warrant is for Vladimir Putin himself, who is wanted for his alleged involvement in the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.

At least 20,000 Ukrainian children are believed to have been kidnapped since the start of the full-scale invasion and taken to Russia, where they are subjected to indoctrination to rob them of their Ukrainian heritage and impose a Russian national identity. The nature and scale of these mass abductions may qualify as an act of genocide according to the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

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Russia’s deadly “human safari” drone campaign against the civilian population in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region is part of the Kremlin’s strategy to make the area unlivable. The city of Kherson was occupied by the advancing Russian army during the first days of the full-scale invasion and was officially annexed by Russia in September 2022. However, Kherson and the surrounding area were liberated by the Ukrainian military soon after. The scenes of joy that accompanied the liberation of Kherson were deeply humiliating for Putin, who had personally proclaimed the city to be “forever” Russian just weeks earlier.

This setback forced Putin’s invading army to retreat across the Dnipro River, creating a major physical obstacle for the Russian invasion and limiting the occupied zone of Ukraine to the eastern half of the country. Nevertheless, Moscow continues to insist that Kherson and the surrounding region are now part of the Russian Federation and must be handed over within the framework of a future peace deal.

Ukraine has completely ruled out any such concessions. This is hardly surprising. While some temporary territorial compromises may prove possible during peace negotiations, Ukraine’s stance on Kherson is unlikely to change. After all, allowing the renewed Russian occupation of Kherson would be suicidal for Kyiv. It would present Russia with a priceless foothold across the Dnipro River that could be used as a gateway to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and complete the conquest of the country.

For now, Russia appears to have little chance of seizing Kherson militarily or of acquiring the city at the negotiating table. Instead, Moscow seems to be intent on terrorizing local residents and forcing them to flee. Putin claims that the population of the Kherson region are Russians, but he has no qualms about his soldiers using drones to hunt and kill them mercilessly. This tells you all you need to know about Putin’s cynical posturing as the protector of the Russian people in Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Two candidates will face off in a final round: Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw from KO, and Karol Nawrocki, head of the Institute for National Remembrance, who is tied to PiS.

Ahead of the second round, Aaron Korewa, director of the Atlantic Council’s Warsaw Office, breaks down the race and the potential impacts on Poland’s foreign policy.

How has the race unfolded so far?

The Poles voted in the first round on May 18. Trzaskowski, who was long considered the clear favorite, only managed to get slightly ahead of Nawrocki, securing 31.4 percent against Nawrocki’s 29.5 percent. To complicate things for Trzaskowski, the two next places were taken by Sławomir Mentzen of the far-right Confederation party (14.8 percent) and the very far-right Grzegorz Braun (6.3 percent). Mentzen has expressed skepticism towards both the European Union (EU) and aid for Ukraine, whereas Braun openly takes pro-Kremlin and anti-Semitic positions. As no candidate reached over 50 percent, the race proceeded to a second round. Those who voted for Mentzen and Braun are generally believed to be more likely to vote for Nawrocki than Trzaskowski in the second round.

Voter turnout was high by Polish standards: 67.3 percent. Young voters mainly went for Mentzen or Adrian Zandberg, from the leftist Razem party. Poland, like the rest of the Western world, is seeing backlash against established parties and elites. PiS has for a long time been able to capitalize on such sentiments, but less so now that it held power recently and (technically) still holds the Presidential Palace.

In the initial stages of the campaign, foreign policy was rarely discussed. This is because unlike in most European countries, the two main rivals—KO and PiS—in many ways share the same positions on strong support for NATO and transatlantic ties; they also both oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Poland became a leading champion of Ukraine’s cause under the PiS government led by former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Since Tusk took over in 2023, this has largely continued. On the other hand, within Polish society, the initial outpouring of support for Ukraine and its people seen in 2022 has soured somewhat. That is mainly due to fatigue with the large number of refugees but also resentment that Ukraine has not moved fast enough to address historical issues such as the infamous Volhynia massacre of Polish civilians by Ukrainian nationalist partisan forces during World War II. The Confederation and the parties to its right seem to have been able to capitalize on this, which prompted Nawrocki to use anti-Ukraine rhetoric himself in the final stages of the first round.

US President Donald Trump did not become a central issue in the Polish election. This is likely because nearly all parties recognize the role strong transatlantic ties play for Poland’s national security—approximately ten thousand US troops are currently stationed in Poland. Nawrocki was the only candidate who traveled to Washington to meet Trump, and he claims to have received the US president’s endorsement, but this occurred around early May holidays in Poland when voters tend to tune out news. Thus, the effect on the result of the first round was probably limited.

How do the first-round outcomes set the stage for the second round?

In recent polls, Trzaskowski and Nawrocki are neck and neck. Despite the combined vote for the right being around 52 percent, there’s no guarantee that those who voted for Mentzen and Braun will automatically support Nawrocki. PiS has traditionally received support from elderly, religious, and rural voters. PiS is clearly on the right when it comes to social issues but also proposes government support programs for the poor and disadvantaged. The Confederation, on the other hand, is economically libertarian and has young, well-off men as their base. Braun’s electorate is largely made up of ultra-Catholics, but they may also stay at home if their candidate is not on the ballot.

Polls also show that many voters who supported the parties in Tusk’s coalition in the October 2023 parliamentary election skipped the first round in this presidential election, which is likely due to dissatisfaction with the government. In recent days, Trzaskowski has been successful in reaching out to other members of the Tusk coalition. On Sunday, he held a march in Warsaw that saw about 140,000 participants and several speeches by former presidential candidates from the left and liberal side. Nawrocki held a march in Warsaw the same day, but his was smaller and only featured speakers from PiS. Last Friday, Trzaskowski and Nawrocki faced off in a final debate, where Trzaskowski strived to expose Nawrocki’s lack of experience. Finally, each of the candidates appeared on Mentzen’s YouTube channel, where they were asked to sign an eight-point pledge to satisfy the demands of Mentzen’s voters. Nawrocki agreed to all the points, including one saying that he would not sign the law ratifying Ukraine’s accession to NATO. Trzaskowski disagreed on that and on other points, but did not attack Mentzen or his voters in doing so.

In the final stages of the campaign, Trzaskowski’s card is that he’s likely seen as more “presidential.” But he’s also closely tied to Tusk as the deputy head of KO, and if the final round becomes a referendum on the government, Trzaskowski would be in trouble. Yet a high voter turnout would likely favor him. From his messaging, Trzaskowski also seems to have picked up on the fact that voters list healthcare and secure borders as the most important issues.

Nawrocki has the “man of the people” image down and can ride on the current right-wing “wave,” but he is inexperienced and comes off as somewhat unnatural in front of cameras. He is a historian and a former boxer, but it recently surfaced that he also engaged in soccer hooliganism in the past, once a major problem in Poland. Nawrocki has recently played up that he would have a better relationship with Trump if elected. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Poland this week, US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem echoed this theme.

How will the outcome impact Poland’s foreign policy?

Whereas KO and PiS generally agree on NATO, transatlantic ties, and Russia, they sharply differ on the EU. KO is strongly pro-EU; before returning as prime minister, Tusk served as president of the European Council. Trzaskowski was a member of the European Parliament and a deputy foreign affairs minister responsible for EU affairs. PiS is not against Polish EU membership but is clearly Euroskeptic and pays lip service to muscular Polish nationalism that sees Brussels and Berlin (often intertwined) as threats to Polish sovereignty. A Trzaskowski win could play a part in Poland rising to a prominent position in the EU. A win for Nawrocki could disrupt it.

As for relations with the United States, Nawrocki has established a channel to Trump and is ideologically more in line with the “MAGA” wing of the Republican Party. But Trzaskowski has lived in the United States and has also established contacts with US politicians from across the aisle. He has made several appearances on US media outlets, most recently FOX Business.

Under Trzaskowski, Polish support for Ukraine will certainly continue. But it’s harder to say what will happen should Nawrocki win. PiS is not pro-Russia by any means, but Nawrocki has already used some anti-Ukraine rhetoric in his bid to attract the voters of Mentzen and Braun. In this scenario, expect no Polish blocking of Western aid to Ukraine but probably no leadership in expanding such aid either.

For foreign policy in general, Trzaskowski may bring domestic stability and an end to the political logjam of the past two years. A win for Nawrocki could mean more gridlock, forcing the Polish government to focus inward. There are even rumors that in this scenario, some of Tusk’s coalition partners may jump ship, prompting a new cycle of elections.

—Aaron Korewa is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Warsaw Office, which is part of the Europe Center.

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Judicial reform must be at the heart of Ukraine’s postwar recovery

Oleksandr Vasiuk — Thu, 29 May 2025 19:22:49 +0000

Whenever the topic of Ukraine’s reconstruction arises, most people tend to think of physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, homes, and hospitals. But real national recovery does not start with bricks and concrete. It begins with trust. And there is no better test of trustworthiness than the rule of law.

Ukraine is currently fighting for national survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion. Once this battle is won, the most important challenge facing the country will be judicial reform. If Ukraine is to emerge in the postwar years as a stable and prosperous European democracy, the process of recovery and renewal must be based on the firm foundations of a strong justice system. This is not a mere slogan; it is an absolute necessity.

Judicial reform is the key to the country’s entire future economic development. Investors will not come to Ukraine if contracts cannot be enforced or if property rights can be bought and sold through corruption. That is the message Ukraine’s international partners have been repeating consistently for many years. With the massive task of postwar rebuilding looming on the horizon, this message is now arguably truer than ever.

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Once the war ends, Ukraine can expect to receive unprecedented international support as foreign governments seek to participate in what promises to be Europe’s largest reconstruction initiative since the years following World War II. While donor funding from partner countries is likely to be very significant, this will not be nearly enough to cover the estimated rebuilding price tag of around half a trillion US dollars. Instead, much of this money must come from the private sector. However, unless Ukraine has a transparent, reliable, and efficient justice system, private capital will stay away.

If Ukraine hopes to become a success story, it needs courts that can settle disputes fairly, whatever the issue. If legal cases are tainted by bias or drag on for years, this will serve as a major red flag to all potential investors. For this reason, Ukraine’s courts should be recognized as a key element of the country’s infrastructure that is every bit as vital to national recovery as roads or power lines. After all, the justice system serves as the legal framework that makes it possible to build everything else.

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Despite the ongoing war, Ukraine has made real progress in recent years toward meaningful judicial reform. This has included the reform of key institutions like the High Court of Justice, along with the launch of new processes to improve the selection of Constitutional Court judges. It is now crucial to build on this momentum.

Judicial reform must be deep, deliberate, and closely tied to Ukraine’s European future. With this in mind, it is important to maintain the current dialogue with the Venice Commission and use its recommendations to shape genuine change. One of the most effective tools to help achieve this change is the participation of international experts. Their role is not to control the process, but rather to help ensure fairness, transparency, and accountability.

As Ukraine looks to create the conditions for national reconstruction, one judicial reform initiative currently being backed by the Ukrainian parliament is the creation of specialized courts to handle issues like land rights and construction disputes. These courts could help speed up vital cases and take pressure off the existing judicial system.

Work is also continuing toward greater digitalization within the justice system, from electronic courts to online case tracking. Much more can be done in this direction. Other tech savvy countries such as Estonia and Singapore are currently leading the way in digital justice. Ukraine can build something just as bold using tools like blockchain and AI. The expanded use of technology can improve the efficiency of Ukraine’s courts, while also boosting trust levels and leading to greater transparency.

Creating a fully functioning and internationally credible justice system is the necessary starting point for everything else Ukrainians want to achieve, from economic strength and prosperity to the rule of law and a greater sense of national security. It can encourage investors to bet on Ukraine, and can help persuade Ukrainians currently living abroad to return home. Ultimately, judicial reform can serve as a national anchor confirming Ukraine’s place in the heart of Europe.

Amid the horror and the trauma of Russia’s ongoing invasion, Ukrainians now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve transformational change in the country’s justice system. We must not miss this chance.

Oleksandr Vasiuk is a member of the Ukrainian parliament for the Servant of the People party and head of the Ukraine-USA Strategic Partnership cross-party association.

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Andrew A. Michta

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Welcome to the long war: Why a Ukraine deal was never realistic

Brian Whitmore — Thu, 29 May 2025 19:10:44 +0000

This war will be decided on the battlefield.

Four months of chaotic shuttle diplomacy aimed at reaching a cease-fire in Ukraine, multiple phone calls between US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, repeated US attempts to pressure, browbeat, and bully Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into concessions, have all yielded exactly nothing.

Which is not in the least bit surprising. Because there is no deal to be had with Russia on Ukraine. There never has been, and there never will be.

There is simply no magic formula, no concession, and no grand bargain that would satisfy the Kremlin’s maximalist and eliminationist goals. Moscow wants to end Ukraine’s sovereignty, nationhood, and statehood. Ukraine wants to continue to exist as an independent sovereign state. Given this, no compromise is possible. Any Kabuki negotiations or Potemkin cease-fire would be meaningless and treated by the Kremlin as nothing more than a strategic pause and an opportunity for sanctions relief.

“Russian imperialism will not be neutralized by negotiations, compromises, or concessions,” Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies and an associate professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, wrote on May 22.

Following his latest call with Trump, Putin said he wanted any settlement to address what he called the “root causes of the crisis.” That choice of phrase was no accident. The Kremlin leader used a similar formulation when addressing the issue of ending the war during a joint press conference with Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka in March.

Putin’s repeated use of the term “root cause” is a tell. For the Kremlin leader, the root cause of the war is the very existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state, which he has long seen as anathema. At the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, Putin made this clear when he told then US President George W. Bush that “Ukraine is not even a state.” Putin has also repeatedly referred to Ukraine as “little Russia,” a Tsarist-era term to describe Ukrainian lands.

For Putin and the Kremlin elite, Russian colonial dominance of Ukraine is an ideological issue that is not subject to negotiation. The Kremlin cannot be persuaded, it can only be defeated.

Russia’s game: decouple the war from relations with Washington

If anyone doubts Russia’s intentions, then recent remarks by Vladimir Medinsky, one of Putin’s court ideologists and the Kremlin’s chief representative at recent talks in Istanbul, should put them to rest. “Russia,” Medinsky told the Ukrainian delegation, “is prepared to fight forever.” He added, in reference to the Northern War of 1700-1721, which elevated Russia to the status of an empire, “we fought Sweden for twenty-one years. How long are you ready to fight?”

But with the front line largely static and Russia making miniscule gains with high casualties, forever may turn out to be a very long time and have a very steep cost.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in the first four months of 2025, Russia advanced just 1,627 square kilometers on the front in eastern Ukraine while suffering 160,600 casualties. That’s a staggeringly high ninety-nine casualties for every square kilometer of territory. ISW also estimates that “at this rate of advance, it would take Russian forces approximately 3.9 years to seize the remainder of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts,” the four regions Putin has claimed to have annexed. Moreover, according to ISW, it would take nearly a century to seize all of Ukraine save its Western border regions at a cost of nearly fifty million casualties—which is roughly one third Russia’s current population.

The economics of the war are also not trending in Moscow’s favor. As Charles Lichfield, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center wrote in February, “while Moscow has found ways to mitigate the impact of [Western sanctions], growing deficits, unsustainable subsidies, and the rising cost of debt servicing” are putting severe strain on the Russian economy.

Additionally, a widely circulated report by Craig Kennedy of Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies suggests that the “surprising resilience” that the media and analysts have been seeing in the Russian economy is largely a mirage. According to Kennedy’s research, published earlier this year, the war is largely being financed by concessionary off-the-books loans to defense contractors at well below market interest rates. Simply put, this is not sustainable over the long term.

Given this, the Kremlin’s goal vis-à-vis the United States is to decouple the war from Russia-US relations, normalize relations between Moscow and Washington, and get sanctions relief. In a speech in late February, Putin said that Moscow “would be happy to cooperate with any foreign partners, including American companies” to secure rare-earth-minerals deals. Putin added that lifting sanctions could lead to a profitable new economic relationship between the United States and Russia, particularly in the energy sector.

Putin, of course, wants an economic rapprochement without ending his quest to conquer Ukraine. Russia has continued to pound Ukrainian cities with aerial assaults, resulting in mass civilian casualties even as he seeks to entice Washington economically.

And for his part, Trump appears open to the idea. Following his most recent call with Putin, the US president indicated a desire to establish normal economic relations with Moscow. This would be a grave error, as it would throw Putin a lifeline to continue his war of aggression.

Fortunately, there does appear to be pushback in Washington. The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, which would expand existing penalties on Russia, was introduced in the US Senate by South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal and has more than eighty cosponsors.

Europe’s moment and Ukraine’s resolve

For its part, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom have already moved ahead with their own new package of sanctions enacted on May 20, a day after the latest Trump-Putin call. Brussels and London are also pledging to increase military assistance to Ukraine to make up for any shortfall resulting from a US cutoff.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, all seem to understand that this could be Europe’s moment. But one of the biggest wildcards going forward is whether Europe can overcome its internal divisions—mainly opposition from Hungary and Slovakia—and surge arms to Ukraine.

Which brings us to Ukraine itself—and here the calculations are simple. As the Ukrainian political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov wrote earlier this week, “Ukraine’s choices are to fight back and risk being killed, or to surrender and be killed. By fighting back, Ukraine has a chance; by surrendering, it has none—making surrender not a viable option.”

And for Ukraine, as always, necessity has become the mother of invention. Faced with a potential shortfall in weapons, Kyiv has created a vibrant domestic arms industry focusing on drone warfare.

“In just three years, Ukraine’s military has evolved from defending itself with leftover Soviet weapons to pioneering a new kind of warfare,” the Ukrainian war correspondent Nataliya Gumenyuk writes in the Atlantic.

“Fortunately for Ukraine, American weapons are not the only factor that has rebalanced the battlefield in the past three years. Starting in 2024, Ukrainian-made drones definitively changed the way both sides waged war. For Ukraine, the adjustment was not just tactical, but a broader, doctrinal evolution in how its military fights.”

Gumenyuk concludes by noting that “as Ukraine’s partners speak of peace deals and security guarantees, Ukraine’s armed forces are adapting in every way they can to continue carrying out their mission . . . They cannot afford the luxury of counting on American commitments or Russian concessions, because for most Ukrainians, what matters above all is physical safety. And the only force protecting human lives in Ukraine is the Ukrainian military.”

So here we are, after three years of war and four months of failed diplomacy to end it. This war will be decided on the battlefield. It is for the United States and Europe to decide whether they are prepared to help Ukraine win it.

Brian Whitmore is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Eurasia Center, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas-Arlington, and host of The Power Vertical Podcast.

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Fiber optic drones could play decisive role in Russia’s summer offensive

David Kirichenko — Thu, 29 May 2025 18:48:59 +0000

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three years ago, the war in Ukraine has been shaped by a technological arms race as both countries have struggled to achieve an innovative edge on the battlefield. While Ukraine’s dynamic tech sector and less cumbersome bureaucracy initially gave it the advantage, Russia may now be gaining the upper hand.

The weapon that is turning the tide in Russia’s favor is the rather humble-looking fiber optic drone. This variation on the first-person view (FPV) drones that have dominated the skies above the battlefield since 2022 may appear inconspicuous at first glance, but it is having a major impact on the front lines of the war and is expected to play a crucial role in Russia’s unfolding summer offensive.

As the name suggests, fiber optic drones are controlled by wire-thin cables linked to operators. Crucially, this makes them immune to the jamming systems that have become near-ubiquitous in the Russian and Ukrainian armies due to the rapid evolution of drone warfare. Thanks to their data-transporting cables, fiber optic drones benefit from improved video quality and can also operate at lower altitudes than their wireless counterparts, but it is their invulnerability to electronic jamming that makes them such a potentially game-changing weapon.

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There are some drawbacks to this kind of drone. Key problems include limited range and a tendency to become entangled in obstacles such as trees and pylons. Nevertheless, there is mounting recognition on both sides of the front lines and among international military observers that fiber optic drones are now indispensable. In a recent report, the BBC called these drones “the terrifying new weapon changing the war in Ukraine.” Meanwhile, the Washington Post noted that Moscow’s focus on fiber optic drones represents “the first time Russia has surpassed Ukraine in front-line drone technology since the full-scale invasion in 2022.”

The combat effectiveness of fiber optic drones became increasingly apparent amid heavy fighting in Russia’s Kursk region during the early months of 2025. Russia’s campaign to push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region used large numbers of fiber optic drones to attack Ukraine’s flanks, cut supply lines, and cripple Ukrainian logistics. This eventually forced Ukrainian troops to retreat, ending an extended incursion into Russian territory that had been hugely embarrassing for Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian troops who fought in Kursk later reported that the only thing capable of stopping fiber optic drones was bad weather.

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The technology behind fiber optic drones is no secret and is available to Ukraine as well as Russia. However, as is so often the case, Moscow benefits from weight of numbers and is looking to exploit its strengths. While Ukraine has experimented with a wide variety of drones produced by hundreds of different startup-style defense companies, Russia has concentrated its vast resources on the mass production of a relatively small number of specific weapons categories including fiber optic drones and shahed kamikaze drones. Moscow’s strategy is to focus on volume with the goal of overwhelming Ukraine’s defenses. Russia has also benefited from close ties with China, which is a key drone producer and ranks among the world’s leading suppliers of fiber optic cables.

Ukraine’s front line military commanders and the country’s tech sector developers recognize the growing importance of fiber optic drones and are now rapidly increasing production. However, they are currently lagging far behind Russia and have much work to do before they can catch up. It is a race Ukraine cannot afford to lose. One of the country’s largest drone manufacturers recently warned that if the current trajectory continues, Kyiv will soon be unable to defend against the sheer scale of Russia’s mass production.

Increased foreign investment in Ukraine’s defense industry could help close the gap. By financing the development and production of fiber optic drones, Ukraine’s international partners can put the country’s defenses on a firmer footing and enable the Ukrainian military to address the threat posed by Russia’s cable-connected drones. This trend has already been underway for some time, with more and more partner countries allocating funds for Ukrainian defense sector production. The challenge now is to channel this financing specifically toward fiber optic drones.

Time may not be on Ukraine’s side. The Russian army is currently in the early stages of a summer offensive that promises to be one of the largest and most ambitious of the entire war, with fighting already intensifying at various points along the front lines. If Putin’s commanders can implement the fiber optic drone tactics that proved so successful in the Kursk region, they may be able to finally overcome Ukraine’s dogged defenses and achieve a long-awaited breakthrough. In a war defined by attrition and innovation, Ukraine must now come up with urgent solutions to counter Russia’s fiber optic drone fleet.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

It is Europe’s time to shine on IMEC

Rachel Rizzo and Nicholas Shafer — Thu, 29 May 2025 13:08:50 +0000

Officially announced at the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in New Delhi in 2023, the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is an ambitious project aiming to provide far-reaching connectivity and deeper economic cooperation from India across Eurasia. Built upon overland rail and shipping hubs, the completed corridor would support regional prosperity, political cooperation, supply-chain and energy security, and digital interconnectivity among the IMEC signatories and corridor countries.

The benefits are clear. According to initial estimates, IMEC’s overland transportation route could reduce logistics costs by 30 percent and transportation time by 40 percent relative to shipping via the Suez Canal. The new route would also likely provide important structural benefits, such as reducing the risk of supply chain shocks and lowering energy costs. There are also geopolitical implications: Washington, Europe, and India have welcomed the IMEC proposal as a potential counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

As the main market at the end of the proposed route, Europe has a critical role to play in ensuring IMEC’s success. With its strong regulatory and logistics capacity, the European Union (EU) will need to take a leading role in setting the rules of the game for IMEC while making much-needed investments to resolve specific bottlenecks around financing, customs alignment, and conflict-resolution mechanisms. To do this, however, Europeans will need to act decisively and quickly.

Where IMEC has paused

The initial IMEC signatories include the leaders of India, the United States, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Italy, France, Germany, and the European Commission. Although not yet signatories, Greece, Israel, and Jordan are implicitly included in the initiative, given the proposed route that goes through the Port of Haifa as the gateway to the Mediterranean.

Momentum for the project was strong when it was first announced. However, recent instability in the Middle East has led to substantial uncertainty. Just weeks after the IMEC memorandum of understanding was signed at the G20 Summit, Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel—and the continuing Israel-Hamas conflict—effectively put the brakes on another important initiative: a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal. Normalization was widely regarded as a critical enabler for progress on IMEC given the centrality of the Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Israel railway link in the project. While normalization would certainly ease political and logistical hurdles, it’s not an absolute requirement, and the project could still move forward with careful diplomatic management.

This will be an important hurdle to overcome given that a normalization deal does not seem imminent. Immediately following a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, where Trump called for turning Gaza into a “Riviera for the Middle East,” the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated the country’s position that it will not seek a full-normalization agreement or engage on Gaza reconstruction until there is “a credible, irreversible pathway to a Palestinian state,” and the establishment of a more enduring cease-fire agreement. The Saudi foreign ministry’s statement did not mention IMEC by name, but it appears to be affected by this pause.

Where IMEC is moving forward

Despite the lack of top-down progress toward a secretariat or coordinated development plan among the various signatories, there have still been positive developments on IMEC in the interim. Building on a 2024 Intergovernmental Framework Agreement signed between the UAE and India, both countries have deepened their cooperation on IMEC by launching a digital trade corridor and working together on port modernization. As a result of improving bilateral ties, UAE-India trade reached $65 billion in 2024, representing 20.5 percent growth from 2023. India is now the UAE’s second-largest export market, comprising 9 percent of its total foreign trade and 14 percent of its non-oil exports. This year, UAE-India trade is anticipated to reach $85 billion.

There is other positive news as well. Several European countries have appointed special envoys to IMEC, including France and Italy. And earlier this month, Israel and Cyprus announced new energy development projects under the framework of IMEC, calling to relaunch the Israel-Cyprus-Greece trilateral forum.

Where Europe steps in

These are all steps in the right direction, but today, it is important for Europe and the United States to double down on their support for IMEC so that this progress doesn’t falter. The EU and Washington can do this by promoting policies that continue to build momentum in various bilateral relationships and sectors underpinning IMEC, which will also reaffirm their leadership roles within the project. This is especially true for European policymakers, who now have a unique opportunity on the tail end of Trump’s visit to the Gulf in May to step up their leadership on IMEC. Doing so now would signal the European Commission’s increasing commitment to securing its core energy, commercial, and connectivity interests from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, while also demonstrating its ability to advance a foreign policy agenda that can gain support in a skeptical Washington. So, how should the EU do this?

To begin with, Europe should name an official EU coordinator for IMEC. Based in Brussels, this person could coordinate the Europe side of the project, working primarily with the EU commissioner for international partnerships and the EU commissioner for trade and security. The goal should be to integrate regional partners, work on project timetables and cost estimates, and coordinate with France, Italy, and Greece to discuss IMEC’s terminal port. All three of these countries—with their ports of Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Trieste, and Marseille—are vying to host IMEC’s terminal port. At the moment, Greece and Italy seem to make the most sense, simply by virtue of their proximity to both the Middle East and existing infrastructure. In reality, each of these ports will likely play its role in the project, but the final decision will come down to questions of strategic alignment, investment commitments, and geopolitical concerns, including China’s role in the Port of Piraeus. A high-level EU coordinator is necessary to work through these ongoing and often difficult debates.

Funding must come next. As the EU discusses how to mobilize funding for major defense projects, such as Readiness 2030, it should also rethink how it mobilizes funding for major connectivity projects. Later this year (potentially alongside the planned EU-India Summit tentatively scheduled for the last quarter of 2025) the EU should host a major “IMEC summit” co-hosted with India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. This summit could include the announcement of an IMEC fund, which could be seeded with money out of the EU’s Global Gateway Initiative, the European Investment Bank, and contributions from member states. This would put needed heft behind IMEC (and Global Gateway, for that matter), while simultaneously showcasing the EU’s ability to lead on major initiatives. In turn, these tangible commitments could potentially attract more private and Gulf investment.

Although the idea of EU-level debt issuance comes with real questions and caveats about the drawbacks and risks over joint borrowing, the EU could create an IMEC fund building on financial mechanisms already in place. For instance, the European Investment Bank (EIB) already issues “green bonds,” known as Climate Awareness Bonds (CABs) and Sustainability Awareness Bonds (SABs). These bonds finance projects that support climate action and environmental sustainability. The EIB could issue CABs and SABs that help fund “green” portions of IMEC, such as a renewable energy grid and a green hydrogen pipeline, but it could also create IMEC-specific bonds that could attract investors interested in the project more generally. These could help with things like port upgrades or rail construction.

Finally, a strong India-EU partnership will be key to advancing IMEC. In February, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the EU College of Commissioners visited New Delhi. This first-of-its-kind trip highlighted the EU’s recognition that it needs to look beyond the United States for stable long-term economic partnerships. For its part, India appears ready to jump at this opportunity. Thus, IMEC’s chances of success could be bolstered by the EU and India continuing to build the economic and connectivity projects already underway. Officially signing the free trade agreement after years of negotiations, for example, will be a difficult but necessary step in that direction.

