In 2025, CSDS’s consolidation and maturation are reflected in our output and policy engagement. The Centre has built a steady record of research production, external funding acquisition, events and collaboration with institutions including NATO, the EU, national governments, industry and think tanks. Projects such as the “Future of European Deterrence” illustrate our embeddedness in transatlantic policy networks. 2025 saw the introduction of new approaches, with the Brussels 360 executive course. Such training programmes saw CSDS grow further in 2025, as we seek to nurture the next generation of policy practitioners. Yet, we continued to pursue our traditional activities, including a transatlantic dialogue, a defence and statecraft forum, multiple CSDS Conversations and, of course, the Brussels Indo-Pacific Dialogue.

We would like to thank our sponsors and partners. They have been instrumental in helping us to sharpen and deepen our analytical focus. In 2026, we will remain ambitious, and we have some exciting new initiatives to reveal soon.

In our Annual Report for 2025, CSDS highlights its events, projects, outreach activities and publications.

CSDS Annual Report 2025

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In 2025, we have so far published a range of Policy Briefs focusing on topics such as EU defence and rearmament initiatives, Arctic security, critical infrastructure protection, France’s nuclear deterrent, Poland’s defence strategy, critical raw materials, a post-American Europe and more. We have even had the pleasure of publishing a three-part series on economic security and trade that were co-authored by CSDS and Peterson Institute analysts.

Find out more about CSDS Policy Briefs.

Policy Briefs in 2025

• Enemy in the Crates: The Risks of Pre-deployed Covert Payloads for European Defence
• What if Hell Breaks Loose? Imagining a post-American Europe
• Spheres of Enhancement: Understanding the New Pattern of International Competition
• Defence Innovation Trends: A Data Snapshot of the European Defence Fund, 2021-2024
• Caught in the US-China Crossfire: To Protect Itself, Europe Must Call a Critical Raw Material Emergency
• Securing the Depths: Rethinking EU Critical Infrastructure Protection in a Contested Underwater Domain
• Indispensable Lynchpin or Irrelevant Symbolism? Polish-US Defence Relations and the Second Trump Presidency
• Significant, but not Systemic: The Challenge of China’s Efforts to Rival Western Financial Predominance
• Alignment or Misalignment? US and EU High-Tech Trade and Sanctions Policies toward China
• Destined for Division? US and EU Responses to the Challenge of Chinese Over-capacity
• Going it Alone, Doing So Divided? The Era of Uncertainties and Europe’s Defence Industrial Politics
• Sabotage as Signal: Why Attacks on Maritime Infrastructure Challenge our Model of Sense-Making
• Revisiting Deterrence: Towards a French Nuclear Umbrella Over Europe?
• Special Delivery? The European Council and the March 2025 Defence Summit
• Spending Our Way Out of a Crisis? The Challenges and Benefits of ReArming Europe
• Melting Away? The European Union’s Geopolitical Role in the Arctic
• Unity is Not Enough: How will Europe Navigate the Trumpian Era of Geopolitical Competition?
• From Policy to Action: The Way Ahead for the EU-Republic of Korea Digital Partnership

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The “Brussels 360” Executive Course aims to provide participants with a deeper and more critical understanding of Europe’s role in a world in flux. The onset of Sino-American strategic competition and Russia’s war in Ukraine are having profound effects on Europe’s security architecture and Europe’s global role. The core aim of this 3-day Executive Course is to provide participants with a deeper understanding of these changes by engaging, exchanging and learning from leading academics and policymakers in the field.

The Executive Course is organised around three individual modules that are organised over a period of 3 days in Brussels:

– Geopolitics and European Grand Strategy

– European Security and Defence Policy

– European Trade and Technology Policy

Each module is built around preparatory pre-recorded lectures and readings, a series of lectures and panel discussions. All lectures and discussions will be held at the Brussels School of Governance, located at Boulevard de la Plaine 5/1st floor, 1050 Bruxelles. The Executive Course is convened by the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS), which is a research hub at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). CSDS seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the key contemporary security and diplomatic challenges of the 21st century – and their impact on Europe – while reaching out to the policy community that will ultimately need to handle such challenges.

Course overview

3 days: the Executive Course is organised over 3 days of (online and in-person) lectures, policy panels and networking opportunities.

16 hours: to fully prepare for the course, participants are expected to dedicate 16 hours to readings and pre-recorded lectures.

Fees: for participation in the course, the fees charged for three days are €2,800. For details on bespoke institutional arrangements, contact CSDS.

Course aims

– To provide participants with a contemporary understanding of the geopolitical shifts that are affecting European security and Europe’s role in the world.

