Latest Jobs Posts

 Foreign Policy Brief #225 | Yelena Korsunov | June 7, 2026

The geography of the war has changed. Once, the war in Ukraine was measured in miles of trenches, destroyed towns, and incremental advances across the Donbas steppe. Over the past two years, however, the conflict has expanded both vertically and territorially, carried not only by missiles and aircraft but also by relatively inexpensive drones assembled in workshops across Ukraine. The battlefield no longer ends at the front line. It now stretches hundreds—and sometimes thousands—of kilometers into Russian territory, reaching oil depots, military plants, logistics hubs, and even Moscow itself.

What Ukraine has built is more than a drone industry. It is what Reuters has described as an adaptive wartime ecosystem. Despite constant bombardment, power shortages, and labor disruptions, the country has developed one of the most rapidly evolving unmanned warfare programs in modern military history. Reuters describes Ukraine’s strategy as a campaign of mid-range and long-range strikes aimed at degrading Russia’s military logistics and energy infrastructure while compensating for Kyiv’s shortage of conventional firepower.

The scale of this transformation is difficult to overstate. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s domestic drone sector was modest and heavily dependent on imported components and volunteer initiatives. Today, Ukrainian officials openly discuss mass production. Drone units operate with a software-startup mentality: rapid iteration, constant redesign, and immediate battlefield feedback. A vulnerability discovered at the front—such as signal jamming—can lead to modifications within days rather than procurement cycles lasting years.

This acceleration has altered the strategic depth of the war. Ukrainian drones now routinely strike targets deep inside Russia, including areas once considered beyond Kyiv’s reach. Reuters reported in April that Ukraine struck an oil pumping station near the Ural Mountains, approximately 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from the Ukrainian border. The symbolic significance was as important as the physical damage. For decades, the Urals were viewed as distant, industrial, and largely insulated from war. Ukrainian drones challenged that assumption.

Other strikes have reinforced the message. Ukrainian forces have targeted facilities in Cheboksary, also roughly 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from Ukraine, including defense infrastructure linked to Russian military production. Oil refineries in Samara, Ryazan, Perm, Tuapse, and Krasnodar regions have repeatedly been hit in campaigns designed not only to damage infrastructure but also to reduce Russia’s wartime energy revenues. Reuters estimates that Ukrainian strikes disrupted approximately 700,000 barrels per day of Russian refining capacity between January and May 2026 alone.

Moscow, long considered politically untouchable territory, has also become a regular target. Russian authorities have reported frequent drone attacks on the capital, including a large-scale assault in March involving hundreds of drones. The military impact of these attacks varies, but their psychological effect is undeniable. Airports suspend flights. Air defenses fire over residential neighborhoods. Moscow residents, long removed from the daily realities of war, increasingly experience moments of uncertainty familiar to Ukrainians since February 2022.

Ukraine’s drone campaign reflects a broader shift in military power away from expensive centralized systems toward locally developed, low-cost technologies. A long-range drone may cost only a small part of a cruise missile while forcing a defender to deploy far more expensive air-defense assets. Russia can manufacture missiles at scale, but defending thousands of miles of infrastructure against persistent drone attacks presents a different challenge.

Experience has become Ukraine’s greatest strategic asset. No NATO military has accumulated comparable real-time knowledge of large-scale drone warfare under continuous combat conditions. Ukrainian operators combine reconnaissance drones, FPV systems (the First-Person View system that transmits a live video feed from a drone’s camera), maritime drones, electronic warfare tools, and long-range strike platforms into integrated operational networks. The result is not merely tactical innovation but the development of a new model of warfare.

Western defense analysts increasingly study Ukraine not only as a recipient of military aid but also as a laboratory of future conflict. The war has demonstrated how technological adaptation can partially offset disparities in population, industrial capacity, and ammunition reserves. It has also shown how quickly civilian expertise can be transformed into military capability. Many Ukrainian drone engineers once designed consumer electronics, software systems, or racing drones. Wartime necessity redirected their skills.