Stronger European leadership alone will not overcome all the hurdles ahead for IMEC. It is unlikely, for example, to deliver an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal or bring peace to the Middle East. However, it is important both for the EU and Washington that IMEC projects develop in line with their shared values, priorities, and vision for a secure region-spanning architecture.

Factoring in the view from Washington

For a Washington that wants to see results and is renegotiating how it works with its allies, firm, coordinated, and proactive European leadership that makes tangible—if incremental—progress on IMEC would likely be perceived positively. As IMEC moves forward, the United States will likely emphasize the importance of mitigating Chinese influence across dual-use infrastructure and in the sectors promoted by the project. Washington will also be interested in ensuring open competition for tenders and contracts related to IMEC projects and guaranteeing a role for US companies in the initiative. Europe needs to step up its proactive leadership of IMEC to get ahead of these concerns, particularly before a ministerial meeting is set to determine the path toward a more formalized governance architecture.

History shows that when Trump sees an area ripe for investment, he commits. Now is the right time for Europe to lead on IMEC as the United States is actively deepening its relationships with all the corridor countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and India, and is calling on European leaders to do more. The problem each side keeps running into is the classic “first-mover problem,” whereby early players shoulder an outsized share of risk given the overall uncertainty. The success of IMEC could potentially reshape connectivity and trade throughout the globe and lay the framework for more projects of its kind. The EU should jump at the opportunity to help make it something tangible.

Rachel Rizzo is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Nicholas Shafer is a consultant at the Atlantic Council’s N7 Initiative.

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Dispatch from Dayton: What Trump can learn about ending war

Frederick Kempe — Wed, 28 May 2025 22:30:00 +0000

DAYTON, Ohio—US President Donald Trump could learn a lot about how to best end Russia’s murderous war on Ukraine, now into its fourth year, from the US experience here thirty years ago in negotiating what became known as the Dayton Peace Accords.

If Trump wants to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war, and he has made that an administration priority, then he should reflect on what it took to finally stop Serbian President Slobodan Milošević in 1995—after nearly four years of killing and more than 100,000 dead, including the massacre at Srebrenica, Europe’s worst genocide since the Holocaust.

A deal required relentless US diplomatic engagement backed by a demonstrated military threat and carried out alongside unified European allies. It also took twenty-one days of intensive negotiations in Dayton—not involving then US President Bill Clinton until the end—while all parties were cloistered from media and outside influences at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Marking the Dayton anniversary, Ohio Congressman Mike Turner brought the NATO Parliamentary Assembly here last week, gathering delegates from the thirty-two allies as well as from partner countries. They joined leaders from the Western Balkans, assorted experts, and even the Sarajevo Philharmonic, which performed for participants in a giant hangar stocked with presidential aircraft in the National Museum of the US Air Force.

Though I came to commemorate history, I left having interrogated its architects. My aim was to gain clues that might help the Trump administration in its still-fruitless quest for an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

It would be easy to discount the lessons for Ukraine and Russia now, where the stakes are so much higher, from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia then. Nuclear-armed Russia has two hundred times the land mass of Serbia and more than twenty times its population. And Ukraine, with its pre-war population of forty million and France-sized territory, is more than ten times larger in geographic size and population than Bosnia-Herzegovina. In my view, that makes the lessons only more compelling.

The first lesson? “Peace agreements are extremely rare,” former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, the European Union’s special representative at the talks thirty years ago, said in a session of former officials that I moderated. “In modern European history, there are only two really: Dayton and the Good Friday Agreement,” which in 1998 ended a thirty-year conflict in Northern Ireland known as “the Troubles.”

Both were forged in the aftermath of horrific violence, which is also the case in Ukraine. Yet both also required something that is still lacking today: determined, focused, and creative US leadership in lockstep with European partners. Both also succeeded through disciplined diplomacy, military leverage, and the unglamorous work of compromise.

Beyond that, winning peace in Dayton demanded US credibility but not neutrality. At Dayton, the United States was not an impartial mediator but rather a focused powerbroker, using whatever muscle was necessary to shape the outcome. No lasting deal can reward Putin’s aggression, just as Dayton didn’t knuckle under to reward Milošević.

Another lesson is that building peace is as crucial as ending war. Dayton and Belfast were both followed by years of international engagement, economic aid, and security commitments. Peace might have collapsed had those efforts not continued.

Most importantly, the United States led but did not go it alone. Peace that endures requires multilateral support. Dayton hasn’t worked perfectly, but without the European Union and NATO it wouldn’t have worked at all. “Only when the international actors can get together with a uniform message and policy can results be achieved,” said Bildt, who is also an Atlantic Council International Advisory Board member. “There was success in Dayton, yes. But it should also be said that there was massive failure prior to Dayton due to disagreements across the Atlantic, disagreements in Europe, and disagreements in the United States.”

US General Wesley Clark, who at the time was the military right hand to Richard Holbrooke, the chief US negotiator, took away a different lesson: “Don’t be timid,” Clark, a member of the Atlantic Council Board of Directors, said to the NATO parliamentarians. “We are going to have to be unified. And we are going to have to be forceful enough to convince Putin he will not win. Right now, he thinks he’s winning.”

In a slap across the face of Trump’s efforts to broker peace, Putin from last Friday to Sunday launched what Ukrainian officials called the largest combined aerial assault of the conflict, including some nine hundred drones and dozens of missiles of various types. That prompted a frustrated Trump to write on Truth Social about Putin that “something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!” The US president added that “missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.”

The problem is that there’s nothing crazy about Putin’s calculations, and his reasons are obvious. He’s trying to wear down Ukraine and its partners, and he’s betting that he has more staying power. He sees US military and diplomatic support in retreat, European efforts as insufficient, and Ukraine as weary. Trump has belatedly acknowledged that Putin has been “tapping” him along.

With all that in mind, Washington will have to try far harder now than it did then to change a murderous despot’s mind—or resign itself to accepting Putin’s ongoing war and its ambition to redraw the European map.

Until Washington stood up to Milošević in 1995, Clark said, the Serb leader thought he could pull the wool over Europe’s eyes with his small army overrunning Bosnia. When he bid farewell to Milošević at the end of the talks, Clark remembers the Balkan leader saying, “We Serbs never had a chance against your NATO, your airplanes, your missiles.”

Speaking with me at the same NATO session, Christopher R. Hill, who was part of the Holbrooke delegation in Dayton, added another important lesson—that the parties must be ready to end the war. “I am not sure Russia is ready for peace,” he said. “They should be, but they don’t seem to be. I think until they are, we have got to help Ukraine because a hundred years from now . . . our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, will be thinking about what we did to deal with this crisis.”

The Dayton Accords were not perfect, but they were proof of what US leadership can achieve when properly applied. Speaking in Bosnia-Herzegovina shortly after the agreement was finalized, the then US president explained why the United States had chosen to lead, rather than cut and run from the European conflict.

“Around the world, people look to America not just because of our size and strength but because of what we stand for and what we’re willing to stand against,” Clinton said. “And though it imposes extra burdens on us, people trust us to help them share in the blessings of peace. We can’t be everywhere . . . But where we can make a difference, where our values and our interests are at stake, we must act.”

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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Russia is extinguishing all traces of Ukrainian identity in occupied Ukraine

Kateryna Odarchenko — Tue, 27 May 2025 20:39:21 +0000

In recent months, US-led efforts to initiate a Russia-Ukraine peace process have focused primarily on the issue of potential Ukrainian territorial concessions. But as negotiating teams discuss technical details and draw lines on maps, almost no attention is being paid to the desperate plight of the millions of Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation.

Throughout occupied Ukraine, the Russian authorities are seeking to consolidate their control by eradicating all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity while imposing a reign of terror on the civilian population. If these Russian occupation policies are allowed to pass unchallenged in the international arena, it will set a disastrous precedent for the use of force against civilians and the weaponization of national identity in other contested regions globally.

From the very first days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, it was clear that Russia intended to entrench itself firmly in occupied regions of Ukraine. Russian troops often arrived armed with lists of local community leaders including elected officials, journalists, activists, religious figures, and military veterans. Those who refused to cooperate were likely to be detained before disappearing into a vast network of Russian prisons and camps.

Ukrainian detainees are being systematically subjected to torture and other human rights abuses, according to an international investigation led by the French group Forbidden Stories together with thirteen media outlets including Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the Washington Post, and Le Monde. While it is not possible to calculate exactly how many Ukrainian civilians have been abducted in the occupied regions, UN officials have concluded that the large scale and systematic nature of the disappearances qualifies as a crime against humanity.

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Those who remain in areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control face a regime of forced russification encompassing everything from language and the media to education and religion. Place names have been changed to reflect the new Russian realities, with the curriculum in local schools transformed in line with the Kremlin’s anti-Ukrainian imperial dogmas. Parents who attempt to shield their children from classroom indoctrination are being threatened with loss of custody.

Ukrainian residents in the occupied regions of the country have also come under increasing pressure from the Kremlin to accept Russian citizenship. Anyone who refuses to take a Russian passport risks losing access to a range of essential services including healthcare. They also face restrictions on property rights along with the ability to run a business and use banking services.

This passport campaign has intensified significantly in recent months, with Russian President Vladimir Putin issuing a decree announcing that Ukrainians living under Russian occupation have until September 2025 to accept Russian citizenship or face possible deportation from their own homes. Understandably, Moscow’s ruthless tactics are proving difficult to resist. Kremlin officials claim that by March 2025, Russian passports had been issued to approximately 3.5 million people in occupied Ukraine.

Moscow is accused of engaging in religious persecution throughout the occupied regions, with all Christian denominations other that the Kremlin-linked Russian Orthodox Church facing various degrees of restrictive measures and oppression. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry officials stated in spring 2025 that the Russian occupation authorities have killed dozens of clergy members over the past three years while damaging or destroying hundreds of churches.

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Russia has been careful to prevent information about conditions in occupied Ukraine from reaching the outside world. All independent media sources have been shut down throughout the occupied regions, and have been replaced by new Kremlin-controlled outlets. Individual journalists have frequently been among those targeted for oppressive measures including physical abuse and imprisonment.

One of the few reporters to shed light on the horrors unfolding in Russian-occupied Ukraine was Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who visited areas under occupation on multiple occasions before being captured by the Russian authorities in summer 2023. Roshchyna died after a year in Russian captivity. When her body was returned to Ukraine in early 2025, it showed signs of torture.

From a military standpoint, it may not currently be feasible to liberate all of the Ukrainian regions held by Moscow. Nevertheless, the crimes being committed by the Kremlin in occupied Ukraine are unprecedented in modern European history and cannot be ignored.

It is vital that the human rights of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation feature prominently in any peace process. This includes the rights of those currently being held in Russian jails. Ukraine’s Western partners must maintain or increase sanctions pressure, while also expanding support for Ukrainian civil society and raising awareness about Russia’s actions among international audiences.

Looking ahead, longer term investments are also needed to help document war crimes and support Ukrainian victims of the Russian occupation. Ultimately, the most meaningful response to Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian identity is to make sure Ukraine is in a position to not only survive but thrive as an independent European nation.

Kateryna Odarchenko is a partner at SIC Group Ukraine.

Soofer’s report, “Strengthening Deterrence with SLCM-N,” quoted in Asia Times article

Atlantic Council — Tue, 27 May 2025 20:08:02 +0000

On May 13, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was quoted in an Asia Times article titled, “US Navy wants sea-launched nuke missiles to hold China at bay.” The article cites his Atlantic Council issue brief, co-authored with John Harvey, “Strengthening Deterrence with SLCM-N.” The article references their argument that SLCM-N capabilities address “a US capability gap in response to the threat of limited nuclear employment.”

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Former Senior Fellow

Forward Defense

Arms Control Defense Policy

Public Event Tue, May 27, 2025 • 9:00 am ET

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British ambassador to the US: The UK must ‘become less dependent on America, while remaining inseparably linked’

Peter Mandelson — Tue, 27 May 2025 19:40:18 +0000

On May 27, Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the United States, spoke at this year’s edition of the Atlantic Council’s Christopher J. Makins Lecture, a series exploring the state of the Atlantic partnership and its future direction. The below is adapted from his opening speech, entitled “Renewing the Transatlantic Alliance: Peace Through Strength in a New Age of Great Power Rivalry.”

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The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson on Britain in an enduring transatlantic relationship

British Ambassador to the United States The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson speaks at the 2025 Christopher J. Makins lecture to discuss the significance of the transatlantic relationship during this unprecedented geopolitical period.

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Eighty years ago this month, the streets of Britain, America, and allied nations erupted in celebration at the fall of fascism in Europe.

For me personally, it’s a source of enormous pride that my grandfather, Herbert Morrison, served as home secretary in Winston Churchill’s wartime coalition.

He also served as deputy prime minister in Clement Attlee’s transformative postwar government in Britain. That government didn’t just support the formation of NATO to counter Soviet expansionism—they were the co-architects of it.

Amidst Cold War tensions and economic upheaval, Britain and America advanced from allies to integrated strategic partners at the dawn of the nuclear age, our scientists having joined forces in the Manhattan Project to create the advantage we had at the beginning of this age.

It was Western unity which ultimately ended the Cold War peacefully and demonstrated resilience to new threats, including the 9/11 attacks, where NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time.

Over eight decades, the foundations of collective defense have remained steadfast whilst the transatlantic relationship has continuously evolved and adapted to counter new challenges.

Today, I want to talk about the profound challenge we face in a new age of great power rivalry, a period characterized by political volatility, by economic mercantilism, and geopolitical competition.

We are witnessing the end of an era of hyper-globalization where we assumed that economic integration had made wars almost obsolete.

The logic seemed compelling: Mutual interests, integrated global supply chains, and shared economic stakes created too much to lose from warfare. History seemed to point only in one direction.

And those comfortable assumptions have been shattered.

We now see the rise of modern mercantilism, where nations prefer to prioritize national economic strength and autonomy in many respects.

States are intervening and playing a more protectionist role in managing trade and directing industrial policy to become ever more self-sufficient and localized.

I’m not declaring globalization dead, but it is being radically reconfigured around us.

China’s export-driven growth strategy flooded the global market with state-subsidized products, undercut Western manufacturing, and hollowed out industry.

The social disruption of rapid technological change, where, if you take media as an example, we have moved suddenly from decades of information flowing to people through established news organizations to a future where you only see “news” online that is curated to what you want to know, or what the algorithm—and those behind it—decides you want to know. And then there’s the backlash against globalization’s uneven distribution of benefits.

You can produce many different numbers to show the widening wealth disparities in the West over the past thirty years, but I would choose a simple one: GDP per capita in the United States has grown about 60 percent to 70 percent in real terms, but real median household income growth has been about 20 percent to 25 percent. The typical American household has not done as well as the booming US economy would suggest. A similar story holds true across all our countries in the West.

This has posed profound challenges to culture, place, and society—which too many of us over the past decades, frankly, have ignored. From the American Midwest to the coastal towns of England, a hands-off approach left many places adrift from the success stories of global cities such as London and New York.

And in a world which has often felt dominated by the exponential rise of social media, a sense of grievance—and of difference between us and them—has been amplified.

So yes, I credit President Trump’s acute political instincts in identifying the anxieties gripping not only millions of Americans, but also far more pervasive global trends: Economic stagnation, a sense of irreversible decline, the lost promise of meaningful work for so many people. These are the giants now that we must confront head-on.

So, where do we go next?

It is in no one’s interest—certainly not those of close allies—that each country pursues a wholly individualized path, which leads to accelerated economic fragmentation.

But if we are serious about rebuilding confidence in the international system, if we wish to maintain a set of common rules and standards—a shared economic and security commons in between us—we need to devote an enormous amount of energy and goodwill to preserve, sustain, and deepen the alliances which exist between like-minded countries.

For the UK and the rest of Europe, we must reboot the transatlantic alliance—indeed, a boot up the proverbial backside is needed now—to deliver peace through strength across three interconnected domains: military, economic, and technological.

For my generation, the twentieth-century gains in peace and prosperity were thought of as a European peace dividend.

I now recognize it as an urgent bill, that peace dividend: An urgent bill for decades of defense underinvestment—a payment that is long overdue.

We have lived in a fantasy created by the US security guarantee, complacent that a friendly heavyweight across the water would be always there when the going gets tough.

We meet in the shadow of Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, now in its fourth year.

The UK strongly supports President Trump’s initiative to bring this terrible war to an end. And we are working together with partners to secure a just and lasting peace.

The Ukraine conflict has served as a brutal wake-up call. State-on-state war has returned to Europe. Adversaries are using nuclear rhetoric to influence decision-making, and we are seeing regular attacks on European infrastructure beneath the threshold of warfare.

It is crystal clear that European defense must step up and rebalance for our collective security. Actually, I think President Trump is doing Europe a favor by confronting us with this reality.

The United States is the UK’s closest defense and security ally. We must become less dependent on America, while remaining inseparably linked to America—a distinction that I underline of critical importance. Yes, less dependent, but still inseparably linked.

Ukraine is just one flashpoint of many amid growing global instability. Even the US does not have limitless resources.

This is precisely why Britain must step up in providing for European security and why we have committed to the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the Cold War.

We will become NATO’s fastest-innovating nation, ensuring our military forces have the technological and military capabilities to secure long-term strategic advantage, not just spending more, but spending better.

Of course, this all needs to be grounded in intelligent and effective strategic choices, not merely increased expenditure. Efficiency and innovation to renew our defense manufacturing bases must drive every pound, every dollar, and every euro that we invest.

And we will double down on our alliances. In defense, we will always be NATO first but not NATO only—and this is particularly true of the UK’s focus on the Indo-Pacific, as well as our new security partnership with Europe.

One good example is AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership with Australia and America, which will deliver advanced nuclear-powered submarines and catalyze technology sharing on other advanced capabilities.

Turning to the theme of economic strength, Britain now enjoys something that has eluded us for far too long: a government with both unity of purpose and longevity.

This government’s mandate and President Trump’s will both last for the next four years—providing huge opportunities for collaboration between us.

We are both pro-business and pro-trade in Britain, and committed to innovation, not as empty slogans but as practical imperatives.

This UK government is committed to creating the best investment environment with a regulatory reset that makes us the most competitive in Europe—that’s our aim.

One of the reasons we were able to close the first trade deal of the Trump administration is that our strong economic relationship between our countries is fair, balanced, and reciprocal. But also because, frankly, we are a businesslike nation with pragmatic instincts.

One of the great backhanded insults in British history was when Napoleon Bonaparte dismissed us as a mere “nation of shopkeepers.” He was right: Commerce is the lifeblood which flows through our veins, and that is one reason why we British and American cousins remain so close.

And that is also one reason why I see the current deal as the beginning of a new chapter as well as an end, in a sense, in itself. There is scope for an even more transformative stage in our long partnership. And I believe that centers on technology.

So let me address technological strength as the third. We face a clear, shared threat. There is nothing in this world I fear more than China winning the race for technological dominance in the coming decades.

China represents a far more dynamic and formidable strategic rival than the Soviet Union ever was: economically sophisticated, highly innovative, and strategically patient.

The United Kingdom and United States are the only two Western nations with trillion-dollar technology ecosystems combined with unparalleled talent and research capabilities in our universities and corporations.

We must combine forces, in my view, to drive the scientific breakthroughs that will define this century, and AI should be the spearpoint of that collaboration.

Artificial intelligence stands as the next great foundational technology. Through its power, we can rapidly make progress across so many frontiers of science: quantum, synthetic biology, medicine, nuclear fusion.

Rather than stifling these transformative technologies through excessive regulation, our two governments must unleash their immense potential for human benefit and Western advantage.

Let me say this in conclusion. In his immortal Iron Curtain speech, delivered in Missouri, Churchill spoke eloquently about the primacy of American power and its awesome responsibility to future generations.

Today, we face our own historical inflection point.

No one should doubt that we face accelerating global competition in which it is strongly in our interests to expand the perimeter of our alliances while deepening the transatlantic partnership at its core.

So our diplomacy must be more urgent, more agile, and more creative. We must deepen the political and military alliances which defined our past successes but also create new partnerships—borne in and of technology—which will redefine our future. The stakes could not be higher. The opportunities, actually, could not be greater. And I am confident that our two countries will indeed rise together to meet those challenges.

Peter Mandelson is the British ambassador to the United States.

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Russia’s summer offensive could spark a new humanitarian crisis in Ukraine

Viktor Liakh, Melinda Haring — Tue, 27 May 2025 19:34:22 +0000

As the Russian army gears up for a major summer offensive, Ukraine could soon be facing its most serious humanitarian crisis since the initial phase of the full-scale invasion more than three years ago. If the West does not act swiftly by sending military aid, tightening sanctions, and reaffirming its long-term commitment to Ukraine, the unfolding crisis could overwhelm Kyiv and undermine the Ukrainian war effort.

Current Russian troop movements and battlefield dynamics indicate that the coming summer offensive may be one of the largest and most ambitious of the entire war. If successful, this campaign could allow Russian troops to push the front line tens of kilometers forward into Ukrainian-held territory and overrun parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk provinces.

The cities of Kostyantynivka, Pokrovsk, and Kramatorsk are high on the list of likely targets. They have all experienced significant damage and large-scale displacement as a result of Russian bombardment. If these cities and others in the surrounding area fall to the Russians in the coming months, the wider region could become depopulated as large numbers of people flee the fighting.

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Based on current trends and previous displacement waves, at least two hundred thousand Ukrainian civilians living close to the current front lines of the war could be forced to leave their homes by fall 2025. This is not speculation; it is informed by experience gained during Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian organizations have been on the front lines of the humanitarian response. They have provided essential aid, temporary housing, psychological support, and ongoing reintegration counselling to help Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion rebuild dignity and restart their lives.

Ukraine’s civil society has worked wonders over the past three years but cannot realistically hope to absorb another 200,000 diplaced people without international support. The situation is even more alarming due to the recent closure of USAID, which was a major player in the humanitarian response to Russia’s invasion. With Putin’s troops already advancing, Ukraine’s Western partners must not ignore the looming danger.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 3.6 million people remained internally displaced within Ukraine as of early 2025. Most are women, children, and elderly individuals. Many have already been forced to flee multiple times. This population of displaced people may soon become considerably larger.

Eurasia Center events

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

Compounding the crisis, European governments are beginning to phase out temporary support programs for Ukrainians. While the EU recently agreed to extend temporary protection through 2026, enforcement is sometimes patchy. Meanwhile, there are indications across Europe that resettlement fatigue is growing.

In the UK and US, political rhetoric on the topic of Ukrainian refugees has shifted ominously. Most recently, reports emerged that the Trump administration is exploring options to repatriate Ukrainians who entered the United States following the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

If these trends continue, millions of Ukrainians could find themselves trapped between advancing Russian forces and a closing window of international asylum. While Ukrainians in the east of the country flee Putin’s invading army, many Ukrainian refugees may be forced to return home with uncertain prospects.

If the overstretched Ukrainian military is unable to contain Russia’s summer offensive, the fallout will reverberate far beyond Ukraine’s borders. The displacement of at least 200,000 more civilians would severely strain humanitarian corridors, destabilize border regions, and sow chaos in Ukrainian cities already struggling to absorb previous waves of refugees.

Ukraine’s Western partners still have time to prevent this, but they must act with a sense of urgency. While the Trump administration has been clear that it does not plan to provide Ukraine with further military aid, it should continue sharing intelligence with the Ukrainians while confirming its readiness to sell arms to Kyiv. Europe must speed up the delivery of promised weapons and should expand supplies significantly to improve Ukraine’s position on the battlefield.

In parallel, European countries should take steps to provide reassurance and protect the legal status of Ukrainian refugees. Donor organizations can help by strengthening partnerships with Ukrainian civil society groups that have demonstrated agility, transparency, and high levels of local trust.

The next phase of Russia’s invasion is not just being fought on the front lines of the war. It is taking place across the country in bomb shelters, train stations, and temporary accommodations. Russia is trying to break Ukrainian resistance by making large parts of Ukraine unlivable and destabilizing the country. Ukraine’s partners can do much to counter these efforts, but they must act now before the military and humanitarian situation deteriorates further.

Viktor Liakh is president of the East Europe Foundation. Melinda Haring is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a senior advisor at Razom for Ukraine.

Dispatch from London: Engaging Trump without alienating the rest

Josh Lipsky, Charles Lichfield — Tue, 27 May 2025 19:29:15 +0000

Perhaps not incidentally, the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center’s trip to London last week coincided with major geoeconomic events for the United Kingdom and the world. The Center’s team traveled across the pond for a series of meetings and events to determine if the recent US-UK trade deal could be a template for other countries seeking accords with the United States.

After the Trump administration’s sweeping “liberation day tariffs,” the British government thought that taking the lead on negotiating with the United States might be risky. It feared other countries might blame the United Kingdom for enabling the United States’ 10 percent tariff, which is now assumed to be an unavoidable baseline, even for countries that US President Donald Trump likes. But there’s a palpable sense of relief that, so far, no other country seems to have blamed the United Kingdom for doing the deal.

British officials told us they had known it would be difficult to secure a broader tariff exemption for the United Kingdom, concurring with the GeoEconomics Center’s view that the Trump administration remains more serious about tariffs than the markets have considered. The separate exemptions for the United Kingdom from Section 232 tariffs on autos and steel (within certain quotas) are seen as significant achievements. Concessions made by the United Kingdom on imports of beef and ethanol have encountered only limited political backlash, so far.

Despite UK officials’ subtle understanding of the US administration, our interlocutors were still surprised when we warned them that the reciprocal tariffs announced on “liberation day” could be reimposed on other markets if bilateral negotiations fail to meet the US president’s expectations. This realization made them feel even better about securing a deal, and they underscored the serious misunderstanding that exists even in allied governments about the administration’s true trade goals.

The deal’s four short paragraphs on economic security show that the UK government has picked up on US concerns regarding avoiding tariffs through transshipments. An agreement was reached to refrain from further conversations on transshipments and risky vendors, though officials were keen to remind us that the deal does not constrain London’s reset with China. One of the authors (Charles Lichfield) was able to make this point on Wednesday when he gave oral evidence to the International Relations and Defence Committee of the House of Lords in a session on the future of the United Kingdom’s relations with the United States.

The sequencing of the Labour government’s trade deals was designed with domestic politics in mind. It is no coincidence that the US deal, as well as the recent trade deal with India, came before the UK-European Union Summit and its announcement of a renewed agenda for cooperation. Labour can now credibly say that it is achieving the global trade deals that the Conservative Party promised—and failed to deliver—after Brexit.

There are political risks to every deal. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has been criticized for allowing firms to bring Indian tech workers to the United Kingdom without complying with British labor laws. Still, prioritizing the US and India deals has apparently protected the government from the inevitable accusations of “Brexit betrayal.” The attempt to reset relations with the European Union is also broadly popular. Disproportionate attention is paid to the fishing industry, which represents 0.02 percent of the gross value added by the British economy. The British beef industry, which will now face more competition from the United States, received much less attention.

The Labour government’s achievements haven’t prevented a sharp decline in the polls, fueled by mediocre growth (barely 1 percent this year) and a fraught migration debate. Without any remarkable improvement in public finances, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has been forced to switch her priorities from reining in spending (and blaming this on the previous Conservative government) to prioritizing growth.

Last week, the prime minister partially walked back one of Reeves’s flagship policies of “means testing,” which is an entitlement that aims to help pensioners pay their winter heating bills by proposing that the cut-off threshold would be raised to a currently undisclosed level. Doing so makes the government vulnerable to its own parliamentary caucus, which will demand more concessions on social spending to deliver a sense of economic uplift faster.

The Trump administration is placing demands on its oldest allies, which it isn’t on newer friends in the Gulf. In a speech at Chatham House, one of the authors (Josh Lipsky) highlighted that the economic security dimension of the US-UK deal is what could underpin the future of a Group of Seven alliance to counter China economically. But our counterparts in the United Kingdom raised two key concerns. First, they asked whether the United States still saw value in alliances to achieve economic goals, or if the US priority was to reset global trade irrespective of alliances. Second, they remarked that there is no guarantee that policies decided by this US administration would continue in the years to come.

The same questions were raised at Bank of England, where senior officials questioned the Trump administration’s policies on stablecoins and cryptocurrency. Their own assessment was that unleashing these assets globally without the right regulatory framework could potentially destabilize other countries’ financial systems.

Overall, the unifying theme was a desire for stability but a begrudging acceptance that, at least from the United States, none was coming in the near term. As it approaches its first year in office, the Labour government is navigating these choppy international waters with some success. Alongside the trade deals, it has also kept the Trump administration engaged in Ukraine. These achievements all serve domestic prosperity in the United Kingdom—but making sure voters feel they are benefiting from these will be very challenging.

Josh Lipsky is chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

Charles Lichfield is the deputy director and C. Boyden Gray senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

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Michta featured in RealClearDefense on concrete actions to strengthen NATO’s resolve amid shifting geopolitics

bgalicia — Tue, 27 May 2025 18:24:18 +0000

Senior Fellow, GeoStrategy Initiative

On May 21, 2025, Andew Michta, senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative, was highlighted in RealClearDefense on a report on how NATO can deter Russian aggression without an overreliance on US military power, which he co-authored with Scott Lee, Peter Jones, and Lisa Bembenick of MITRE. The authors argue that, as the United States pivots toward the Indo-Pacific and urges greater defense spending from its allies, European leadership will be essential to the Alliance’s strength and cohesion.

