New Atlanticist

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From climate change to the China challenge and the contest between democracy and dictatorship, the New Atlanticist is where top experts and policymakers at the Atlantic Council and beyond offer exclusive insight on the most pressing global challenges—and the US role in addressing them alongside allies and partners.

The Council’s flagship section features big ideas, groundbreaking research, lightning-fast expert reactions, in-depth analyses, and thought-provoking commentary to shape public policy.

Ukraine Needs, and Could Manage, a Polish-Style ‘Shock Therapy’ Reform Plan

New Atlanticist
Sep 4, 2025

Dispatches from Damascus: The state of Syria’s postwar transition nine months after Assad’s fall

On a recent trip to the Syrian capital, Atlantic Council experts took note of how far the country has come since the Assad regime’s fall and what still needs to happen to secure peace and prosperity.

New Atlanticist
Aug 29, 2025

Twenty questions (and expert answers) about the negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine

By
Atlantic Council experts

August saw a flurry of diplomatic activity to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As September nears, Atlantic Council experts share their insights on what to expect next.

Conflict
Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

New Atlanticist
Aug 28, 2025

Germany wants to double its defense spending. Where should the money go?

By
Atlantic Council experts

After decades of Berlin underinvesting in its defense, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has plans to transform the Bundeswehr into Europe’s strongest military.

Defense Policy
Europe & Eurasia

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Polish economist Leszek Balcerowicz led his country's "shock therapy" reforms in the 1990s. He says Ukraine can make the same transformation. (CC License)

New Atlanticist

Jun 9, 2014

Ukraine Needs, and Could Manage, a Polish-Style ‘Shock Therapy’ Reform Plan

By Irena Chalupa

Veterans of Poland’s Economic Transformation Urge Ukraine to Clean Corruption ‘to the Bone’ Today Poland and Ukraine have closer relations than ever in their mutual history. Since the fall of communism, a historically adversarial relationship has evolved into a strategic partnership. Over the past decade, Polish statesmen such as Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski or former […]

Poland
Ukraine

Relatives and colleagues of Airport Security Force soldiers killed on Sunday's Taliban attack on Jinnah International Airport, offer funeral prayers on June 9. Militant fighters stormed the airport disguised as security forces. REUTERS/Athar Hussain

New Atlanticist

Jun 9, 2014

Karachi Airport Attack Shows Vulnerabilities in Pakistan’s Anti-Terror Strategy

By New Atlanticist

Government’s New Policy Focuses on Response to Attacks, Should Stress Prevention Militants launched a well-coordinated, commando-style attack on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport Sunday night, killing at least 18 people and seizing part of Pakistan’s busiest air-travel hub for more than five hours. Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, provides an early […]

Pakistan

Novaya Gazeta's website published a story and photo it said is of Sergei Zhdanovich, a Russian army veteran who went to fight alongside Ukraine's separatists, and was recently buried in his hometown near Moscow. (www.novayagazeta.ru)

New Atlanticist

Jun 9, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Russian Fighters, Killed in Ukraine, are Buried Quietly Near Moscow

By James Rupert

Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio and the newspaper Novaya Gazeta (partly owned by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev), have been peeling back the secrecy surrounding the thirty-one Russian citizens killed two weeks ago fighting with secessionist militias in southeast Ukraine. Novaya Gazeta reports that thirty of those killed were ethnic Russians, and the other a Chechen. […]

Russia
Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Jun 9, 2014

Ukraine News Roundup | June 9

By Irena Chalupa

Don’t Forget Crimea from The New York Times Ukraine’s Search For An Honest Thief from Politico Magazine Vladimir Putin’s European Adventures from The Economist Ukrainian Energy Firm Hires Biden Son As Lawyer from San Jose Mercury News Mr. Perfect from Warsaw: The Rise of Poland’s Foreign Minister from Spiegel Russia’s Eurasian Union: Part of a Master Plan from The National Interest […]

Ukraine

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will need to buid a partnership with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to advance the reforms he has promised to implement. (Photo: Kathrin Mobius/CC License)

New Atlanticist

Jun 9, 2014

Ukraine’s New President Must Begin Reforms Immediately

By Sabine Freizer

Poroshenko Must Partner With Prime Minister Yatsenyuk to Make Progress As Petro Poroshenko begins his first week as Ukraine’s president, his country needs him to begin difficult reforms immediately, even as his government struggles with the Russian-backed uprising in eastern Ukraine. The immediacy is enforced by a shriveling economy that is likely to lose between […]

Russia
Ukraine

Screenshots from the Ekho Moskvy website show Maria Turchenkova's photo of the "Cargo 200" truck carrying bodies of Russian fighters across the border from Ukraine to Russia.

New Atlanticist

Jun 5, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Russia’s Secret Fighters in Ukraine

By James Rupert

A Reporter Escorts 31 Bodies Home to Russia, Their Names Kept Hidden in Death as in Warfare President Vladimir Putin, and hence Russia’s state-run mass media, say the war in eastern Ukraine is a “people’s struggle” by ethnic Russians against attacks by ethnic Ukrainian fascists and Nazis backed by the United States. In the Kremlin’s […]

Russia
Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Jun 5, 2014

In the Fight With Russia, Can Volunteer Battalions Save Ukraine?

By Irena Chalupa

Only his family and closest friends know his real name and his face has never been shown in public. Television viewers have seen only his eyes and heard his calm voice, a voice that speaks many uncomfortable truths. Semen Semenchenko, is the nom de guerre of an ethnic Russian man from Donetsk, a father of […]

Russia
Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Jun 5, 2014

Ukraine News Roundup | June 5

By Irena Chalupa

The West shows no willingness to defend freedom against Russia from The Washington Post Anyone who says Russia is losing in Ukraine doesn’t understand how this game is played from Foreign Policy ‘A European War’: The Fight for Ukraine’s East Gets Bloodier from Der Spiegel Witness to a Ukraine Rebel Breakthrough from The Daily Beast Ukraine’s […]

Ukraine

Ramzan Kadyrov, president of the Russian region of Chechnya, speaks from his home in a June 1 television interview. (Nedelia - REN TV)

New Atlanticist

Jun 4, 2014

Chechnya’s Leader to Russian TV: ‘I Did Not Send’ the Chechen Militiamen Fighting in Ukraine

By Irena Chalupa

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-allied president of Chechnya, has taken to Russian television to deny that he has sent any of his Chechen fighters to join the Russian-backed separatist militias in eastern Ukraine.

Russia
Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Jun 3, 2014

Nigeria’s Missing Daughters: What a Hashtag Might Do

By Justine Jablonska and James Rupert

On the night of April 14, 2014, armed men of Nigeria’s puritanical Boko Haram movement drove cargo trucks across the arid scrubland of northeast Nigeria, rumbling up an unlit, dirt road in the town of Chibok. They stopped at the Government Girls’ Secondary School. Shouting in the dark, they ordered the more than 200 boarding […]

Africa
Nigeria

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