Atlantic Council blogs

NATO’s Teachable Moment

By the Editors of the New York Times

From the Editors of the New York Times:  The Western allies, especially the British and French forces backed up by the United States, can be justly proud.

NATO jets collide in exercise over Lithuania

By Liudas Dapkus, the AP

Libyan opposition leaders rule out major role for foreign peacekeepers

By Colum Lynch, Checkpoint Washington

From Colum Lynch, Checkpoint Washington:  Libya’s opposition leaders have ruled out any major role for foreign peacekeepers in the country after the fall of Moammar Gaddafi, insisting that a new transitional government will take the lead in establishing security, according to top U.N. officials.

Libya: Nicolas Sarkozy’s War

By Nathalie Nougayrède, Le Monde/Worldcrunch

Kagan: NATO ‘saved the people of Libya and kept alive the momentum of the Arab Spring’

By Robert Kagan, the Weekly Standard

From Robert Kagan, the Weekly Standard:  There is much to criticize in the way NATO handled the operations. The Libyan intervention was certainly not the death knell for the alliance, as some have suggested, but neither was it a sign of great strength and vitality.

Libya, Obama and the triumph of realism

By Robert Kaplan, the Financial Times

From Robert Kaplan, the Financial Times:  Realism is dead, clamour the cheerleaders of the Arab spring. The collapse of dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya heralds a new birth of freedom that supposedly consigns realism to the graveyard.

White House offers Two Principles for Intervention instead of an Obama Doctrine

By Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers, the New York Times

From Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers, the New York Times:  It would be premature to call the war in Libya a complete success for United States interests. But the arrival of victorious rebels on the shores of Tripoli last week gave President Obama’s senior advisers a chance to claim a key victory for an […]

Score One for Interventionism

By Roger Cohen, the New York Times

From Roger Cohen, the New York Times:  It will be two decades next year since the outbreak of the Bosnian war — and since the debate on interventionism began to rage, becoming one of the most acrimonious moral questions of our times. Now Libya, a successful Western intervention, will be placed on the scales.

Joschka Fischer: ‘Our country’s standing in the world has been significantly damaged’

By Spiegel

From Spiegel:  In an interview with SPIEGEL, former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer discusses the mistakes the ministry’s current leader Guido Westerwelle has made with Libya SPIEGEL: What is it about Germany’s current foreign policy and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle that bothers you? Fischer: Pretty much everything. As the former foreign minister myself, the lack of […]