NATO must develop a force structure and a mix of capabilities that allow for the execution of regional defense plans with an emphasis on burden sharing. This modernization strategy must be objective, threat-based, and resource-informed.

Andrew Michta

Staff

Andrew A. Michta

GeoStrategy Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Central Europe Eastern Europe

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Do Trump’s criticisms of Putin mark a turning point in his Russia policy?

John E. Herbst — Tue, 27 May 2025 18:04:35 +0000

This is part of a series of regular assessments of the efforts, spearheaded by the Trump administration, to achieve a negotiated end to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Read previous entries here and here.

What’s new?

On May 25, US President Donald Trump issued a blistering criticism of Russia’s massive and dayslong bombardment of Kyiv, Odesa, and other Ukrainian cities. Trump’s language was blunt and directed squarely at Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an impromptu discussion with reporters, Trump said of Putin: “I’ve known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all. We’re in the middle of talking and he’s sending rockets into Kyiv and other cities. I don’t like it at all.” He also spoke about imposing additional sanctions on Russia.

Trump followed up this statement with a strongly worded Truth Social post, in which he said that Putin “has gone absolutely CRAZY! . . . I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”

What does it mean?

These developments have led some observers to ask whether, after weeks of expressing frustration but ultimately accommodating Kremlin obstructionism, the Trump administration is about to take a tough stand. This was the strongest of several statements Trump has made against Putin over the past two months as it has become obvious, even to members of the administration who have sought to end support for Ukraine, that Putin has no interest in accepting Trump’s approach to achieving a negotiated end to the war. Trump made similar remarks in late April and early May, both suggesting that he would impose additional sanctions on Russia.

But there’s the rub. Trump’s criticism of Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities and Kremlin nay-saying in the peace talks has not led to new sanctions. And just last week, after his long phone call with Putin, who once more refused US terms for a cease-fire, Trump heralded the Kremlin call for continuing direct Russia-Ukraine talks. It is therefore no surprise that Putin doubled down with massive air strikes in Ukraine.

Putin no doubt takes solace that in the Truth Social post that labeled him “CRAZY,” Trump also slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for “talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop.” At this point, Putin reads Trump, like other Western leaders since Russia’s 2008 war in Georgia, as unwilling to take strong action against aggression.

Is Putin right? Yes, Trump has vacillated over the past three months, treating Zelenskyy’s understandable public reservations about White House wavering more harshly than Putin’s active obstruction of US objectives. Trump has also taken substantial criticism from friendly editorial pages, such as the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, as well as from at least some Republicans in Congress. On Monday, Republican Representative Don Bacon and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley both publicly called on Trump to take further action against Russia.

What to watch next

What’s more, momentum is building to move the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025—introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and now cosponsored by eighty-one senators. According to well-connected Republicans, the White House saw value in the presentation of the bill in April as a way of subtly putting pressure on the Kremlin, but it did not want any movement toward passage at that time. In the wake of recent developments, I am hearing that the Trump administration is mulling giving Republican senators the option of voting their conscience. With more than eighty cosponsors, that means the bill would pass easily.

This step cannot be taken for granted, and it is a sign that Putin’s aggressive posture—which prompted even US Vice President JD Vance to remark earlier this month that Russia was asking for too much—may finally prompt Trump to take more vigorous action. Indeed, Putin continued his vicious air campaign on Monday night, prompting another Truth Social post on Tuesday where Trump focused only on Putin, saying that the Russian leader is “playing with fire.”

While it remains to be seen whether actions will follow from Trump’s tougher rhetoric, Zelenskyy could help himself and Ukraine by taking a page from Putin’s playbook and controlling his urge to criticize White House policy. Responding to Trump’s strong criticism of Russia’s belligerence, Putin called Trump overly emotional but still thanked him for his peace efforts. Even justified criticism of US policy by the Ukrainian president diverts Trump’s attention from the real problem.

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Sapuppo quoted by Kyiv Independent on Putin’s ‘root causes’ claims

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 27 May 2025 01:15:00 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

On May 26, Mercedes Sapuppo, assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, was quoted in the Kyiv Independent on the “root causes” claimed by Russia for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

It’s very clear that the root cause for (Putin), really, is just Ukraine’s existence. This should make it clear to Western leaders that any agreements to end the war need to be very forward-looking when it comes to security guarantees.

Mercedes Sapuppo

Staff

Mercedes Sapuppo

Assistant Director

Eurasia Center

Belarus Civil Society

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Murray in Politico Europe on Defense Finance in Europe

Atlantic Council — Mon, 26 May 2025 20:00:00 +0000

ORIGINAL sOURCE

On May 26, Rob Murray, non-resident senior fellow at Forward Defense and the Transatlantic Security Initiative, published a piece in Politico Europe on the proposed multilateral Defense, Security, and Resilience (DSR) Bank and the importance of defense financing mechanisms to boost European defense spending. Murray discussed the importance of the new Safety Action for Europe (SAFE) program and its potential benefits and argued for the creation of the DSR bank to help Europe achieve its security goals.

Fellow

Rob Murray

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Kimberly Donovan: Sanctions are a powerful, yet slow-burning tool

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Lichfield quoted in Les Echoes on potential developments in the Russia-Ukraine war in light of Trump’s change in rhetoric

ntursun — Mon, 26 May 2025 14:46:48 +0000

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Can the EU leverage economic pressure to broker a Gaza cease-fire?

Lize de Kruijf — Fri, 23 May 2025 13:05:12 +0000

The ongoing Israel-Gaza war has evolved into a highly politically complex and dire humanitarian conflict. With thousands of civilian casualties reported, the majority in Gaza, international calls for a cease-fire are intensifying. Efforts to broker a resolution have largely centered on US-led diplomacy, with most recent efforts including White House envoy Steve Witkoff’s new proposal aimed at securing a cease-fire and hostage release. Yet negotiations remain deadlocked following the collapse of a truce in March over Israeli demands for Hamas to disarm and for its leaders to go into exile. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a key mediator, described the talks in Doha as hampered by “fundamental differences between parties.”

As diplomatic efforts falter, attention is turning to economic statecraft—the strategic use of trade and economic leverage to influence state behavior. The European Union (EU) and United States are Israel’s largest and second-largest trading partners, and any economic pressure they apply could have severe consequences for Israel’s economy. Already facing tariffs from the US, Israel may soon encounter additional pressure from the EU, which is considering its own economic measures.

In Europe, growing humanitarian concerns about the scale of destruction in Gaza have prompted calls to reevaluate the best strategy to manage the conflict. Notably, the humanitarian blockade and high-profile incidents, such as the deaths of fifteen aid workers during an Israeli special forces operation in Rafah—an event Israel attributed to “professional failures”—have intensified pressure for a more impactful response. There is a growing sentiment that new tools may be needed to influence the trajectory of the conflict.

Recently, Dutch Foreign Minister Casper Veldkamp called on the EU to investigate Israel’s compliance with Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which ties trade relations to respect for human rights and democratic principles. Veldkamp argued that, “The blockade violates international humanitarian law. You have the right to defend yourself, but the proportions now seem completely lost. We are drawing a line in the sand.”

Although Veldkamp faced domestic political backlash for his move, support across Europe appears to be growing. On May 20, the governments of the United Kingdom (UK), France, and Canada issued a joint statement urging Israel to halt its renewed offensive in Gaza. While reaffirming Israel’s right to defend itself, the statement described the current escalation as “wholly disproportionate.” In tandem, the UK suspended talks on expanding a free-trade agreement with Israel and announced additional sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Crucially, the majority of EU foreign ministers backed the Dutch proposal to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Their choice signals a potential turning point: the first serious momentum behind reevaluating a trade framework that underpins diplomatic and economic ties. Should the EU find Israel in breach of Article 2, it could suspend parts of the agreement or enact targeted economic penalties.

The implications are substantial. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for 32 percent of Israel’s total trade in goods as of 2024, amounting to $48.25 billion. Services trade added another $29 billion, while bilateral foreign direct investment stands at over $134.8 billion. This underscores a deeply integrated economic relationship.

Despite the ongoing conflict, Israel has so far managed to maintain some level of macroeconomic stability. Debt levels are within sustainable bounds, credit worthiness remains intact, and the economy has continued to grow (albeit slowly). However, the economic toll of war is has been straining certain sectors disproportionately. The tech industry continues to grow, partially due to defense contracts, but construction has largely halted, agricultural sectors have lost critical labor, and tourism has plummeted. While gross domestic product growth has not entirely contracted, it slowed to around 1 percent in 2024. This was a significant drop from 6.5 percent in 2022, with the deceleration primarily driven by reduced exports. In response, the Israeli government has implemented budget adjustments that include cuts to domestic welfare programs—historically an area of generous spending—as it works to offset growing wartime expenditures.

Compounding these challenges, Prime Minister Netanyahu recently announced plans to eliminate Israel’s trade surplus with the United States—its second-largest trading partner—which amounted to $7.4 billion in 2024. While the move is framed as a gesture toward economic rebalancing and strengthening bilateral ties, it may carry domestic economic consequences. Efforts to narrow this surplus—especially in a climate of shifting global trade patterns and economic uncertainty—could dampen Israeli export growth and further expose the economy to external shocks.

The potential suspension or downgrading of EU-Israel trade ties would add significant pressure. Given the scale and interdependence of EU-Israel trade, such a move could affect Israel’s economic resilience and, by extension, its ability to sustain long-term military operations in Gaza.

While no approach guarantees a swift end to such a deeply entrenched conflict, economic statecraft presents a credible alternative to stalled diplomatic channels. Unlike traditional negotiations, which often falter due to uncompromising demands or ideological impasses, economic levers could alter the cost-benefit calculus of continued hostilities. A concerted and coordinated effort by major economic partners could incentivize compromise, creating a window for diplomacy to succeed.

The EU’s evolving posture may represent a strategic recalibration—one that leverages economic influence to encourage de-escalation while remaining anchored in international law and human rights norms. Whether this shift can yield tangible results remains to be seen, but it marks an important recognition: that intractable conflicts may require not just moral outrage or political pressure, but a strategic application of economic power.

Lize de Kruijf is a project assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative.

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The post Can the EU leverage economic pressure to broker a Gaza cease-fire? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The case for a Three Seas Defense Innovation Hub

Justina Budginaite-Froehly — Thu, 22 May 2025 17:43:15 +0000

Since its launch ten years ago, the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) has established itself as a novel, network-driven platform that enhances north–south connectivity among thirteen European Union (EU) member states located between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black seas. A large part of its success has been due to its narrow scope, namely connectivity across the energy, transport, and digital sectors. However, with mounting geopolitical pressure along Europe’s eastern flank, these same sectors in 3SI countries are increasingly targeted by hostile hybrid activities. To effectively address the evolving security challenges—particularly those aimed at critical energy, transport, and digital infrastructure—the 3SI should add defense innovation as another pillar of its mission.

By leveraging its existing strengths, the 3SI can accelerate the development and cross-border deployment of advanced security and defense technologies to help protect critical infrastructure. This would significantly bolster regional resilience and help deter threats operating in the “gray zone” between civilian and military domains. With shared threat perceptions and strategic alignment, 3SI member states—supported by key partners such as the United States, Germany, the European Commission, Japan, and Ukraine—are uniquely positioned to confront these challenges.

The best way for the 3SI to proceed is by creating a 3SI Defense Innovation Hub that cuts across the three existing pillars of energy, transport, and digital. Devoted to developing cutting-edge technologies for critical infrastructure protection, the 3SI Defense Innovation Hub would contribute to the much-needed paradigm shift in the overall approach to connectivity projects. It would do this by incorporating tools and processes for protection from the very outset of infrastructure planning.

Moreover, the 3SI Defense Innovation Hub could evolve into a key specialized critical infrastructure protection node within a broader allied defense innovation ecosystem, spanning from North America to Europe to the Indo-Pacific. In doing so, it could help serve as a strategic counterweight to the deepening defense-industrial cooperation and hybrid warfare efforts of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.

A region under attack

Across the 3SI region, Russia-backed saboteurs have increasingly targeted energy infrastructure as part of hybrid campaigns aimed at undermining societal resilience and inflicting economic harm. Undersea pipelines and power cables in the Baltic Sea have suffered clandestine cuts and physical damage, prompting NATO and littoral states to launch dedicated missions to safeguard these vital links.

On land, arson attacks and hoax bomb threats, including waves of coordinated false alarms at Lithuanian schools, airports, and governmental institutions, have become widespread phenomena. While delivering no physical destruction, these false alarms incidents have strained security services and revealed gaps in crisis-response protocols.

In the transport domain, rail lines across the 3SI region and in Germany have been subject to sabotage attempts aimed at fracturing strategic north–south corridors. In addition, GPS jamming—likely from Russian electronic-warfare units in Kaliningrad—has repeatedly degraded navigation for commercial shipping and civilian flights in the Baltic Sea region. This jamming has forced in-flight diversions and resulted in aborted landings. Potentially more destructive planned attacks have thankfully been detected before being carried out. Earlier this month, for example, three men were arrested in an alleged Russia-linked plot to place parcels with explosives on cargo planes traveling from Europe to the United States and Canada.

The digital battlefield in 3SI countries has become equally contested. For example, cyberattacks have targeted governmental institutions in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Latvia, as well as energy-sector operators in Romania, exploiting unpatched systems to plant malware or launch distributed denial-of-service attacks. Chinese cargo and Russian “shadow fleet” vessels maneuvering in the Baltic Sea are suspected of cutting undersea data cables, as well, posing a threat to digital connectivity in the region.

Collectively, these hybrid threats expose the vulnerability of siloed infrastructure sectors and underscore the urgent need for the 3SI to integrate defense-grade innovations into its energy, transport, and digital development agenda.

Incorporating defense from the start

Critical civilian infrastructure in the energy, transport, and digital domains no longer exists in isolation from the military domain—the domains have merged into a single battlefield of resilience and readiness. Power grids and pipelines, once engineered solely for economic efficiency, must now be designed with embedded defensive features. This includes hardened control systems, automated isolation protocols, and redundant interconnects that can withstand kinetic strikes, physical impact, or cyber-enabled sabotage.

Likewise, north–south transport corridors can no longer be planned as purely commercial arteries: They must accommodate the rapid deployment of heavy armor, pre-positioned logistics modules, and secure communications nodes, all while deterring adversarial probes or hybrid ambushes.

This is the area in which the 3SI has already recognized its role, as evident in its 2024 Joint Declaration, which reaffirms the need to strengthen “the resilience of dual-use infrastructure in the region for enhanced civilian and military mobility along the North-South axis.” However, if established, the proposed 3SI Defense Innovation Hub should go further and offer solutions not only for upgrading new transport infrastructure for a dual civil-military use, but also for effectively protecting it from physical and cyber sabotage.

True resilience requires that innovation for the protection of critical infrastructure be integral to the earliest design and development phases of the 3SI’s infrastructure. An alternative, retrofitting “defense layers” onto critical infrastructure systems after their construction has been finalized, often creates significant security gaps and increases costs. It’s better to incorporate these aspects from the start.

The bigger picture

The 3SI’s broad partnership network—anchored by the United States, Germany, the European Commission, Japan, and enriched by Ukraine—provides an unparalleled foundation for extending its remit into defense innovation and contributing to the broader goal of transatlantic defense-industrial alignment.

With Russia’s war against Ukraine transforming the way war is fought and placing constant pressure on Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure, Europe must adapt its technologies and defense strategies to prepare to confront similar challenges. Learning from Ukraine, which, under constant attack, has become a real-time innovation lab for unmanned systems, energy resilience solutions, and rapid infrastructure repairs, is essential.

With Chinese coercion and sabotage around Taiwan posing similar threats to regional stability, it is clear that a broader adversarial strategy is at play. As the European and Indo-Pacific theaters become increasingly interconnected due to similar security challenges, it will be necessary for European countries, the United States, and democratic nations in the Indo-Pacific to align their responses.

In the meantime, the United States and the EU are searching for common ground in aligning their defense industries. However, tensions have persisted, particularly around new EU funding mechanisms, which are often perceived in Washington as favoring domestic European firms at the expense of transatlantic cooperation.

This is where the 3SI can play a pivotal role. By launching a Defense Innovation Hub focused on critical infrastructure protection, the 3SI could serve as a catalyst for deeper transatlantic defense-industrial alignment. Such a hub would help bridge regulatory, political, and operational gaps, offering a constructive step forward in building a truly interoperable, forward-leaning allied defense ecosystem in a common effort to outpace and out-innovate authoritarian challengers.

The way forward

The upcoming Croatian presidency of the 3SI in 2026—marking the tenth anniversary of the initiative’s inaugural summit in Dubrovnik—offers a timely opportunity to expand the initiative’s mission to include defense innovation.

Building on its success in infrastructure development, the 3SI should replicate its network-based model in the defense sector—pooling risk and capital among governments, private industry, and financial institutions. This would unlock dual-use innovation pipelines that are often too complex or costly for individual actors to pursue alone. The recently launched 3SI Innovation Fund offers a promising starting point for exploring sustainable financing mechanisms to support the activities of a potential 3SI Defense Innovation Hub.

As the geopolitical landscape grows more contested, the 3SI should evolve from a connectivity-focused platform into a strategic driver of allied resilience. A dedicated Defense Innovation Hub would make the 3SI a force multiplier for NATO and EU efforts—accelerating deterrence, deepening regional interoperability, and embedding security into the DNA of the eastern flank’s critical infrastructure while at the same time providing a much-needed push for a transatlantic defense-industrial alignment.

Justina Budginaite-Froehly is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

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Europe is striking back at Russia’s shadow fleet. Here’s what to know about the latest EU and UK sanctions.

Atlantic Council experts — Wed, 21 May 2025 22:00:06 +0000

Brussels and London are ratcheting up pressure on Moscow—without Washington. On Tuesday, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom approved scores of new sanctions against Russia, including the EU more than doubling the number of oil tankers and other vessels listed as part of the “shadow fleet” covertly trading Russian oil and gas. The EU package—the seventeenth since Russia’s war against Ukraine began—also adds new sanctions on individuals and companies, including the Russian oil giant Surgutneftegas. “This round of sanctions on Russia is the most wide-sweeping since the start of the war,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. Below, Atlantic Council experts shine a light on the sanctions and what they reveal about Europe’s faceoff with Russia.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Rachel Rizzo: Europe is no longer waiting for the United States to act

Elisabeth Braw: Spotlight who is replenishing Russia’s shadow fleet, too

Aleksander Cwalina: There is still more the EU can do to tighten the screws to Russia

Olga Khakova: If Trump also goes after the shadow fleet, it could bring Putin to the table

Sanctions are a powerful, yet slow-burning tool

The EU’s seventeenth package is a welcome addition to the extensive sanctions the Group of Seven-plus (G7+) coalition maintain on Russia in response to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The latest package further brings EU sanctions in line with US and UK designations on Russian oil producers including Surgutneftegas, as well as the ongoing strategy to target Russia’s illicit oil trade using shadow fleet vessels.

The extent and timing of this latest sanctions package demonstrate Europe’s resolve to maintain economic pressure on Russia, and they are a clear signal that Europe maintains strong economic leverage in potential negotiations with Russia to end the war.

It’s hard not to notice that the sanctions were announced the day after US President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and posted on social media that “Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree.” There is growing concern about a potential divergence in US and EU foreign policy, and the latest EU package is a strong reminder that EU sanctions could remain in place even if Washington decides to ease its sanctions or open avenues for trade and finance with Moscow.

That said, EU sanctions require renewal every six months and need consensus by all twenty-seven members. If the United States does not maintain economic pressure on Russia, then there is concern that Hungary may break with the bloc and veto EU sanctions on Russia’s economy when they are up for renewal in July.

Sanctions are a powerful, yet slow-burning tool. The multilateral sanctions that G7+ coalition partners levied against Russia are finally having the intended effect. Russia’s economy is struggling, interest rates and inflation remain high, Russia is drawing down on its National Welfare Fund, and the country is in a wartime economy. This is why Moscow’s primary demand from the Black Sea cease-fire talks was lifting sanctions.

To get a better and bigger deal with Russia over the war in Ukraine, it would be in Washington’s best interest to not only engage its European allies in negotiations, but also to join them in issuing additional sanctions to deny Moscow the opportunity to gain leverage at the negotiation table.

Europe is no longer waiting for the United States to act

The latest round of EU sanctions against Russia highlights the EU’s willingness to do something it hasn’t yet done since February 2022: take ownership over the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The United States has always been in the driver’s seat, with the Biden administration both shaping and leading the West’s response to the war. The re-election of Trump brought an almost 180-degree shift in the US approach, with a much more conciliatory tone toward Russia emanating from the White House, along with a hope that Trump’s dealmaking skills could get both sides to the table for a cease-fire. That approach has yet to bear fruit.

This is where the EU’s pressure becomes important. It highlights the bloc’s willingness to act independently of the United States and use its own tools to get Russia to the table without waiting for the United States to provide political cover. With European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen leading the charge, the hope is that the EU stays united on the sanctions front for the foreseeable future, squeezing Russia’s war machine (and its broader economy) to the point where Putin has no other choice than to stop the war.

—Rachel Rizzo is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. Her research focuses on European security, NATO, and the transatlantic relationship.

Spotlight who is replenishing Russia’s shadow fleet, too

Every sanction helps reduce the shadow fleet’s activities, and the EU’s diligent efforts to identify shadow vessels are to be saluted. The EU should be especially proud of its latest package, which includes sanctions against an extraordinary 189 shadow vessels and some of the ships’ owners. The latter is especially important, since the owners do their best to operate in the shadows and are extremely hard to trace.

However, the shadow fleet’s main characteristic remains in place: the fact that it can be constantly replenished. It can be replenished because there are ship owners willing to sell their retirement-age ships into the shadow fleet. In fact, doing so is commercially advantageous for them: Retiring old vessels involves paying for them to be scrapped, while selling them into the shadow fleet brings in money—a lot of it.

Unfortunately, a few shipowners, including in Western countries, undermine sanctions against Russia by selling their ships into the shadow fleet. Perhaps even worse, by doing so, they willingly create risks on the high seas, because shadow vessels pose hazards to other vessels, to the maritime environment, and to coastal states. Publishing their names would send a strong message.

—Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

There is still more the EU can do to tighten the screws to Russia

On the sidelines of the G7 finance ministers’ meetings in Banff, Canada, this week, the United States opposed language in a joint statement that included “further support” for Ukraine. The United States also expressed reluctance to describe the Russian full-scale invasion of the country as “illegal,” further distancing Washington from its G7 counterparts. This follows a concerning trend as Trump has talked about Washington stepping back in peace talks and eventually restarting US trade with Russia.

In contrast, the European Commission pushed forward and adopted its seventeenth sanctions package against Russia, underlining European Union unity and clarity. The package closed some remaining loopholes that allow Russia to fund its war machine and access key Western technology for military use. In doing so, it reiterated EU solidarity with Ukraine.

The package was received well in Kyiv, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling the newest round of sanctions “strong” and saying that they will limit Moscow’s ability to continue its invasion.

However, more can be done to tighten the screws on Russia.

Kyiv and its European allies are already discussing how to raise the stakes in a harsher eighteenth EU sanctions package if Moscow does not make serious efforts toward a cease-fire. This would most likely target the Russian banking and energy sectors and aim to further limit the Russian shadow fleet that Moscow uses to evade maritime trade restrictions. The EU and its partners should continue to target these industries. The bloc should also seriously consider seizing assets from sanctioned individuals in the EU for Ukraine and implementing secondary sanctions that limit third-party purchasing of Russian oil—both steps recommended by Kyiv.

As European leaders are becoming increasingly frustrated with Washington’s stalling and Putin’s faux negotiations and maximalist demands, the EU should lead by example and take bold steps to continue aiding Ukraine and putting pressure on Russia.

—Aleksander Cwalina is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

If Trump also goes after the shadow fleet, it could bring Putin to the table

Putin’s strategy of buying time with deceitful “peace” promises is shown to be failing in the face of the new EU and UK sanctions, as funding for Moscow’s war starts to run out.

The shadow fleet carries more than 60 percent of Russian oil exports, according to a recent estimate, and the new sanctions will help strengthen enforcement of the price-caps mechanism on Russian oil. Currently, there are some discussions at the G7 level on lowering the price cap for the next sanctions package. But lowering the price cap will only impact Russia if it is enforced. Otherwise, Russia will continue to send large quantities of its oil through the shadow fleet, ensuring it continues to rake in profits.

In addition to curtailing Russia’s oil profits, the shadow fleet sanctions protect European coastlines from the potential environmental damage and sabotage that the Russian shadow fleet could cause. Europe is achieving this by refusing the provision of services, insurance, and port access to these metal-scrap grade ships.

The United States has already sanctioned 183 vessels. Now, Trump has an opportunity to forge his legacy as a peacemaker by joining the EU and UK sanctions on 342 vessels to bring Putin to the negotiating table. Moscow will only take US pressure seriously if it is implemented with decisiveness and strength—something the Trump administration has demonstrated effectively in tough negotiations with other nations.

—Olga Khakova is the deputy director for European energy security at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

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Putin aims to destroy Ukraine and has zero interest in a compromise peace

Peter Dickinson — Wed, 21 May 2025 20:51:25 +0000

US President Donald Trump came away from Monday’s phone call with Vladimir Putin expressing confidence that the Russian leader wants peace, but few others appear to share this optimism. Many senior Western figures were reportedly unimpressed by Putin’s vague references to a “memorandum on a possible peace agreement” and believe he is still engaging in stalling tactics. “Putin is clearly playing for time. Unfortunately we have to say Putin is not really interested in peace,” commented German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

Trump’s latest call to Putin also prompted fresh questions over the US leader’s handling of the faltering peace process. Britain’s The Economist pondered Trump’s “strange reluctance to get tough with Putin,” while Washington Post columnist Max Boot led a chorus of voices accusing the Kremlin strongman of manipulating his American counterpart. “While Trump’s lack of success in peacemaking might not doom Ukraine, it certainly dispels the president’s pretensions to being a world-class deal maker,” argued Boot. “Putin is playing him for a fool, and Trump doesn’t even seem to realize it.”

The mood was very different in Moscow, with the Kremlin-controlled media trumpeting the call as a significant success for Russian diplomacy. In his daily press review, BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg reported that many of Russia’s leading news outlets were “crowing” over the contents of the Trump-Putin conversation. “It looks like Russia has won the latest round of global poker,” commented one newspaper. “Donald Trump’s stance couldn’t be more advantageous to Moscow,” observed another.

It is no surprise to see mounting unease in Western capitals over the US push to end the Russia-Ukraine War. Since Trump first initiated peace talks in February, Ukraine has agreed to an unconditional ceasefire and signaled its readiness to make major territorial concessions. In contrast, Russia has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire while proposing new conditions of its own and creating various obstacles to any meaningful progress. At one point, Putin even claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lacked the legitimacy to sign off on a peace deal and suggested placing Ukraine under United Nations administration.

Recent diplomatic developments have further underlined Russia’s reluctance to end the war. When the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and Poland delivered a ceasefire ultimatum to Putin in early May, the Russian ruler responded by calling for the first bilateral talks with Ukraine since spring 2022. However, Putin then chose not to attend the bilateral meeting in Istanbul that he himself had proposed, preferring instead to send a low-level delegation. This was widely interpreted as a “slap in the face” for Ukraine and the collective West.

Putin’s representatives during last week’s negotiations in Istanbul sought to emphasize Moscow’s unwillingness to compromise, calling on Kyiv to officially cede four entire provinces to Russia including a number of major Ukrainian cities that the Kremlin has so far been unable to seize militarily. If Ukraine refuses to do so, they warned, Russia will increase its demands to include six Ukrainian provinces. “We fought Sweden for twenty-one years. How long are you ready to fight?” the head of the Russian delegation reportedly commented, in reference to the eighteenth century Great Northern War. “Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones. Russia is prepared to fight forever.”

While Putin rarely makes such thinly veiled threats, he continues to insist that any settlement must focus on eliminating what he refers to as the “root causes” of the war. This is generally understood to mean Ukraine’s international neutrality and disarmament, along with the reestablishment of Russia’s former imperial dominance in every sphere of Ukrainian public life, from language and education to national memory and religion. Any Ukrainian leader who agreed to such terms would be signing their country’s death sentence.

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Trump’s efforts to talk up the prospects of a negotiated peace and his attempts to entice Putin with commercial incentives suggest a fundamentally flawed understanding of Russia’s war aims in Ukraine. The US leader seems to sincerely believe that Putin can be persuaded to end his invasion by the promise of limited territorial gains and future economic prosperity. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Putin is not fighting for Ukrainian land; he is fighting for Ukraine itself. He views the current war in the broadest of possible historical terms and sees the destruction of the Ukrainian state as a sacred mission that will define his entire reign and shape Russia’s future for decades to come. It is ludicrous to suggest that he could be swayed from this messianic vision by mundane talk of trade deals and sanctions relief.