The deeper significance, however, lies elsewhere. The drone war has blurred the distinction between rear and front. A refinery in the Urals, a command facility hundreds of miles from Ukraine’s border, or a district of Moscow can no longer be considered entirely beyond reach. Distance, once central to strategic security, has become increasingly conditional.

The war is no longer confined to where soldiers meet. It now unfolds across networks, infrastructure, algorithms, and industrial geography. Ukraine’s drones have not defeated Russia. But they have changed the shape of the conflict and Russia’s military expectations, extending Ukraine’s reach far beyond what conventional military balances once suggested possible.

Take Action

• US Global Leadership Coalition. The Importance of U.S. Assistance to Ukraine, https://www.usglc.org/the-importance-of-u-s-assistance-to-ukraine/
• Syracuse University. Ukraine Crisis: Resources and Support, https://ivmf.syracuse.edu/ukraine-crisis-resources-and-support/#1-ways-to-give
• The Ukraine Oversite. The United States and its international partners provide a variety of training to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), including basic, collective, leadership, and platform-specific training, https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/Training-Advising/
• GMF (German Marshall Fund). In response to Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) established a comprehensive emergency program to support Ukrainian citizens, civic activists and civil society organizations (CSOs), and journalists and independent media, https://www.gmfus.org/democracy/ukraine-relief-resilience-recovery

Foreign Policy Brief #226 | Nicholas Gordon | June 8, 2026

Now three months into his Iran war, President Trump continues to spew so much contradictory nonsense on the conflict that anyone attempting to take the president at his word would be lost in the morass. One moment Trump is threatening to annihilate Iran’s civilization, hurling churlish curses at the country’s leadership for not doing what he wants, the next he’s saying a deal is nearly complete. One minute he’s claiming the goal of regime change, the next he’s abandoning it in favor or “winding down” the war. One hour he’s saying “you don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side,” the next he’s gladly accepting a ceasefire.

The president’s utterly incoherent approach to the war evinces disrespect for American citizens looking for honest answers and assessments, which is exactly why we need to hold him accountable for his words. While we can’t get the truth from Trump or his administration, and while his sycophantic Republican colleagues refuse to hold him accountable, the record shows a president oozing confusion and desperate for an off-ramp to the war he started.

It’s either gaslighting or he’s ‘disconnected from reality’ himself

In late February, Trump tried to justify starting the war by claiming that Iran was mere weeks away from obtaining a nuclear weapon, an assessment disputed by nuclear experts and intelligence reports. The statement also made a mockery of Trump’s earlier claim that Operation Midnight Hammer conducted in June had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.

As the U.S. and Israel began bombing the Iranian regime, Trump casually told the people of Iran to “take back your country.” Given the regime’s well-documented brutality against its own citizens and the lack of a strong, organized opposition force, Trump’s advice was both deadly and outlandish. As noted, Trump would later claim regime change, but U.S. intelligence shows the regime is still intact.

Soon after starting the war, Trump declared, “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” employing his trademark juvenile-bully caps. If we take Trump at his word here, then there will be no deal, because Iran has not only made it clear that they will not surrender, but also that they have the capacity to outmaneuver Trump, mainly by leveraging control of and thereby weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt global energy markets.

When this Iranian strategic advantage emerged, Trump went further off the rails, most notoriously with his deranged Easter Weekend Truth Social post in which he pathetically cried, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.” The post, widely condemned by sounder political operatives, was vintage bluster and bombast from Trump. Most embarrassingly for the president, the post effectively conveyed Trump’s failure to foresee Iran’s strategic advantage and his frustrated inability to solve it.

While Trump continued to issue countless falsehoods about the war—saying that the U.S. had “already met and exceeded all military objectives,” and achieved “Total and complete victory.100%. No question about it.”—the reality of Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz posed a grave, geopolitical challenge that prompted Trump to impose a U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports and shipping in the strait. The blockade, which sought to force Iran to free up passage of all global marine traffic, required 10,000 U.S. military personnel, more than a dozen warships, and over 100 fighter and surveillance aircraft.

