New Atlanticist

Shutdown Diminishes US as a Global Power

By Nicholas Burns

The federal government shutdown has done serious harm to the public and threatens to create even more havoc as it veers toward a once unthinkable US default next week. Its effects have also been felt around the globe, as America’s allies and adversaries wonder how in the world we got ourselves into this mess.

Five More Years: On the Challenges Facing Azerbaijan’s President

By Sabine Freizer

President Ilham Aliyev is about to start his third mandate in Azerbaijan. Despite some hefty criticism by the main European elections observation mission, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the elections on 9 October were the easy part. Azerbaijan has made impressive economic progress in recent years, Baku’s sparking skyline standing as […]

Regional Aligned Forces vs. Air-Sea Battle

By Derek S. Reveron

While Secretary of State John Kerry is representing the United States in Asia this week, there is a growing chorus dismissing the sincerity and depth of the planned rebalance to Asia. “For countries not closely allied with the US, Obama’s no-show [at the APEC summit] will reinforce their policy of bandwagoning with China,” wrote Carl […]

United States Poised to Halt Some Military Aid to Egypt

The White House is expected to announce in the coming days the suspension of at least some military aid to Egypt. Late Tuesday a National Security Council spokeswoman denied that the Obama administration would halt all military assistance to Egypt, but suggested that an announcement about the future of the US assistance to Egypt is imminent.

Worse Than a Bad Joke

By Harlan Ullman

A Broke and Broken US Government The great American humorist Will Rogers had a toxic view of Congress eighty or so years ago, long before Congress bashing became a contact sport for late night television hosts. “Every time Congress wanted to pass a law, it became a joke,” Rogers quipped. “And every time Congress wished […]

A Necessary Transition in Pakistan

By Shuja Nawaz

In an historic moment this weekend, Pakistan’s two-term army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani announced that he would retire at the end of November after six years at the helm. An official later stated that Kayani would not seek any other job after retirement, putting an end to speculation in Pakistan that Kayani may stay on in […]

Cut-Rate Counterterrorism

By Bronwyn Bruton and Paul D. Williams

As the attack on Nairobi’s Westgate mall and the failed Oct. 4 raid by Navy SEALs in Somalia have reminded the world, the fight against terrorism in East Africa is far from over. It’s a fight that has been ongoing for two decades, but since 2001, the United States has outsourced much of the effort […]

Back to Somalia?

By J. Peter Pham

This past weekend, twenty years to the day after the conclusion of the Battle of Mogadishu, the deadly firefight dramatized in Black Hawk Down that left eighteen US military personnel dead and some six dozen others wounded (Pakistani and Malaysian units with the United Nations peacekeeping force also suffered casualties as they tried to relieve […]