Defense spending above the NATO target of 2 percent of gross domestic product would be necessary for Europe to be able to defend itself without the protective umbrella of the United States. This is the conclusion of the new EconPol Policy Brief. European countries would have to significantly...

After decades of relative peace and security, Europe is faced with a conflict on its doorstep that threatens to upend the recent stability and shift geopolitical order. Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine has forced Europe to confront its shortcomings with regard to providing its own security...

War is raging close to NATO's Eastern border. Russia has attacked Ukraine and threatens those states that in the past had been part of Moscow's sphere of influence. Many of them are now member states of NATO. As a collective defense alliance, this poses a threat to all NATO members. Since the...

Turkey-NATO relations are still sufficiently strong to keep the relationship from the brink, a new DIIS-report finds. But more dynamics are also gaining strength to render further troubles increasingly likely. The future of Turkey's NATO membership has been the subject of heated debate of late,...

Vereinbaren nationale Regierungen internationale Abkommen und Verträge, haben sie ein Selbstbindungsproblem: Sie sagen ihren Regierungspartnern aus anderen Ländern zu, dass sich ihr Heimatland in der Zukunft an heute vereinbarte internationale Abkommen und Verträge halten wird. Doch wissen...

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the causal relationships between defence spending and economic growth using the Toda-Yamamoto approach to Granger causality test in the case of selected NATO countries for the period of 1949-2006. NATO countries spend biggest proportion of defence...

I sommeren 2009 besluttede NATO-landenes forsvarsministre at ændre grundlæggende på Alliancens hurtige udrykningsstyrke - the NATO Response Force (NRF'en). Omstillingen er planlagt til at være fuldt implementeret allerede i juli 2010. Symptomatisk for de betydelige problemer, som har plaget...

In order for NATO to remain credible and efficient, its new Strategic Concept must address and find solutions to fundamental issues which are likely to define the Alliance’s missions over the next decade, of which the most important ones concern member states’ ability to ensure and reinforce...

The popular perception of the role of NATO was famously defined by NATO's first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, as "keeping the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down". NATO's role is still essentially to keep its members safe from threats, to ensure the cohesion of the transatlantic...

This DIIS Report provides an overview of the political and military issues that are likely to shape the coming discussions about NATO's new Strategic Concept. NATO's current Strategic Concept dates back to 1999 and over the last couple years an increasing number of policy-makers have suggested...

This paper analyses potential internal and external determinants of institutional change as measured by the World Bank Governance Indicators (WBGI) based on a panel of 25 transition countries for the period from 1996 to 2005. We show that natural resources and capital inflows exert an...