Aug 15, 2025

By Dr. John R. Deni

NATO’s Hague summit earlier this summer has generally been viewed as a qualified success, despite — or perhaps because of — its unusually short and focused agenda. The new 5 percent defense spending commitment deserves most of the credit for this perception, but there’s no escaping the conclusion that the lack of major disruptions also explains why

Apr 21, 2025

By Dr. John R. Deni

The United States has never been directly involved in the war in Ukraine. U.S. troops weren’t sent there to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invaders, and both sides of our political spectrum seemed intent on keeping it that way. Russia remained in American foreign policy a challenge to be managed and a competitor, even an adversary.Through

Apr 15, 2025

By Dr. John R. Deni

Turn your excess national defense champions into continental ones.Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and questions about the American commitment to NATO have cast a spotlight on European efforts to safeguard security on the continent. But today, the major hurdles confronting Europe are no longer defense spending and industrial capacity. At both the

Apr 15, 2025

By Dr. John R. Deni

Here’s how the Pentagon can rebalance its approach to the continent without sacrificing US interests.The Trump administration has only just begun to fill its ranks with the political appointees who will flesh out the future of US defense policy. One item sure to be on their agenda is a review of US military deployments around the world, known in

Jan 2, 2025

By Dr. John R. Deni

The sabotage of undersea communications cables in the Baltic Sea by the cargo ship Yi Peng 3 is only the latest in a series of asymmetric attacks against Western interests and infrastructure that appear to be connected in one way or another to Moscow. The Kremlin has clearly ratcheted up efforts to intimidate and coerce Europe, hoping to

Dec 10, 2024

By Dr. John R. Deni

The narrative of Russia’s ascendancy in 2024 is beginning to look like more fiction than fact. The Assad regime in Syria has become a casualty of Moscow’s increasingly desperate efforts in Ukraine, and its collapse is a strategic and operational blow that undermines the narrative of Russia as ascendant, Kyiv as doomed, and Vladimir Putin as strategic mastermind.

Aug 26, 2024

By Dr. John R. Deni

Ukraine shocked Russia and its allies by launching a surprise attack on the Kursk region and has now seized over 1200 square kilometres of enemy territory. Will this operation prove pivotal for the war or could it turn into a strategic disaster? Guest: Dr John R. Deni, Research Professor of Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College's Strategic

Apr 4, 2024

By Dr. John R. Deni

As NATO marks 75 years since its founding, there are serious questions among some Americans who doubt the value of the trans-Atlantic alliance. They argue that it’s anachronistic, full of burden-sharing slackers and insufficiently focused on America’s main adversary, China.These critiques are to some degree understandable. NATO’s age obscures the

Apr 4, 2024

By Dr. John R. Deni

Despite achieving notable successes over its seventy-five years of existence, NATO today faces a major challenge. A change in the United States’ commitment could spell the demise of the alliance.The North Atlantic Alliance should justifiably mark the seventy-fifth year since its founding, but this may not be the time to pop champagne corks.NATO has

Dec 20, 2023

By Dr. John R. Deni

John R. Deni | This article is part of the Baltic Sea Region Security Initiative developed by the Carnegie Endowment’s Europe Program. | With the addition of Finland and soon Sweden into the NATO fold, nearly all of the Baltic Sea littoral states will be alliance members. This has prompted some observers to label the Baltic Sea a kind of “NATO

Jul 29, 2022

By Dr. John R. Deni

SSI Live 092 – China, Europe, and the Pandemic Recession: Chinese Investment in European Infrastructure – This is the fifth podcast in a short series to launch a recently published multi-author study on China, Europe, and the Pandemic Recession: Beijing’s Investments and Transatlantic Security. In this podcast, Dr. John R. Deni discusses Chinese

Jun 9, 2022

By Dr. John R. Deni

This is the fourth podcast in a short series to launch a recently published multi-author study on China, Europe, and the Pandemic Recession: Beijing’s Investments and Transatlantic Security. In this podcast, Dr. John R. Deni discusses Europe’s evolving policies toward Chinese economic statecraft. What tools have Europeans relied upon to fend off