– To provide participants with a better empirical understanding of the key trends in European security, defence, trade and technology policy.

– To provide participants with opportunities to engage and network with leading policymakers and experts in the Brussels ecosystem.

– To afford participants the opportunity to enhance their policy analysis and communication skills through the production of a policy memo and in-class participation.

Dates

Brussels 360 takes place from 3-5 June 2026.

Entry requirements

Have a Master’s degree and 2 years’ worth of relevant experience or a Bachelor’s degree and 5 years’ worth of relevant experience. A good command of the English language is required, as the course is taught exclusively in English.

Fees

€2,800 for full course participation. €2,500 for early-bird applications (deadline, 15 May 2026).

Resources 

Brussels 360 – Flyer

Brussels 360 – Course Overview

Register 

To register for the 2026 edition of Brussels 360, please apply here.

Contact 

For more information, kindly contact (office_csds (@) vub.be).

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CSDS engaged with senior policymakers, as well as experts from the academic and think tank communities in the US, to assess the potential implications of the new Trump administration on US-China strategic competition and its ripple effects on Europe. These exchanges provided a valuable forum to discuss shifting transatlantic dynamics, economic security and geopolitical realignments in an era of great power rivalry.

In Washington, D.C., CSDS organised an exchange with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which included a public conference on “Transatlantic Perspectives on U.S.-China Geoeconomic Competition”, as well as a closed door session. Additionally, the team engaged in two separate workshops with the Asia Society with the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service to discuss, respectively, transatlantic approaches to China and the future of the transatlantic relationship.

On Friday, the CSDS team were in Los Angeles to share their research during the “Europe, China, and America under Trump 2.0” Symposium organised by the University of Southern California (USC). This allowed CSDS to provide insights into the potential transatlantic and global implications of a second Trump administration. The visit concluded on Monday at UC Berkeley, where CSDS presented its latest research on Europe’s role in US-China competition, transatlantic technology cooperation and economic security.

The visit took place in the context of CSDS’ ongoing work on “Europe in US-China Rivalry” and “Geopolitics and Technology”. The visit was funded by the European Union through European Research Council grants on Sino-American Competition and European Strategic Autonomy (SINATRA), under grant number 101045227, and Competition in the Digital Era: Geopolitics and Technology in the 21st Century (CODE), under grant number 101116328.

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As this annual report shows, CSDS has increased the tempo and ambition of its research and outreach activities. CSDS has gained wider acclaim through major events such as the Brussels Indo-Pacific Dialogue. Likewise, 2024 was a successful year for CSDS products such as policy briefs, in-depth papers, conversations and our new podcast series, Strategy Speaks. CSDS has also continued to deliver cutting-edge research in leading journals and books.

In terms of project acquisition and delivery, CSDS has a proven track-record of delivering high-quality, policy relevant, analysis. In particular, CSDS was extremely pleased to kick-off two European Research Council projects on US-China rivalry and European autonomy and geopolitics and technology. CSDS also started its work as part of the INPACE project in 2024, and the Centre learned of its success in attracting more exciting projects that will begin in 2025.

In our Annual Report for 2024, CSDS highlights its events, projects, outreach activities and publications.

Read the CSDS Annual Report 2024

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Robert’s life is a perfect example of public service and devotion to transatlantic relations. In a career with the US Government spanning 45 years, Robert was intimately linked to US foreign policy and NATO’s evolution. Not only did Robert serve as US Defence Advisor at NATO and as Senior Civil Representative in Europe of the Secretary of Defence, but he was on President Clinton’s National Security Council as Senior Director for Defence Policy and Arms Control. Robert also served on the staffs of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, and he began his career in the Congressional Research Service, which he took up after serving as a US Air Force officer. For many in Brussels, he was also known as NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment, where he played a vital role in ensuring NATO was fit for purpose in a dynamic geopolitical context.

Robert played an important part in the life of CSDS and contributed in significant ways to our research and events. At CSDS, Robert helped our researchers understand better the intricacies of NATO and the transatlantic alliance. Given his experience and natural intelligence, Robert was acutely aware of and sympathetic to European positions within the alliance. As a devoted Europeanist and gifted linguist, Robert was one of those Americans who walked with complete ease in Brussels, Paris, Washington, Atlanta and more. Robert’s unique and warm approach to diplomacy and international relations will be sorely missed by the transatlantic community. Robert was a warm and patient teacher, colleague and leader who will be sorely missed by everybody at CSDS.

Dear Robert, dear “Bob”, you will be remembered and your life celebrated. Rest in Peace.

