Atlantica Magazine
Young professionals are often an unheard voice in policy discussions. More often than not, however, it is their insights that we need to break hardwired, outdated ideas about foreign policy and transatlanticism. Atlantica aims to amplify the voices of the young generation of transatlanticists. Our team is committed to publishing your article. Each issue features three articles per month on a theme selected by the Atlantic Forum team, in conjunction with NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division.
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NATO, Russia, and the Eastern Flank: A historical and geopolitical overview
This article investigates NATO-Russia relations with a focus on the Eastern Flank of the Atlantic Alliance. It begins with a milestone in NATO-Russia relations, the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, integrating it with the 2002 Rome declaration. In this section, efforts to build dialogue with Moscow through the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) will be discussed. It will then describe NATO’s reaction to the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the subsequent establishment of the “dual track” deterrence/dialogue policy. Finally, it will unpack the events following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, it will discuss the decisions taken by the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe in March to strengthen NATO’s Eastern Flank, enhance air patrolling, and increase the presence of battlegroups. This article also gives crucial importance to the latest developments in the Alliance: the Madrid Summit and the New Strategic Concept. My approach to this topic will be based on dialogue and diplomacy, and on deterrence and defence from historical and geopolitical perspectives.