Atlantic Council blogs

NATO needs to brace for spike in casualties-Britain

By Adam Entous, Reuters

From Adam Entous, Reuters: Britain’s defense secretary warned NATO allies on Wednesday against prematurely withdrawing forces from Afghanistan and said they should prepare their war-weary publics for a spike in coalition casualties.

U.S. Official: ‘We have No Arms Embargo on Georgia’

By Civil Georgia

Christian Wulff Elected New German President

By Spiegel

A Formula to Fix America’s Pakistan Policy

By Shuja Nawaz

The Obama administration coined a new phrase upon taking office, "AfPak," to refer to the importance of tackling Afghanistan and Pakistan’s problems in a coherent way. With the firing of General Stanley McChrystal, it’s clear the White House is reformulating its policy toward the Karzai government in Kabul. But what has happened to Pakistan policy? […]

Latvian Defense Minister Urges Caution on Sales to Non-NATO Members

By Julian Hale, Defense News

From Julian Hale, Defense News: Latvian Defense Minister Imants Liegis urged consultation among allied countries when NATO members consider selling power-projection equipment to non-allies.  Russia has recently been in discussions with France, the Netherlands and Spain about the purchase of an assault ship. "A Russian general said that if he had had this equipment at […]

NATO retools in a key mission: Building an Afghan police force

By Joby Warrick, the Washington Post

From Joby Warrick, the Washington Post:  The alliance is shaking up existing training programs and adding new incentives in an attempt to turn around what has been one of the biggest, most enduring disappointments of the nearly nine-year-old war: the inability to transform the country’s 90,000 police officers into a professional force capable of assuming […]

The deadliest month for NATO in nine years of conflict

By AFP

From AFP: An Afghan UN employee was killed when his vehicle came under fire in Kabul Tuesday, as the toll for foreign troops rose to 100 in June, the deadliest month for NATO in nine years of conflict.

9 Reasons U.S. is Losing in Afghanistan

By Harlan Ullman

Early in 2008, the Atlantic Council released a report over the signature of its chairman, retired U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones that began, “Make no mistake: NATO is not winning in Afghanistan.” After a firestorm of protest from Brussels, the word “NATO” was changed to “the international community.” Legend has it that the report […]

Will the Greece Rescue Program Rescue Greece?

By Susan Schadler

With the Greek rescue program, Europe, with a large dollop of help from the IMF, bought a reprieve from a full-blown market stampede. Yet, unusually for this stage of an IMF arrangement, markets remain deeply skeptical about its chances of success. Greece is largely a plain vanilla fiscal crisis, more reminiscent of emerging market crises […]

European Union, U.S. to share banking data to fight terrorism

By Ellen Nakashima, the Washington Post

From Ellen Nakashima, the Washington Post:  The European Union has reached an agreement with the United States that will allow European bank data to continue to be shared for counterterrorism purposes, but only after liberal members of parliament secured stronger privacy guarantees.