Atlantic Council blogs

Make It Clear That Repression Isn’t Acceptable

By Michele Dunne

Did Erdogan learn from Putin? Is Morsi learning from Erdogan? Bloomberg View’s Marc Champion argues that the behavior of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid spreading protests draws more on a Russian than a Middle Eastern model of leadership. His point is well taken, but as a Middle East specialist it is hard to […]

Germany and Italy Commit to Leadership Roles in Post-2014 Afghanistan Mission

By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times

From Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times:  Germany and Italy have committed to join the United States in helping to train Afghan troops after combat operations cease at the end of next year, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday.

Taking a Stand for Culture

By Elisabeth Jaquette

As the curtain rose for the Cairo Opera House’s annual performance of Verdi’s Aida last Tuesday, performers joined their voices not in song, but in chants of protest against the newly appointed Minister of Culture, Alaa Abdel-Aziz. To the audience’s cheers and support, Opera House staff and performers announced they would remain on strike until […]

Top News: Activists Protest Police Brutality on Khaled Said’s Death Anniversary

Dozens of April 6 Youth Movement activists protested outside the Giza Security Directorate at dawn on Thursday to mark the third anniversary of Khaled Said’s killing by police. The protesters chanted, "The police are thugs" and "My name is Khaled Said," and held banners condemning police repression of political activists. GOVERNMENT & OPPOSITION Islamists call […]

Top News: US to Deploy Patriot Missile Batteries, F-16s to Jordan

The United States will send anti-missile batteries and fighter jets to Jordan at the kingdom’s request to boost defense capabilities in the face of an attack from neighboring Syria, Jordanian officials said Wednesday. EGYPT Egypt demands Ethiopia halt Nile dam, upping stakes Fearing the project will affect its main source of water, Egypt will demand […]

The Ghosts of Task Force Smith

By Pete Dillon

Here we are again. Since World War I the United Sates has consistently entered into a post conflict reduction of military capacity that attempts to rebalance the national ledgers and reign in spending.  The contemporary conversation inside the Beltway is saturated with opinions on the best way to proceed this time, even though our nation is […]

What the United States Should Have Said to Egypt about the NGO Trial

By Amy Hawthorne

The immediate US statements about an Egyptian court’s June 4 decision to hand down prison terms to employees of prominent American and German pro-democracy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Egypt constitute a strikingly subdued response to an extraordinary episode.

Obama’s Drone Speech Misses the Mark

By Danya Greenfield

President Barack Obama’s speech on May 23 should be commended for acknowledging that the United States must shift away from a perpetual state of war against terror, renewing his commitment to close Guantanamo, and promising to provide greater clarity regarding when and how drones can be used overseas. However, Obama did not go far enough […]

EU Foreign Policy Needs a Reset

By Ulrich Speck

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is a skilled negotiator; the recent Serbia-Kosovo breakthrough will probably secure her a place in the history books. It is rather unlikely, though, that 2009 – the year EU leaders chose Ashton as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – will be remembered by […]

Connecting the Baltic States to Europe’s Gas Market

By Matthew Bryza and Emmet Tuohy

More than two decades after the end of the Soviet occupation, and eight years after they joined NATO and the European Union, the Baltic republics remain disintegrated from the rest of Europe in one crucial way:  their natural gas infrastructure isolates them into “energy islands.”  But, for the first time in their histories, Estonia, Latvia, […]