Programme de la conférence

The American political system confronts two distinct crises. The first is the crisis of the moment, stemming from President Trump's controversial actions since January 2025. The second is the deeper crisis of design, relating to flaws in the system's architecture that predate Trump and will persist beyond his presidency. In the long run, the crisis of design is more consequential. Over-centralization within the system has contributed to four pathologies: overload, gridlock, societal polarization, and programmatic inefficiency and sclerosis. A better-designed system would be one in which authority was devolved and central institutions reconfigured. Systemic reform would be hard to accomplish, because of constitutional constraints and a culture of anti-governmentalism. Still, major reform is essential. History demonstrates that large and complex political systems are fragile. They are particularly prone to collapse under turbulent conditions, like those facing the American system in coming decades.

The strategic environment of European defence has changed substantially in the last years, particularly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In march 2025 the European Union formulated the Readiness 2030 white paper stating the need for defence restructuring the next few years.

This article explores some of the challenges on how this can be developed by exploring two lines of research. The first is the military technology and its impact on doctrine and organization. The second is an analysis of five potential scenarios using a combination of game theory and decision theory.

The readiness 2030 document indicates seven critical capability areas which are: (1) air and missile defence, (2) artillery systems, (3) ammunition and missiles, (4) drones and counter drones systems, (5) Military mobility, (6) AI, quantum, cyber and electronic warfare, (7) Strategic enablers.

Each of those critical capabilities is detailed in terms of potential future developments and their impact on doctrine and organization. This analysis tries to predict future developments of those technologies into near future.

Five scenarios are explored in terms of potential defence challenges in the 2030’s: (1) Russian conventional attack, (2) Russian Nuclear attack, (3) Russian Civil war, (4) Global war starting in the Middle east, (5) Global war starting in Asia-Pacific.

In each case a combination of Game theory and Decision theory is used in order to map potential developments and outcomes. The participation of USA in those scenarios is supposed to be either limited, or null.

The conclusions help understand potential ways to improve the process of reaming in the next years, and reduce risks in each of the five scenarios presented.

This paper examines the relationship between strategic capacity, political and administrative leadership, and the successful implementation of public administration reforms in EU member states. Public administration reforms matter for a variety of reasons, including the enhancement of government effectiveness and the quality of government services and regulatory activity. However, we know from recent research into reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by de Vries and Nemec (2025) that the extent to which governments possess strategic and implementation capacities matters but also that their extent varies significantly across the CEE countries that joined the EU. This study extends the study of de Vries and Nemec (2025) to the whole of the EU. It begins by exploring the theoretical underpinnings of strategic capacity and leadership. It then uses secondary data published in 2021, uses comparative case study methods, and assesses the implications for theory and practice. The paper's key aim, as already stated, will be to investigate the relationship between strategic capacity and leadership in reform success of failure. This will entail the paper looking at strategic reform planning and the work of political leaders (authorising and resourcing) and administrative leaders (policy advice and implementation). In addition, an attempt will be made to identify the trajectory of increases in strategic capacity (long-term or rapid increases in critical junctures). Comparisons of countries will include some comparisons of country clusters. The clusters are still to be clarified (e.g., Denmark. Germany, Sweden, etc. versus Bulgaria, Greece, Romania etc). Possible practical implications include how leaders can increase strategic capacity for reform: for example through leaders' strategic actions with respect to institutional factors, and through leaders' adeptly mobilising external support by the EU,