Atlantic Council blogs

Atlantic Council blogs provide short-form analyses from Council experts and a wider community of global voices on the world’s most important news stories.
View all
of our blogs
Subscribe to our
newsletters

Latest from across our blogs

MENASource

Oct 3, 2016

What Egypt’s Assassination Attempts Say about its Islamist Insurgency

By Mokhtar Awad

An attempted assassination at the end of September on Egypt’s assistant prosecutor general, Zakaria Abdul Aziz, highlights the capability and determination of militant Islamist actors in the Egyptian mainland to wage terror in the mainland.

North Africa

MENASource

Sep 30, 2016

Egypt’s Currency Catch 22

By H.A. Hellyer

The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is due to meet sometime in the next two to three weeks, at which point it will formally sign off on the deal for Egypt. It’s a deal wrought with challenges, but is likely to go forward anyway. Cairo insists that the IMF deal ties in well […]

Economy & Business North Africa

New Atlanticist

Sep 30, 2016

Georgia at a Crossroad

By Tedo Japaridze

Georgia today is a very different country from what it was four years ago. Owing in large part to its strong regional relationships and geographic location, Georgia has enhanced its partnerships with Europe and the United States, and has also become increasingly relevant to East Asia, largely through trade. It is now time to reflect […]

The Caucasus

New Atlanticist

Sep 30, 2016

Gene Editing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In the 2016 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US National Intelligence Community, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper noted: “given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use technology [genome editing], its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications.” The CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regularly […]

EconoGraphics

Sep 30, 2016

Myanmar: Post-Sanctions Landscape

By Filippos Letsas

On the occasion of Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent visit to the United States (U.S.), President Obama announced that executive sanctions on Myanmar would soon be lifted. This will grant Myanmar greater access to the U.S. market and encourage U.S. companies to invest in the country. Trade between the two countries remains at relatively low levels (i.e. $225 million in 2015), with U.S. investment to Myanmar accounting for only 0.2% of the country’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

Economy & Business Financial Sanctions and Economic Coercion

AfricaSource

Sep 29, 2016

A Return to Civil War in South Sudan?

By Julian Wyss

While South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai carries out a public relations offensive in New York and Washington this week, all indications suggest that the country is teetering dangerously close to collapsing back into civil war.

East Africa

New Atlanticist

Sep 29, 2016

NATO ‘Best Deal’ the United States Has Ever Made

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warns against placing conditions on defense of allies In a thinly veiled swipe at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary general of NATO, said on September 29 that it is in the United States’ best interests to be the world’s “policeman,” and it […]

Economy & Business Libya

IranSource

Sep 29, 2016

Record Number of Injured Workers in Iran

By Mehrnaz Samimi

On Sept. 12, Akbar Showkat, head of Iran’s Council of Construction Workers, told reporters that 15,000 workers have been hurt on the job, which means that Iran holds the record per capita for employment-related mishaps. Over half of annual job-related injuries, he added, are in the construction sector. 

UkraineAlert

Sep 29, 2016

The Lessons of Babyn Yar: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

By Kateryna Smagliy

“No gravestone stands on Babyn Yar,” wrote the Soviet poet Yevgeniy Yevtushenko in 1961. He was condemning the Soviet regime’s failure to acknowledge the Babyn Yar tragedy twenty-five years after World War II had ended. When a monument was finally erected in 1974 to commemorate the deaths of 100,000 people generically characterized as “Soviet citizens,” […]

Russia Ukraine
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Sept. 26, 2016

NATOSource

Sep 29, 2016

Secretary of Defense: NATO is Updating its ‘Nuclear Playbook’ to Deter Russia

By DoD News and Department of Defense

From Jim Garamone, DoD News:  Defense Secretary Ash Carter kicked off a visit to DoD’s nuclear deterrence enterprise

Korea NATO