Read more about the article Renegotiating Alliances: Trump’s America’s first foreign policy and the European Union’s quest for strategic autonomy
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Renegotiating Alliances: Trump’s America’s first foreign policy and the European Union’s quest for strategic autonomy

In light of Donald Trump’s second administration and its transactional America-first foreign policy, this paper considers the implications for European strategic autonomy amid the heightened importance of US security commitments and defence capabilities. Trump’s foreign policy is driven by the belief that Europeans have taken advantage of the US within the NATO alliance and international trade, and seeks to renegotiate trade agreements, returning manufacturing to the US and shifting its strategic orientation towards Asia. In the short term, this can constrain Europe’s strategic autonomy, as European capitals are pressured to accommodate the America-first agenda to ensure the US retains vital military capabilities in Europe and continues to provide military support to Ukraine. However, in the long term, the Trump administration’s pressure on allies to spend more on defence and a degree of ambiguity over security commitments reinforces the need for European strategic autonomy and accelerates the development of capacities that enable Europe to pursue its interests more independently.

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11 June 2025
Read more about the article The Acceleration of Command and Control Through Artificial Intelligence and its Implications for European Land Forces
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The Acceleration of Command and Control Through Artificial Intelligence and its Implications for European Land Forces

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an ever more important part of command and control (C2) and the decision-making connected to it. AI systems are crucial in supporting commanders in their decision-making, allowing them to act on data and the information it carries faster and more efficiently than ever before. These systems are complex, their results are often difficult to understand or verify, and they struggle with ethical considerations. To offset these disadvantages, humans need not concur with every decision AI makes, but they should retain control and be able to intervene and stop certain decisions as they see fit. Given the faster speed that AI gives C2 activities, continuing to exercise this control will prove challenging for commanders and their staff.

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5 June 2025
Read more about the article NORDEFCO – A Blueprint for Regional Defence Cooperation?
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NORDEFCO – A Blueprint for Regional Defence Cooperation?

This paper examines the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) as a case study in pragmatic, regional defence collaboration. Despite being founded by states with divergent political alignments and defence doctrines, NORDEFCO has evolved into a flexible and low-threshold framework that promotes operational efficiency, logistical coordination, and strategic interoperability among its members. By tracing NORDEFCO’s institutional structure and historical development, the study assesses the model’s successes and limitations. While NORDEFCO’s achievements, such as multinational exercises, intelligence sharing, and education programmes, demonstrate the value of voluntary, sovereignty-conscious cooperation, its replicability is constrained by the unique geopolitical and cultural cohesion of the Nordic region. The paper further aims to provide an outlook into NORDEFCO’s possible avenues of expansion and prospective transformation following the NATO membership accession of all its members. The study concludes that NORDEFCO-NATO coalescence is crucial to overcome the agreement’s limitations to achieve real Nordic defence integration, arguing that NORDEFCO is likely to retain its relevance under NATO command thanks to its region-specific capability enhancement projects.

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3 June 2025
Read more about the article France, Germany and Poland Propose the Weimar Triangle as a New Centrepiece for EU Defence
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France, Germany and Poland Propose the Weimar Triangle as a New Centrepiece for EU Defence

On 12 February 2024, Berlin, Paris and Warsaw pitched for the Weimar Triangle as the new centrepiece for the EU’s defence (Alipour & Bourgery-Gonse, 2024), aiming to enhance defence capability. Following these discussions, in April, the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius recommended Poland join the ‘Main Ground Combat System’ (MGCS). By June, Poland indicated its willingness to join the Franco-German projects: the ‘Future Combat Air System’ (FCAS) and MGCS projects (Alipour, 2024a). Despite this momentum, defence ministers of Poland and Germany remain silent when journalists ask for more details.In June, France also deepened its military ties with Germany and Poland (Kayali, 2024), indicating growing momentum for defence collaboration within the Weimar Triangle. By aligning national defence priorities, France, Germany, and Poland could play a more substantial role in defence and transform, at some point, the Weimar Triangle into a defence alliance. Historically, the Weimar Triangle has made outstanding achievements. However, cooperation has not been inconsistent during the last decades, with partners experiencing challenges of trust and misalignment. The evolving international landscape, characterised by the intensification of conflict in Ukraine since 2022 and the upcoming United States (US) election, has prompted new developments and investments in European defence cooperation.

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21 August 2024
Read more about the article Nordic joint action: Sweden and Denmark enhance defence cooperation
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Nordic joint action: Sweden and Denmark enhance defence cooperation

Pal Jonson, Swedish Defence Minister, and Troels Lund Poulsen, Danish Defence Minister, signed a letter of intent on enhanced defence cooperation on 7 May 2024. The letter of intent is framed in “light of the concerning security situation in Europe and beyond and the need to continue building upon the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding” (Government of Sweden, 2024) the two countries signed in 2016 that guides their cooperation in defence matters. This agreement aligns with broader cooperation frameworks, including the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO), and the countries’ willingness to increase collaborative defence efforts.

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23 May 2024