By April, regarding Trump’s mishandling of the war, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated plainly that the U.S. is being “humiliated” by Iran. Rather than address the criticism, Trump responded with his typically petty social media posts attacking Merz and making false claims about him wanting Iran to have a nuclear weapon—the same baseless and preposterous accusation Trump made about Pope Leo. Merz’s comments, however, echoed the assessments of diplomats and global political analysts who lament how Trump got Iran wrong.Moreover, by failing to build a coalition of support before heading into the war, Trump has resorted to attacking European allies for not joining in his war of choice after the fact.

Conclusion

In their attempt to justify Trump’s starting of the war and evade holding him accountable for his words or actions, Republicans have collectively decided to hide behind a truism which no one anywhere has ever argued against, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Ironic, their claim, given that in 2018 Trump backed out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-negotiated deal co-signed by China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom that had significantly curtailed Iran’s nuclear program.

Today, however, Trump has had to relent on his de-nuking demands, seeking instead a deal wherein Iran will simply reopen the Strait of Hormuz—that is, return the strait to the state it was in before Trump started his war and empowered Iran with control of the strait.

While the U.S. and Iran continue to trade strikes, Trump continues to give conflicting comments on the state of the ongoing negotiations, debasing himself, depriving American citizens of honest assessments, and lending credibility to the enemy’s assertion that the American president is “disconnected from reality.”

But Trump’s confused stew of words on the war do make it painfully clear that his lack of strategy, leadership, and coherent messaging have emboldened the Iranians and revealed how hard it will be to end his festering conflict.

Take Action

• Institute for the Study of War
  • aims to provide ‘real-time intelligence to help leaders make informed decisions in conflict zones around the world and educate the next generation of national security leaders’
• The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
  • a bipartisan, nonprofit research organization ‘dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world’s greatest challenges’
• The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
  • an independent, nonpartisan U.S. think tank ‘dedicated to helping policymakers, business leaders, and the general public better understand international affairs and U.S. foreign policy’

Foreign Policy Brief #225 | Yelena Korshunov | May 4, 2026

The war in Ukraine, which is Europe’s largest land war since 1945, has entered the peculiar phase familiar to historians and unbearable to those living through it — the phase in which catastrophe becomes routine. Loud air raid sirens still interrupt dinners in Kyiv. Young men still disappear into the trench lines of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. Russian drones still arrive nightly, buzzing in the dark like giant mechanical mosquitoes. As the rumble draws nearer, exhausted people rise from their beds and head into the narrow corridors of their apartments or into the basements of their houses. It happens night after night, year after year, while outside the region, the war increasingly competes with other crises for attention, just becoming a part of the atmospheric background of modern life.

By the fifth year of the war, the conflict had altered the very structure of ordinary life — not only in Ukraine, but in Russia as well. What once felt exceptional has become ambient. People check news alerts between work calls, distinguish drones by sound, and live their routine life while air defense systems operate somewhere beyond the edge of the city.

Russia continues to strike Ukrainian cities. Residential buildings, energy infrastructure, schools, and hospitals regularly come under attack. After each strike, nearly identical photographs emerge: shattered windows, rescue workers coated in dust, children’s toys lying among broken concrete. The repetition of these images creates a psychological weight. War no longer appears as a sequence of separate tragedies, but as a permanent condition of life and death.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has increasingly targeted oil depots, refineries, and fuel infrastructure inside Russia. These attacks are strategic as much as symbolic. Modern warfare depends on fuel almost as much as it does on weapons. At the same time, long-range drone strikes have begun to erode the traditional sense of distance within Russia itself. A war that for many Russians existed largely as a TV reality is becoming physically tangible. The defining feature of this stage is that both sides are now attempting to exhaust each other not only militarily, but psychologically. Russia continues to rely on pressure against civilian infrastructure and the slow fatigue of society. Ukraine relies on technological adaptability, strikes against logistics, and its ability to maintain the attention and support of its allies.

