LOOK BACK ON THE WASHINGTON SUMMIT

Atlantic Council at the NATO Summit in Washington

Live commentary, authoritative analysis, and high-level events covering NATO’s Washington summit, courtesy of our experts.

Essays on the Alliance’s future

NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary is a milestone in a remarkable story of reinvention, adaptation, and unity. However, as the Alliance seeks to secure its future for the next seventy-five years, it faces revanchist old rivals, escalating strategic competition, and uncertainties over the future of the rules-based international order. 

With partners and allies turning attention from celebrations to challenges, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative invited contributors to engage with the most pressing concerns ahead of the historic Washington summit and chart a path for the Alliance’s future. This series features seven essays focused on concrete issues that NATO must address at the Washington summit and five essays that examine longer-term challenges the Alliance must confront to ensure transatlantic security. 

Related program

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

Article

Oct 21, 2021

“The Hultqvist Doctrine”: Swedish security and defence policy after the Russian annexation of Crimea — Wieslander in Defence Studies journal

By Anna Wieslander

Abstract: “This article analyses how Sweden has adapted to the worsened security situation in its vicinity following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and war in Eastern Ukraine. The paper builds on security policy research focused on neoclassic realism and small state strategies in order to explore how the, broadly unknown, security policy from 2009 has […]

Europe & Eurasia NATO Partnerships

In the News

Oct 10, 2021

Binnendijk and Vershbow in Defense News: Needed: A transatlantic agreement on European strategic autonomy

By Hans Binnendijk, Alexander Vershbow

Hans Binnendijk and Alexander Vershbow write that the United States should drop its objections, agree with its European allies on how to ensure that strategic autonomy results in greater European strategic responsibility, and then embed that agreement in both NATO’s new strategic concept and the European Union’s new strategic compass.

Arms Control China

In the News

Oct 7, 2021

Pavel in the Washington Post on NATO defense spending

By Atlantic Council

Scowcroft Center director Barry Pavel speaks on NATO in the Washington Post.

Europe & Eurasia NATO

New Atlanticist

Oct 7, 2021

Greece and France give European strategic autonomy a shot

By Katerina Sokou

A new defense pact between the two aims to address instability in the Mediterranean by tackling multiple challenges in the region.

France Greece

Event Recap

Oct 6, 2021

Baltic Sea Security Conference 2021

The fourth international Baltic Sea Security Conference (BSSC) on October 5-6, 2021, organized by the Atlantic Council Northern Europe Office in cooperation with the Swedish Armed Forces, took place with a new 2021-2025 Swedish Total Defence strategy in place. The BSSC was thus a timely platform for representatives of the Nordic and Baltic states, Germany, […]

Europe & Eurasia NATO

In the News

Oct 4, 2021

Sales joins Madison’s Notes to discuss the US withdrawal from Afghanistan

By Atlantic Council

Afghanistan Defense Policy

New Atlanticist

Oct 1, 2021

How to ensure Afghanistan isn’t the graveyard of European defense

By Nic Adams

Stronger cooperation and interoperability can boost Europe's capacity to project hard power.

Afghanistan Defense Policy

TURKEYSource

Sep 30, 2021

Experts react: The key takeaways from the Erdoğan-Putin meeting

By Atlantic Council IN TURKEY

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in-person in Sochi, Russia for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Atlantic Council experts give their take on the outcome.

Conflict Defense Industry

New Atlanticist

Sep 23, 2021

The US can’t fix Afghanistan, but it can still fix NATO

By Richard D. Hooker, Jr.

Now is not the time for Europe to raise its defense spending or for NATO to extend its reach beyond Europe—especially into the Indo-Pacific region. Rather, it's time to get back to the core focus of NATO.

Afghanistan Crisis Management

Markup

Sep 22, 2021

MARKUP: Our experts annotate Biden’s UN General Assembly speech

By Atlantic Council

Our experts explain what his words really mean, how they’ll be received, and what the president didn’t say.

Crisis Management European Union

Experts

Events