Putin’s thirst for historical revenge can be traced back to his traumatic experience during the collapse of the Soviet Union. While Putin did not personally face the grinding poverty that millions of his compatriots endured in the 1990s, Russia’s national fall from grace nevertheless made a profound impression on him. Ever since, he has been haunted by fears of a further imperial collapse and driven by a determination to reverse the verdict of 1991. This has fueled his revanchist brand of Russian nationalism, and helps to explain his otherwise inexplicable obsession with Ukraine.

Throughout his reign, Putin has made no secret of his bitter resentment over the breakup of the USSR, which he has called “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century” and “the disintegration of historical Russia.” Crucially, he views Ukraine as a central and indivisible part of this fabled “historical Russia.” Indeed, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv occupies pride of place in his imperial mythology as “the mother of all Russian cities.”

To Putin, the emergence of an independent Ukraine is a symbol of Russia’s post-Soviet humiliation and a potential catalyst for the next stage in his country’s retreat from empire. According to this twisted imperial logic, if a province as quintessentially Russian as Ukraine is allowed to break away and establish itself as a modern European democracy, the entire Russian Federation will be in danger of disintegrating. Likewise, Putin is convinced that if Ukraine can be returned to its rightful place within Greater Russia, the injustice of 1991 will be undone and Russia will resume its position among the world’s Great Powers.

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Putin has been attempting to force Ukraine back into the Kremlin orbit ever since the 2004 Orange Revolution, which he personally helped spark by clumsily intervening in Ukraine’s presidential election. The violence of these efforts has escalated in direct proportion to the strengthening of modern Ukraine’s own national identity. At first, Putin pursued his imperial goals in Ukraine through control of the country’s political, business, cultural, and religious elites. When this failed, he ordered the 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Once it became apparent that even this partial occupation of the country would not derail Ukraine’s national consolidation, Putin made the fateful decision to launch the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

The rising tide of Russian aggression against Ukraine has been accompanied by ever more extreme anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. For years, Putin has publicly insisted that Ukrainians are Russians (“one people”). On the eve of the current invasion, he published an entire essay denying Ukraine’s right to exist. Putin and other senior Kremlin officials have repeatedly labeled Ukraine as an artificial country built on stolen Russian land, a Nazi invention, and an intolerable “anti-Russia” created for the purpose of undermining Russia itself. Ukrainians who insist on their own national identity are typically portrayed as traitors undeserving of sympathy or mercy.

This dehumanizing propaganda has laid the ideological foundations for the crimes that are currently being committed by the occupying Russian army in Ukraine. Wherever the Kremlin is able to establish control, Ukrainian patriots and community leaders are routinely detained and incarcerated in a vast network of prisons and camps. While the number of victims remains unknown, UN officials have concluded that the large scale and systematic nature of the disappearances qualifies as a crime against humanity. Those who remain are subjected to a reign of terror and forced to accept Russian citizenship while submitting their children to indoctrination. Meanwhile, all traces of Ukrainian national identity, culture, and statehood are being ruthlessly erased. Many experts believe these actions qualify as genocide.

Putin is understandably happy to exploit the Trump administration’s enthusiasm for peace talks. This allows him to buy time, divide the West, and reduce the flow of weapons to Ukraine. But it is already abundantly clear that he has no real interest in ending his invasion. Indeed, he dare not stop. Any peace deal that secures Ukraine’s survival as an independent state would be viewed in Moscow as a major defeat. Rather than taking his place alongside Stalin, Peter the Great, and Ivan the Terrible as one of Russia’s greatest rulers, Putin would be remembered in Russian history as the man who lost Ukraine. He would rather fight on indefinitely than accept such a fate.

Trump deserves considerable credit for seizing the initiative and attempting to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. At the same time, his current approach is obviously not working. The time has now come to stop seeking compromises with the Kremlin and start speaking to Putin in the language of strength. This means tightening sanctions on Russia and targeting the many countries that continue to fuel Putin’s war machine. Above all, it means significantly increasing military aid to Kyiv and boosting Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia on the battlefield. Putin has staked his entire reign on the destruction of Ukraine. He will not back down unless forced to do so. Peace will only come when Ukraine is too strong to be subjugated.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Although the details of Golden Dome remain unclear, the Trump administration should seek to hold a revived missile defense dialogue with US partners and allies across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Such a dialogue would serve the Trump administration’s agenda in its strategic, political, and industrial dimensions. However, the success of this dialogue and effective missile defense collaboration will require overcoming technical military challenges, as well as carefully addressing the sensitivities of regional partners. In particular, this means being careful not to overstate Golden Dome’s role in the United States’ pledges of extended deterrence to its allies.

Can US missile defense help the Pentagon prioritize the Indo-Pacific?

Renewing US investment in missile defense could be seen by the current administration as a way to help reassure allies from the threat of potential adversaries such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran while mitigating the need for a massive deployment of US troops on the ground. This logic is not new. During the Obama administration, US officials conveyed to NATO allies that deploying missile defense systems in Europe would compensate for the reduction in the number of army brigades deployed on the continent. The origins of Poland’s Aegis Ashore system in Redzikowo, officially transferred to NATO in November 2024, date back to the decisions taken by the Obama administration.

Given the Trump administration’s desire to reduce the US military footprint worldwide and focus on strategic competition with China, missile defense could be a convenient way to maintain global influence while lowering overseas troop commitments. From the outset, missile defense has always involved advanced technologies, demanding years of research and development that only a few countries can afford. If Golden Dome achieves its goals, it will shift resources to develop space-based missile defense systems. This could disrupt the current market for missile defense, which is made up mainly of ground and naval-based sensors and interceptors. Today, none of the US allies and partners in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia has a space industry that could credibly invest in this new domain. Consequently, it is likely that strategic cooperation on Golden Dome means allies procuring future US missile defense systems and added incentives for co-production. A few regional partners are engaged in the co-production of US missile defense systems, such as Japan* for the surface-to-air SM-3 and PAC-3 missiles. Last April, Japan proposed the co-production of SM-6 new-generation long-range ship-to-air missiles. Israel may be interested in similar collaborations, as its main missile defense systems (Iron Dome, Arrow, David’s Sling) already rely on co-development and co-production with the United States.

For a broader allied collaboration on missile defense production to take shape, however, the United States will need to navigate several military and diplomatic difficulties in dialogues with its partners.

Different allies, different reassurance needs

First, US partners in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific face different threats from their respective adversaries’ missile capabilities. Golden Dome is conceived to address global competitors launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at US territory. It is planned to include space-based interceptors, which could prove effective in defending allies against adversaries using long-range ballistic missiles—for instance, if Russia were to launch a strike against Europe.

However, Europeans are also worried about shorter-range cruise missiles and drone campaigns such as the one launched by Russia in Ukraine, which requires different systems to address. In light of Ukraine’s experience, Europeans started addressing their capability gaps to protect against a full spectrum of air threats (cruise missiles, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, aircraft, and unmanned aircraft sysems). Meanwhile, the Gulf states and Israel face the threat from rockets and missiles fired by Iran or its proxies.

The ability of missile defense to reassure local partners varies according to the severity of the threat. For instance, in the extreme scenario of a total US withdrawal of troops from South Korea, it is unlikely that Seoul would view US missile defense as a credible substitute for US boots on the ground as a defense against North Korea. Lastly, allies and partners are unlikely to receive the same amount of attention. The United States is prioritizing the Indo-Pacific theater, and Golden Dome is intended as a technological breakthrough in the space domain—an area where China is rapidly advancing. This will lead European and Gulf states to fear being left out of any new missile defense arrangement.

Golden Dome and Alliance politics

The second challenge facing Washington lies in the disparities in the regional security architectures in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In the past two decades, the United States has only succeeded in creating a truly regional framework for missile defense in Europe.

In the Middle East and Asia, most US missile defense cooperation is bilateral. The lack of regional integration often results from distrust among local partners. It is also caused by the reluctance of countries in these regions to tie their national security prerogatives to an intergovernmental mechanism heavily dependent on Washington. This constrains the United States’ ability to apply missile defense cooperation lessons from NATO elsewhere.

In the Middle East and Asia, Washington must build on its existing cooperation frameworks and should consider exploring new formats. The August 2023 Camp David Summit opened up the development of a trilateral security cooperation framework with Japan and South Korea, with more consultation, information-sharing, and cooperation designed to accompany the integration of Indo-Pacific missile defense architecture. The three countries have since implemented real-time information sharing about North Korean missile launches. Additionally, missile defense could become an item on the agenda of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or between NATO and its four Asian partners—Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

Washington will also have to accommodate the different industrial interests of its partners. Today, US allies have domestic defense industries with their own missile defense programs to protect. In Asia, countries such as South Korea and Japan have produced their own missile defense systems. Even though they will keep procuring US products, their governments will carefully protect their industrial bases. In Europe, the Sky Shield initiative, launched in 2022 by twenty-four participating countries, will rely on US Patriot and Israeli Arrow batteries. France fiercely opposed the initiative in the name of strategic autonomy, to no avail.

However, Sky Shield may not reflect the current state of US-European relations. Golden Dome emerges amid a transatlantic crisis in which Europeans are trying to become more self-sufficient in their defense. Their desire for strategic autonomy and the need to protect the European defense industrial base mean they will likely pursue their own version of missile defense. In this case, European governments must make clear the areas where they intend to design and produce their own systems, including investments in the space domain.

Differences in political priorities and strategic culture are inevitable, but consultations should identify the space for common interests between the United States and its allies. The case of Israel offers positive lessons on cooperation in missile defense. The US and Israeli militaries have very few things in common when it comes to threat assessment, force structure, and doctrine, not to mention Israel’s desire to protect its national defense industry. But both countries—and their defense industries—have found ways to develop missile defense technologies to mutual benefit.

Ultimately, the success of a renewed missile defense dialogue will boil down to how much cooperation on the Golden Dome project can serve the security interests of US partners. While the deterrent value of missile defense remains limited, Golden Dome could play a complementary role. With nuclear and missile threats becoming ever more serious, the question of how to defend against such attacks has never been more salient in allied capitals, be they in Europe, the Middle East, or the Indo-Pacific.

Léonie Allard is a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, previously serving at the French Ministry of Armed Forces.

Jean-Loup Samaan is a senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore, as well as a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.

Correction: This article was updated on May 29, 2025 to reflect the fact that multiple regional partners engage in co-production of US missile defense systems. A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Japan was the only country to do so.

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Kumar quoted by AFP on how Trump is shaping US ties with G7 countries

irosales — Wed, 21 May 2025 17:30:19 +0000

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The European Union Growth Plan for the Western Balkans: A reality test for EU enlargement

Valbona Zeneli, Richard Grieveson, Isabelle Ioannides, Dimitar Bechev — Tue, 20 May 2025 21:19:05 +0000

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The European Union (EU) Growth Plan for the Western Balkans aims to integrate the region into the EU single market, enhance regional cooperation, implement significant governance and rule of law reforms, and boost EU financial support. In doing so, the EU seeks to foster economic development, political stability, and security in the region amid rising geopolitical tensions, while accelerating the Western Balkans’ EU accession process.

The Growth Plan holds substantial potential to reinvigorate the enlargement process and counter the stagnation felt by both the EU and the region. Strong points include:

Tangible benefits before full accession: Providing stronger incentives for reform.
Active involvement of regional governments: Increasing buy-in from local leaders, who must submit their own reform agendas.
Enhanced economic integration, greater access to the EU market, increased EU funding, and reforms to governance and the rule of law: Stimulating investment, promoting economic growth, and raising living standards.

These improvements would bring the Western Balkans closer to the economic success seen in the Central and Eastern European countries in the EU over the past two decades. Moreover, fostering deeper regional cooperation will not only deliver an economic boost but also contribute to political normalization. If successful, the plan will bolster the EU’s political influence in the region, countering the impact of external actors and encouraging much-needed nearshoring investment from EU firms.

However, the plan faces several challenges:

Enforceability: Although conditionality is rigorous, with disbursement of funds tied to strict conditions to prevent misuse, there are concerns regarding its enforceability. The European Court of Auditors has already raised reservations.
Quantity: Additionally, the financial support offered is significantly lower than what EU member states in Southeast Europe receive. The reforms required for fund access and single market integration are substantial and will demand significant political will and institutional capacity—both of which have been lacking in the region at times over the past two decades.

The success of the growth plan will largely depend on its implementation. The EU must ensure rigorous enforcement of conditionality, reward positive reform steps, and increase funding for countries making progress. Civil society in the Western Balkans should be engaged as much as possible to foster broader support and transparency. The EU should also leverage the plan to align with its broader geopolitical and geoeconomic interests, particularly in strengthening its strategic autonomy. Additionally, the Growth Plan should be fully integrated with the EU’s competitiveness, green, and digital transition agendas. For their part, Western Balkans leaders should seize the increased agency provided by the plan. They must take ownership of the reforms they propose, participate actively in EU meetings, and design their reform agendas to deliver better living standards and deeper EU integration for their populations.

About the authors

Fellow

Valbona Zeneli

Europe Center Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Albanian Corruption

Dimitar Bechev
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Europe Center, Atlantic Council
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe

Isabelle Ioannides
Nonresident Senior Research Fellow
Hellenic Foundation for Foreign and European Policy (ELIAMEP)

Richard Grieveson
Deputy Director
Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies

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The Europe Center promotes leadership, strategies, and analysis to ensure a strong, ambitious, and forward-looking transatlantic relationship.

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US-Ukraine minerals deal creates potential for economic and security benefits

Svitlana Kovalchuk — Tue, 20 May 2025 20:50:09 +0000

The Ukrainian parliament ratified a landmark economic partnership agreement with the United States in early May, setting the stage for a new chapter in bilateral relations between Kyiv and Washington. The minerals deal envisages long-term cooperation in the development of Ukrainian natural resources. It marks an historic shift in Ukraine’s status from aid recipient to economic partner, while potentially paving the way for the attraction of strategic investments that could help fuel the country’s recovery.

The agreement was widely welcomed in Kyiv. Ukraine’s Minister of Economy and First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko called the deal “the foundation of a new model of interaction with a key strategic partner,” and noted that the Reconstruction Investment Fund within the framework of the agreement would be operational within a matter of weeks. “Its success will depend on the level of US engagement,” she emphasized.

This deal isn’t just about mining and investment. It is a new kind of partnership that combines economic cooperation with security interests. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who played a key role in negotiating the terms of the agreement, said the minerals deal was a signal to Americans that the United States could “be partners in the success of the Ukrainian people.” Others have stressed that the partnership will allow the US to recoup the billions spent supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia. However, the deal isn’t primarily about reimbursement. It is a declaration of a strategic alliance rooted in mutual economic interest.

The new agreement between Kyiv and Washington differs greatly from classic concession deals as Ukraine retains full ownership of national natural resources while the Reconstruction Investment Fund will be under joint management. Unlike more traditional trade deals or resource acquisitions, this is a strategic agreement that combines commercial objectives with geopolitical interests, making it a textbook example of economic statecraft. By establishing military aid as a form of capital investment, the United States is securing a long-term stake in Ukraine’s security and the management of the country’s resources.

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The minerals deal with Ukraine offers a number of obvious potential advantages for the United States. Crucially, it ensures preferential access to rare and highly valued natural resources like lithium and titanium, thereby reducing dependency on China. This is a strategic win for Washington with the possibility of significant long-term geopolitical implications. The deal also creates a framework for further US military aid to be treated as an investment via the Reconstruction Investment Fund, providing opportunities for the United States to benefit economically from continued support for Ukraine.

By signing a long-term resource-sharing agreement, the United States is also sending an important signal to Moscow about its commitment to Ukraine. Any US investments in line with the minerals deal will involve a significant American financial and physical presence in Ukraine, including in areas that are close to the current front lines of the war. Advocates of the deal believe this could help deter further Russian aggression. Kremlin officials are also doubtless aware that around forty percent of Ukraine’s critical mineral reserves are located in regions currently under Russian occupation.

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There are fears that the mineral deal makes Ukraine too dependent on the United States and leaves the country unable to manage its own resources independently. Some critics have even argued that it is a form of dependency theory in action, with Ukraine’s mineral wealth set to primarily fuel the needs of US industry rather than building up the country’s domestic economy. However, advocates argue that Ukraine was able to negotiate favorable terms that create a credible partnership, while also potentially securing valuable geopolitical benefits.

The agreement provides the US with a form of priority access but not exclusivity. Specifically, the US is granted the right to be informed about investment opportunities in critical minerals and to negotiate purchase rights under market conditions. However, the framework of the agreement explicitly respects Ukraine’s commitments to the EU, ensuring that European companies can still compete for resource access.

In terms of implementation, it is important to keep practical challenges in mind. The identification, mining, and processing of mineral resources is not a short-term business with immediate payoffs. On the contrary, it could take between one and two decades to fully develop many of Ukraine’s most potentially profitable mines. Without a sustainable peace, it will be very difficult to secure the investment necessary to access Ukraine’s resources. Without investment, the Reconstruction Investment Fund risks becoming an empty gesture rather than an economic powerhouse.

The minerals deal has the potential to shift the dynamics of the war while shaping the US-Ukrainian relationship for years to come. The United States is not only investing in resources, it is also investing in influence. Viewed from Washington, the agreement is less about producing quick payoffs and more about allowing President Trump to make a statement to US citizens and to the Russians. For Ukraine, the minerals deal provides a boost to bilateral relations and creates opportunities for a new economic partnership. America’s strategic rivals will be watching closely to see how this partnership now develops.

Svitlana Kovalchuk is Executive Director at Yalta European Strategy (YES).

If these companies are forced to close, skilled professionals will seek employment abroad. This could lead to the leakage of knowledge and technologies. Meanwhile, with NATO countries likely to be focused on their own defense industries and strategic priorities, it is reasonable to assume that many Ukrainian defense sector companies will concentrate on exporting to more volatile regions. The potentially destabilizing impact of these trends is obvious. It is therefore vital to adopt effective measures to limit the spread of Ukrainian defense sector technologies, data, and finished products along with skilled developers, engineers, and operators to potential conflict zones around the world.

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Ukraine’s defense sector innovations fall into two categories. The first includes innovations that are easily replicated using readily available technologies. The second category features more complex systems requiring skilled professionals. It makes little sense to focus regulatory efforts on the first category. Instead, preventing proliferation is more effectively managed through intelligence operations and security measures. Preventative efforts should focus on those innovations that are more complex in both development and deployment.

Efforts to prevent Ukrainian defense technologies from fueling conflicts around the world will depend to a significant degree on enforcement. While Ukraine has made some progress in combating corruption over the past decade, this remains a major issue, particularly in the country’s dramatically expanded defense sector. A successful approach to limiting the spread of Ukrainian defense tech know-how should therefore incorporate a combination of positive and negative incentives.

Positive incentives can include opening up NATO markets to Ukrainian companies and supporting their efforts to comply with NATO standards. This would likely encourage a broader culture of compliance throughout the Ukrainian defense tech sector as companies sought to access the world’s most lucrative client base.

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Creating the conditions for the acquisition of Ukrainian companies by major international defense industry players could help to encourage a responsible corporate culture among Ukrainian companies while bolstering the country’s position globally. Likewise, enhanced access to funding and a simplified route to work visas and citizenship in the EU and US would help attract and retain talent. This would further strengthen Ukraine’s defense sector and encourage corporate compliance.

Professional organizations also have a potential role to play. Promoting the development of robust industry and professional associations for Ukrainians in the defense sector would encourage collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the establishment of industry standards, which could further propel innovation and growth within Ukraine’s defense industry, while creating a climate more conducive to regulation. Regulatory measures could include enhanced access to Western defense markets, with strict penalties for non-compliance.

Targeted export controls are another important measure. By establishing robust controls over critical components such as processors and specialized equipment, Ukraine can limit the availability of these technologies in regions with high conflict potential. Enhanced monitoring mechanisms should be implemented to track the transfer of technologies and the movement of skilled personnel. International cooperation is also crucial. Ukraine should look to work closely with global partners to synchronize regulatory standards and enforcement strategies, thereby reducing the challenges presented by regions with weak legal mechanisms.

Ukraine is now recognized internationally as a leading defense tech innovator in areas including AI solutions, cyber security, and drone warfare. There is huge global appetite for such technologies, but unregulated distribution could have disastrous consequences for international security. By combining enforceable regulatory measures with strategic incentives, it is possible to reduce the risks associated with the spread of Ukraine’s wartime innovations, while simultaneously maintaining an environment that supports ongoing innovation and growth in a controlled and secure manner.

Vitaliy Goncharuk is a US-based tech entrepreneur with Ukrainian roots who previously served as Chairman of the Artificial Intelligence Committee of Ukraine from 2019 to 2022.

Kumar quoted by AFP on how Trump’s tariffs are weighing on the G7 finance ministers’ summit

irosales — Tue, 20 May 2025 17:29:39 +0000

Listen to the full interview here

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Putin continues to thwart Trump’s goal of achieving a cease-fire

John E. Herbst — Tue, 20 May 2025 17:10:35 +0000

This is part of a series of regular assessments of the efforts, spearheaded by the Trump administration, to achieve a negotiated end to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Read the previous entry in the series here.

Both the Kremlin and the White House statements on the two-hour May 19 phone call between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin suggest that the results were meager—and Trump may be backing off some of his tough rhetoric on Putin. On Truth Social, Trump said: “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”

For his part, Putin labeled the conversation “informative and helpful,” but he also said that the “root cause of the issue” must be addressed. That means Ukraine must agree to the draconian terms that Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky recently set down in Istanbul, such as the demilitarization of Ukraine and Ukrainian troop withdrawals from Ukrainian territory Russia has “annexed” but does not occupy. In short, this represents zero movement toward ending the fighting since the Ukraine-Russia talks last week in Istanbul.

“I believe it went very well,” Trump said of the call with Putin on Monday. Trump’s positive characterization of the exchange is odd because last week, when Putin chose not to show up at the talks in Istanbul that he had proposed—talks that Trump encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to attend—Trump justified Putin’s capriciousness by saying that, of course Putin did not show up because he, Trump, was not there. The US president asserted that “Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together, okay?” In preparation for the call with Putin this week, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE.”

Yet at the end of that call, Trump was upbeat about the resumption of Russian-Ukrainian talks, and he was silent on the need for him to meet with Putin. This outcome is no surprise because Putin continues to thwart Trump’s stated goal of achieving an immediate end to the shooting. Putin underscored this Sunday night with the launch of the largest drone attack on Ukraine—over two hundred drones—since the start of the invasion.

In the days ahead of the call, US Vice President JD Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that if progress toward peace does not actually appear, the United States could “walk away” from the talks. This is a way of putting pressure on the parties. Without explanation, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration is frustrated with both sides, even though, as Vance said earlier this month, it is Russia that is asking for too much.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy and his European partners in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and elsewhere are proceeding with their efforts to place additional sanctions on Moscow, an effort that would be more effective at moving the Kremlin toward an actual cease-fire if Trump worked with this group. At the moment, White House policy does not reflect the view of 61 percent of the American public that the administration’s policy is weak on Putin.

Despite the tentativeness of recent White House policy, it cannot be ruled out that Trump will make good on his promise to achieve a durable peace by putting ample pressure on the party obstructing that outcome. But for now, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump blinked.

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Portugal’s shift to the right is accelerating. What does that mean for its future?

Andrew Bernard — Tue, 20 May 2025 16:47:38 +0000

Portugal is going through a historic rightward shift. Initial results from Sunday’s election have the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) winning, but without an absolute majority, the center-left Socialist Party (PS) falling hard, and the far-right Chega party continuing its meteoric rise.

This means that for the first time in Portuguese democratic history, there is not a “center majority” between the center-right and center-left. With new power balances in play, Portugal’s politics may get even messier—with political paralysis the new norm, preventing necessary reforms in key sectors such as housing, healthcare, and defense.

This was the third election in three years for Portuguese voters. Among European Union (EU) nations, only Bulgaria has had more elections than Portugal over the past seven years—and election fatigue was evident in this campaign. What Portuguese voters really want is stability, but these results might make that dream harder to come by in the months and years ahead.

Winners and losers

AD, a center-right coalition between the Social Democratic Party and the CDS-People’s Party, won the March 2024 legislative elections by the slimmest of margins, taking the reins of government from PS for the first time since 2015. That election also marked the surge of the far-right Chega party—“Enough” in Portuguese—with a strong third-place showing. Although this fractured political landscape made governing difficult for AD, led by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, it was still able to pass a budget and begin implementing its program as a minority government.

The 2025 election campaign was nearly identical to the 2024 cycle, with the same eight principal parties/coalitions on the ballot—all led by their same respective leaders. The Portuguese housing crisis and migration topped the list of voter concerns, followed by healthcare, pensions, and salaries. The war in Ukraine, transatlantic relations, and defense investment were not actively discussed during the campaign and the debates.

Three parties secured the majority of the 230 parliamentary seats, and they will drive the Portuguese political system for the near future.

AD won the election, but it fell short of an absolute majority. With eighty-nine seats (up from eighty in 2024), the election reinforces Montenegro’s belief that the country is asking for stability and the opportunity to govern with the normal full four-year mandate. But even if AD partners with smaller parties, it still will not have a majority to govern outright. Thus, AD is hoping the president will once again ask the center-right to form a minority government.

The Socialist Party was the big loser on Sunday, securing only fifty-eight seats (down from seventy-eight) and losing more than 360,000 votes from 2024. This is an epic fall for a party that has been a staple of Portuguese politics since the transition to democracy in the 1970s. In the next government, PS—even if aligned with small left-wing parties—will not be able to outright block government initiatives, leaving the role of kingmaker to Chega.

The far-right party was the biggest winner, as Chega secured fifty-eight seats (up from fifty), gaining more than 230,000 votes from the 2024 contest. Depending on the distribution of the last four seats, which are reserved for the votes of Portuguese citizens living outside the country, Chega could find itself in second place. (The distribution of these seats will be known by May 28.) In 2024, Chega won two of the four “emigrant” seats, with the other two split between PS and AD. A similar outcome this year would put Chega in the runner-up position. The election results show that the issues most central to Chega’s program—illegal migration and corruption—continue to resonate with the Portuguese electorate.

Political pitfalls ahead

Although AD won the most votes, there is no guarantee that President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will immediately invite Montenegro and AD to form a government. That’s because the president is keen on stability, and he made it clear during the election that he wants any government he nominates to have its program accepted by Parliament.

In Portugal, the nominated prime minister has ten days to present its governance plan to Parliament. If no party or faction within the new Parliament votes to reject (or approve) the program, then the program passes automatically, and the nominated government inherits full executive authority. Should any party or faction reject the program, then it would go to a vote to the whole of Parliament.

In this case, an absolute majority would be needed to bring down the nominated government—forcing the president to nominate a different government configuration (as happened in 2015) or subject the country to another legislative election. But the Portuguese Constitution prohibits the legislature from being dissolved within the first six months of its mandate or during the final six months of a presidential term. Rebelo de Sousa will finish his second term in March 2026, with the next presidential election scheduled for January 2026. This means late spring 2026 could be the earliest opportunity for new elections. So if a nominated government is brought down, it would leave a long-term caretaker government—a situation the president wants to avoid. It is unlikely that Chega and the Socialists would join forces to block the installation of an AD minority government. Nonetheless, the president will do his due diligence behind the scenes before nominating Montenegro to be prime minister again.

Regardless of the composition of the new government, there is now an absolute majority on the right. Should AD and Chega find common ground on a particular issue—such as immigration—they will be able to enact policy without the left blocking proposals. With Chega possibly becoming the number two party in Parliament, it will be under more pressure to show it is more than just an anti-incumbent party and has the ability and gravitas to govern.

From Lisbon to Washington

It is still too early to see how any new Portuguese government will approach the current US administration, but it is unlikely that Portugal will change its approach of having the transatlantic relationship be one of the pillars of its foreign policy. Montenegro’s government was reserved and cautious on transatlantic relations during the early days of the new US administration. The prime minister refused to critique the United States for its stance on Gaza, while asking for “realism” and dialogue concerning tariffs. Yet, Montenegro allowed his defense minister to openly question US predictability as an ally when making public comments about the potential purchase of the US-built F-35 fighter jet.

Chega’s outsized role in the next Parliament, even if it does not become part of the government, may change this dynamic and push the executive toward reinforced ties with the United States. US President Donald Trump invited André Ventura, Chega’s leader, to attend the presidential inauguration in January, while Chega vowed to “privilege the transatlantic link” and prioritize its alliance with the United States as part of its 2025 election campaign foreign policy program. Montenegro has often critiqued Chega as unreliable, but he may have to adapt to the new reality of the Portuguese political landscape.

The NATO Summit looms on the horizon, and it is possible a new government begins its mandate only a week or two before the June 24-25 event in The Hague. Whoever represents Portugal as head of government will have the unenviable position of articulating a plan to increase defense investment, which is still well below the 2 percent of gross domestic product threshold set in the Alliance’s 2014 Wales pledge.

