New Atlanticist

Can an EU Army Be More Than Just a Pipe Dream?

By Lukas Trakimavičius

In recent weeks, the idea of establishing a European Union army was reintroduced to the public debate. During a visit to Lithuania, Germany’s defense minister, Ursula von der Leyden, noted that “it’s time to move forward to a European defense union.” Days later, in his State of the Union address, the president of the European […]

Colombia’s Peace Plebiscite: A Divided Nation

By Andrea Saldarriaga Jiménez

On October 2, Colombians rejected the peace agreement brokered between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The “no” vote won the plebiscite by less than 0.5 percent of the vote with only 37 percent of voter participation. The world is shocked and Colombians astonished. Polls leading up to the plebiscite had […]

Plebiscite Leaves Colombia’s Peace Process in Limbo

By Ashish Kumar Sen

On October 2, Colombian voters rejected a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. This was a “surprising” outcome of a plebiscite that has thrown into question the prospects for peace in the country, according to Atlantic Council analysts. “One could argue that it both complicates and eases this problem,” said […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Geopolitics of Peak Demand

By Robert J. Johnston

This article is part two of a two-part series. From 1973 to 2011, when policy makers in Washington thought about energy, they thought in terms of concerns about peak supply. These apprehensions were triggered by the oil shock in 1973 that roughly coincided with the peak in US domestic conventional oil production and rise in […]

South Sudan’s First Vice President Blames Roads, Criminals for Blocking UN Efforts

By Ashish Kumar Sen

South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai blames the absence of roads, the presence of criminals, and weak governance structures for the obstruction of UN peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts in his country. Deng spoke in response to a confidential report from United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the UN Security Council that […]

Waiting for Death in Aleppo

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Any hope of reviving a US- and Russian-backed ceasefire agreement in Syria may have been dashed by the air and ground offensives unleashed by the Syrian regime on the rebel-held parts of the western city of Aleppo. Backed by Russia, the Syrian military has launched a “ferocious” attack on Aleppo using bunker-busting bombs and outlawed […]

Vilify and Amplify: How the Kremlin’s Disinformation Machine is Attacking the MH17 Probe

By Ben Nimmo

The Kremlin has turned its disinformation machine on those who are investigating the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in July of 2014, using state employees, state-run media, and the state-run, though unacknowledged, “troll factory” of fake Internet accounts. The primary goal of the media attacks has been to undermine the credibility of […]