TRACKING NATO SPENDING

Trackers and Data Visualizations

Jun 20, 2025

NATO Defense Spending Tracker

By Kristen Taylor

The Transatlantic Security Initiative’s NATO defense spending tracker delves into data and figures to analyze current defense spending trends.

Europe & Eurasia NATO

FEATURED READING

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Programs and initiatives

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.

Content

UkraineAlert

Aug 12, 2025

Sacrificing Ukraine will only increase the cost of stopping Putin’s Russia

By Pavlo Zhovnirenko

Pressuring Ukraine to accept a Kremlin-friendly settlement may succeed in pausing the current war, but it will not bring peace. On the contrary, it will set the stage for international instability on a far larger scale, writes Pavlo Zhovnirenko.

China Conflict
Credit: Photo by Efe Yağız Soysal on Unsplash

TURKEYSource

Aug 11, 2025

How Turkey’s strategic ambiguity became an advantage in a multipolar world

By Ali Mammadov

In a unpredictable international system, Turkey’s ability to maintain ties across divides and rivalries has become its greatest asset.

Defense Policy English

New Atlanticist

Aug 6, 2025

Dispatch from the Russian border: The Curonian Spit and the contest of the Baltic Sea

By Justina Budginaite-Froehly

A recent visit to Lithuania’s border with Kaliningrad reveals how the Baltic Sea has become one of Europe’s most contested maritime zones.

Eastern Europe NATO

New Atlanticist

Aug 6, 2025

Europe’s play to keep Trump happy cannot come at the expense of a longer-term strategy

By Torrey Taussig, Josh Lipsky

Even as the EU prioritizes defense and security interests with the US, it could come at the cost of economic and political cohesion in the bloc.

European Union NATO

In the News

Aug 4, 2025

Michta published in RealClearDefense and featured in RealClearWorld on NATO and European security

On August 1, 2025, Andrew Michta, senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative, was published in RealClearDefense on what Europe’s “rapidly shifting internal power dynamic” may mean for Germany’s role in the continent’s security architecture. The piece was featured in RealClearWorld.

Europe & Eurasia Germany

Inflection Points

Jul 28, 2025

Europe is ‘not ready’ for the Russian threat. At least it now has a plan.

By Frederick Kempe

The European Union is waking up to the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his battle-hardened army. Will it be enough?

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert

Jul 24, 2025

Ukraine is now an indispensable security partner for the US and Europe

By Oleksiy Goncharenko

Ukraine's million-strong army and unique experience of the twenty-first-century battlefield makes it an indispensable security partner for the United States and Europe, writes Oleksiy Goncharenko.

Conflict Defense Industry

New Atlanticist

Jul 23, 2025

To meet NATO’s 5 percent benchmark, allies need more industrial capacity. Here’s how they can build it.

By James Hursch, Kristen Taylor

Without more industrial muscle to increase defense production, the positive momentum coming out of The Hague summit could grind to a halt.

Defense Industry Europe & Eurasia

UkraineAlert

Jul 21, 2025

NATO is unprepared for the growing threat posed by Putin’s Russia

By Elena Davlikanova, Yevhenii Malik

NATO officials believe Russia could attack the alliance within five years but NATO members are still not ready to face the threat posed by Vladimir Putin's expansionist regime, write Elena Davlikanova and Yevhenii Malik.

Conflict Defense Policy
21st Infantry Division guard post on the Korean Demilitarized Zone

Issue Brief

Jul 17, 2025

Collective security in the Indo-Pacific: Rethinking the United Nations Command

By Richard D. Butler, Shawn P. Creamer

Europe has NATO. The Indo-Pacific needs a similar mechanism. Enter the United Nations Command, a legacy of the Korean War ready to be refitted for the current threat landscape in the Pacific.

Indo-Pacific NATO

Experts