Defense spending is one area that the AD and Chega may find common ground. Chega proposed for Portugal to meet its 2 percent goal in 2026, three years earlier than AD’s 2029 goal, while PS did not quantify a target date in its electoral plan. It will take political will by Montenegro and AD to use this opportunity to move Portugal out of the shrinking list of NATO members still unable to fulfill the Wales pledge. This willpower has been historically absent in Portugal among all parties, a country benefiting from its geography and its distance from the Alliance’s eastern flank to under-prioritize defense spending while focusing on social programs.

With the composition and functioning of the new government in flux, Portugal could remain in an era of political paralysis for some time. How the future center-right government leads with a far-right primary opposition will determine if the country can break through its fractured political landscape and address the country’s challenges. Lisbon’s foreign policy could remain unsettled for some time given this reality. The big question remains whether the government will come together effectively enough to avoid yet another election in a year’s time.

Andrew Bernard is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

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Tannebaum interviewed by Bloomberg on President Trump’s call with Putin and how the US can pressure Russia

irosales — Tue, 20 May 2025 14:57:09 +0000

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Lichfield quoted in NYT on how the G7 finance ministers’ summit may unfold

irosales — Tue, 20 May 2025 14:42:13 +0000

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Unpacking Russia’s cyber nesting doll

Justin Sherman — Tue, 20 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 challenged much of the common Western understanding of Russia. How can the world better understand Russia? What are the steps forward for Western policy? The Eurasia Center’s new “Russia Tomorrow” series seeks to reevaluate conceptions of Russia today and better prepare for its future tomorrow.

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Initial expectations
Russia’s cyber ecosystem
What happened to Russia’s cyber might?
Unpacking the (cyber) nesting doll
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
About the author

When the Russian government launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many Western observers braced for digital impact—expecting Russian military and security forces to unleash all-out cyberattacks on Ukraine. Weeks before Moscow’s full-scale war began, Politico wrote that the “Russian invasion of Ukraine could redefine cyber warfare.” The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) worried that past Russian malware deployments, such as NotPetya and WannaCry, could find themselves mirrored in new wartime operations—where the impacts would spill quickly and globally across companies and infrastructure. Many other headlines and stories asked questions about how, exactly, Russia would use cyber operations in modern warfare to wreak havoc on Ukraine. Some of these questions were fair, others clearly leaned into the hype, and all were circulated online, in the press, and in the DC policy bubble ahead of that fateful February 24 invasion.

As the Putin regime’s illegal war unfolded, however, it quickly belied these hypotheses and collapsed many Western assumptions about Russia’s cyber power. Russia didn’t deliver the expected cyber “kill strike” (instantly plummeting Ukraine into darkness). Ukrainian and NATO defenses (insofar as NATO has spent considerable time and energy to support Ukraine on cyber defense over the years) were sufficient to (mainly) withstand the most disruptive Russian cyber operations, compared at least to pre-February 2022 expectations. And Moscow showed serious incompetencies in coordinating cyber activities with battlefield kinetic operations. Flurries of operational activity, nonetheless, continue to this day from all parties involved in the war—as Russia remains a persistent and serious cyber threat to the United States, Ukraine, and the West. Russia’s continued cyber activity and major gaps between wartime cyber expectations and reality demand a Western rethink of years-old assumptions about Russia and cyber power—and of outdated ways of confronting the threats ahead.

Russia is still very much a cyber threat. Patriotic hackers and state security agencies, cybercriminals and private military companies, and so on blend together with deliberate state decisions, Kremlin permissiveness, entrepreneurialism, competition, petty corruption, and incompetence to create the Russian cyber web that exists today. The multidirectional, murky, and dynamic nature of Russia’s cyber ecosystem—relying on a range of actors, with different incentives, with shifting relationships with the state and one another—is part of the reason that the Russian cyber threat is so complex.

Policymakers in the United States as well as allied and partner countries should take at least five steps to size up and confront Russia’s cyber threat in the years to come:

When assessing the expectations-versus-reality of Russia’s wartime cyber operations, distinguish between capabilities and wartime execution.
Widen the circle of analysis to include not just Russian state hackers but the broader Russian cyber web, including patriotic hackers and state-coerced criminals.
Avoid the trap of assuming Russia can separate out cyber and information issues from other bilateral, multilateral, and security-related topics—maintaining its hostility toward Ukraine while, say, softening up on cyber operations against the United States.
Continue cyber information sharing about Russia with allies and partners around the world.
Invest in cyber defense and in cyber offense where appropriate.

Russia’s cyber ecosystem

Russia is home to a complex ecosystem of cyber actors. These include military forces, security agencies, state-recruited cybercriminals, state-coerced technology developers, state-encouraged patriotic hackers, self-identified patriotic hackers acting of their own volition, and more. Even Russian private military companies offer cyber operations, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and other digital capabilities to their clients. Together, these actors form a large, complex, often opaque, and dynamic ecosystem. The Kremlin has substantial power over this ecosystem, both guiding its overall shape (such as permitting large amounts of cybercrime to be perpetuated from within Russia) and leveraging particular actors as needed (discussed more below). Simultaneously, decisions aren’t always top-down, as entrepreneurial cybercriminals and hackers—much like “violent entrepreneurs” in Russian business and crime, or the “adhocrats” vying for Putin’s ear to pitch ideas—take initiative, build their own capabilities, and sell them to the state as well.

The relationships that different security agencies, at different levels, in different parts of the country and world, have with Russian hackers also vary over time. A local security service office might provide legal cover to a group of criminal hackers one day (after the necessary payoffs change hands, of course), only for a Moscow-based team to recruit them for a state operation the next. While the Kremlin has a sort of “social contract” with hackers—focus mainly on foreign targets; don’t undermine the Kremlin’s geopolitical objectives; be responsive to Russian government requests—its tolerance for a specific cybercriminal group can change on a whim, too. Security officials might take a bribe from a cybercriminal, much as their colleagues do on the regular, and still find their patrons in prison and their own wrists in handcuffs.

On the Russian government side, the principal units involved in offensive cyber operations are the Federal Security Service (FSB), the military intelligence agency (GRU), and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Russia does not have a proper, centrally coordinating cyber command; it was never launched despite attempts in the 2010s. The Ministry of Defense’s initial efforts to make one happen by circa 2014 were, it came to be understood later, overtaken by the subsequent establishment of Information Operations Troops with seemingly some coordinating functions—though experts still debate its analogousness to a “cyber command” and its level of shot-calling compared to bodies like the Presidential Administration. So while it is possible for the Russian security agencies to coordinate their (cyber) operations with one another, their engagements are marked more by competition than cooperation.

The most prominent example of this potential overlap or inefficiency is when GRU-linked APT28 and SVR-linked APT29 both hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016, making it unclear whether each knew the other was carrying out a similar campaign. This operational friction is exacerbated by the fact that the agencies’ general remits—SVR on human intelligence, for instance, and FSB mostly domestic—do not translate to the digital and online world. All three agencies hack military and civilian targets and, for example, the FSB actively targets and hacks organizations outside of Russia’s borders. Each agency approaches cyber operations differently, too, often in line with their overall institutional cultures—such as the GRU, known for its brazen kinetic operations including sabotage and assassination, carrying out the boldest and most destructive cyber operations, contrasted with the SVR, and its emphasis on secrecy, focusing on quiet cyber intelligence gathering like in the SolarWinds campaign. Still, the Russian state agencies with cyber operations remain active threats to the United States, Ukraine, the West, and plenty of others through intelligence-gathering efforts, disruptive operations, and efforts that meld both, such as hack-and-leak campaigns.

Beyond government units themselves, the state encourages patriotic hackers—sometimes just young, technically proficient Russians—to go after foreign targets through televised and online statements (such as disinformation about Ukraine). Different security organizations, such as the FSB, may hire cybercriminals for specific intelligence operations and pay them based on the targets they penetrate. Other private-sector companies pitch their own services to the state of their own volition, bid on government contracts, and support a range of offensive capability development, research and development, and talent cultivation efforts (including defensive activities and benign or even globally cybersecurity-positive activities beyond the scope of this paper). Russian private military companies increasingly offer capabilities related to cyber and SIGINT to their private and government clients around the world, too. All the while, the state retains the capability to target specific people and companies in Russia that otherwise have nothing to do with the state, apply the relevant pressure, and compel them to assist with state cyber objectives, which it can wield to extraordinary effect.

As the historian Stephen Kotkin notes, “The Russian state can confound analysts who truck in binaries.” While there are several core themes to this ecosystem—complexity; state corruption; overwhelming tolerance for and even tacit support of cybercrime; myriad offensive cyber actors in play—Russia’s cyber ecosystem neither fits into a neat box nor is a neatly run one at that.

For all the threats these actors pose to Ukraine and the West, assuming that the Putin regime controls all cyber activity emanating from within Russia’s borders is not just inaccurate (e.g., the country’s too big; there are too many players; it’s not all top down), but is the kind of assumption that serves as a “useful fiction” for the Kremlin. It makes the system appear ruthlessly efficient and coordinated, gives disconnected or tactically myopic actions a veneer of larger strategy, and puts Putin at the center of all cyber operation decision-making. Thinking as much can, intentionally or not, further feed into the idea that the Kremlin’s motives are clear and fixed or driven by some kind of “hybrid war” strategy. It also obscures the fact that—unlike many Western countries that do, in fact, publish official “cyber strategies”—Russia does not have a defined cyber strategy document, instead drawing on a range of documents and sweeping “information security” concepts to frame information, the internet, and cyber power.

On the contrary, it is the multidirectional, murky, and dynamic nature of Russia’s cyber ecosystem that makes cyber activity subject to sudden change, feeds opportunities for interagency rivalries, contributes to effects-corroding corruption and competition, and provides the Kremlin with a spectrum of talent, capabilities, and resources to tap, direct, and deny (plausibly or implausibly) as it needs. It is in part this dynamism and multidirectional nature that makes Russia’s cyber threat so complex—as mixes of deliberate state decisions, Kremlin permissiveness, entrepreneurialism, competition, petty corruption, and incompetence blend together to create the Russian cyber web that exists today. Relationships between the state proper, at different levels, in different organizations, with nonstate cyber affiliates are often shifting; ransomware groups persistently targeting Western critical infrastructure, for example, may be prolific for months before collapsing under internal conflict and reconstituting into new groups, with new combinations of the old tactics and talent. It is also the reason that what is known to date about cyber operations during Russia’s full-out war on Ukraine provides such a valuable case study in assessing the status quo of this ecosystem—and, coupled with lessons from past incidents (like Russian cyberattacks on Estonia in 2007, Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine in 2014), helps to better weigh the future threat.

What happened to Russia’s cyber might?

Cyber operations have played a substantial role in Russia’s full-on invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the ensuing war. These activities range from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks knocking Ukrainian websites offline and Ukrainian patriotic hackers’ attacks on Russian government sites (what Kyiv calls its “IT Army”) to Russia using countless malware variants to exfiltrate data and targeting Ukrainian Telegram chats and Android mobile devices. Without getting into a timeline of every major operation—neither this paper’s focus nor possible given limits on public information—it is clear that Russian and Ukrainian forces and their allies, partners, and proxies have made cyber operations part of the war’s military, intelligence, and information dimensions.

There are many ways to define cyber power, which is by no means limited to offensive capabilities. In Russia’s case, analysts could focus on anything from Russia’s national cyber threat defense system—the Monitoring and Administration Center for General Use Information Networks (GosSOPKA), which effectively brings together intrusion detection, vulnerability management, and other technologies for entities handling sensitive information—to the enormous IT brain drain problems the country suffered immediately following the full-on invasion of Ukraine. As explored in a study last year for the Atlantic Council, Russia’s growing digital tech isolationism—both a long-standing goal and increasing reality for the Kremlin—has driven more independence in some areas, like software, while heightening dependence and strategic vulnerability in others, such as dependence on Chinese hardware. This paper’s focus, though, will remain on Russia’s offensive capabilities.

Pre-February 2022 expectations in the United States and the West, as highlighted above, were dominated by those predicting extensive Russian disruptive and destructive cyber operations. In these scenarios, Russia would leverage its state, state-affiliated, state-encouraged, and other capabilities to cause serious damage to Ukrainian critical infrastructure (telecommunications, water systems, energy grids, and so forth) and cleanly augment its kinetic onslaught. Russia would “employ massive cyber and electronic warfare tools” to collapse Ukraine’s will to fight through digital means.

To be sure, some predictions were more measured. Some pointed to the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, as an illustration of Russian forces effectively using DDoS attacks (Moscow’s shatter-communications approach) in concert with disinformation and kinetic action to prepare the battlefield, and conjectured that Moscow would do the same if it moved troops further into Ukraine. Others highlighted Russia turning off Ukrainian power grids as a possible menu option for Moscow as it escalated. Cybersecurity scholars Lennart Maschmeyer and Nadiya Kostyuk, contrary to widely held positions, argued two weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion that “cyber operations will remain of secondary importance and at best provide marginal gains to Russia,” incisively noting that press headlines talking of “cyber war” rest on “the implicit assumption that with the change in strategic context, the role of cyber operations will change as well.” The overwhelming sentiment, though, was worry and anticipation of what some considered true, cyber-enabled, twenty-first century warfare.

But the cyber operations that unfolded immediately before and after the February 2022 invasion defied what many Western (including American) commentators were predicting. Russia didn’t deliver the cyber kill strike expected (instantly plummeting Ukraine into darkness). Ukrainian and NATO defenses were sufficient to (mainly) withstand the most disruptive FSB and GRU cyber operations, compared at least to pre-February 2022 expectations. And Moscow showed serious incompetencies in coordinating cyber activities with battlefield kinetic operations. Many experts who did not expect cyber-Armageddon per se have still been surprised by the limited impact of Russian attacks, the focus on wiper attacks (that delete a system’s data via malware) and data gathering over critical infrastructure disruptions, and apparent poor coordination between cyber and kinetic moves made by the Russian Armed Forces and intelligence services.

What, then, explains the gulf between expectations—decisive moves, cleanly executed operations, and visible results—and reality, with some operations, certainly, but the overwhelming focus on kinetic activity and far less on destructive cyber movement than anticipated? Scholars and analysts have, since February 2022, put forward several buckets of hypotheses.

Various commentators argue, as National Defense University scholar Jackie Kerr compiles and breaks down, that Russia’s weak integration of cyber into offensive campaigns was symptomatic of broader problems with Russian military preparations for full-on war; that Western observers simply overestimated Russia’s cyber capabilities; that poor coordination and competition between Russian security agencies impeded operational success; or that Ukraine’s cyber defenses have been extraordinarily robust. Some have gone so far as to attribute Ukrainian cyber defenses, backed up by Western allies and partners, as the primary reason for Russian offensive failures. Russia cyber and information expert Gavin Wilde argues that Russia focused on countervalue operations (against civilian infrastructure, to demoralize political leaders and the public) more than counterforce operations (against Ukrainian military capabilities), to little effect, “a sign of highly sophisticated intelligence tradecraft being squandered in service of a deeply flawed military strategy.”

Professors Nadiya Kostyuk and Erik Gartzke write that Russia’s full-on war on Ukraine is about territory and physical control, making physical military activity far more important than cyber operations themselves. Cyber scholar Jon Bateman argues that traditional signals jamming and Russia’s cyberattack against the Viasat satellite communications system, coupled with a chaotic slew of data-deletion attacks, may have helped Russia initially—but that cyber operations from there had diminishing novelty and impact. Russia’s poor strategy, insufficient intelligence preparation, and interagency mistrust have been presented as causes for undermining Russia’s cyber-kinetic strike coordination, too. Others argue that Russians wanted to gather intelligence from Ukrainian systems more than disrupt them, that Russia’s information-focused troops have been more optimized for propaganda than cyber operations, and that cyber scholars’ and pundits’ expectations were plain wrong given that Russia wanted to inflict physical violence on Ukraine more than achieve cyber-related effects—necessitating bombs, missiles, and guns over malware, zero days, and DDoS attacks.

In reality, of course, many factors are likely in play at once. Plenty of the above scholars and commentators recognize this multifactorial situation and say it outright (although a few do push a single prevailing explanation for the war’s cyber outcomes). However, it’s worth explicitly stressing that many factors coexist, in light of occasional efforts to provide reductive explanations for complex wartime activities and effects. Concluding that Russia is no longer a cyber threat, for instance, is wrong. While Ukraine as a country has demonstrated extraordinary will and resilience, and while Ukrainian cyber defenses have been more than commendable, explanations that place the rationale solely on formidable Ukrainian cyber defenses are likewise reductive. Taking such explanations as fact simplifies the many factors involved and can veer analysis and debates away from the policy actions that are still needed, such as continued cyber threat information sharing between the United States and Ukraine.

The above, plausible, evidence-grounded explanations are not mutually exclusive. FSB officers, rife with paranoia, conspiratorialism, and a Putin-pleasing orientation, did indeed grossly misinterpret the situation on the ground in Ukraine in 2022 and fed that bad information to the Kremlin, potentially skewing assessments of cyber options as well.

Interagency competition may very well have undermined, once again, the ability of the FSB, GRU, and SVR to coordinate activities with one another, let alone with the Ministry of Defense and Russian proxies in Belarus, and therefore hampered more effective planning, coordination, and execution of cyber operations. For example, during the war’s initial stages, elements of the SVR may very well have sought to technically gather intelligence from targets that GRU- or FSB-tied criminal groups were indiscriminately trying to knock offline or wipe with malware, thrusting uncoordinated activities into tension.

Like in every other country on earth, Russian cyber operators are additionally subject to resource constraints: A hacker spending a day on breaking into a Ukrainian energy company is a hacker not spending time on spying on expats in Germany or setting up a collaboration with a ransomware group. Competition, therefore, not just between agencies—turf wars, budget fights, who gets the primary jurisdiction over Ukraine, and so forth—but within them, over who gets to spend what time and resources targeting which entities, sit within broader Russian government calculi over cyber, military, and intelligence operations. And, among others, Russia’s overall strategy did lead to bad moves, as Wilde and others have noted, with limited effect and burning away Russian capabilities (like exploits) in the process. Recognizing these many likely factors will facilitate better analysis of where Russia stands.

The gap between the imagined, all-out “cyber war” and the past three years’ reality also begs the question of whether the right metrics were considered in the first place. As much as cyber capabilities are inextricable from modern intelligence operations, and as much as cyber and information capabilities are embedded throughout militaries around the world, war is obviously about far more than cyber as a domain. But experts studying cyber all day, every day, may fall into the unintentional trap (as anyone can) of having their area of study become the focal point of analysis in a war with many moving pieces and considerations—hence, some of the commentary anticipated Russian destruction of Ukraine to happen through code, compared to a range of military weaponry. Academic theories, moreover, of how cyber conflict will unfold in political science-modeled simulations or think tank war games may similarly fail to map to battlefield realities, such as generalizing how cyber fits into warfare without adequately considering unique contexts in a country like Russia. Layered on top of all this—in the academies, in the media, in the data and artificial intelligence (AI) era—is a frequent desire to quantify everything, too, obscuring the fact that not everything can be effectively, quantifiably measured and that counting up the number of observed Russian cyber operations and scoring them may still not get to the heart of their inefficacy. Clearly, as US and Western perspectives on Russian cyber power shift with more information and time, it is worth rethinking Russia’s future cyber power—not just for how the West can recalibrate its assumptions and size up the threats, but in how the West can prepare to act and respond in the future.

Unpacking the (cyber) nesting doll

The takeaway from comparing predictions and reality shouldn’t be that pundits are always wrong or that Russia’s cyber operations are considerably less threatening in 2025. Nor should it be that Ukraine is propped up solely by Western government and private-sector cyber defenses, and that Russia is simply waiting to unleash a devastating cyber operation to end it all.

Russia remains a sophisticated, persistent, and well-resourced cyber threat to the United States, Ukraine, and the West generally. This is not going to change anytime soon. Kremlin-spun “crackdowns” on cybercrime (arrests that were little more than public relations stunts), frenetic talk of US-Russia rapprochement, and wishful thinking about Putin’s willingness to cease subversive activity against Ukraine do not portend, as some might suggest, that the United States can sideline Russia as a central cyber problem—and focus instead on China.

The Russian government views cyber and information capabilities as key to its military and intelligence operations, and the Kremlin still has one top enemy in its national security sights: the United States. Outside the Russian state per se, a range of ransomware gangs and other hackers in Russia will continue targeting companies, critical infrastructure, and other entities in the United States, Ukraine, and the West, too. There are at least five steps US policymakers and their allies and partners should take to size up this threat—against the full scope of Russia’s cyber web and integrating lessons learned so far from Russia’s full-out war on Ukraine—and confront it head-on in the coming years.

When assessing the expectations-versus-reality of Russia’s wartime cyber operations, distinguish between capabilities and wartime execution. Clearly, Russian offensive cyber activity during its full-on war against Ukraine has not matched up against Western assumptions that envisioned a cyber onslaught that turned off power grids, disrupted water treatment facilities, and blacked out communications. Evaluating how and why Russia did not make this happen is critical to understanding Russia’s operational motives, play-by-play planning and coordination between security agencies, targeting interests, and much more. But analysts and media must be careful to avoid thinking that Russia’s cyber capabilities themselves are weak. Clearly, when Russian hackers put the pedal to the metal, so to speak—ransomware gangs targeting American hospitals, or the GRU going after Ukrainian phones—they can deliver serious results. A better approach is policymakers and analysts in the United States, as well as in allied and partner countries, breaking out Russia’s continued cyber threats across ransomware, critical infrastructure targeting, mobile-device hacking, and so on while pairing the capabilities against where execution could fall short in practice. Doing so will give a better sense of Russia’s cyber strengths and weaknesses—and distinguish between the different components of carrying out a cyber operation.

Widen the circle of analysis to include not just Russian state hackers but the broader Russian cyber web, including patriotic hackers and state-coerced criminals. Focusing Western intelligence priorities, academic studies, and industry analysis mainly on Russian government agencies as the primary vector of Russian cyber power loses the importance of the overall Russian cyber web. Putting the focus mostly on Russian government agencies also loses, as my colleague Emma Schroeder has unpacked in detail, the role that public-private partnerships have played in cyber operations and defenses in the conflict, and the opportunity to assess similar public-private dynamics on the Russian side. Conversely, making sure to consider the roles of government contractors, military universities, patriotic hackers, state-tapped cybercriminals, and other actors as described above should help to fight the temptation to treat all Russian cyber operations as top-down—and illuminate the many ways in which Russia can build capabilities, source talent, and carry out operations against the West. Understanding these actors will allow for better tracking, threat preparation, defense, and, where needed, disruption.

Avoid the trap of assuming Russia can separate out cyber and information issues from other bilateral, multilateral, and security-related topics—maintaining its hostility toward Ukraine while, say, softening up on cyber operations against the United States. Whether the US government can or cannot separate out cyber issues vis-à-vis Russia from other elements of the US-Russia relationship (e.g., trade, nuclear security), Western policymakers should avoid the trap of assuming the Russian government is currently capable, let alone willing, of genuinely and seriously doing the same: separating out its cyber activities from other policy and security issues.

The Russian government has come to view the internet and digital technologies as both weapons that can be wielded against the state and weapons to use against Russia’s enemies. In this sense, cyber operations (as well as information operations) are core not just to Moscow’s approach to modern security, military activity, and intelligence operations but, perhaps more importantly, to the Kremlin’s conceptualization of regime security as well. Paranoia and propaganda about fifth columnists (with, sometimes, one feeding the other), persistent efforts to crack down on the internet in Russia, and a continued belief that Western tech companies and civil society groups are weaponizing the internet to undermine the Kremlin, mean that the regime will not truly believe it can put “information security” on the sidelines—and that includes not just internet control but cyber operations. Policymakers must go into diplomatic and other engagements with Russia with their eyes wide open.

Continue cyber information sharing about Russia with allies and partners around the world. For years, military and intelligence scholars and analysts have referred to Russia’s actions in Georgia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics as a “test bed” or “sandbox” for what Russia might do in other countries. It would be a strategic, operational, and tactical mistake to think that Russian cyber operations against Ukraine are just confined to Ukraine and that two-way information sharing with Ukraine about cyber threats is a waste of time and resources. Quite the opposite: Russia’s cyber and information activities against Ukraine today can give the United States and its allies and partners critical insights into the types of capabilities and operations that could, and very well might be, carried out against them at the same time or days or months later. Whether hack-and-leak operations designed to embarrass political figures, wiper attacks designed to destroy government databases, espionage operations, or anything in between, having real-time information about Russian cyber threats will only help the United States and its allies and partners better defend their own networks and systems against hacks and attacks.

Invest in cyber defense and in cyber offense where appropriate. Persistent, sophisticated Russian cyber threats to a range of key US and allied and partner systems—military networks, hospitals, financial institutions, critical infrastructure, advanced tech companies, civil society groups—demand continued investments in cyber defense. In addition to information-sharing, the United States and its allies and partners need to continue prioritizing market incentives for companies to enhance cyber defenses along with baseline requirements for essential measures such as multifactor authentication, detailed access controls, robust encryption, continuous monitoring, network segmentation, resourced and empowered cybersecurity decision-makers, and much more. Just as the Russians clearly possess a range of advanced cyber capabilities, any number of recent operations, including against Ukraine, show that Russian operations (like those carried out by many other powers) continue to succeed with basic moves such as phishing emails. The United States and its allies and partners need to continually increase cyber defenses. And, where appropriate, the United States and its allies and partners should ensure the right capabilities and posture to carry out cyber offensive operations—including to preemptively disrupt Russian attacks (the “defend forward” euphemism). As the Kremlin is more paranoid and conspiratorial, the notion of diplomatic talks and establishing cyber redlines is less and less realistic. Active mitigation and disruption of threats, rather than relying too heavily on diplomatic meetings or endless criminal indictments, are together a more feasible approach to protecting US and allied and partner interests against Russian cyber threats in the years to come.

Conclusion

Lessons from cyber operations—and about cyber operations and capabilities—from the Russian full-on war against Ukraine will continue to emerge in the coming years. This trickle of information may slowly dissipate some of the “fog of war” surrounding the back-and-forth hacks and shed much-needed light on issues such as coordination and conflict between Russian security agencies in cyberspace.

For now, however, the issue for the United States is clear: Russia remains a persistent, sophisticated, and well-resourced cyber threat to the United States and its allies and partners around the world. The threat stems from a range of Russian actors, and it stands to continue impacting a wide range of American government organizations, businesses, civil society groups, individuals, and national interests across the globe. As wonderful as the idea of cyber détente might be, Putin’s paranoia about Western technology, Russian officials’ insistence that the internet is a “CIA project” and Meta is a terrorist organization, and military and intelligence interest in conflict and subversion against the West will not evaporate with a wartime ceasefire or a newfound agreement with the United States. These are hardened beliefs and fairly cemented institutional postures that are not going to shift under the current regime.

Rather than dismissing Russia’s cyber prowess because of unmet expectations since February 2022, American and Western policymakers must size up the threat, unpack the complexity of Russia’s cyber web, and invest in the right proactive measures to enhance their security and resilience into the future.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Brian Whitmore and Andrew D’Anieri for the invitation to write this paper and for their comments on an earlier draft. He also thanks Gavin Wilde, Trey Herr, Aleksander Cwalina, Ambassador John Herbst, and Nikita Shah for their comments on the draft.

About the author

Justin Sherman is a nonresident senior fellow with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative, part of the Atlantic Council Technology Programs. He is also the founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, a Washington, DC-based research and advisory firm; an incoming adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service; a contributing editor at Lawfare; and a columnist at Barron’s. He writes, researches, consults, and advises on Russia security and technology issues and is sanctioned by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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The Eurasia Center’s mission is to promote policies that strengthen stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

The Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, part of the Atlantic Council Technology Programs, works at the nexus of geopolitics and cybersecurity to craft strategies to help shape the conduct of statecraft and to better inform and secure users of technology.

Could Trump be ‘mediator-in-chief’ for Turkey and Israel in Syria?

Rachel Bradenburg — Mon, 19 May 2025 18:52:09 +0000

If US President Donald Trump still aspires to achieve a historic “deal of a century” in the Middle East, ensuring that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan resolve their differences in Syria will prove to be an important part of the equation.

Israel has many concerns about what happens in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, not least of which are about Turkey’s growing influence and efforts to establish a military presence there. Netanyahu and Erdogan have a long list of grievances against one another, and relations between Turkey and Israel are at perhaps their lowest point in history.

But Netanyahu has a chance to turn tactical challenges into strategic opportunities, rather than continuing the fool’s errand of trying to shape Turkey’s role in Syrian affairs through military force. The Israeli prime minister should take Trump up on his offer to help Israel and Turkey figure out how to “get along.”

In recent weeks, Azerbaijan has facilitated at least two meetings between Turkey and Israel to discuss their respective interests in Syria, which should be applauded. As a country that has diplomatic relations with both countries, Azerbaijan is uniquely able to mediate between Israel and Turkey. However, Azerbaijan is particularly close to Turkey and has its own interests in Syria, particularly with respect to energy resources and economic partnerships.

Trump advertised his willingness to mediate between Israel and Turkey while sitting alongside Netanyahu in the Oval Office during his April visit to Washington. As Israel and Turkey compete for influence in Syria, in dramatically different ways and for different reasons, a Turkey-Israel detente is a deal Trump would be wise to support, particularly for the sake of stability in Syria.

