NATO

The contest over the Arctic as retreating sea ice opens once-inaccessible waters, seabed and sea lanes to competition among the eight Arctic states and China. Four axes run through it: the militarization of the High North and NATO's northern expansion, the race for Arctic hydrocarbons and critical minerals, control of the emerging shipping routes, and the confrontation over Greenland that has strained transatlantic relations. Coverage is sharply divided — Western outlets frame Russian and Chinese activity as encroachment requiring deterrence, while Moscow and Beijing frame NATO's build-up and the US Greenland push as the destabilizing provocation.

The widening rift between the United States and its European allies under a Washington that treats Europe more as a competitor than a partner. It runs along four axes: a tariff and trade confrontation; a dispute over defence burden-sharing and the credibility of the US security guarantee; Europe's answering drive for strategic autonomy and rearmament; and a clash over technology regulation and digital sovereignty. Beneath them runs a deeper question of whether the transatlantic alliance that defined the post-war order still holds — a fracture Moscow and Beijing cover with schadenfreude.

The confrontation between Russia and European states and institutions outside the direct Ukraine battlefield: NATO military posture on the eastern flank, below-threshold gray-zone activity, contested airspace over NATO territory, and the sanctions regime imposed on Russia since 2022. Participants include Russia, NATO and EU member states along the eastern flank (Baltic, Nordic, Visegrad), Germany, France, the UK, and the United States.

The South Caucasus -- Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia -- at the intersection of Russian, Turkish, Iranian and Euro-Atlantic interests. The region carries several unresolved disputes: the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict centred on Nagorno-Karabakh, the question of Armenia's alignment between the Russian-led blocs and the European Union, the status of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, transit corridors across the region, and competition among external powers over influence, energy routes and security ties. It has seen repeated wars, including the Nagorno-Karabakh wars and the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.