According to The Guardian, this spring, Ukrainian officials have cautiously described their battlefield position as the strongest it has been in more than a year, thanks largely to the expanding use of domestically produced drones and localized counteroffensives in the south.The war no longer resembles the sweeping armored advances of 2022. Instead, it has evolved into something more technological, more dispersed, and in many ways more psychologically exhausting through screens, algorithms, and industrial endurance.

The front itself stretches more than seven hundred miles. Villages captured at staggering human cost are sometimes little more than piles of brick. What matters increasingly is not symbolic territory but logistics such as rail nodes, fuel depots, drone manufacturing sites, and the electronic warfare systems that now determine whether soldiers live or die. A correspondent of The Washington Post wrote on April 30th that Ukraine’s expanding drone campaign has altered the emotional geography of the war. Russia, long accustomed to fighting at a distance from its urban centers, now confronts increasingly regular strikes deep inside its territory. It looks symbolic that Moscow has reportedly scaled back portions of its annual Victory Day military parade on May 9th out of concern that Ukrainian long-range drones could target the capital.

At the same time, Ukraine faces the deeper problem common to all prolonged wars — exhaustion. President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned repeatedly that the coming months will bring intense military and diplomatic pressure, – points out Reuters. Recruitment remains politically sensitive. Casualty numbers are guarded with near-religious secrecy. And this week, Ukraine’s army chief introduced mandatory troop rotation limits after public outrage over reports of frontline soldiers being left in impossible conditions for extended periods.

That decision revealed something important about the current stage of the conflict. In earlier years, Ukraine’s greatest strategic asset was morale — the electrifying sense that national survival depended on collective sacrifice. Sadly, four years into the full-scale invasion, sacrifice remains abundant. Diplomatically, the war has entered an equally ambiguous chapter. Al Jazeera reported that a brief Easter ceasefire earlier this month collapsed almost immediately amid mutual accusations of violations. Behind the scenes, various rounds of international talks continue in places like Abu Dhabi and Geneva, but expectations remain low. Even some European leaders have begun quietly discussing territorial compromise as a possible component of eventual negotiations — language that would once have been politically unthinkable.

Russia too appears trapped inside the war it began. Western sanctions have not produced economic collapse, but the cumulative strain is visible. Ukraine continues targeting Russian oil infrastructure with increasingly sophisticated drone operations. Meanwhile, Russia’s military machine consumes extraordinary amounts of manpower and material simply to maintain incremental gains.

While countless domestic and international political developments compete for Americans’ attention, on another continent across the ocean Ukrainian soldiers continue, for a fifth year, to give their lives in cold, rain-soaked trenches for the independence of Europe’s largest country by territory — a country where people, including young children, die every day in Russia’s attacks. The danger for the outside world is not merely geopolitical fatigue. It is moral adaptation — the slow acceptance that devastation, if sufficiently prolonged, begins to seem inevitable. Ukraine’s future remains uncertain. Russia’s ambitions remain dangerous. But perhaps the most consequential question now is whether democracies can maintain attention spans longer than authoritarian regimes can sustain destruction.

Take Action

• Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv hails frontline position as ‘strongest in a year’, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/ukraine-war-briefing-kyiv-hails-frontline-position-as-strongest-in-a-year?utm_source=chatgpt.com
• Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of breaching Easter ceasefire, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/12/ukraine-and-russia-accuse-each-other-of-breaching-easter-ceasefire?utm_source=chatgpt.com
• Ukraine war latest: German chancellor suggests Ukraine may cede territory to secure peace, EU path, https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-german-chancellor-suggests-ukraine-may-cede-territory-for-peace-eu-path/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Foreign Policy Brief #233 | Nicholas Gordon | May 4, 2026

At a recent press conference, U.S. Defense Secretary and Christian nationalist Pete Hegseth justified the Trump administration’s unconstitutional act of starting the war with Iran by saying that before launching missiles, “We sent our best people to negotiate — Steve and Jared.” But that duo, Trump’s billionaire real estate buddy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, were unsuccessful in negotiating with Iran. Trump then started the war that has so far killed thirteen U.S. service members and wounded more than 300.

