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

Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, April 23, 2013

NATOSource

May 2, 2016

Confessions of a NATO Speechwriter

By Patrick Stephenson, Foreign Policy

Despite Russian pressure on the alliance’s eastern borders and extremist pressure from within and without, our publics often wonder why NATO still exists.

NATO Security & Defense
SACEUR Gen. Philip Breedlove, May 21, 2015

NATOSource

May 2, 2016

NATO’s Breedlove Calls for Sharper Focus on Russia Ahead of Departure

By Julian E. Barnes, Wall Street Journal

The U.S. has too few intelligence assets focused on the threat from Russia and should concentrate its technical capabilities on Moscow’s growing military might, NATO’s departing supreme allied commander said.

Intelligence NATO

UkraineAlert

May 2, 2016

Memo to Europe: Don’t Fall for Russia’s Empty Promises

By Stephen Blank

As of this writing, the “cessation of hostilities” in Syria has all but collapsed, and thousands of Russian forces are aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s campaign to retake Aleppo. At the same time, the Minsk II agreement between Russia and Ukraine remains, as it always has been, an agreement more honored in the breach than […]

NATO Russia

New Atlanticist

Apr 28, 2016

Donald Trump: A ‘Dangerous’ Man

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Former US diplomat, R. Nicholas Burns, discusses GOP frontrunner’s foreign policy speech R. Nicholas Burns, an Atlantic Council board director who served as the State Department’s number three official in the George W. Bush administration, offered a searing critique of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s April 27 foreign policy speech in an interview with the […]

China European Union

Congressional Relations

Apr 28, 2016

US Lawmaker Urges ‘Path to EU Accession’ for Turkey

By Mitch Hulse

Turkey will be critical to any US or NATO effort to shape Russia’s behavior in the Middle East and it should be put on the path to joining the European Union, said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA). “If we want to stabilize a volatile region with a strategic ally we are going to have to put […]

European Union International Organizations

Event Recap

Apr 25, 2016

Elements of NATO Deterrence

By Transatlantic Security Initiative

On April 25, 2016 the Atlantic Council led a private workshop on Elements of NATO Deterrence in Warsaw, Poland. The event convened US and European policymakers, scholars, and business leaders for a high-level discussion on the challenges facing NATO on its eastern and southern flanks in the run-up to the seminal NATO Warsaw Summit and […]

NATO Security & Defense

In the News

Apr 25, 2016

Braw in The National Interest: NATO Must Strengthen Its Front Line Against Russia

By Elisabeth Braw

Read the full article here.

NATO Russia
Akula class Russian submarine, June 3, 2008

NATOSource

Apr 21, 2016

Russia Bolsters Its Submarine Fleet, and Tensions With US Rise

By Eric Schmitt, New York Times

Russian attack submarines, the most in two decades, are prowling the coastlines of Scandinavia and Scotland, the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic

NATO Russia

Event Recap

Apr 21, 2016

Defending Europe’s Eastern Flank

By Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security

On April 14, 2016, the Atlantic Council hosted a major public conference on Defending Europe’s Eastern Flank on Capitol Hill. The conference served as the major public ‘curtain raiser’ in Washington for NATO’s 2016 Summit in Warsaw this July.

NATO Security & Defense

In the News

Apr 15, 2016

Brzezinski in Global Policy Institute: What the NATO ‘Enhanced’ Force on the Eastern Border Should Look Like

By Ian Brzensinski

Read the full article here.

NATO Security & Defense

Experts

Events