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1) From a European perspective, what are the realities of burden-sharing today and what more should European NATO allies do for defence?

2) How do Europeans view the US strategy towards the Indo-Pacific and how will this effect burden-sharing in NATO and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific?

3) What scope is there to enhance EU-NATO cooperation and in what concrete ways? What new forms of cooperation are required in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine?

A recording of the event will be available in due course via our YouTube channel.

This project and event was sponsored by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. 

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Ramon was invited to participate in a think tank exchange on EU partnerships in security and defence, and he raised issues of relevance to the EU’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific. Daniel moderated one of the roundtables on maritime security with several senior military officers and ministers of defence. During the roundtable on maritime security, participants learned about the need to dissuade naval threats, protect under-sea critical infrastructure and develop information and data exchange in order to better anticipate maritime threats.

Full details on the Schuman Forum can be found here.

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Check the vacancies here:

PhD fellowships “Sino American Competition and European Strategic Autonomy”, deadline 31 Janaury 2023. 

Postdoctoral researchers “Sino American Competition and European Strategic Autonomy”, deadline 31 January 2023.

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SINATRA examines to what extent the European Union (EU) autonomously makes decisions regarding its relations with the United States and China. To do that, it builds on the concepts of wedging (Crawford, 2008, 2011, 2021; Izumikawa, 2013) and binding (Nexon, 2009, Izumikawa, 2018) and presents a comprehensive theory to explain to what extent and under what circumstances external or internal actors have the upper hand in informing European policy choices in Sino-American competition. Specifically, the project seeks to examine how the United States and China conjugate inducements and coercion to influence EU policies – paying particular attention to their efforts to leverage intra-European divisions – and how powerful European actors try to repel external wedging efforts and preserve European cohesion.

The empirical analysis examines the degree of European cohesion and autonomy in three areas of external policy: one in which the EU enjoys exclusive competences (trade and FDI); a second where it shares competences with the member states (technology and infrastructure); and a third where member states are in charge (foreign and security policy). This distinction allows us to evaluate variation in the degree of European autonomy across policy areas.

The project draws on mixed methods research, combining quantitative analysis of European, American and Chinese voting patterns and public discourse (i.e. through the use of automated content analysis and manual coding) in a variety of international organizations and debates with qualitative analysis.

Within the above framework, PhD project proposals are invited to explore one or more of the following themes:

• Economic statecraft and great power competition.
• Sino-American economic competition, with a particular emphasis on trade, investment and infrastructure.
• Geoeconomics and European strategic autonomy.
• China’s strategy in Europe, and attempts to influence the policies of the European Union and/or its member states in areas like trade, investment, infrastructure.

PROFILE

• You must hold a Master’s degree in international relations, social sciences or law.
• You must be fully fluent in English (proficiency in Dutch and/or other official languages of the EU will be considered an asset)
• You must have a thorough knowledge of international affairs, public policy or European studies
• A background in economics will be a plus
• You must have experience in quantitative analysis (ability to work with a combination of python, stata and R is a plus but not mandatory)
• You have not performed any works in the execution of a mandate as an assistant, paid from operating resources, over a total (cumulated) period of more than 12 months.

OFFER

We offer a full-time PhD-scholarship, for 12 months (extendable up to max. 48 months, on condition of the positive evaluation of the PhD activities), with planned starting date 01/10/2023.

You will receive a grant linked to one of the scales set by the government. The effective result of the doctorate scholarship is subject to the condition precedent of your enrolment as a doctorate student at the university.

At the VUB, you are guaranteed an open, involved and diverse workplace where you are offered opportunities to (further) build on your career.

As well as this, you’ll enjoy various benefits:

• Full reimbursement for your home-work commute with public transport according to VUB-policy, or compensation if you come by bike;
• Cost-free hospitalisation insurance;
• The space to form your job content and continuously learn via VUB LRN;
• Excellent facilities for sport and exercise;
• Ecocheques;
• Delicious meals at attractive prices in our campus restaurants;
• An open, family-friendly work environment where attention is paid to work-life balance, and exceptional holiday arrangements with 35 days of leave (based on a fulltime contract).

HOW TO APPLY

Go to the dedicated VUB Page, HERE: https://jobs.vub.be/job/Elsene-PhD-fellowship-Sino-American-Competition-and-European-Strategic-Autonomy/880473901/

Fill out the online form and send us your CV, letter of motivation (including a short research proposal of maximum 5 pages) and the highest degree you’ve attained (not applicable for VUB alumni). Deadline: 31/01/2023.

Do you have questions about the job content? Contact Natalia Martin at natalia.martin@vub.be.

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