As the war drags on into its third month with no deal in sight and another round of botched negotiations in the rearview, many analysts and foreign policy experts have identified Witkoff and Kushner not as “the best people” serving U.S. diplomacy, but rather as dangerously inept and inexperienced envoys with serious conflicts of interest who risk prolonging the war.

Analysis

Witkoff and Kushner are symbolic of Trump’s cronyism, that is, his favoring of personal allies and business associates over qualified professionals for government roles. Whereas for decades professional diplomats from the State Department and the National Security Council have handled negotiations in global crises, Kushner and Witkoff come to the negotiating table with zero diplomatic expertise. Moreover, because they’re not formal U.S. government employees, they’re not subject to the guardrails of public financial disclosure laws or ethics laws, not to mention Senate confirmation.

The pair’s lack of accountability is reflected in their loosely defined titles. While engaging in crucial negotiations in the last year with heads of state from Russia, Ukraine, Iran, and Israel, Witkoff was called a special envoy, and Kushner deemed a volunteer. More recently, each of them has been designated by Trump as a Special Envoy of Peace Missions, set to continue high-level negotiations on behalf of the U.S. government. Further plaguing their lack of foreign policy experience, both Witkoff and Kushner bring serious conflicts of interest to their government work, in keeping with their boss’s well-documented self-dealing.

Witkoff’s Conflicts of Interest

In a public letter to the White House and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Christopher Murphy document Witkoff’s numerous conflicts of interest and the inaccuracies of his financial disclosure form. For example, the senators cite how in 2024 Witkoff partnered with the Trump family to launch the cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial. Later that year, after Witkoff was appointed U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, a UAE government-backed firm invested $2 billion in World Liberty Financial.

The senators point out that no agency ethics officials have signed Witkoff’s financial disclosure forms or stated that he is in compliance with ethics laws and regulations. They also show that the form lists June 30, 2025 as the appointment date of Witkoff’s government role, stating that he held no prior federal positions. However, records show that by January 2025 he was working in an official capacity, representing the Trump administration in high-level meetings in Saudi Arabia and Gaza, and participating in diplomatic negotiations concerning Israel and Gaza.

Kushner’s Conflicts of Interest

During his tenure as special advisor in Trump’s first term, Kushner exploited his government role to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in personal profit. When the role ended, he continued to capitalize on his government job by securing billions of dollars for his investment firm, Affinity Partners, from the very governments he had worked with in his official capacity.

This month, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin opened a sweeping investigation of Kushner’s “staggering conflicts of interest,” warning that Kushner’s “dual role as Middle East negotiator and financier funded by Middle Eastern governments poses grave national security risks and likely violates federal law.” Raskin notes that Kushner’s firm has received more than $6 billion in assets and investments from foreign states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, during Kushner’s time as a government operative. With such flagrant opportunism on display, it’s not shocking that Kushner misled the public about his intention of staying out of government service ahead of Trump’s return to office.

Their Diplomatic Efforts

While the pair did help broker a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, critics argue that isolated successes do not offset a broader pattern of inconsistency and inexperience in foreign policy, such as Witkoff’s and Kushner’s failed negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Regarding their mishandling of the Iran negotiations, Aaron David Miller, who served in the State Department as an advisor for Middle East negotiations from 1978 to 2003, recently gave Kushner and Wikoff “an F in diplomacy.”

Conclusion

Iranian political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi asserted that as a negotiator Kushner “represents the pragmatic and softer side of Trump.” But what Kushner—and Witkoff—mostly represent is Trump’s right-wing populist disdain for subject matter expertise and professional ethics in favor of, well, favoritism, and opportunities for personal financial gain.

