Three members of the ELN’s Network reflect on the 2022 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
The importance of new technologies for conflict and security has grown in the past decade, but the images we use to represent them have remained the same. In this illustrated long-form commentary, ELN commissioning editor Esther Kersley interviews cyber security experts to explore what current cyber images are conveying and what impact this could be having on our ability to understand these issues and imagine the effects they may have on our future.
The decline of neutrality in world politics has been proclaimed several times over the past century, most recently with Finland and Sweden’s decision to join NATO. Pascal Lottaz, co-editor of a new book assessing global developments in neutralism in the “Post-Cold War” period, writes that neutrality policies are still a staple of international politics and that a new international consensus on what neutrality means could help deescalate the current crisis in Europe.
In some western circles, there has been a question mark over Turkey’s position on Russia’s war in Ukraine, writes Ambassador Tacan Ildem. Here he outlines the long history of Turkish-Russian relations, and how Turkey’s policy on Ukraine today is a balancing act informed by the geopolitics of the region.
Members of the ELN Network respond to ELN Director Sir Adam Thomson’s recent commentary, reflecting on what choices countries can make that will affect what a 21st-century-style cold war will be like.
If there is one parallel between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the war in Ukraine, Marion Messmer writes, it’s that decision-making is influenced by myths, enemy images, and beliefs. The fog of war makes miscommunication, misperception, and miscalculation that much more likely, in turn increasing the risk that further escalation might take place. Whether the war in Ukraine will be able to provide a similar motivation for arms control efforts as the Cuban Missile Crisis did will depend on how exactly it will end.
Thanks to the INF Treaty, Russian forces attacking Ukraine have not been able to use ground-to-ground ballistic and cruise missiles of ranges from 500-5,500 km, which could have devastated centres in Western Ukraine. Dan Plesch writes that the process that produced the INF Treaty provides important guidance for a renaissance in disarmament in the present century and calls on civil society to seek a global zero on missiles.
At a time when war rages at NATO’s doorstep, and collective defence coupled with rising defence spending is at the centre of everyone’s attention, ELN Policy Fellow Katarina Kertysova writes that managing to get 30 capitals to agree to an ambitious programme on climate security deserves applause.
Gender mainstreaming is already driving innovation in arms control and disarmament. Here’s how countries with feminist foreign policies can build on these efforts and take this agenda forward, writes Renata Dalaqua.