Israel and Turkey’s rollercoaster relationship

Turkey and Israel have a complicated history. Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel in 1949, and it recognized the Palestinian state in 1988. Israel and Turkey, however, kept their bilateral relationship fairly quiet until the 1990s. The decade saw both positive and negative regional shifts that allowed the two to deepen diplomatic, security, and economic relations, including: former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s attack on Kuwait, the rise of Kurdish separatist and Islamic fundamentalist movements, Turkish tensions with Greece over the Aegean islets, and the 1993 Oslo Accords. But tensions began to rise in the early 2000s with the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the onset of the second intifada, and Erdogan’s rise to power. They severed, however, after the 2009-2010 Israel-Gaza war, and the Israeli interception of the Turkish Mavi Marmara flotilla bound for Gaza in 2010. Bilateral relations have never returned to pre-2010 levels.

Today, there is no love lost between Erdogan and Netanyahu, but Syria presents a good excuse to try to mend ties. With Turkey seeking to establish a military presence in Syria, and Ankara’s ongoing support for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government, Turkey and Israel are now also effectively neighbors. Both Erdogan and Netanyahu also fancy themselves friends of Trump and want to stay on the right side of his ledger.

Incentives to get along in Syria

According to Turkish and Israeli officials, the two countries have created a deconfliction mechanism for their Syria operations—a communication channel aimed at avoiding unintentional military clashes between Turkish and Israeli forces there. This is a smart and operationally essential move. But given the current tenor of relations between Turkey and Israel, more than just deconfliction will be needed to prevent escalation between the two countries, particularly if Israel continues to conduct airstrikes deep in Syria and Turkey establishes a consistent presence there.

When Russia intervened militarily in Syria in 2015, Israel understood that it needed to both avoid an accidental military escalation with Moscow by deconflicting its military operations against Iranian-backed militias there, as well as strengthen its diplomatic relationship with Russia to maintain an open communication channel with its then-new “neighbor.” During the following year, Netanyahu met Russian President Vladimir Putin at least four times—more frequently than he met any other head of state.

With the fall of the Assad regime, Israel faces a whole new set of challenges in Syria.

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Assad was no friend of Israel, but during his tenure, Israel had gotten comfortable with a relatively predictable, if risky, status quo. When al-Sharaa assumed power, everything became uncertain. For the first time in decades, the leader of Syria did not consider Israel an enemy state. Al-Sharaa even clearly stated he had no interest in picking a fight with Syria’s “neighbors,” including Israel.

On the other hand, as Israelis are quick to remind anybody who mentions al-Sharaa’s name, he was previously known under the nom de guerre Mohammed Abu al-Jolani and has Islamist roots as a former member of al-Qaeda and leader of the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Israel fears he may one day want to reclaim his namesake, the Golan Heights. So far, al-Sharaa has mostly said all the right things as he tries to stabilize and rebuild a governance structure in Syria, despite numerous impediments. But Israel is understandably skeptical and fearful of Syria’s new leadership and environment.

Still reeling from the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks in the south and Hezbollah strikes in the north, Israel has taken a forward-leaning military approach in Syria that seems to be focused on pushing threats away from its borders, flexing its military muscle to make its presence and capabilities known, and trying to keep Turkey out. Rather than keeping to its own side of the Syrian border and protecting Israeli sovereign land in all the ways Israel has long known how to do, Israel maintains outposts along the Syrian side of the border and has repeatedly conducted airstrikes within Syria. As Israel’s military engagement in Syria has expanded, Israel has gotten the Syrians’ attention and again made itself an enemy.

How can the US help

It was apparent from the statement Netanyahu released upon his return home from Washington that he and Trump have a different view of Turkey in Syria.

Israel would prefer minimal Turkish influence, while Trump has repeatedly publicly expressed high praise for Erdogan and applauded him for Turkey’s role in overturning the Assad regime. It seems clear that the United States will not be helping Israel push Turkey out of Syria. Still enmeshed in Ukraine, it seems unlikely Russia would do much, either, to advocate for its own expanded engagement in Syria.

US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan gesture as they talk at the start of the NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, July 11, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Trump prefers not to start or get involved in wars, and his administration has cut off the majority of foreign assistance to traditional US partners, particularly to support civil society, governance building, educational programs, and other elements of US soft power.

For better or worse, it is unlikely that Trump would seek to get involved in Syria’s internal affairs or al-Sharaa’s efforts to rebuild the Syrian state.

But Trump likes making deals, and he seeks to expand the Abraham Accords and achieve Saudi-Israel normalization.

For the sake of both of those goals, Washington should be concerned that Syria is given a chance to become a stable, secure, and prosperous country, without external actors like Turkey and Israel using Syrian territory to fight their own battles. President Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh and announcement that Washington will remove sanctions on Syria reflect that he understands Syria’s stability and prosperity are in his interest, too. Trump may even have his sights on achieving Syria-Israel normalization, but that is still at least a ways off. Working toward Turkey-Israel detente in Syria would be a good place to start.

Washington’s mediation between Turkey and Israel in Syria also has uniquely bipartisan Congressional support, notably from Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch and Democratic Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen.

In April, the committee leaders sent a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging the Trump administration to remove barriers to US engagement with Syria. The bipartisan senators noted that the “growing competition between Israel and Türkiye over Syria’s trajectory […] may threaten American interests,” and urged the administration “to move quickly to mediate between our allies.”

Trump’s unpredictable and often unconstrained approach to decision-making confers him a certain amount of leverage. His bellicose nature and broader regional interests, combined with Israeli and Turkish interest in avoiding a direct military confrontation, might be just enough to force the right Israeli and Turkish officials into a room together to figure out how to get along.

The US president could also encourage both parties to take a constructive role in helping Syria to stabilize and rebuild. Al-Sharaa knows Syria needs external support, but he has also made clear that he will not pledge allegiance to any one benefactor or tolerate external manipulation. Trump should be telling Turkey to let al-Sharaa lead in the Turkey-Syria relationship, and he should be pressuring Netanyahu to hold fire and give diplomacy a chance, with Turkey in the near term, and then maybe eventually also with Syria.

None of this is easy, and Trump has already set out to negotiate a number of foreign policy deals, very few of which have come to fruition. But this one is worth the shot—and would be a meaningful win if achieved.

Rachel Brandenburg is the Washington Managing Director and Senior Fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for New American Security.

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Lichfield quoted in Reuters on tariff discussions at the G7 finance ministers’ summit

irosales — Mon, 19 May 2025 15:18:03 +0000

Daniel Fried: Dan ran a pro-Europe, pro-NATO, and pro-Ukraine campaign

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Experts react: What message did Romanians send by electing Nicusor Dan?

Atlantic Council experts — Mon, 19 May 2025 14:48:39 +0000

The math adds up. On Sunday, Nicusor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest and a former mathematics professor, was elected as the next Romanian president. With more than 53 percent of the vote, the pro–European Union (EU) Dan beat out right-wing candidate George Simion. Dan’s victory comes after the Romanian Constitutional Court’s controversial decision to annul the country’s November 2024 presidential election following allegations of Russian interference. Below, our experts count up the ways that the election’s outcome matters for Romania, for EU and NATO support for Ukraine, and for the future of Eastern Europe.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Victoria Olari: The implications of Dan’s win will ripple across Eastern Europe

Anca Agachi: Romanians don’t want more of the same, so how will Dan be different?

Mark Scott: It was an election fought as much online as offline

Andrei Covatariu: After the election, can Romania’s energy diplomacy bridge Brussels and Washington?

Olga Khakova: Energy policy can help build the coalition and strengthen the country

Dan ran a pro-Europe, pro-NATO, and pro-Ukraine campaign

There are two lessons to take from Romania’s presidential elections. First, Romanians seemed turned off by the establishment parties that have traded off running the government for decades. The candidate of the ruling coalition didn’t make it past the first round; and Dan and Simion were both seen, Romanians tell me, as alternatives to the ruling coalition. Second, despite predictions (or fears), the preference for an outsider didn’t translate into a preference for a nationalist or anti-EU firebrand, which is how Simion ran his campaign. Dan, a mathematician by training, ran a campaign that was pro-Europe, pro-NATO, and pro-Ukraine.

Simion appeared to enjoy support from Russia, and plenty of stories are circulating of Russian information ops in his favor. He had maintained distance from Russian President Vladimir Putin (wise in Russo-skeptic Romania) and instead courted the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement in the United States, even visiting the United States during the campaign. But this did not translate into enough support at home.

Dan’s win is decisive, but it alone will not overcome the divisions in Romanian society. Romanians have voted for Europe and democracy, not nationalism, but they also seem to want change in the form of better governance. Dan will have a mandate but a big job ahead.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US ambassador to Poland.

The implications of Dan’s win will ripple across Eastern Europe

Romania’s presidential runoff turned into an intense race with significant stakes for the nation and the wider region. Dan won, an outcome expected mainly given the high voter turnout, offering him a strong democratic mandate.

From the early hours of election day, Simion’s ultra-nationalist camp signaled that they would not accept a loss. They took to social media with accusations of fraud and amplified fake news stories that mimicked legitimate outlets and falsely declared Simion the winner. Simion told his supporters not to trust the exit polls, claiming that political elites had manipulated the results behind the scenes. His team also accused foreign actors of interference, notably targeting Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, for allegedly mobilizing Romanian voters in Moldova. This followed an unprecedented voter turnout there in the second round, partly spurred by Simion’s hostile rhetoric toward Moldova. The nationalist camp further alleged meddling by France, specifically accusing President Emmanuel Macron of election interference.

Despite these efforts, the election results left little room for dispute. Dan secured a mandate from Romanians. Simion conceded early Monday morning, marking the end of a tense and polarized campaign.

This election isn’t just about Romania. It’s a big deal for the region, too. A win for Dan will likely lock in Romania’s commitment to the EU and NATO, a vital move as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to unsettle the region. This is critical, as Romania’s strategic position strengthens regional security and support for Kyiv. Additionally, it will likely bolster Moldova’s EU integration efforts under Sandu, fostering closer Romania-Moldova ties and countering Russian influence. On the other hand, a Simion victory would have likely emboldened far-right movements across Europe, disrupted regional unity, and undermined support for Ukraine, which Simion openly opposed.

Even with all the divisions, Romanian voters sent a loud message: they reject the old political elite. Both Dan and Simion positioned themselves as anti-system challengers, capitalizing on widespread frustration with corruption and governance failures. This call for change is real, and it’s going to continue to shape Romania’s future.

—Victoria Olari is a research associate for Moldova at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).

Romanians don’t want more of the same, so how will Dan be different?

“Hope and patience.” This is what Dan, the now president-elect of Romania, asked for in his speech when the first exit polls were released.

Patience because his mandate will be an incredibly difficult one. Immediately, he will have to choose a prime minister and help establish a pro-European political coalition in the Romanian Parliament, one third of which is made up of far-right parties. He will need to help build trust in an economy that has the EU’s highest budget deficit compared to gross domestic product. And he will need to lead the country’s foreign policy at a time when the regional context for Romania has never been more dangerous given Russia’s continued war in Ukraine. In the long term, Dan will have to face down the unaddressed root causes of discontent that gave oxygen to far-right parties in the first place and brought Romania to the brink of disaster. The country is plagued by poverty, inequality, a failing public health system, corruption, and inefficient, unresponsive, and distrusted state institutions, as well as a forgotten diaspora. He will have to “rebuild a one Romania” together with a divided population.

But Dan was also right to ask for hope. In the election result Sunday, Romania decided it cannot go back, and Romanians have firmly made the choice to remain anchored in the Western, transatlantic community. Despite external pressures, disinformation campaigns, suspicions of Russian interference, and fears of a contested election result, Romanians made it clear that they are European. But the same voters who turned out in massive numbers for two anti-system candidates also made it clear that more of the same in Romanian politics is simply not acceptable. This is the hope and the opportunity Romania is facing—starting now.

—Anca Agachi is a nonresident fellow with Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She currently serves as a defense policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, where she focuses on international security and defense issues.

It was an election fought as much online as offline

Faced with a barrage of false online information, potential foreign interference, and opaque practices by social media companies, Romania’s second-round presidential election held up to scrutiny—but only just. In the hours before Dan was elected, Simion took to X to proclaim himself as Romania’s new president, only to backtrack on that claim when the official tally gave Dan the final victory.

Pavel Durov, the chief executive of Telegram, the popular messaging service, also took to his platform and other social networks to accuse “a Western European government” of urging Telegram to “silence conservative voices in Romania.” The Russian tech boss subsequently named that country as France, though Paris denied any potential interference in the Eastern European country’s election.

More than any other recent European election, Romania’s vote has been riddled with potential digital attacks on local democratic institutions, including scores of cyberattacks that the country’s security forces suggested may have come from Russia. In response, Romanian officials and those from the European Commission have criticized social media companies for not doing enough to combat malign actors, both in and outside of the country.

Yet even hours after Dan was officially named as Romania’s next president, little, if any, evidence about the role these global platforms played in promoting election-related falsehoods has been made public. Local voters remain mostly in the dark about how social media—and potential bad actors—may have targeted them in this weekend’s election. That has left more questions than answers as policymakers, tech giants, and the public try to unpack how Dan successfully saw off Simion in an election that was fought as much online as offline.

—Mark Scott is senior resident fellow at the DFRLab’s Democracy + Tech Initiative within the Atlantic Council Technology Programs.

After the election, can Romania’s energy diplomacy bridge Brussels and Washington?

Romania avoided a political shock this weekend as pro-European candidate Dan defeated right-wing populist Simion. The result reassures Romania’s continued commitment to EU and transatlantic partnerships. Yet, after months of political turbulence and voter polarization, restoring macroeconomic stability now depends on forming a new government—no easy feat despite a pro-European majority in Romania’s Parliament.

The election outcome has implications for Romania’s strategic energy direction, too, even though energy and climate policy were not prominently featured in the campaign debates. Dan has pledged to keep Romania on its path of regional energy relevance, proven over the past few years, and to enhance the existing cooperation with the United States and the EU. His platform includes proposals to create a national energy champion, reduce Romania’s energy dependencies on authoritarian regimes, support strategic investment (including in data centers), and deepen ties with Moldova and Ukraine. His strong backing for EU enlargement further strengthens Romania’s geopolitical and energy role in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

At the same time, Romania—like other CEE states—faces a growing tension between the EU’s accelerated decarbonization push and the United States’ emphasis on “energy freedom,” as recently articulated by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright at the Three Seas Business Forum in Warsaw. This divergence presents both challenges and opportunities. The Romanian president can play a key role in expanding the win-set between Brussels and Washington through enhanced energy diplomacy—advancing nuclear partnerships (notably small modular nuclear reactors with US support), Black Sea gas development, cross-border infrastructure with Ukraine and Moldova, and clean generation scale-up. Romania also has the potential to become a clean technology manufacturing destination, supporting both EU goals and transatlantic alignment in a shifting geopolitical landscape.

By advancing projects that resonate in both Brussels and Washington, Romania can amplify its geopolitical weight in the energy space.

—Andrei Covatariu is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

Energy policy can help build the coalition and strengthen the country

This anti-establishment, anti-corruption vote presents a historic opportunity for the new Romanian leadership to use this mandate to build on previous positive energy reforms. The next Romanian government has a chance to engage with the population to forge a secure, resilient, and diversified energy strategy that can attract new deals and investments in the energy sector.

However, the close election results showcase that national concerns such as energy prices, reliability, and industrial competitiveness helped drive a significant percentage of voters to support the candidate with a nationalistic platform. The good news is that Romania can prioritize domestic issues through stronger partnerships and deeper regional integration: developing Black Sea resources, integrating electricity and gas interconnections with neighboring countries, and making progress on nuclear agreements with countries like the United States.

Romania has led on diversification from Russian energy sources and support for Ukraine and Moldova’s energy security. The new coalition can lead by example in fortifying the region from backsliding into Russian natural gas dependence, as seen in the growing Russian liquefied natural gas shipments to the EU.

Moreover, a strong energy agenda could also be a unifying platform for building the ruling coalition.

—Olga Khakova is the deputy director for European energy security at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

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Why Romania chose centrism in the end

Atlantic Council — Mon, 19 May 2025 01:26:49 +0000

JUST IN

Dan’s the man. Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan won Sunday’s Romanian presidential election, a triumph for centrist, pro-European forces in a country that has been roiled by six months of electoral upheaval. “We need to build Romania together irrespective of who you voted for,” Dan told cheering supporters. His populist, far-right challenger, George Simion, claimed fraud and initially claimed victory, but conceded hours later. This election followed a canceled presidential race in December, when Romanian authorities determined that another populist, far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu, had violated campaign-finance rules and was the beneficiary of a dodgy social media campaign; he was later barred from running again. How did Dan triumph? What can we expect next for Romania and for the country’s relations with the world? We turned to our experts to parse the polls.

TODAY’S EXPERT REACTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Victoria Olari (@Olari_Victoria): Research associate at the Digital Forensic Research Lab
Daniel Fried (@AmbDanFried): Weiser Family distinguished fellow and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe
Anca Agachi (@AncaAgachi): Nonresident fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative and defense policy analyst at the RAND Corporation

Why Dan won

Dan may be a centrist, but he was not the chosen candidate of Romania’s ruling coalition. “Romanian voters sent a loud message: They reject the old political elite,” Victoria says. “Both Dan and Simion positioned themselves as anti-system challengers, capitalizing on widespread frustration with corruption and governance failures.”
But at the same time, “the preference for an outsider didn’t translate into preference for a nationalist or anti-EU firebrand, which is how Simion ran his campaign,” Daniel tells us. Instead, voters picked a mathematician who “ran a campaign that was pro-Europe, pro-NATO, and pro-Ukraine.”

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The foreign factor

While Russia appeared to back Simion, Daniel points out that Simion “maintained distance from Russian President Vladimir Putin (wise in Russo-skeptic Romania).”
Instead, the populist candidate courted US President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, traveling to the Conservative Political Action Conference and appearing on Steve Bannon’s podcast. “But this did not translate into support at home,” Daniel notes.
Victoria points out that on Sunday, Simion’s supporters “flooded social media with accusations of fraud and amplified fake news stories that mimicked legitimate outlets and falsely declared Simion the winner.” Simion and his backers also accused the presidents of both Moldova and France of meddling in the election. “These actions risk deepening Romania’s societal polarization,” Victoria says.
But Simion did concede in the end, turning the focus to what Dan’s win will mean for the region. Victoria notes that Dan’s pro-Ukraine stance “strengthens regional security and support for Kyiv.” Dan’s victory will also boost neighboring Moldova’s integration efforts with the European Union, she adds, “fostering closer Romania-Moldova ties and countering Russian influence.”

Romania’s road ahead

While Romanians “made it clear” with their vote that “they are European,” Dan’s mandate will still be “an incredibly difficult one,” Anca cautions, as the newly elected president will need to choose a prime minister to form a pro-European political coalition in the parliament, where far-right parties hold one-third of the seats.
His immediate task will involve building trust in an economy with the highest budget deficit in the European Union (as a percentage of gross domestic product), while guiding foreign policy “at a time when the regional context for Romania has never been more dangerous, given Russia’s continued war in Ukraine,” Anca says.
To succeed in the long run, “Dan will have to face down the unaddressed root causes of discontent,” Anca says—such as poverty, corruption, and distrust of state institutions—“that gave oxygen to far-right parties in the first place and brought Romania to the brink of disaster.”

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A remarkable week for a rising Turkey

Frederick Kempe — Sat, 17 May 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Geography is destiny.

The quote is sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, but it might as well also be the working motto of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

This past week, Erdoğan strung together a trio of geopolitical wins that underscored his success in leveraging his country’s size, military capability, and—perhaps most of all—geographic position to achieve outsize influence.

Erdoğan did this despite facing some of the biggest political protests he has weathered in years following the imprisonment of his political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. It’s no wonder Erdoğan is harnessing international gains to shore up his domestic position.

The first victory was US President Donald Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria’s new government. Turkey played a catalytic role in the December ouster of Bashar al-Assad, Erdoğan’s nemesis who had ruled Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his father. It was fitting that Trump included Erdoğan by phone in his meeting this week in Riyadh with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Second, the Kurdish militant group known as the PKK announced this week that it will disband and end its armed struggle after months of Turkish backchannel diplomacy. There’s still a risk that the PKK could fragment into smaller groups that attack Turkey, but for now, the development is a win for the country’s security.

Third, Istanbul played host to the first direct peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials since March 2022, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also flying in from a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in the Turkish town of Antalya. Russian President Vladimir Putin was a no-show, which kept Trump from traveling to Turkey as well, and the two-hour meeting appears to have been fruitless. Yet it underscored Erdoğan’s ability to navigate both Moscow and Kyiv even while providing Ukraine with armed drones.

For years, some Western officials and analysts have dismissed Erdoğan as a populist authoritarian whose inflation-ridden economy was troubled and whose geopolitical ambitions were fantasy. But it now rings truer when Erdoğan says, as he did in December, “Turkey is bigger than Turkey. As a nation, we cannot limit our horizon to 782,000 square kilometers.”

None of this week’s wins are permanent. The jury is out on whether Syria’s new leadership can hold the country together. The PKK peace is fragile. Ukraine-Russia talks still don’t seem to be going anywhere. And other pressing questions remain unresolved, such as whether Erdoğan will be able to successfully manage relations with Israel given Israeli security concerns about the expanded Turkish military presence in Syria. However all that turns out, Erdoğan’s focus remains on protecting both his legacy and longevity after more than twenty years as prime minister and then president.

We might be a long way from a Pax Turcica. For now, however, Erdoğan and Turkey have gained relevance as an indispensable player from the Black Sea to the Levant, and from Central Asia to Europe, where the Turkish military will play a crucial role if Europe is to have the wherewithal to provide for Ukraine’s security—and its own.

What I’m reading

With doubts growing within NATO about the US nuclear umbrella, French President Emmanuel Macron specified three conditions for extending the protection of France’s nuclear weapons to European allies. We’ll keep monitoring the Trump transatlantic fallout.

“How do you know the day that you become old?” legendary investor Warren Buffett this week asked the Wall Street Journal as he announced he was stepping back at age ninety-four (for him, it was at age ninety).

We interrupt this report for an inflection point in US baseball, my non-geopolitical passion. Call me old-fashioned, but I hope the Hall of Fame won’t ever induct baseball’s all-time hits leader Pete Rose, who passed away last September, given his gambling on baseball. That said, I wish he’d lived to see Major League Baseball lift its banishment of “Charlie Hustle” from the game.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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To achieve his goal of a durable peace, Trump must turn up the pressure on Putin

John E. Herbst — Fri, 16 May 2025 22:29:48 +0000

This is the first in a series of regular assessments of the efforts, spearheaded by the Trump administration, to achieve a negotiated end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The results are now in from the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine since the revelations of Russian atrocities in the Ukrainian cities of Bucha and Irpin three years ago. And one thing is clear: It remains Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aim to seize more territory so that he can achieve effective political control over Ukraine.

The talks were productive in the important but limited sense that the sides agreed to each exchange one thousand prisoners of war. But the parties took no steps toward an eventual end to the hostilities, as the Kremlin negotiators insisted that Ukrainian troops withdraw from areas of Ukraine that Moscow has “annexed.”

This is just the latest twist on the roller coaster that is the negotiating process to end Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The Trump administration’s approach to a negotiated peace has required compromise from both Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine was asked to accept de facto Kremlin control of Ukrainian territory that Russia currently occupies and to put its aspirations for NATO membership on hold. Washington has asked Russia to accept the presence of European troops in Ukraine as a peacekeeping force and ongoing Western arms supplies to Kyiv to deter future Russian aggression. Ukraine has largely accepted these terms; Russia has not. Ukraine agreed without objection to the mid-March general cease-fire that the United States proposed, as well as the naval cease-fire in late March. Russia rejected both. Each side agreed to a cease-fire involving energy installations that same month, but Moscow violated it within hours.

The Trump administration’s approach through late April was hobbled by its unwillingness to put pressure on Moscow for rejecting the general and naval cease-fires, which contrasted with the severe pressure the US administration put on Ukraine after the difficult Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on February 28. When Moscow refused the United States’ proposal for a naval cease-fire, the White House’s approach was to offer Russia more carrots, which prompted substantial criticism from Trump-friendly newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, as well as from some Republicans on Capitol Hill. This tendency continued in late April as the White House proposed the truly damaging concession of recognizing Russian control of Crimea.

All of this changed—at least for the moment—when the United States and Ukraine inked the critical minerals deal on April 30. The deal included a paragraph in which, for the first time, the Trump administration mentioned the possibility of new US weapons going to Ukraine. It was no coincidence that at the same time, the White House separately approved two modest shipments of weapons to Ukraine. While the Trump administration did not stress this point publicly, the approval of the weapons shipments clearly complicated Putin’s efforts to take more Ukrainian land. It is worth noting that in response to criticism of its weak approach toward the Kremlin, the Trump administration has been talking for weeks about putting new sanctions on Russia. So far, however, it has not acted on these threats.

At the same time, Zelenskyy has been continuing to leverage his relationships with key European allies. He hit paydirt last weekend when the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland joined him in Kyiv to demand that Russia agree to a general cease-fire by May 12, threatening new sanctions if the Kremlin did not agree. Those leaders also called US President Donald Trump during their meeting and sought his support. He did not discourage them.

As circumstances grew unfavorable for him, Putin parried with a proposal for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul—a bid to delay progress on a cease-fire, avoid sanctions, and split Trump from the Europeans. At first, the gamble seemed to pay off. Zelenskyy immediately denounced the idea as a Russian stalling tactic and said Ukraine would not participate. But Trump reacted quickly as well; while skeptical that Russia wanted peace, he called on Zelenskyy to engage. Demonstrating his diplomatic nimbleness, Zelenskyy swiftly changed his mind and announced his intention to got to Istanbul.

This prompted a change of position in Moscow, with Putin announcing that he would not participate in the talks and Russian media criticizing the very concept of these talks—without mentioning that they were Putin’s idea. While Putin did not split off the Trump administration from Europe, his gambit did block the plans of Ukraine, Poland, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany to impose sanctions against Russia this week. And the instincts of the Trump team made that possible. After encouraging Zelenskyy to go to Turkey to negotiate, Trump provided cover for Putin’s cynical decision not to attend the talks. Trump said it was natural for Putin not to attend since, he, Trump, would not be there.

On Thursday, Trump declared that there will be no real progress toward peace until he and Putin sit down together. Trump may well be right about that—but only if he makes clear that if the Kremlin continues to reject reasonable compromises, the United States will send major new arms supplies to Ukraine and levy additional economic sanctions against Russia.

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Trump can cement his Middle East successes by calling Putin’s bluff

Frederick Kempe — Thu, 15 May 2025 22:55:04 +0000

This week has been vintage Donald Trump: disruptive, transactional, and unafraid to defy convention. From a geopolitical standpoint, the US president’s trip to the Middle East could prove to be one of the most significant of his two terms in office. That depends, however, on whether Trump now follows up with a decisive move against Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Here’s how to look at this historic opportunity.

Trump’s surprise decision to lift US sanctions on post-Assad Syria should be seen in combination with his administration’s less-ballyhooed move to remove curbs on the sale of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor chips to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia. Both are smart moves of underappreciated consequence on a global chessboard.

First, let’s talk Syria.

Trump had nothing to do with the December 8 fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad, which came in the final days of the Biden administration, ending fifty years of repressive Assad family rule. For Trump, it also marked an unanticipated geopolitical inflection point, whose origins I explained here a few days later. It was a powerful setback to Iranian leaders and Putin, who had saved the Assad regime through direct military intervention since 2015.

By lifting sanctions now in such high-profile fashion in Riyadh, Trump has seized high diplomatic ground at low cost. He rewarded both Middle Eastern and European allies—particularly the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—who had urged him to make the move. At the same time, he can slam the door on any Russian attempt to regain regional influence.

Moscow spent years propping up the Assad regime, but it collapsed anyway, in no small part because Russia moved military assets from Syria to support its Ukraine war. Russia didn’t just lose a client in al-Assad; it also lost global standing by giving up a Middle East foothold through which it exercised regional influence. Trump should follow up by proposing a regional security pact excluding Russia and China—and building upon his Abraham Accords.

Now, let’s talk artificial intelligence.

What do advanced computer chips have to do with Syrian sanctions relief? If the Syria move is about checkmating Russia, then the chip move is about outmaneuvering China. Do both at the same time, and you frustrate the “no limits partnership” that Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared in opposition to Washington back in February 2022.

President Joe Biden’s move late in his administration to limit UAE and Saudi access to the United States’ most advanced chips via the “AI Diffusion Rule” was designed to limit the technology’s proliferation to China. But in the region it was perceived as a slap in the face of countries willing to invest tens of billions of dollars in American AI companies and their infrastructure. A Gulf official told me some colleagues in his country wondered whether they had made the right bet as they confronted US restrictions, even as DeepSeek raised concerns that China over time could match or surpass US capabilities.