American citizens—who continue to suffer the exorbitant costs of rising fuel prices spurred by the war and a wartime president who alienates foreign allies, threatens armageddon on Iran’s civilization, and sows confusion and doubt over the status of and goals for the war—deserve competent, uncompromised diplomats leading negotiations in an effort to end the Iran conflict.

Take Action

• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
  • “Fights for the democracy Americans deserve and aims to build a government that is accountable, transparent and ethical”
• Brennan Center for Justice
  • A nonpartisan law and policy organization working to reform, revitalize, and defend the U.S. systems of democracy and justice
• House Judiciary Committee
  • Established in 1813, the Committee strives “to protect U.S. Constitutional freedoms and civil liberties, oversight of the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, legal and regulatory reform, innovation, competition and anti-trust laws, terrorism and crime, and immigration reform. The House Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over all proposed amendments to the Constitution, and usually sends the greatest number of substantive bills to the House floor each year.”

Foreign Policy Brief #224 | Inijah Quadri | April 27, 2026

Policy Issue Summary

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, better known as NATO, has been one of the most influential political and military alliances in modern history. Formed in 1949 by 12 countries, NATO has grown into a 32-member alliance across Europe and North America, with Sweden becoming the newest member in March 2024. Its stated purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means, especially through the principle of collective defense: under Article 5, an attack against one member is treated as an attack against all.

A fair assessment of NATO must recognize both its achievements and its controversies. On one hand, NATO has often been criticized for military interventions, high defense spending, and the risk that expansion can heighten tensions with rivals such as Russia. On the other hand, it is also widely viewed as one of the most successful defensive alliances in history. For more than 75 years, NATO has helped deter aggression against its members, contributed to stability in Europe, supported democratic cooperation among allies, and adapted to new threats such as terrorism, cyberattacks, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

One important example of NATO helping the United States came after the September 11, 2001 attacks, when the alliance invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history. That moment matters because it shows NATO is not only an American security guarantee for Europe; it has also been a European and Canadian commitment to defend the United States when the United States was attacked. NATO allies later contributed to the Afghanistan mission, showing that the alliance’s collective-defense promise has worked in both directions.

The central policy issue is not whether NATO is simply “good” or “bad,” but how the alliance can preserve its defensive purpose while avoiding unnecessary escalation, wasteful spending, and overreliance on military solutions. NATO’s future value depends on whether it can balance deterrence with diplomacy, burden-sharing with social responsibility, and collective security with respect for international law.

Analysis

In the present geopolitical landscape, NATO has experienced renewed importance because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing uncertainty about global security. Vladimir Putin has long opposed NATO enlargement, seeing the alliance’s eastward expansion as a threat to Russian influence. However, NATO argues that enlargement is based on Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows European countries to seek membership if they can contribute to Euro-Atlantic security. The decisions by Finland and Sweden to join NATO after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine show that Russian aggression has, in practice, strengthened the alliance rather than weakened it.

NATO’s strongest argument is its record as a defensive alliance. During the Cold War, NATO helped deter direct conflict between the Soviet Union and Western Europe without a major war between the superpowers. After the Cold War, NATO also played roles in crisis management and peace-support operations, including in the Balkans. Its Kosovo Force, known as KFOR, continues to help maintain a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement in Kosovo. These examples support the view that NATO has not only projected military power, but has also helped manage instability in regions where conflict could have spread.

At the same time, NATO’s record is not perfect. Interventions in Afghanistan and Libya remain controversial and show the limits of military power. NATO’s Afghanistan mission ended in 2021 after the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and security forces, leading the alliance to conduct a lessons-learned process. This demonstrates that NATO can organize multinational military action, but it cannot guarantee political success when deeper local, regional, and governance problems remain unresolved.

Another major concern is defense spending. Critics argue that the enormous resources devoted to military budgets could otherwise support healthcare, housing, education, climate action, and poverty reduction. This concern is real, especially as global military expenditure continues to rise. SIPRI reported that NATO members accounted for a major share of global military spending, while NATO’s own figures show that allies have sharply increased defense investment since 2014.

