European Leadership Network (ELN) is a pan-European think-tank focusing on European foreign, defence and security issues based in London, United Kingdom. [1] The ELN's Director is Sir Adam Thomson, [2] former UK Permanent Representative to NATO.
European Leadership Network (ELN) is a pan-European think-tank focusing on European foreign, defence and security issues based in London, United Kingdom. [1] The ELN's Director is Sir Adam Thomson, [2] former UK Permanent Representative to NATO.
The ELN was founded as part of a project by the Nuclear Security Project in an effort to "help create the political space for dialogue, education and action on the vision and steps toward a world without nuclear weapons". [3] At the end of 2013 the ELN broadened its focus and remit of work to address a much wider range of foreign and security policy challenges facing Europe.
The ELN is currently chaired by former UK Defence Secretary Des Browne and is directed by Sir Adam Thomson. [4] In March 2015, Lord Browne and former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, both won the prestigious Nunn-Lugar Award for Promoting Nuclear Security, in part for their work with the European Leadership Network. [5]
The ELN specialises on security issues. [6]
On 27 March 2015, the Carnegie Corporation of New York announced that it was funding the European Leadership Network for 24 months, as part of its philanthropic efforts. [7]
The ELN operates through a network of former European political, military, and diplomatic leaders and supports this network with in-house research and events. [8] The network itself contains members not just from the EU but also Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia, Albania, Norway, and Serbia. [9] Such a scope has as its basis a conception of a Greater Europe similar to that of the OSCE.
In 2014 the European Leadership Network has expanded to tackle broader European and global security issues, including the Ebola crisis, [10] near-misses between Russian and Western militaries, [11] and the expanding Russo-Chinese relationship [12]
A report published by the European Leadership Network in 2015, title Dangerous Brinkmanship: closer military encounters between Russia and the West in 2015 [13] generated considerable attention around the world. [11] [14] [15] [16] At the 2015 Munich Security Conference in February 2015, conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, also a member of the European Leadership Network, publicly questioned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the findings of the ELN report.[ citation needed ] In May 2015, 68 members of the European Leadership Members signed a global statement in support of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ahead of its Review Conference in New York. [17] The statement was also signed by senior figures from Latin America, the United States and Asia-Pacific.
The European Leadership Network administers the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (TLG) [18]
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. Between 1965 and 1968, the treaty was negotiated by the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament, a United Nations-sponsored organization based in Geneva, Switzerland.
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William C. Potter is Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies and Founding Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS). He also directs the MIIS Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, generally referred to as NTI, is a non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C. The American foreign policy think tank was founded in 2001 by former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and philanthropist Ted Turner and describes itself as a "nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization focused on reducing nuclear and biological threats imperiling humanity."
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The International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament took place in Oslo on 26 and 27 February 2008. It was organized by The Government of Norway, the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority in collaboration with the NTI and the Hoover Institute. The Conference, entitled "Achieving the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons", had the purpose of building consensus between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states and about the importance of all the actions in the NPT.
Relations between the NATO military alliance and the Russian Federation were established in 1991 within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and on 27 May 1997, the NATO–Russia Founding Act (NRFA) was signed at the 1997 Paris NATO Summit in France, enabling the creation of the NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council (NRPJC). Through the early part of 2010s NATO and Russia signed several additional agreements on cooperation. The NRPJC was replaced in 2002 by the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), which was established in an effort to partner on security issues and joint projects together.
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The Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation (TLG) is a cross-party parliamentary group in the United Kingdom, whose primary focus is the advancement of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agenda in Britain and internationally. It is formed of almost all the former senior Ministers of foreign affairs and defence over the last two decades and includes former Chiefs of Defence and two former NATO Secretaries General.
Dmitri Vitalyevich Trenin is a member of Russia's Foreign and Defence Policy Council. He was the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a Russian think tank. A former colonel of Russian military intelligence, Trenin served for 21 years in the Soviet Army and Russian Ground Forces, before joining Carnegie in 1994.
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