The Eastern European Transatlantic Network

With brewing tensions over American threats to annex Greenland, Declan sits down with Dr. Paal Sigurd Hilde to discuss its importance to Arctic security and what this means for NATO. Dr. Hilde is a professor and researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies. His research focuses on Arctic defence policy, NATO, and Nordic and international defence cooperation. He presented at Carleton University on the complex history of NATO in the Arctic.
 
Further Reading:
 
Jacobsen, Marc, Ole Wæver, and Ulrik Pram Gad. Greenland in Arctic Security: (De)securitization Dynamics under Climatic Thaw and Geopolitical Freeze. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2024. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/book.119444.
 
Tamnes, Rolf. The United States and the Cold War in the High North. Dartmouth: University of Michigan Press, 1991.
 
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The Canadian government has recently called for NATO to “devote more focus to defence in the Arctic”. In the lecture, Professor Paal Hilde from the Norwegian Defence University College will outline the history of the Arctic’s place in NATO deterrence and defence and give his thoughts on the opportunities and challenges for further engagement of the Alliance in the region. Dr. Paal Sigurd Hilde is a professor of war studies at the Institute for Defence Studies (IFS), which is part of the Norwegian Defence University College. He earned his DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2003. His main research interests include Norwegian security and defence, NATO and Arctic security. Paal has worked on policy planning and NATO at the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, led the secretariat of two government-appointed commissions and is, amongst others, the inaugural Norway Chair at the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies.

 
EETN Event: NATO at a Crossroads: Present Challenges and Future Trajectories
 
Hosted in partnership between the EETN, Carleton University, and the NATO Association of Canada, this event brings together academics and policymakers to examine NATO’s current challenges and future trajectory in light of shifting global security dynamics. Discussions will focus on the war in Ukraine, renewed great-power competition, the crisis of arms control, and debates over burden-sharing and European strategic autonomy. By combining scholarly and policy perspectives, the event will explore the alliance’s evolving role in transatlantic security and its implications for member states, including Canada’s commitments to defence modernization, Arctic security, and collective deterrence.
 
Panel 1: Academic Perspectives
Dr. Benjamin Zyla (Professor, University of Ottawa)
Dr. Christian Leuprecht (Professor, Royal Military College and Queen’s University)
Dr. David Sichinava (Adjunct Research Professor; Carleton University)
Dr. Ann Fitz-Gerald (Professor and Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs)
Dr. Luca Ratti (Professor; University of Rome III, joining remotely)
Dr. Mihai Sebe (Lecturer, University of Bucharest and Head of the European Affairs Department; European Institute of Romania, joining remotely)
Dr. Antonia Colibasanu (Senior Fellow; Foreign Policy Research Institute, joining remotely)
Panel 2: Policy Perspectives
Kerry Lynn Nankivell (Director, NATO and Europe, ADM(Pol), Department of National Defence)
H.E. Witold Dzielski (Ambassador; Embassy of Poland)
Eric Laporte (Executive Director; Global Affairs Canada)
BGen (retired) Scott McKenzie (Director General, Canadian Joint Operations Command)

We have seen a much more aggressive posture from US peace negotiators under US President Donald Trump. This podcast will move past the headlines to ask how shifting conceptions and goals of peace talks mean for the rules-based order and the historical legacies that have informed this current moment. To discuss this and more, Declan is joined by Dr. Jean-François Ratelle, an adjunct professor and researcher at the University of Ottawa, who this summer published a policy memo detailing the ramifications of the Washington accords and examining the ways its signing signifies a new era in conflict resolution.
 
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The COVID-19 Pandemic has birthed a new generation of conspiracy theories - ones that are unique and others that feed on historical legacies. On this episode of the EETN podcast, Declan is joined by Dr. Margarita Zavadskaya, a professor and researcher at The Finnish Institute of International Affairs and the University of Helsinki. Their conversation examines how COVID conspiracies have exposed deteriorating institutional trust in Russia and the ways that these conspiracies are being exported to the Western world. 
 
Much of this conversation is based on two publications - 
"Demographic Attributes and Attitudes of COVID-19-skeptics in Russia," Problems of post-communism.
"Politics of the Pandemic: Blame Game and Governance in Russian and Central-Eastern Europe." 
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This episode of the EETN podcast explores the goals and accomplishments of the Network's mentorship program. Working across international borders and academic disciplines, the program forged partnerships between young scholars and students and experts within their field. Dr. Jeff Sahadeo begins by explaining what the program accomplished this year, before we hear from Marika Barbieri-Antonoglou, a member of the first cohort and her mentor, Dr. Jean-François Ratelle, about their experiences. 
 
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As part of our mentorship program, Declan sat down with Eva Gaigalniece, a PhD candidate at the University of Latvia, researcher of radicalization, and journalist. They examined how the war in Ukraine has provoked rising radicalization in Latvia's Russian-speaking minority population. Building on her policy memo, Eva outlines how radicalization happens and what the Latvian government is doing to combat this worrying trend.
 
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As part of our mentorship program, Declan sat down with Marika Barbieri-Antonoglou, an undergraduate student at the University of Ottawa. They discussed the policy memo, published earlier this month, where Marika explored how Russian "doppleganger" campaigns contributed to influencing voter preferences by amplifying anti-EU and anti-Ukrainian support narratives in the lead-up to the 2024 European Parliamentary Elections. 
 
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In January, Declan sat down with Dr. Stanislav Budnitsky, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Colgate University, to discuss how Russia is harnessing humour as a weapon of war. It breaks down the insidious ways that Russian propaganda campaigns harness humour, pranks, and the internet to aid their war in Ukraine. 
 
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Declan is joined by Dr. Ryhor Nizhnikau, a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, to dissect how Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus have responded to changing EU and Russian policy in the face of unpredictability. This conversation foregrounds the recent histories of these three nations and how that has informed the present moment.
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