New Atlanticist

A ‘Readjustment’ in Turkey

By Sabine Freizer

“Turkey every couple of decades veers towards an extreme, and then there is a readjustment,” veteran Turkey watcher and International Crisis Group spokesman Hugh Pope told me for years. That readjustment came June 7, with Turkey’s parliamentary elections. After years of amassing more powers, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority—and President […]

Erdoğan Loses His Midas Touch

By Ross Wilson

The wheel of politics goes round and round. Turkish voters demonstrated this in the thumping they gave in parliamentary elections June 7 to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) that had governed the country for over a decade. The AKP did win a 41 percent plurality and will take about 255 seats in the Turkish […]

A ‘Disaster’ if China was Behind OPM Cyber Attack

By Ashish Kumar Sen

If the Chinese government is in fact behind the cyber attack on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) it would be a “disaster” in terms of counterespionage, says the Atlantic Council’s Jason Healey.“The kind of information that OPM has is a goldmine for intelligence agencies,” Healey, a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Cyber […]

Ukraine’s Success Will Have ‘Huge Implications’ for Entire Region

EU official: ‘Russia recognizes that we are not looking to gain territories’ Describing Ukraine as an “international issue,” a top European Union official said June 4 that turning the country into a success story will have “huge implications for the whole region.” “Russia recognizes we are not looking to gain territories. We are looking to […]

‘We Are Not Freaks of Nature’

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Panel looks at view from the Middle East, examines US’ role Few people would be surprised to learn that people in the Middle East—just like Americans—care first and foremost about bread-and-butter issues, their lives, and the lives of their families. “Contrary to the myth that [people in the Middle East] go to bed at night […]

Pakistani Taliban’s Core ‘Dismantled’

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary says military campaign against terrorists in ‘critical phase’ The Pakistani military has dismantled the Taliban’s core in a successful operation that is now in a “critical phase,” Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry said June 4 at the Atlantic Council. The terrorist group’s leadership “is on the run,” Chaudhry said.

Commercial Incentives to Battle Climate Change

By Carlos Pascual

Over the course of 2015, large parts of the energy and environmental world will focus attention on achieving a new form of legally binding climate agreement in Paris under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.  Such an agreement would be based on “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) where nations will propose […]

Systemic Violence Threatens Middle East Oil Outlook

By Ariel Cohen

When oil ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meet in Vienna on June 5, they’ll face a strategic dilemma. Political instability in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is discouraging capital investment in local oil and gas projects, and shifting interest to North American shale—despite MENA’s cheap, abundant and easy-to-extract hydrocarbon […]

New Policy Priorities for the Transatlantic Partnership

By Kirsten Verclas

More than twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, the United States and Germany remain close political and economic allies. However, personal ties between the two allies have diminished. In Germany, favorable opinions of the United States are at an all-time low. On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States is […]