Eastern Circles, French think tank working on defense technology and energy security in Eastern Europe will organize a joint 1.5 hours discussion panel during the NATO in the Huis, a series of events coordinated by Clingendael Institute and Munich Security Conference on the margins of the NATO Public Forum 2025 in the Hague.

Date, time and place: The event will be held over breakfast 7:30-9:00 am on June 24, The Netherlands.

Concept:

At the time of geopolitical uncertainty, the strengthening of European defense capacity of NATO has become paramount. The role of the EU as defense actor has evolved significantly in the last 3 years, with member-states creating defense funds under the EU umbrella, and reviewing financial spending priorities on the national and supranational level to reinforce defense, and intensifying strategic cooperation with Ukraine. This discussion panel proposes to discuss how NATO and EU cooperation can be reimagined with the case studies of the much needed deepening of the Baltic Sea defense and of a closer cooperation with Ukraine, to the point of integrating Ukraine into the NATO-EU defense system.

Discussion panel topic and structure: “Building European Strategic Autonomy”:

7:30-7:45 – breakfast & coffee welcome.

7:45-8:00 – Introduction by Lieutenant General (Retired) Ben Hodges, Former Commander of the NATO Allied Land Command and former Commanding General of the United States Army Europe (2014-17).

Discussion moderated by: Edward Lucas, Non-resident Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a contributing author of The Times newspaper, former Senior Editor of The Economist.

8:00-8:10 – NATO-EU complementarity: the Baltic Sea case study, Philippe Perchoc, PhD, Institut de la Recherche Stratégique de l’Ecole Militaire (IRSEM).

8:10-8:20 – How Ukraine can strengthen European strategic autonomy: military perspective, by Rodolphe Oberle, Secretary General of Eastern Circles, Long-term Observer of OSCE in Ukraine (2015-2021), member of the French Special Forces (retired).

8:20-8:30 – How Ukraine can strengthen European strategic autonomy: industry perspective, by Anastasiya Shapochkina President of Eastern Circles.

8:30-9:00 – Roundtable discussion with the audience.

Discussion format: 10-min presentation by each speaker (40 min total), followed by a moderated discussion, and a 30-min Q&A with the audience, all of it during breakfast.

Host think tank: Eastern Circles: www.easterncircles.com

Eastern Circles is a Paris-based think tank specializing in defense, strategic technologies, and industrial policy in Eastern Europe. Our mission is to help policy and business decision-makers understand the  changing nature of regional geopolitics and their impact on the future of European defense, energy security, and on the global system of alliances. We fulfil it through analytical work on geoeconomics  and technology, expert discussions, and building people-to-people contacts through international projects.

Speakers’ and moderator’s biographies: 

Ben Hodges, Lieutenant General (Retired) Ben Hodges, Former Commander of the NATO Allied Land Command and former Commanding General of the United States Army Europe (2014-17). General Hodges is a Distinguished Fellow with GLOBSEC, and he consults for several companies on Europe, NATO, and the European Union, and he is co-author of the book, Future War and the Defence of Europe, published by Oxford University Press. 

He commanded the First Brigade Combat Team “Bastogne” in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2003-2004), was Chief of Operations for Multi-National Corps-Iraq in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2005-2006), and Director of Operations, Regional Command South in Kandahar, Afghanistan (2009-2010). His Joint and Army Staff positions include Chief of Plans for the 2^nd Infantry Division in the Republic of Korea, Director of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell on the Joint Staff, and Chief of Army Congressional Liaison. From 2012-2014 he served as Commander of, NATO Allied Land Command in İzmir, Turkey. His last military assignment was as Commanding General of, the United States Army Europe in Wiesbaden, Germany from 2014 to 2017. He retired from the U.S. Army in January 2018 and lives today with his wife in Frankfurt, Germany. A native of Quincy, Florida, General Hodges graduated from the United States Military Academy in May 1980.

Philippe Perchoc, PhD: Head of IRSEM-Europe, he holds a PhD in political science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), where he wrote his PhD on Baltic foreign and defense policies since the collapse of the USSR. His work focuses on the place of the Baltic States in the European system in strategic, institutional and symbolic terms. Before joining IRSEM-Europe, Philippe Perchoc was working at the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) as thematic advisor to the Director General of the European Parliament, and before that as coordinator of the European Parliament’s dialogue with religious and philosophical organizations for two first EP Vice-Presidents, and as thematic analyst. Philipp started his research career at the Catholic University of Louvain. He teaches European affairs at several universities in France and Belgium.

Anastasiya Shapochkina: Before founding Eastern Circles in 2020, she spent 10 years working in the energy industry for Electricité de France. At EDF, she analyzed companies, technologies and markets in the areas of nuclear, renewables, natural gas, utilities and e-mobility for the Strategy and International Affairs Directions of EDF, with the teams of EDF R&D. She later led the development of European cross-industry partnership research projects at EDF Brussels office and represented the company in European industrial and research associations. Anastasiya started her career in consulting, working as research assistant to Ana Palacio, former Foreign Affairs Minister of Spain.

In addition to her current work in Eastern Circles, Anastasiya is teaching geopolitics in Sciences Po Paris University since 2012, focusing on the role of business in EU-Russia relations. Author of articles on the geopolitics and geoeconomics in Eastern Europe, she has regular international media appearances. Ukrainian-American, Anastasiya graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, German and European Studies Program.

Rodolphe Oberle: After active military service, including several deployments as officer specialised in former Soviet Union and information operations, Rodolphe Oberle worked for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where he occupied politico-military functions in several field missions:  as Chechen Border Monitoring Team Leader and Planning Officer, Parliamentary Advisor for Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Project Manager for Central Asia border security and engagement with Afghanistan, and Monitor Coordinator, Operations Officer and Long-term Observer in Ukraine (Donbas) for the monitoring mission of OSCE’S Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Rodolphe Oberle holds a Master’s degree in international relations from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Strasbourg and from the Business School of Strasbourg and is a graduate of the Military Staff Command course at the Paris Military School.

Edward Lucas (moderator) is a Non-resident Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and a contributing author of The Times magazine. Formerly a senior editor at The Economist, for which Edward has covered Central and Eastern European politics, economics, and security since 1986 as long-serving foreign correspondent in Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, and the Baltic states. He is an internationally recognized expert on espionage, subversion, the use and abuse of history, energy security and information warfare, having written, in addition to numerous articles, five books on the subject: The New Cold War (2008, revised and republished in 2014); Deception (2011); The Snowden Operation (2014), Cyberphobia (2015), and Spycraft Rebooted: How Technology is Changing Espionage (2018).