They Rise or Sink Together: NATO on the Road to Vilnius

NATO’s summit in Vilnius will be another step on the pathway to building a new European security architecture. NATO leaders will consider the further changes needed to their defence posture to ensure the credibility of the Alliance’s updated collective defence plans, perhaps raising difficult questions about defence spending, and exposing gaps between the eastern and other Allies in threat perceptions and appropriate strategies for response. NATO enlargement will also be a key topic, with Sweden still waiting in the wings over Turkey and Hungary’s objections, and many Allies seeking at least some form of security guarantee for Ukraine. Meanwhile, a rising China and continuing instability to Europe’s south demand an international response.

Speakers

David Cattler

NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security

Xavier Chatel

Advisor for Strategic Affairs to the French Presidency

Eliot A Cohen

Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

Margus Tsahkna

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia

Elina Valtonen

Member of the Finnish Parliament and Vice-Chair of the National Coalition Party

Moderator

Ana Isabel Xavier

Secretary of State at the Ministry of National Defence of Portugal

What more does NATO need to do to counter the threat from Russia? How can Alliance unity, strengthened enormously after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, be preserved? What can NATO offer Ukraine? What is NATO’s role in relation to the growing ambitions and belligerence of China, and to challenges on its southern borders?

“The woman’s cause is man’s. They rise or sink
Together.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Princess (1847)