Both Trump moves are calculated gambles with sound logic behind them.

Regarding Syria, Trump has reckoned it’s worth taking a chance on the new leadership in Damascus and giving it a “fresh start.” That’s even though new President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the offensive against Assad, was designated by the United States as a terrorist alongside his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement, given their historic ties to al-Qaeda. Al-Sharaa renounced his ties to al-Qaeda in 2016 and now commits that his regime will be inclusive and respect all his country’s religious and ethnic sects.

The jury is out—but a good outcome is more likely with Washington involved.

Regarding artificial intelligence, Trump is betting that the Emiratis and Saudis will protect cutting-edge US technology from leaking to China, as the Biden administration feared. What he’s gained in return are arguably the deepest-pocketed investors in the world—who at the same time hope to maintain close ties to Beijing, their largest fossil fuel customer.

With an accelerating tech race this uncertain and with the stakes so high, give Trump credit for deciding rather than dithering.

A third news story this week may seem unrelated—that of the first direct peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Istanbul—but it’s not. Trump has expressed concern that Putin may be “tapping [him] along.” That’s a welcome, if belated, sign that he and his administration recognize that they are being played by a wily adversary who believes all of Ukraine will fall to him if he can buy time and neutralize US support for Kyiv.

It’s time to call Putin’s bluff amid his failure to engage seriously in peace talks that would preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and freedom to join Western institutions. Good next moves would be more sanctions against Russia, more weapons for Ukraine, and a backstop for European military support for Ukrainian security guarantees.

A Putin failure in Ukraine, coming on the heels of his Syria failure, would be a geopolitical triumph of historic consequence and perhaps even worth a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump, something I wrote about late last year.

Not long after I wrote that, a Middle East official told me that by upending the geopolitical chessboard, Trump has the opportunity to achieve unanticipated gains, particularly in great power politics. The danger, he said, was that Trump pays too little attention to the secondary consequences of his decisions. The economic cost of his “liberation day” tariffs, and his decision to back off their most extreme version, underscored both this Trump peril and his ability to self-correct.

If Trump will now also self-correct on Russia, he can again confound his critics, showing that he can be disruptive, transactional, convention-defying, and geopolitically shrewd, all at the same time. Trump shouldn’t miss this historic opportunity.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukrainian civilians must not go unpunished

Anastasiya Donets, Susan H. Farbstein — Thu, 15 May 2025 21:41:38 +0000

Editor’s note: This article was updated on May 16, 2025, to include additional context about different types of crimes against humanity.

While international attention focuses on the US-led effort to initiate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Moscow is dramatically escalating its aerial attacks on Ukrainian civilians. During the first twenty-four days of April, for example, UN officials verified 848 civilian casualties due to Russian bombardments, representing a forty-six percent increase over the same period in 2024.

Russia’s aerial offensive is a daily feature of the war that aims to terrorize the civilian population and render large parts of Ukraine unlivable. By bombing cities and energy infrastructure, the Kremlin hopes to force millions of Ukrainians to flee the country and break the will of the remaining residents to resist. Any future peace deal that sidelines this reality and fails to hold Russia to account would erode international law and set a disastrous precedent for future armed conflicts.

For the past one and a half years, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School and the International Partnership for Human Rights have documented and analyzed Russia’s aerial attacks in Ukraine. This research is based on extensive fieldwork, witness interviews, open-source intelligence, and forensic analysis.

After reviewing hundreds of Russian drone and missile strikes, researchers narrowed the focus down to twenty-two key attacks and identified two patterns that illuminate their impact: Attacks on energy infrastructure and on densely populated areas. The legal memorandum resulting from this work concludes that Russia’s bombing campaign amounts to the crimes against humanity of extermination and persecution.

Stay updated

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

For three consecutive winters, Russia has bombed Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in a bid to deprive the civilian population of access to heating and electricity at a time when the days are short and temperatures are typically well below freezing. These attacks have had a devastating impact on the Ukrainian power grid, with around half of Ukraine’s entire prewar energy-generating capacity destroyed by summer 2024.

As well as targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure, Russia has also launched waves of drones and missiles at Ukrainian towns and cities throughout the invasion, causing widespread destruction and loss of life. There have been a number of particularly deadly attacks in recent weeks, including a ballistic missile strike on a playground in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih, that killed eighteen people including nine children. On Palm Sunday one week before Easter, Russia launched a targeted strike on Sumy city center as civilians made their way to church, leaving thirty-five dead.

In addition to killing and injuring civilians, Russian aerial attacks also create untenable living conditions for the wider civilian population. They leave people traumatized and fuel intense feelings of insecurity, while disrupting access to heating, power, water, healthcare, and other essential resources.

While estimating the true toll of these attacks is challenging, the number of displaced Ukrainians indicates the sheer scale of the humanitarian crisis. According to UN data from February 2025, Russian’s invasion has forced 10.6 million people to relocate, with 6.9 million recorded as refugees living outside Ukraine. Meanwhile, around 12.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, including nearly two million children.

Russia systematically and deliberately deprives civilians of objects essential to their survival and inflicts conditions of life calculated to bring about their destruction, which constitutes the crime against humanity of extermination. Statements by Russian officials, such as calls for Ukrainians to be left to “freeze and rot,” corroborate this conclusion.

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Russia’s aerial terror campaign, as well as the Kremlin’s actions in the occupied regions of Ukraine, have intentionally deprived Ukrainians of their fundamental rights to life, health, education, and culture, thus constituting the crime against humanity of persecution. The crime of persecution requires special discriminatory intent to target Ukrainians as a distinct group. This intent can be seen in Moscow’s branding of Ukrainians as “Nazis” who must be “destroyed.” such language underscores that Russia is attacking the very existence of Ukrainians. Targeted Russian attacks on educational and cultural facilities across Ukraine are further evidence of this intent.

Additionally, throughout the regions of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, the Russian occupation authorities are reportedly enforcing russification policies that aim to extinguish any trace of Ukrainian national identity or statehood. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia and subjected to anti-Ukrainian indoctrination. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in relation to the large-scale deportation of Ukrainian children.

Holding Russia accountable for the ongoing air offensive against Ukraine is particularly important as this form of prohibited total war, where everything and anything including vital infrastructure and civilian populations are targeted to achieve victory, looks set to return. Technological advances are transforming the modern battlefield to essentially include entire countries and their civilian populations. Against this backdrop, Russia’s use of long-range drones and missiles to terrorize Ukrainian civilians is likely a taste of things to come.

To date, no international tribunal has held individual perpetrators responsible for international crimes resulting from unlawful aerial attacks. The International Criminal Court has taken an important initial step by issuing arrest warrants against four senior Russian officials for their roles in attacking Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure, but further measures are needed.

Failure to hold Russia accountable today will fuel tomorrow’s wars and embolden Putin’s fellow autocrats to embrace similar tactics against civilian populations. It is vital to make sure long-term security is not sacrificed in order to reach some kind of compromise with the Kremlin to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. By focusing on accountability for Russia’s aerial attacks, the international community can set a meaningful precedent that could help protect civilians around the world for years to come.

Anastasiya Donets leads the Ukraine Legal Team at the International Partnership for Human Rights, an independent non-governmental organization. She was previously an assistant professor in the International Law Department at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University in Kharkiv. Susan H. Farbstein is a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School, where she directs the International Human Rights Clinic.

Ukraine’s vibrant civil society wants to be heard during peace talks

Ana Lejava — Thu, 15 May 2025 20:31:22 +0000

As US-led efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine struggle to gain momentum, debate continues over what a viable future settlement could look like. While officials in Moscow, Washington, Brussels, and Kyiv discuss technicalities and potential concessions, members of Ukraine’s vibrant civil society are also attempting to define the contours of a lasting and meaningful peace.

Many Ukrainian civil society representatives stress that peace must be more than a mere pause in fighting. Temporary ceasefires may lead to periods of relative calm, but unless the root causes of the war are addressed and justice is delivered, the conflict will merely be frozen and not resolved. Similarly frozen conflicts in Moldova and Georgia offer cautionary tales of how such outcomes can serve Russian interests. These unresolved disputes have allowed Moscow to destabilize its neighbors for decades while maintaining strategic leverage and control.

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In order to avoid the geopolitical uncertainties and internal instability of a frozen conflict, Ukrainian sovereignty must remain non-negotiable. This means rejecting any potential peace deal built on territorial concessions, restrictions on the size of Ukraine’s military, or limitations on the country’s ability to form international alliances.

Instead, Ukraine needs concrete and comprehensive security guarantees from the country’s partners. With this in mind, many civil society representatives warn against repeating the mistakes of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which saw Ukraine surrender its nuclear arsenal in exchange for toothless security assurances that failed to prevent Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine’s future security also depends on a strong military. Many women within the country’s civil society have sought to communicate this to their colleagues in the international feminist movement, which has often traditionally championed disarmament and non-violent conflict resolution. They stress that a durable peace cannot come at the expense of security or Ukraine’s fundamental right to exist.

Speaking during a recent visit to the United States, Ukrainian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Oleksandra Matviichuk emphasized that safeguarding Ukrainian sovereignty is about much more than protecting the country’s physical borders and also involves millions of human lives. Ukrainians living under Russian occupation are currently enduring the kidnapping of children, forced deportations, prison camps, sexual violence, widespread human rights abuses, and the methodical erosion of civil liberties. These are not isolated crimes. Instead, Russia is accused of seeking to systematically erase Ukrainian national identity in a campaign that many believe amounts to genocide.

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Ukrainian civil society leaders have stressed the need for broad inclusion in peace negotiations and post-war recovery processes. Their calls are backed by the experience of peace initiatives elsewhere. Research indicates that peace efforts are up to 64 percent less likely to fail in instances when civil society representatives are invited to participate in talks. This has been the case in places like Northern Ireland and South Africa, where a combination of official diplomacy and civil society dialogue helped forge lasting peace.

Excluding Ukrainian civil society from peace efforts could undermine the human dimension of the process and remove accountability from the equation. While defining what justice should look like at the local, national, and international levels will be an ongoing discussion requiring the involvement of diverse stakeholders, Ukrainian civil society activists emphasize that justice must remain at the heart of any peace agreement.

Demands for accountability are widespread throughout Ukrainian society. More than 70,000 war crimes have been documented since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, including a large number of cases involving conflict-related sexual violence. Civil society activists have been at the forefront of efforts to secure justice for war crimes while also working for the protection of displaced people and the return of abducted Ukrainian children. Their demands include ensuring that the perpetrators of war crimes do not enjoy immunity, and that frozen Russian assets be directed toward rebuilding Ukraine and supporting victims.

Many Ukrainian civil society leaders believe the pursuit of justice in response to the crimes committed during Russia’s invasion is not only a national priority. Instead, they say Russia’s actions elsewhere from Syria to Africa reflect a wider pattern of impunity and argue that addressing this problem is a global imperative. As Oleksandra Matviichuk bluntly puts it, “Unpunished evil grows.”

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a watershed moment in modern history that has directly undermined the foundations of the existing international order. Ukrainian activists recognize the scale of the challenge this represents, but argue that international law must be revitalized rather than being abandoned entirely. They see this moment as a critical test for the global community. How the world responds to Russia’s alleged war crimes will set precedents that extend far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Failure to act decisively now will not only undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty, but also embolden authoritarian regimes everywhere.

Ana Lejava is a Policy Officer at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security at Georgetown University.

Can the EU-UK summit lead to a new post-Brexit partnership?

Ed Owen — Thu, 15 May 2025 16:41:38 +0000

Almost a decade after the Brexit referendum, leaders from the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom will meet in London on Monday. The meeting will be the first of what is to become an annual bilateral summit focused on building a stronger partnership to meet the growing economic and security threats that both Britain and the bloc face.

The EU and Britain need each other. Their shared challenges, including sluggish economic growth, the protracted war in Ukraine, and a US administration erecting tariffs on European goods and seeking to disengage from the continent’s defense, have made this abundantly clear.

Faced with these common challenges, EU and UK leaders are looking to sign three agreements at the summit. The first is a broad statement of shared values and common principles—a “geopolitical preamble” to shape a new strategic partnership. This statement is expected to reaffirm a commitment to free and open trade, Ukrainian sovereignty, and multilateral action to address global issues such as climate change.

For all the political difficulties, this is a time for both the EU and the United Kingdom to be bold.

The second, and most urgent, prospective agreement is a security and defense pact, which would open the way to the United Kingdom’s participation in EU-backed military spending. This agreement would allow Britain to take part in joint procurement for military capabilities alongside the bloc’s member states and to enable EU countries to purchase British-made military equipment as part of the new €150 billion European instrument to ramp up defense spending.

As one of Europe’s leading miliary powers, Britain is essential to achieving the continent’s aim of taking the primary role of defending itself in the wake of the Trump administration’s stated desire to reduce the United States’ commitment to defending Europe. In February, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged that Britain would increase its defense spending to 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product by 2027 and to 3 percent during the next parliament.

European fears about Russian aggression and US withdrawal from the continent have increased the pressure for decisive action on defense and security, and the EU-UK pact would represent a welcome step toward developing the continent’s defense industrial base and enhancing effective military cooperation.

The third item on the summit’s agenda is to agree to a “common understanding” on a range of issues concerning the trade and economic relationship between Britain and the EU. Current UK-EU trade arrangements are governed by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed by the two sides in late 2020.

For all the fanfare associated with the economic deal the United Kingdom signed with the United States on May 8, the EU remains Britain’s single largest trading partner by far. Boosting economic ties weakened by Brexit could bring desperately needed dividends for both sides, even if it doesn’t produce the growth that would come from Britain rejoining the European single market, a policy Starmer promised not to pursue on the campaign trail.

The TCA is subject to a joint review next year, and both the United Kingdom and EU have bilateral issues they want to amend. The United Kingdom is keen to negotiate an agreement to reduce border checks on agricultural products and secure a mutual recognition agreement for professional qualifications to help open up markets for UK service exporters.

On the EU side, there are calls from France and others to support EU fishing rights in UK waters and a European Commission proposal to create a youth mobility scheme, which would allow young people from across Europe to work and travel freely between the United Kingdom and the EU.

Some of these issues will require political risks and trade-offs from both sides. Starmer’s popularity has slumped since he was elected last summer, and Brexiteers in the United Kingdom will be ready to accuse him of compromising on the outcome of Britian’s referendum to leave the European Union.

This domestic pressure has become more intense after local elections in England earlier this month that represented a heavy defeat for the governing Labour Party and a significant victory for the populist right-wing party, Reform UK, led by the arch Brexit champion Nigel Farage.

There will be pressure on European governments, too, not to compromise the principles of the EU single market for a deal on defense and security. And there remain concerns in European capitals about Britain’s long-term commitment to closer ties with a club it chose to leave nine years ago.

Yet, for all the political difficulties, this is a time for both the EU and the United Kingdom to be bold. Squabbles about fishing or veterinary checks cannot be allowed to undermine the vital steps that must be taken to confront the economic and security threats facing Britain and the EU today.

Europe has always been stronger when the United Kingdom and its continental neighbors are united. Next week’s summit can mark a modest but important step forward for UK-EU relations and demonstrate that the friction and pain of the last decade can be replaced by a new partnership with mutual benefits.

Ed Owen is a nonresident fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and a former UK government adviser.

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Inside Latvia’s race against time to build deterrence against Russia

Armands Astukevičs and Hans Binnendijk — Wed, 14 May 2025 14:51:29 +0000

This project, a collaboration between the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and the Latvia-based Centre for East European Policy Studies, aims to advance understanding of Latvia’s defense and security policies, with an emphasis on resilience-building strategies. Latvia’s measures offer lessons for other frontline states, and demonstrate an increasing willingness to prioritize defense in an uncertain geopolitical environment. Read the other articles in this series here and here.

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has laid bare Moscow’s neo-imperial ambitions and the direct threat it poses to its so-called near-abroad. For NATO frontline states such as Latvia, the security landscape has fundamentally changed over the past three years. While Russian forces are currently taking staggering losses in Ukraine, necessitating a period of force reconstitution, Russia’s military could be rebuilt and ready to invade a Baltic state in as few as three years, according to estimates from some Western intelligence agencies.

Other factors complicate the picture further. On the positive side, the accession of Finland and Sweden to the Alliance, growing defense capabilities in neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, and Poland’s significant defense investments, all provide Latvia with a strengthened collective defense posture in the Baltic Sea region. However, this has occurred amid growing uncertainty regarding the United States’ long-term commitment to European security. Critical US enablers and rapid reinforcements cannot be taken for granted to the same degree as in the past. While the US nuclear umbrella remains extended so far, the erosion of trust is noticeable, creating potential vulnerabilities that the Kremlin might seek to test.

The stakes could not be higher. For Latvia and its Baltic neighbors, Russian aggression represents an existential threat. At the same time, a Russian attack on NATO’s eastern flank would quickly reverberate across the entire Alliance.

In response to these threats and changing security dynamics, Latvia should pursue three fundamental and interconnected strategic goals:

First, demonstrate political will: Latvia must demonstrate to allies in Washington and across Europe that it is maximizing its own defense capabilities and resilience, shouldering its share of the burden, and signaling unwavering commitment. It must then use that demonstration to harness the power of the Alliance for its national defense. Latvia’s defense budget hovered around 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014 when Russia first invaded Crimea. Its defense budget this year is set at about 3.65 percent, with announced plans to push it to 5 percent of GDP soon. Latvia needs to make up for lost time.
Second, generate sufficient capabilities: Riga needs to generate sufficient domestic defensive capabilities, integrated with NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup, to realistically hold a defensive line against aggression long enough for decisive allied reinforcements to arrive. It needs to achieve a degree of deterrence by denial. This will require a significant Latvian military buildup.
Third, enhance societal resilience: Latvia must also project an undeniable national will, making it clear to Moscow that any aggression would face fierce, protracted, whole-of-society, and costly resistance. There can be no perception of Latvia as an easy target.

Achieving these goals demands immediate, focused action in Latvia, as well as a rallying of Riga’s NATO allies.

National defense priorities

Latvia should begin by making its comprehensive defense concept a nationwide reality. The 2018 adoption of this framework, which called for integrating civilian elements into national security, is its vital strength. Through this whole-of-society approach, Latvia has demonstrated ingenuity and cooperation. For example, Latvia’s municipalities and state companies collaborate to support armed forces mobility and counter-mobility efforts. Another example is the involvement of hunters in the national defense system—as a patriotic and armed part of society that can be integrated with the National Guard and tasked with support assignments. While these efforts are commendable, more must be done to ensure that civilian agencies, businesses, and citizens are actively integrated into national resilience and defense planning through practical taskings and drills. As comprehensive defense evolves into the reality of society, it demonstrates credible national will, complicates adversary planning, and builds the societal backbone needed to withstand pressure and deter aggression, including hybrid attacks from Russia.

Latvia must also maintain momentum and keep military modernization on track. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Latvia has significantly increased investment in conventional war-fighting capabilities. Riga’s commitment to acquiring advanced systems such as HIMARS rocket launchers, IRIS-T air-to-air missiles, and coastal defense missiles sends a vital message: the country is serious about bolstering deterrence by denial. However, acquiring advanced hardware is only part of the equation; Latvia must also ensure that these systems can be effectively commanded, supplied, and maintained during high-intensity conflict. This necessitates trained personnel and critical support elements, including robust command-and-control, resilient logistics, sufficient ammunition stockpiles, and effective maintenance infrastructure. Not all equipment needs to be expensive or high-tech. Land mines along the border that would channel an attack and swarms of low-cost drones can have dramatic results on the battlefield. Perhaps most important, Latvia must ensure that it can sustain combat operations beyond the initial phase, proving it possesses the national endurance required to hold the line until allied reinforcements arrive.

National resilience also requires forging a cohesive fighting force from diverse sources of manpower. In 2023, Latvia introduced a mandatory conscription policy called State Defense Service (SDS) to bolster recruitment. This policy of mandatory eleven-month service has shown early signs of success. Latvia is planning to enlist four thousand new recruits annually by 2028, and 40 percent of the 2024 intake opted for professional careers after their mandatory service. However, given Latvia’s demographics, active service alone cannot generate sufficient manpower; it must be complemented by a ready and responsive reserve system—one that currently requires significant overhaul. With SDS providing a new input stream, the reserve system must be adapted to effectively integrate these personnel and grow combat power over the long term. Latvia could add significantly to its manpower mobilization by combining professionals, the Home Guard, and SDS graduates, as well as by implementing dedicated reservist training and early military education. Current military plans envision 31,000 troops by 2029, plus an equally large reserve contingent thereafter. While this objective is sound, the current timeline appears misaligned with the potential speed of Russian force reconstitution. Latvia must confront substantial constraints, including the need for adequate infrastructure, qualified instructors, and innovative policies to drive recruitment and conduct training at the required scale and speed.

Furthermore, physical defenses require turning the Baltic Defense Line from a concept to a concrete plan. A fortified line across the Baltics, leveraging naturally difficult terrain, is a clear-headed and necessary response to the Russian threat. Correctly executed, it could effectively impede a potential incursion, buying time for national counteractions and allied mobilization. Fast-tracking construction, funding, and policy decisions will be crucial for realizing this critical barrier. Critically, forces must train to fight effectively from these prepared positions, integrating them fully into national and regional operational plans.

Finally, Latvia must ensure that it has the infrastructure to support military mobility and to provide host nation support. Latvia’s defense fundamentally relies on NATO allies arriving quickly and in force, requiring substantial investment in mobility infrastructure and support elements. Latvia must therefore proactively invest in and expand the critical infrastructure needed to receive, stage, and sustain large-scale allied forces. Short-term priorities include accelerating projects like the Liepāja military port and enhancing airfield capacity at Lielvārde airbase and Riga International Airport. Accelerating Rail Baltica’s military utility is also crucial, as it could fundamentally alter the capacity and speed of NATO reinforcements into the region.

Rallying allied support

While Latvia shoulders these critical domestic responsibilities, its security ultimately rests on robust collective defense and the tangible commitment of its allies. Latvia must advocate for specific actions from its NATO partners, recognizing that the window before Russia potentially reconstitutes its offensive capabilities is short. This diplomatic push requires urgency and clarity.

The place to begin is in Washington. All three Baltic states and Poland have essentially accepted US President Donald Trump’s challenge for allies to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense. This should be presented in a high-profile fashion to Trump during the NATO Summit in June. As part of this presentation, Latvia should urge Trump to continue hosting US forces in the Baltic region on a rotational basis and to augment those rotations with high-impact capabilities such as air and missile defense assets.

To deter Russia, NATO must strengthen its forward defense posture on the ground. Latvia should continue advocating for transforming the Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup on its territory into a combat-credible forward defense force that expands on the full-time brigade and integrates it with national defense structures that match adversary military capabilities. Enhancing this forward defense by securing broader participation, particularly from a nuclear-armed European ally, would send a strong deterrent signal to Moscow.

This enhanced forward presence must be embedded within deeper, more integrated regional defense planning. Latvia, working closely with its neighbors, should champion the development of genuinely interlocking, all-domain defense plans within an enhanced Nordic-Baltic-Poland framework. This necessitates moving beyond interoperability exercises toward shared operational concepts and assigned responsibilities. This will help forge a more cohesive and resilient defense architecture in NATO’s northeast as part of the Alliance’s broader reinforcement strategy. Consequently, Latvia must be a vocal proponent of the regular, rigorous exercising and continuous streamlining of the supreme allied commander Europe’s reinforcement plans for the Baltic region. Identifying and resolving friction points, especially cross-border military mobility bottlenecks and logistical hurdles, requires sustained, collaborative effort with those allies designated to reinforce the region in a crisis.

Minimizing the time required for those reinforcements to arrive necessitates a concerted push to maximize the pre-positioning of allied military equipment and essential stocks within Latvia and the region. Reducing the lift requirement during a crisis by having equipment already in theater dramatically shortens response timelines, directly bolstering deterrence by showcasing NATO’s capacity for rapid, large-scale reaction.

Lastly, building on a deep-seated relationship, the Baltic states must treat strengthening security cooperation with Ukraine as a long-term strategic imperative. Currently, Kyiv’s resolute defense delivers immediate dividends by tying down significant Russian forces and offering invaluable, hard-earned combat lessons. For the Baltic states, a battle-hardened ally such as Ukraine can be a substantial security and defense contributor to the region. If Russia were to test NATO’s defense capabilities on its eastern flank, the prospect of Ukraine joining the fight would dramatically expand Moscow’s theater of operations.

Latvia has a brief respite as Russian troops are worn down in Ukraine, but it will take little time for Russia to reconstitute its conventional forces. Latvia must use this window to create a more favorable defense environment. At home, it must rapidly build up its defense capacity and resilience. Abroad, it needs to assure a continued US commitment to its defense, generate a greater NATO forward presence on its soil, and deepen regional integration. It also needs to refine reinforcement mechanisms and maximize pre-positioning. Convincing allies to commit the necessary political will and resources before Russia regains its strength is the most critical security task facing Riga and its regional partners.

Armands Astukevičs is a researcher at the Centre for East European Policy Studies. His primary research focuses on the Baltic states’ defense and security, as well as the foreign and security policies of Russia and Belarus. Previously, he worked on policy analysis and planning at the Latvian Ministry of Defence, focusing on crisis management and comprehensive national defence issues.

Hans Binnendijk is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He previously served in several senior US government positions, including special assistant to the president for defense policy, principal deputy director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, and director of the Institute for National Security Studies.

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How much longer will Putin be allowed to continue stalling for time?

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 13 May 2025 21:59:27 +0000

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and Poland arrived in Kyiv last weekend amid much fanfare to deliver an unprecedented ultimatum to the Kremlin. The time for talk was over, they announced. If Russian President Vladimir Putin did not agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire by Monday, he would face tough new sanctions and increased weapons transfers to Ukraine. “All of us here, together with the US, are calling Putin out. If he’s serious about peace, then he has a chance to show it now,” declared British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

For a brief moment, it seemed possible that this bold move could revive faltering peace efforts. After all, if Putin agreed to a ceasefire, the way would be open for more substantive negotiations. If he refused, the West would now be obliged to turn up the pressure on Moscow and force Russia to rethink its position. Putin, however, had other ideas. At a hastily arranged midnight press conference in the Kremlin, he chose not to directly address the West’s ultimatum, and instead proposed bilateral talks with Ukraine.

Putin’s announcement that he was ready to resume negotiations with the Ukrainian authorities for the first time since the initial months of the war succeeded in overshadowing Saturday’s ultimatum. It also undermined any fleeting sense of Western unity and decisiveness. Predictably, US President Donald Trump was the first to break ranks, posting a statement urging Ukraine to “immediately” accept Putin’s offer in order to determine whether a peace deal is actually possible.

Elsewhere, confusion reigned. Was the original ultimatum still in place? There seemed to be no clear answer. In Berlin, German officials stated on Monday that “the clock is ticking,” but then took no action when their subsequent midnight deadline came and went. Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, the Kyiv quartet quietly decided to wait until after a potential Russia-Ukraine meeting on Thursday in Istanbul before taking any action. This was the exact opposite of US President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous foreign policy advice to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” European leaders had instead opted to speak very loudly while carrying no stick at all.

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Putin’s evasive response to last weekend’s ceasefire ultimatum was wholly in line with his elusive approach to the entire US-led peace process. Since tentative talks first began in February, Putin has consistently voiced his support for peace. At the same time, he has offered endless excuses and presented a long list of additional demands that make genuine progress toward a peaceful settlement of the war virtually impossible. At one point, he even questioned the legitimacy of the Ukrainian authorities and suggested the country should be placed under United Nations administration.

In contrast, Ukraine has demonstrated a readiness to make compromises in the interests of peace. Kyiv has acknowledged that any negotiated settlement will likely leave Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine under de facto Kremlin control, and has backed a US proposal for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. It came as no surprise on Sunday when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promptly agreed with Trump’s call to accept the Russian offer of bilateral talks. In the current climate, even the most obtuse of observers cannot help but conclude that Putin is now the main obstacle to peace.

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It remains theoretically possible that this week’s proposed bilateral talks will lead to some kind of breakthrough, but past experience suggests there is very little prospect of any real progress. On the contrary, negotiations are far more likely to end inconclusively, with the Russian delegation offering up just enough false hope to justify yet another round of time-consuming meetings. The real question is how long Putin will be allowed to continue engaging in stalling tactics before Western patience finally runs out.

It should be obvious by now that Putin has no genuine interest in ending the war. He refuses to offer any meaningful concessions and continues to insist on maximalist peace terms that would leave postwar Ukraine partitioned, disarmed, isolated, and defenseless in the face of future Russian aggression. It does not require much imagination to anticipate exactly what Putin has planned for Ukraine if his conditions are met.

Anyone who thinks Putin is willing to compromise over Ukraine clearly does not understand his profoundly revisionist worldview or his imperial ambitions. While Western leaders speak about the need for diplomatic dialogue and mutual concessions, Putin himself views the current invasion in far more existential terms as an historic mission to reverse the Soviet collapse and revive the Russian Empire.

