The European Union (EU) and Turkey have been on a divergent path over the past five years, but energy security is one of those sectors where the two partners would clearly benefit from closer cooperation. This paper by Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center Deputy Director David Koranyi and Nicolò Sartori, researcher in the security and defence department at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Rome, explores energy relations between Turkey and the EU in the context of EU accession talks, focusing on natural gas as a strategic component of these relations.

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A new Atlantic Council report, Yemen’s Economic Agenda: Beyond Short-Term Survival, argues that if the Yemeni government fails to prioritize progress on the economic front, the country’s democratic transition risks derailment and may witness renewed conflict. Prioritizing the economy has been postponed because of political uncertainty and security problems, but the status quo can no longer continue if the country is to emerge from its near failed-state status. With completion of Yemen’s National Dialogue still unclear, the ability of the Yemeni government to deliver concrete benefits to its population has never been more important in order to maintain credibility and foster a sense of forward momentum. The government should address not only demands for more inclusive political participation, but also the economic aspirations of most Yemenis who have not experienced any improvement in their standard of living since the 2011 popular revolution.

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Each year, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center hosts the Caplin Conference on the World Economy, which assembles scholars, experts, government officials, and leaders in business and finance to examine the impact of US economic policy at home and abroad. The 2013 Caplin Conference, held on December 2 at the National Press Club in Washington, examined the prospective free trade agreement between the United States and European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Central to the Miller Center’s mission is bringing the lessons of history to bear for today’s policy challenges. Garrett Workman and Jordan Smith of the Atlantic Council were asked to write an original background essay that places the conference subject in proper historical context. This paper provides the historical lens that informed the conference’s deliberations by providing insight to questions like: “Why now?” and “Why is TTIP necessary?”

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Its Prime Minister briefly kidnapped, its oil trapped in the pipelines by protesters, its capital city in chaos, and its high-end hotels increasingly devoid of businessmen, Libya is now reaping the "benefits" of 42 years of ideological one-man rule, eight months of polarizing armed struggle, and two years of seemingly endless and aimless "transition." In an attempt to reverse the descent towards anarchy that has characterized his tenure, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan issued a stern ultimatum on November 11 stating that he would finally take action against protesters at oil installations if they did not surrender to the central government within a week. To frighten his opponents, he added that Western powers might feel a need to intervene if Libya fails to address its power vacuum by itself.

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The forthcoming issue of Africa Review features an article by Atlantic Council Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on “India’s New African Horizons: An American Perspective.”

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The Atlantic Council at its annual Energy and Economic Summit in Istanbul (November 21-22, 2013) published a study book: ‘A Eurasian Energy Primer: The Transatlantic Perspective.’

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After eight turbulent years during which conservatives monopolized Iranian politics, the election of centrist cleric Hassan Rouhani on June 14, 2013, marked a new, yet in some ways familiar chapter in post-revolutionary Iranian politics. It was new in the sense that his sweeping victory demonstrated unprecedented popular desire for change and elite recognition of the need for a less confrontational foreign policy. But Rouhani’s presidency is also familiar because the team he has assembled is drawn from the old guard of the Islamic Republic, which enabled the regime to survive following the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

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State Collapse, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency

In a monograph just published by the US Army War College, Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham argues that, after years as the world’s prime example of a failed state—one that gave rise to catastrophic humanitarian crises, a wave of maritime piracy, and Islamist militancy, including an al-Qaeda-linked insurgency—Somalia appears to be turning the corner, but whatever lessons are to be learned from the insurgency and the counterinsurgency effort, they are not the ones usually advanced by diplomats and soldiers.

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A new report issued jointly by the Atlantic Council and the Stimson Center, The Security of Cities: Ecology and Conflict on an Urbanizing Planet, argues that the environmental security field has yet to incorporate global urbanization, the twenty-first century’s central demographic trend, fully into its purview.

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