Nobumasa Akiyama discusses Japanese perspectives of strategic risks in East Asia, including the North Korean threat and navigating Japan’s relationship with China amid great power rivalry.
Following Iran’s direct attack on Israel on 13th April, Hemidreaza Azizi examines both the official and unofficial discourse in Iran in recent days. He writes that most political experts and analysts in Iran seem to agree that Iran’s goal has been to restore deterrence and not to enter into war. However, concerns about the outbreak of an unintended war and its destructive consequences appear to be more pronounced among experts than among official figures.
Ilana Bet-El, Senior Associate Fellow at the ELN, speaks with Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief of the Forward and former New York Times Bureau Chief in Israel, and Dr Roxane Farmanfarmaian of Cambridge University, Senior Associate Fellow at the ELN, and an expert on Iran and the Middle East. They discuss their own experiences of 7 October, their reactions to the war in Gaza, the implications for the media, geopolitics and the region, and the escalatory nature of the war following Iran’s increased role in the conflict over the past week.
Former ambassadors to NATO, Ahmet Üzümcü and Fatih Ceylan, look ahead at what a potential peace deal in Ukraine could look like. They write that neither mutual accusations nor wishful thinking can be taken as a guide to chart the future of broader European security. Instead, the focus should be on exploring peace by putting together potential elements of an enduring and sustainable deal that would ultimately serve the interests of global security.
In our latest New European Voices on Existential Risk (NEVER) commentary, Nicolò Miotto explores the potential existential risks stemming from the terrorist use of large language models (LLMs) and AI to manufacture chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. In the commentary he explores how LLMs and AI have enabled terrorist groups to enhance their capabilities so far, and what governments, the private sector, and NGOs need to do to mitigate future risks.
In an excerpt from her new book “The New Cold War”, ELN Senior Policy Fellow Julia Berghofer writes that despite the challenges, the West needs to maintain certain channels of communication beyond the political and military level. Contact with a younger generation of Russian security experts, civil society activists, and political scientists is essential for a safer Europe.