@nlokker
Adjunct Fellow, Center for a New American Security | PhD student at American University SIS | Transatlantic Russia policy | European integration | International norms & institutions | Duke and GeorgetownSFS alum | https://nicholaslokker.com/
“Putin is determined to curtail Ukraine’s sovereignty...keeping Ukraine within Russia’s sphere of influence and preventing its Euro-Atlantic integration is paramount,” says Lokker.
Some comments from me on the 4th anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion.
www.firstpost.com/world/four-y...
Anthropic's co-founder on AI's current state: "The way that I think of these systems now is that they’re like little troublesome genies that I can give instructions to, and they’ll go and do things for me. But I still need to specify the instruction just right" www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/o...
"Nearly 40 percent of Russia’s federal budget is now devoted to the military and security. Another 9 percent goes to interest payments on the debt that Mr. Putin has decided to take on to finance the war, a departure from years of tight fiscal discipline." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/w...
"Listening to Rubio, the reality is that the US seeks to move to a 19th-century concept of the world, as a duty to those who need to be rescued from non-Western civilisation, by force."
www.euractiv.com/opinion/rubi...
Rubio has a personal interest in saying nice(ish) things to Europe; the Trump administration as a whole has a strong interest in Europe not acting on the rupture the White House has created. None of this means an actual change of direction in US foreign policy.
🚨🚨 #NATO SG Mark #Rutte is to my mind massively undermining European #unity and efforts to build up their #defence and #security in what I see as a statement which only plays in the hands of #Putin and #Trump. 🧵https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-defense-nato-mark-rutte-us-politics-threats-gdp/
Abolish ICE is now the moderate minimum position,
Prosecute ICE is where Dems should be at next.
In my view, repression at home and thuggery abroad - most recently Greenland - are two sides of the same coin. Both reflect the worldview of people who think violence, power, threat and coercion are all that's required to push your agenda through & secure your interests.
Border Patrol murdered Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this morning. He was a 37-year-old ICU nurse, a U.S. citizen, a legal gun owner. Video shows he was holding a phone when they killed him. This is the second fatal shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis in 17 days. A legal thread 🧵
To Atlanticists who've insisted for years that Giorgia Meloni is not far right, I ask: why is she appearing in a video alongside 🇫🇷Le Pen, 🇩🇪Weidel, 🇮🇱Netanyahu & 🇪🇸Abascal?
And why is this supposed friend of Ukraine endorsing Orban for re-election so he can keep blocking 🇪🇺 aid to 🇺🇦?
Insane it had to come this far, but it is the right move and a major step for Europe’s security
BREAKING part 3: Denmark is not acting alone. Several European allies are in dialogue with Copenhagen about providing military reinforcements to Greenland.
Preparing for the arrival of allied forces is a key task for the advance unit now on the ground.
www.dr.dk/tjenester/ki...
Having seen several abductions up close, it is really hard to convey how much the thing they’re doing is roaming in military convoys until they see someone who is alone and isn’t white, and then jumping out in large numbers, pulling them into a van, and screeching off, all in 90 seconds or so.
It's a repeat of Trump's business failures. You can ride the attention economy — all the way to the presidency, it turns out — but if all of your "productive" ventures have a negative return on investment? You'll eventually go bankrupt.
Plugging my @cnas.bsky.social report with Andrea Kendall-Taylor from last year, which provides a deep dive into the Axis of Upheaval's evolving military cooperation during recent years: www.cnas.org/publications...
With BRICS cooperation formally expanding to the military domain, this serves as an important reminder that the #AxisofUpheaval continues to strengthen. www.scmp.com/news/china/d...
There's "compartmentalising" the transatlantic relationship... and then there's the mental gymnastics required to reconcile this ⬇️ with any sort of meaningful US security guarantees for Ukraine. Europe's on its own.
Realism. Restraint.
It’s just kids playing Risk now. 🤡
"For Donald Trump, the preservation of something close to the status quo makes sense, given that his goal is extortion, not political transformation. Rather than the moralistic imperialism of George W. Bush, Trump’s foreign policy is imperialistic gangsterism." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/o...
Pretty sure this is the plan
I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war
What to make of the EU decision on funding for Ukraine? It is a good outcome in my opinion. Here is why:
There’s gonna be a lot of hyperbolic talk about EU failing to meet the moment, yada, yada. But a 90 BILLION EU loan is a huge step for the EU and Ukraine! Europe just borrowed for war! EU crossed the joint borrowing rubicon. And they can still do the reparations loan in 2026.
Putin is in no mood to compromise. Under current conditions, there is no realistic peace deal that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and the broader norms underpinning global stability.
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
The war in Ukraine is a critical inflection point for the norm against conquest. Preserving this principle requires a settlement that upholds Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty, ensuring the costs to Russia of its aggression outweigh the benefits.
My analysis for @inkstickmedia.com:
🚨🚨This is worse than we could have imagined: Full version of #Trump's national #securitystrategy reportedly calls for “pulling Poland away from #EU”. 🧵 notesfrompoland.com/2025/12/10/f...
People continue to be surprised by this stuff as if we don't already know that the main point of strategy documents for the Trump admin is throwing far-right talking points together in exactly the way that produces maximum trolling.
The Trump National Security Strategy is an act of vandalism against the things that actually make our country strong, safe, and prosperous.