The Russian leader is perfectly happy to entertain the idea of negotiations in order to buy time and weaken Western resolve, but in reality he has no intention of stopping until Ukrainian statehood has been extinguished. Trump has made a legitimate effort to broker a generous peace, but the time has now come to acknowledge that Putin is not negotiating in good faith and will only respond to the language of strength.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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The most important tools in Ukraine’s unmanned arsenal are the country’s growing fleet of First Person View (FPV) drones. These drones in many ways function as the infantry of drone warfare. They have become a central pillar of Ukraine’s war effort, inflicting up to 80 percent of Russian battlefield casualties and making it possible to hold the line even when Ukrainian troops have found themselves starved of artillery shells.

Ukrainian production of FPV drones has mushroomed in recent years, with domestic companies also gradually moving away from an initial reliance on imported components. By early 2025, Ukraine was reportedly producing 200,000 FPV drones per month. Cheap to manufacture, they are capable of destroying tanks and other military equipment worth millions of dollars.

Russia is also relentlessly adapting to technological changes on the battlefield, creating a daily race to innovate that runs in parallel to the actual fighting on the front lines of the war. The dominance of FPV drones has led to a variety of countermeasures, ranging from the widespread use of netting and so-called “cope cages,” to increasingly sophisticated electronic blocking and the jamming of signals. In response, both Russia and Ukraine are turning to fiber optic drones that are not susceptible to jamming technologies.

As the full-scale war approaches a fourth summer, the evolution of drone tactics continues. Over the past year, Ukraine has sought to establish a 15-kilometer kill zone patrolled by drones along the front lines of the conflict, making it extremely challenging to concentrate troops for major offensive operations. The strength of Ukraine’s so-called “drone wall” defenses will be severely tested in the coming few months by Russia’s ongoing offensive. Building on Ukraine’s experience, NATO is reportedly exploring the idea of creating a “drone wall” of its own on the alliance’s eastern flank.

Beyond the front lines, Ukraine has developed an expanding fleet of long-range drones capable of striking targets deep inside Russia. This has made it possible to carry out a wide range of attacks on Russian military bases, ammunition storage facilities, air defenses, and Putin’s economically vital but vulnerable oil and gas industry. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called the country’s growing long range capabilities “a clear and effective guarantee of Ukraine’s security.”

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Ukrainian drone innovations are also transforming naval warfare. During the first two years of the war, Ukraine used marine drones to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, sinking or damaging multiple warships and forcing the remainder to retreat from Russian-occupied Crimea. This remarkable success made it possible to lift the naval blockade on Ukrainian ports and reopen commercial maritime routes, providing Kyiv with a vital economic lifeline.

More recently, Ukraine has begun using naval drones as launch platforms for missiles and smaller unmanned systems. The results have been spectacular. In January 2025, missile-armed Ukrainian naval drones reportedly destroyed several Russian helicopters over the Black Sea. In another world first, Ukrainian officials announced in early May that they had shot down two Russian fighter jets using marine drones equipped with anti-aircraft missile systems.

Ukrainian military planners are now working on a range of unmanned ground systems as they look to take drone warfare to the next level. With support from the country’s government-backed defense tech cluster Brave1, work is underway to develop dozens of robotic models capable of performing a variety of combat and logistical tasks. In December 2024, Ukrainian forces claimed to have made history by conducting the world’s first fully unmanned assault on Russian positions using ground-based robotic systems and FPV drones.

Speaking in April 2025, Ukraine’s former commander in chief Valeriy Zaluzhniy underlined how his country’s use of new technologies was transforming the battlefield. “The Russian-Ukrainian War has completely changed the nature of warfare,” he commented. Zaluzhniy predicted that the wars of the future would be won by countries that focus their resources on the development of drones, electronic warfare, and artificial intelligence. “It is obvious that victory on the battlefield now depends entirely on the ability to outpace the enemy in technological development,” he noted.

Western leaders and military commanders are clearly taking note of the remarkable progress made by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2022. Many are now incorporating Ukraine’s unique battlefield experience into their own programs, while NATO members including Britain and Denmark are reportedly already receiving training in drone warfare from Ukrainian military instructors. This is likely to be just the beginning, as more countries seek to benefit from Ukrainian expertise.

For many years, it has been customary to view Ukraine as being almost entirely dependent on Western aid and know-how for its survival. This was always an oversimplification; it is now hopelessly outdated. In reality, today’s Ukraine is a drone superpower with an innovative domestic defense industry that can provide its NATO allies with important lessons in the realities of twenty-first century warfare.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Experts react: Trump just announced the removal of all US sanctions on Syria. What’s next?

Atlantic Council experts — Tue, 13 May 2025 20:51:11 +0000

“We’re taking them all off.” US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that Washington will remove all US sanctions on the Syrian government. The announcement comes five months after the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in a snap opposition offensive led by new President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s militant group.

The new Syrian leadership and its supporters have pushed for sanctions relief to help rebuild from the rubble of more than a decade of civil war—accompanied by promises of establishing a more free and tolerant Syria. But skepticism remains regarding al-Sharaa’s past links to al-Qaeda and communal massacres against minority groups that have taken place since he came to power.

How will the removal of US sanctions affect Syria’s economy and future US-Syria relations? And what are the wider implications for the region? Our experts offer their insights below.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Kirsten Fontenrose: Watch for a Saudi-Syria deal, Russia’s renewed presence, and Iran’s next moves

Daniel B. Shapiro: Trump is making a smart gamble, Congress should back him up

Sarah Zaaimi: A US carte blanche to al-Sharaa may lead to sectarian backsliding

Thomas S. Warrick: Trump has made clear that he is listening to Arab leaders

Amany Qaddour: Now is the time to move beyond politicizing aid

Alan Pino: A clear signal to Iran

Kimberly Donovan: Lifting the complex Syrian sanctions regime will require careful strategy

Celeste Kmiotek: Bashar al-Assad must be held accountable\

Maia Nikoladze: This move aligns US Syria sanctions policy with the EU and UK

Ömer Özkizilcik: This represents a diplomatic success for Saudi Arabia and Turkey

Sinan Hatahet: Engagement must go beyond sanctions relief

Diana Rayes: A critical reprieve for Syrians everywhere

Elise Baker: Now is the time to establish the Syria Victims Fund

Lize de Kruijf: Without meaningful financial support, the US risks ceding influence in Syria

This is an opportunity to secure a long-term US strategic victory in the region

Trump’s decision to lift US sanctions on Syria is a pivotal shift that could define his legacy in the Middle East. The move signals an opportunity to secure a long-term US victory in Syria by stabilizing the region, countering rivals such as Russia and China, and opening economic opportunities for US businesses.

Trump has long portrayed himself as a dealmaker, and his record on Syria supports that image. Unlike the Obama and Biden administrations, Trump responded decisively to al-Assad’s chemical weapon attacks in 2017 and 2018, launched airstrikes to deter further atrocities, and cooperated with Turkey in 2020 to halt the Assad regime’s and Russia’s assault on Idlib. He also signed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which crippled the Assad regime financially, leading to its fall last December. Now, however, those same sanctions are undermining the prospects of Syria’s new post-Assad regime government, which is attempting to rebuild and distance itself from Iranian and Russian influence.

The current sanctions are weakening a new government that seeks US and Gulf support. If these sanctions were to stay in place, Syria’s economy would remain in free fall, making it increasingly reliant on Russia, China, and Iran. This would open the door to renewed extremism, regional instability, and the resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Lifting sanctions will allow US companies to compete with Chinese firms for contracts in Syria’s expected $400 billion reconstruction effort. It will also enable Trump to leverage Gulf funding, create jobs in both Syria and the United States, and demonstrate Washington’s role as a stabilizing force. A prosperous Syria would reduce refugee flows, weaken Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and eliminate Syria as a threat to Israel—a country with which the new Syrian leadership seeks peaceful relations.

The new Syrian government is not without flaws, but it has made pragmatic moves. It started reintegrating territories with the Syrian Democratic Forces, cracked down on drug trafficking, made efforts aimed at protecting minorities, and distanced itself from Hezbollah and Iranian forces. These steps show a willingness to cooperate with the West and align with its goal of regional stability. If Trump follows through, he could secure a rare bipartisan win, outmaneuver Russia, and reshape the future of Syria in a way that serves US interests and regional peace.

—Qutaiba Idlbi is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs where he leads the Council’s work on Syria.

Watch for a Saudi-Syria deal, Russia’s renewed presence, and Iran’s next moves

I am hearing that the lifting of US sanctions on Syria took some members of Trump’s own administration by surprise. Since January, Syria has been a counterterrorism file, not a political one. Al-Sharaa received a list of milestones from the US administration this spring, and meeting these would have meant a gradual rollback of sanctions. So this sudden lifting must feel like a new lease on life for the Syrian ruler.

But this sudden decision to lift sanctions should not be interpreted as a sign that the United States is making Syria a priority. In fact, it indicates the opposite. Both Saudi leader Mohammad bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have had to promise Trump that they will hold al-Sharaa accountable and will shoulder the burden of reconstruction. The United States has never colonized or invaded Syria, and the United States committed a lot of manpower and funding into supporting opposition to al-Assad under the first Trump administration. It is hard to make an argument that the United States has any obligation to fund Syria’s reconstruction. That responsibility will fall to those who pressed Trump to lift sanctions.

Going forward, there are three things to watch:

One, watch for Saudi Arabia’s deal with al-Sharaa. He will owe them big time for making this happen. (Erdogan will argue that he is owed as well, having greased the skids on a phone call with Trump just before his meetings in Riyadh.) Expect Saudi Arabia to require that foreign fighters be ejected from senior government roles and demand that Iran is kept out of Syria. Look for Saudi companies to be granted the contracts to undertake reconstruction projects in Syria, an easy give for al-Sharaa and a no-brainer in this situation.

Two, for Europe especially, watch Russia. Moscow may find it easier to establish its interests in Syria now. Saudi Arabia and Israel will see a Russian presence as a way of counterbalancing Turkey’s influence in Syria.

Three, watch for shifts in Iran’s foreign policy. Syria is now proof that Trump will in fact lift sanctions under certain conditions—if your leadership promises to change its stripes and favored foreign partners vouch for you. Expect to see a charm offensive by Tehran.

— Kirsten Fontenrose is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. Previously, she was the senior director for the Gulf at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, leading the development of US policy toward nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan.

Trump is making a smart gamble

Trump’s announcement that he will provide sanctions relief to Syria is a gamble, but it is the right one. The collapse of the Assad regime, whose brutality, misrule, and collaboration with malevolent regional actors destroyed Syria, has given long-suffering Syrians a chance to build a different future.

The road to recovery will not be an easy one. Many are rightly suspicious of Syria’s new acting president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and others in his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement, due to their violent jihadist past. As one cannot look inside another’s soul, it is unknown if they have truly shed their extremist ideology amid a rebranding since coming to power in December.

What can be judged are actions. So far, al-Sharaa has said and done many of things Western and Arab nations have called for. He is making efforts to be inclusive, including appointing women and minorities into his cabinet. He says strict Sharia law will not be imposed. He has begun negotiations with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces on their peaceful integration into Syrian national institutions. He claims to want Syria to pose no threat to any of its neighbors, including Israel, and he wants to keep Iran from re-establishing influence in Syria. He is aligning himself with moderate Arab states and US partners like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

These words and actions must be tested and verified over time. But to have any chance to succeed in stabilizing Syria, the new government needs resources to make the economy function. Reconstruction and resettlement of refugees, not to mention restoring services disrupted by years of civil war, will be expensive. Without a significant measure of US sanctions relief, none of this is possible. It would nearly guarantee Syria’s descent back into chaos and provide fertile ground for extremists.

Congress should work with Trump on crafting sanctions relief such that, if necessary, sanctions can be restored. But Trump is right to seize this opportunity.

—Daniel B. Shapiro is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. From 2022 to 2023, he was the Director of the N7 Initiative. He has previously served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and as US ambassador to Israel.

A US carte blanche to al-Sharaa may lead to sectarian backsliding

Lifting sanctions presents a tremendous opportunity to revitalize the Syrian economy and provide a genuine chance for the al-Sharaa government to implement the vision for social unity it has advocated since December. However, the United States should make sure not to give carte blanche to the new Syrian regime and lose all of its leverage over a ruler who has only recently self-reformed from a dangerous radical ideology, especially when it comes to managing ethnic and religious diversity.

Al-Sharaa has publicly and repeatedly pledged to build a nation for all Syrians, regardless of their identities. He also appointed a Christian woman to his newly announced government and welcomed a delegation of Jewish religious officials to return for the first time since their synagogue was closed back in the 1990s. Still, his first five months in power have also been marked by violent confrontations with certain religious minorities and the ascension to power of foreign fighters with questionable pasts. Back in March, over one thousand Alawites were killed in a violent crackdown on the minority’s stronghold on the Syrian coast. Meanwhile, the Druze remain divided, and many refuse to turn in their arms, fearing the escalation of sectarian tensions.

Similarly, many other sects remain anxious about their future, including Christians and Twelver Shia, who saw the lowering of the Sayeda Zainab flag—a revered pilgrimage site on the outskirts of Damascus—as a sign of the prevalence of a monochrome orthodox version of Islam. Another worrying signal was the sweeping authority provided to the presidency in the new Syrian constitution, which also excluded mention of minority rights and societal diversity, making Islam the only supreme law of the land.

Al-Sharaa and his entourage have a historic chance to start anew and build a plural and inclusive Syria for all its citizens. Until then, Washington and its allies should continue monitoring the state of minorities in this complex sociocultural context and signal to the new lords of the land that lifting sanctions is a provisional chance and not an unconditional license to lead Damascus into another sectarian spiral.

—Sarah Zaaimi is a resident senior fellow for North Africa at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs, focusing on minorities and cultural hybridity. She is also the center’s deputy director for media and communications.

Trump has made clear that he is listening to Arab leaders

No one can say that Trump does not listen to Arab leaders—clearly, he does. Arab leaders were united in telling Trump and his administration that the United States should lift sanctions against Syria to help move the country toward peace with all its neighbors.

Officials in the Trump administration had different views on how to respond to al-Sharaa’s statements calling for peace with Syria’s neighbors and openness to the West. But no one expected Trump to announce the lifting of sanctions on this trip. As recently as April 25, a senior administration official said that the new Syrian government needed to combat terrorism, prevent Iran from regaining influence in Syria, expel foreign fighters from Syria’s government and security apparatus, destroy all chemical weapons, adopt nonaggression policies toward all neighboring countries, and clear up the fate of missing American Austin Tice. “We will consider sanctions relief, provided the interim authorities take demonstrable steps in the directions that I have articulated,” he said. “We want Syria to have a second chance.”

On March 20, I and other US experts on the Middle East called for Syria to express interest in joining the Abraham Accords. I think that al-Sharaa’s April 19 offer to discuss joining the Abraham Accords did exactly what it needed to do: It broke through to get Trump’s attention.

Trump is now willing to give Syria a second chance. Sanctions against terrorist groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which brought al-Sharaa to power (with support from Turkey), are likely to remain in place. Syria needs to make substantive progress on sidelining extremists within al-Sharaa’s ranks and engaging in serious talks (either direct or indirect) with Israel that could eventually lead to joining the Abraham Accords. Trump could change his mind tomorrow, but for now, it is clear Trump is listening.

—Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow in the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy in the US Department of Homeland Security.

Now is the time to move beyond politicizing aid

What a monumental shift for Syria—one of the most significant since the December fall of the Assad regime.

Having just returned recently from the country, I could clearly see that the humanitarian situation has stagnated. The Trump administration’s massive US Agency for International Development (USAID) cuts—amid already dwindling funds for Syria—have had a catastrophic impact. The soul-crushing sight of destroyed buildings across the country as a result of the regime’s brutality was still visible in so many of the previously besieged areas like Douma and Harista of Eastern Ghouta. The Assad regime’s deprivation, oppression, and collective punishment of millions has left the country in a state of decay.

In my view as a humanitarian and public health practitioner, sanctions have been one of the most critical hindrances to early recovery. Syria’s health sector is decimated after over a decade of destruction to critical civilian infrastructure like hospitals and clinics—not to mention schools and marketplaces— from aerial attacks by the regime and its allies.

As long as sanctions are in place against the new government in Syria, the recovery of the country is impossible, and civilians will continue to the pay the price, just as they did under the Assad regime. Beyond the need for Syria’s early recovery and reconstruction from a physical infrastructure standpoint, the country needs to heal. This is an opportune moment to capitalize on this shift. The politicization of aid throughout the entirety of conflict has translated to the suffering of millions. Now is the time to move beyond that politicization of aid and recovery efforts and give Syrians the chance to start the healing process. Lifting sanctions will allow for that and bring Syria back from being a pariah state.

—Amany Qaddour is a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. She is also the director of the 501(c)(3) humanitarian nongovernmental organization Syria Relief & Development.

A clear signal to Iran

Trump’s decision to lift economic sanctions on Syria provides a needed lifeline to Syria’s struggling economy, aligns Washington’s Syria policy with that of regional Arab powers, and pointedly signals a determination to prevent Iran from rebuilding its presence and influence in this key country.

Popular unrest—including increasing criticism of al-Sharaa and his new government—has been growing in Syria over the poor economy and living conditions as the country attempts to recover from over a decade of civil war. The lifting of US sanctions opens the way for an infusion of regional and international aid, investment, and expertise to help the al-Sharaa government begin rebuilding the country and heading off the political instability that could otherwise arise.

Removing sanctions also shows US support for efforts by Washington’s Arab partners in the Gulf, Egypt, and Jordan to reintegrate Syria into the moderate Arab fold after decades of alignment with Iran. The controversy over the invitation of al-Sharaa to the Arab Summit in Baghdad because of his and his follower’s past ties to al-Qaeda makes clear that Syrian reintegration will need to proceed slowly, based on a demonstrated commitment to eschew all ties to terrorism and apply equal justice to all minorities in Syria.

Finally, Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria puts down a marker that Washington is not only determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but to check Iranian efforts to try to restore its badly weakened resistance axis aimed at threatening Israel and wider reigonal domination.

—Alan Pino is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs.

Lifting the complex Syrian sanctions regime will require careful strategy

Trump’s announcement in Riyadh that the United States will end sanctions on Syria is a major foreign policy shift. Lifting sanctions on Syria is complicated and will require strategy to determine which sanctions to pull down and when, as well as what measures implement to enable the snap-back of sanctions should the situation in Syria deteriorate.

Syria has been on the US state sponsor of terrorism list since 1979 and is subject to sanctions and export controls pursuant to numerous executive orders and legislation for a range of issues including human rights abuses, smuggling Iranian oil, and supporting terrorist groups. A further complicating factor is that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which overthrew the Assad regime, is leading the interim Syrian government. HTS, formerly known as al-Nusrah Front and once al-Qaeda’s arm in Syria, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, and other governments. HTS is also designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations (UN), a designation that all UN member states must comply with, including the United States. The UN designation of HTS and al-Sharaa include an asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo.

Trump’s announcement is a welcome shift in US foreign policy. The Syrian government and the Syrian people will need sanctions lifted to have a chance of rebuilding the country. This is a delicate and complicated situation on top of a complex sanctions regime. To move forward with this shift in foreign policy, as a next step, the United States will need to consider which sanctions it is willing to lift on Syria to meet specific goals and it will need to start engaging with the United Nations to consider if and how sanctions should be lifted on HTS.

Bashar al-Assad must be held accountable

Trump’s removal of sanctions on Syria is a welcome development. As many organizations have argued, while the sanctions were a tool meant to influence Bashar al-Assad and his regime, they instead became a tool “to punish the Syrian people and hinder reconstruction, humanitarian aid, and prospects of economic recovery.”

However, from the information available, it is unclear how the United States will approach targeted sanctions designating individuals and entities for human rights abuses under executive orders related to Syria (as opposed to broad-based sectoral sanctions). While these designations, too, must be lifted when an individual no longer meets the relevant criteria, this does not mean that Washington should embrace impunity. Namely, the US must not allow al-Assad and his allies who have been designated for serious violations of human rights to walk away without consequences. While al-Assad may have fled Syria, he has yet to provide redress for a “horrifying catalogue of human rights violations that caused untold human suffering on a vast scale.”

Lifting targeted sanctions could allow al-Assad, for example, to enter the United States, to access previously frozen US assets, and to engage in transactions involving the US dollar. Instead, Washington could pursue targeted designations under other relevant programs, such as the Global Magnitsky program for serious human rights abuse. The Trump administration could additionally use this moment as an opportunity to re-commit Washington to pursuing domestic criminal accountability for atrocities in Syria and other accountability avenues.

—Celeste Kmiotek is a staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

This move aligns US Syria sanctions policy with the EU and UK

Trump’s announcement on lifting Syria sanctions is a surprising and welcome alignment of Washington’s sanctions strategy with that of the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom. European officials have been calling on Washington to remove sanctions on Syria because multinational companies and large banks will not enter the Syrian market as long as US secondary sanctions remain in place.

While the specifics of the US sanctions removal plan are yet unknown, Washington should use the EU and UK sanctions-lifting playbook. In February, the European Council announced that the EU would lift sectoral sanctions on Syria’s energy and transport sectors, delist four Syrian banks, and ease restrictions on the Syrian central bank. However, EU sanctions against the Assad regime, the chemical weapons sector, and the illicit drug trade, as well as sectoral measures on arms trade and dual-use goods, will remain in place. Last month, the United Kingdom followed suit and lifted sanctions on the Syrian central bank and twenty-three other entities. Like the EU, the United Kingdom still maintains sanctions on members of the Assad regime and those involved in the illicit drug trade.

Washington should replicate the EU’s and United Kingdom’s gradual approach to lifting sanctions. This means starting with the finance and energy sectors to create a favorable environment for multinational companies to enter the Syrian market. At the same time, the United States should promote the dollarization of the Syrian economy, provide financial assistance, and help the Syrian government establish regulatory oversight to prevent the diversion of funds from reconstruction efforts.

—Maia Nikoladze is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative within the GeoEconomics Center.

This represents a diplomatic success for Saudi Arabia and Turkey

Trump’s decision to lift all sanctions on Syria carries profound significance for the Syrian people. It offers them a genuine opportunity to rebuild their country and begin the process of recovery. While the sanctions were originally enacted with the intent of protecting civilians and deterring the Assad regime from further war crimes, over time—especially following al-Assad’s fall—they became a major hindrance, primarily harming ordinary Syrians.

Yet, beyond its humanitarian implications, this move also marks a geopolitical win for the United States. By removing sanctions, Washington enables its allies to invest in Syria, preventing Damascus’s potential reliance on China and Russia, both of which could potentially circumvent sanctions to gain influence. This declaration by Trump should not merely be viewed as a lifting of punitive measures; it is also the first step toward formally recognizing the interim Syrian authorities as the legitimate government of Syria.

Regionally, the end of sanctions represents a diplomatic success for Saudi Arabia and Turkey. As the principal supporters of the new Syrian government, both nations worked in tandem to persuade the Trump administration to shift its stance—initially marked by hesitation—toward greater engagement with Syria’s new leadership. Their coordinated diplomatic efforts played a pivotal role in shaping this policy reversal.

This shared success could also pave the way for deeper regional collaboration between Riyadh and Ankara, highlighting the potential of US allies in the region when they act in concert. Syria is slowly but steadily turning from a regional conflict zone into a zone of regional cooperation.

—Ömer Özkizilcik is a nonresident fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is an Ankara-based analyst of Turkish foreign policy, counterterrorism, and military affairs.

Engagement must go beyond sanctions relief

Washington’s decision to lift its sanctions on Syria emerges within a geopolitical context marked by unprecedented regional alignment around the newly formed Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa. This government has uniquely achieved consensus among historically divergent regional powers, long characterized by strategic competition over regional hegemony. Al-Sharaa’s administration has been credited with fostering this consensus through a national vision, closely aligned with regional objectives aimed at overall stability, collective benefit, and cooperation, rather than the zero-sum dynamics that al-Assad used to impose on his direct and indirect neighborhood.

However, two regional actors remain notably wary despite the broader regional consensus. Iran—an ally of the ousted Assad regime—views the consolidation of authority by the current government in Damascus as potentially adverse, perceiving it as a direct challenge to its strategic and security interests in the Levant. Israel, similarly, remains skeptical due to ongoing security concerns and its direct military involvement within Syrian territory.

From a practical standpoint, lifting sanctions must be matched by corresponding bureaucratic agility. This includes swift administrative measures that enable Syrian public and private institutions to comply with international legal frameworks effectively. The cessation of sanctions should not only be a political gesture but also a procedural and institutional reality. To achieve this, regional governments alongside European and US counterparts, must proactively facilitate knowledge transfer, reduce procedural hurdles, and accelerate essential reforms. Such reforms represent a fundamental prerequisite to ensuring that the lifting of sanctions translates into tangible economic and political progress for Syria.

—Sinan Hatahet is a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and the vice president for investment and social impact at the Syrian Forum.

A critical reprieve for Syrians everywhere

This policy shift has already brought what feels like a collective sigh of relief for a population weighed down by a humanitarian and development crisis. Today, the majority of Syrians live below the poverty line. More than 3.7 million children in Syria are out of school—including over half of school-age children. Only 57 percent of the country’s hospitals, including only 37 percent of primary health care facilities, are fully operational Despite widespread need, humanitarian aid is lacking—largely exacerbated the Trump administration’s now-dropped sanctions and its enduring foreign aid cuts.

Sanctions relief is a critical first step in stabilizing essential systems, particularly the health sector, which the Syrian government has identified as a national priority. It will help restore access to essential medicines, supplies, and equipment. This shift will also unlock broader international investment, encouraging governments and private sector actors to reengage in Syria as a key regional player. Infrastructure firms, pharmaceutical companies, and development partners that have long been on standby now have an opportunity to support early recovery and rebuild systems that sustain daily life.

This policy change is also seismic for Syrians who have been displaced for decades around the world. Supporting early recovery efforts through sanctions relief will enable safe and voluntary returns while contributing to broader regional stability, and countries hosting Syrian refugees should follow Trump’s lead.

—Diana Rayes is a nonresident fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. She is currently a postdoctoral associate at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Now is the time to establish the Syria Victims Fund

With the downfall of the Assad regime, sanctions imposed “to deprive the regime of the resources it needs to continue violence against civilians and to pressure the Syrian regime to allow for a democratic transition as the Syrian people demand” are no longer appropriate, and are in fact hindering much needed rebuilding and recovery in Syria. But lifting sanctions alone is not enough.

Over the past fourteen years, the United States and other Western countries have been profiting from enforcing sanctions against Syria. Where companies and individuals have violated Syria sanctions, the United States and other countries have taken enforcement action, levying fines, penalties, and forfeitures in response. The proceeds are then directed to domestic purposes, with none of the recovery benefitting Syrians.

Now is the time to change this policy. Syria is finally ready for rebuilding and recovery, refugees are returning, and victim and survivor communities are beginning to heal. In addition to lifting sanctions on Syria, the United States and other countries should direct the proceeds from their past and future sanctions enforcement to benefit the Syrian people and help victim and survivor communities recover. This can be done by listening to the calls from Syrian civil society and establishing an intergovernmental Syria Victims Fund, which the European Parliament has endorsed.

—Elise Baker is a senior staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project. She provides legal support to the project, which seeks to include legal tools in foreign policy, with a focus on prevention and accountability efforts for atrocity crimes, human-rights violations, terrorism, and corruption offenses.

Without meaningful financial support, the US risks ceding influence in Syria

The United States lifting sanctions on Syria is a necessary first step, but it is not enough to unlock the meaningful foreign investment that Syria needs for its recovery and reconstruction. After years of conflict and isolation, Syria needs more than an open economy—it must rebuild trust and demonstrate long-term stability. Investors will not return simply because sanctions have been lifted—they need assurances of stability, legal protections, and clear signals from the international community.

Private investors often follow the lead of governments and multilateral institutions. Countries that receive significant foreign aid post-conflict also tend to attract more private capital. Europe and the United Nations have begun developing a positive economic statecraft approach, pledging billions in grants and concessional loans to support Syria’s recovery. However, the United States has yet to commit financial support this year, citing expectations that others will shoulder the burden. This creates a leadership vacuum and leaves space for geopolitical rivals to step in.

Countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, and China have already begun doing so, rapidly expanding their influence in Syria through investments in oil, gas, infrastructure, reconstruction projects, and paying off Syria’s World Bank debt. In exchange for financial support, they are gaining access to strategic sectors that will shape Syria’s future—and the broader dynamics of the region. If the United States is absent from Syria’s recovery, its risks ceding long-term influence to adversaries. 

Reconstruction is not only a humanitarian imperative—it is a strategic opportunity. The lifting of sanctions opens a door, but a coordinated positive economic statecraft response—including tools like World Bank risk guarantees and US development finance—is necessary to ensure Syria’s recovery aligns with broader international interests.

—Lize de Kruijf  is a project assistant with the Economic Statecraft Initiative.

The post Experts react: Trump just announced the removal of all US sanctions on Syria. What’s next? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ullman in the Hill on the United Kingdom’s “defense dividend” and hybrid Russian aggression

bgalicia — Tue, 13 May 2025 12:36:20 +0000