However, NATO supporters argue that defense spending cannot be judged only as a cost. For smaller European states, especially those near Russia, NATO membership provides security guarantees they could not realistically provide on their own. The burden-sharing debate has also become more important because U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO members for not paying their “fair share” and has questioned the reliability of U.S. support for allies. This has pushed European members and Canada to spend more on their own defense, with NATO reporting that all allies met or exceeded the older 2% of GDP target in 2025.

Under Trump, the United States is pushing NATO toward a more burden-sharing model. Rather than acting as the nearly automatic lead spender and security manager for Europe, Washington is pressing allies to take primary responsibility for European defense and to meet the new Hague defense investment commitment of 5% of GDP by 2035, with 3.5% for core defense and 1.5% for broader security-related needs. This does not make the United States irrelevant to NATO, but it changes the political bargain: Europe is being asked to provide more money, readiness, and leadership while the United States remains the alliance’s strongest military member.

The war in Ukraine has also shown both NATO’s strengths and its internal challenges. NATO members have provided major political, military, and financial support to Ukraine, while avoiding a direct NATO-Russia war. Yet alliance politics can be complicated. Hungary under Viktor Orbán resisted some Ukraine-related support, but the clearest funding block was within the European Union, even as Hungary delayed major EU assistance. Within NATO, Orbán agreed in 2024 not to veto NATO support for Ukraine, while Hungary itself opted out of providing funds or military personnel for that effort.

Orbán’s defeat in Hungary also changed the Ukraine funding debate. After his government had been the main EU holdout, Hungary’s shift under Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar helped clear the way for a €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine. Although this is EU funding rather than NATO funding, it matters for NATO because keeping Ukraine financially and militarily afloat reduces pressure on NATO’s eastern members and helps maintain a united Western front without requiring direct NATO combat involvement.

Looking toward the future, NATO’s value will depend on whether it remains a defensive alliance rather than becoming an engine of unnecessary militarization. The alliance should continue deterring aggression against its members, supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, strengthening cyber and infrastructure resilience, and encouraging European allies to carry a fairer share of the security burden. At the same time, NATO should be careful not to treat every global problem as a military problem.

The importance of NATO to Europe was also highlighted by King Charles III in his recent address to the U.S. Congress, where he linked support for Ukraine, the transatlantic partnership, and NATO unity. The reference is useful because it shows that, in European diplomacy, NATO is treated not only as a military arrangement, but also as a political symbol of shared democratic security. For Europe, NATO remains the structure that connects national defense, U.S.-U.K. cooperation, and support for countries threatened by Russian aggression.

A balanced social policy approach should support NATO’s core mission of collective defense while demanding accountability, transparency, and diplomacy. Policymakers should ensure that defense spending is tied to real security needs rather than waste, corruption, or the profit motives of weapons manufacturers. They should also invest seriously in nonmilitary forms of security, including energy independence, climate resilience, democratic institutions, humanitarian aid, and conflict prevention.

Ultimately, NATO remains valuable because it gives democratic countries a shared security framework in a dangerous world. Its history includes mistakes, but also major successes. The best path forward is not to dismiss NATO as a conspiracy or to praise it uncritically, but to strengthen its defensive purpose while limiting the risks of escalation, overreach, and excessive militarization.

Take Action

• The Atlantic Council (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/): A nonpartisan organization that focuses on shaping global solutions and deeply analyzing the vital importance of the transatlantic alliance in maintaining international stability.
• The Council on Foreign Relations (https://www.cfr.org/): An independent think tank offering research on international relations, providing accessible insights into how defense alliances are adapting to modern global threats.
• The Official NATO Portal (https://www.nato.int/): The primary resource for understanding the group’s stated missions, its 75-year timeline of collective defense, and current policy updates from all 32 member states.
• Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (https://quincyinst.org/): A foreign policy think tank that argues for restraint, diplomacy, and caution about military overreach.