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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.
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New Atlanticist

May 18, 2011

Somaliland at 20

By Peter Pham

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the day when, in the wake of the collapse of the Somali state, clan elders in the onetime British Protectorate of Somaliland proclaimed their sovereignty. In the two decades since, while the rest of the country became the exemplar par excellence of a failed state, one best known today […]

New Atlanticist

May 18, 2011

Pakistan and Middle East Peace: Missions Impossible

By Harlan Ullman

During World War I and the height of the German U-boat campaign in the Atlantic that was sinking scores of ships and killing thousands of civilians, the great American humorist Will Rogers was asked for his solution to ending the submarine threat. Rogers replied “boil off the oceans” realizing the impossibility of his advice. When […]

NATOSource

May 18, 2011

German armed forces cut by one-fifth in new shake-up

By Deutsche Welle

NATOSource

May 18, 2011

French fighter jets take off on first “real alert” of Baltic air policing mission

By Allied Command Operations

From Allied Command Operations:  On 02 May, 2011, two French Mirage 2000 RDI fighter jets on operational duty took off for the first time on real alert (Alpha Scramble) from the air base in Siauliai, Lithuania, as part of Operation 2011 Baltic air policing above the Baltic countries.

NATOSource

May 18, 2011

Russia to boost nuclear strike potential if missile cooperation with NATO fails

By RIA Novosti

From RIA Novosti:  Russia will boost its strike nuclear capabilities if NATO refuses to cooperate with Moscow in the European missile defense project, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.

NATOSource

May 18, 2011

Update: NATO activities in Libya on May 17

By NATO

NATOSource

May 18, 2011

NATO and the Death of the War Powers Act?

By Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway, the Washington Post

From Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway, the Washington Post:  This week, the War Powers Act confronts its moment of truth. Friday will mark the 60th day since President Obama told Congress of his Libyan campaign.

NATOSource

May 17, 2011

A Time for Unity

By Robert Bracknell, the New Atlanticist

From Robert Bracknell, the New Atlanticist:  Killing Osama bin Laden should send a strategic signal to the world of American unity, relentlessness, diligence, and resolve to defeat radicalism, ensure American physical and economic security, and support freedom and democracy the world over.

United States and Canada

New Atlanticist

May 17, 2011

A Time for Unity

By Robert Bracknell

Osama Bin Laden is no more. The latest Afghan war assessment notes frangible, delicate progress, but progress nonetheless. Commanders returning from Afghanistan cite real and substantial advances in the areas for which they were responsible, and even the newspapers give the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan some chance for success.

NATOSource

May 17, 2011

NATO is evaluating extending its training mission in Iraq to 2013

By NATOSource

From NATOSource:  Italian Army Maj. Gen. Claudio Angelelli, deputy commander of NATO Training Mission Iraq (NTM-I), recently briefed SHAPE National Military Representatives and NATO’s Military Committee on extending the NTM-I in Iraq through the end of 2013.

International Organizations Politics & Diplomacy