New Atlanticist

Sharp insights and bold ideas from across the Council

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.

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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Experts React

Dive deep into developing stories, guided by continually updated expert analysis that leaves you better informed about the most pressing global issues behind the headlines.

Markup

Our experts decipher and annotate major speeches and policy documents to break down big ideas and lay them out in plain language.

New Atlanticist

Oct 1, 2013

Iran: Speak Softly BUT…Mr President

By Julian Lindley-French

On 26 January, 1900 US President Theodore Roosevelt sent a letter to Henry L. Sprague of the Union Club of New York in which he wrote, “Speak softly and carry a big stick and you will go far.” The US press seized on the phrase and a new foreign policy doctrine was born – ‘Big […]

Iran

New Atlanticist

Oct 1, 2013

Italy: Back on the Brink

By Jordan Smith

Italy’s troubled coalition, a product of last February’s inconclusive elections, is on the brink of another collapse following the decision of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to pull his party out of the ruling coalition government. Italy’s chronic instability could lead to further downgrading of the country’s credit rating, raising its borrowing costs, adding to […]

New Atlanticist

Sep 30, 2013

Defense Strategy and the Turing Test

By Julian Lindley-French

Speaking on the European Union’s Common Security and Defense Policy is the strategy equivalent of talking paint dry. Europeans need a test—similar to Alan Turing’s for determining whether artificial intelligence can successfully mimic human thought and action or not—for the many EU, NATO, and national defense strategies which plaster the walls of Europe’s rickety and […]

European Union
International Organizations

New Atlanticist

Sep 27, 2013

Russian Policies towards Ukraine are Illogically Consistent

By Taras Kuzio

The European Parliament on September 12 called on Russia to respect the right of EU Eastern Partnership members such as Ukraine to enter Association Agreements. The resolution, which received overwhelming support across the parliament’s political groups, called on Russia to not use trade sanctions to force Ukraine to choose the Eurasian over the European Union.

European Union
International Organizations

New Atlanticist

Sep 26, 2013

Why Nairobi

By Bronwyn Bruton

The attack on Nairobi’s Westgate mall is a vicious development in the war on terrorism: It signals the evolution of an unpopular splinter faction of a radical Somali group into a truly transnational terrorist organization. It also marks a major failure for the United States’ counterterrorism strategy in Somalia.

New Atlanticist

Sep 26, 2013

An Opportunity for Breakthrough Diplomacy

By R. Nicholas Burns

Something important, rare, and very positive happened in the Middle East this week: Iran and the United States agreed to negotiate for the first time in three decades. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Barack Obama signaled in back-to-back UN speeches that they are ready for diplomacy. This doesn’t mean they will succeed or even make […]

Iran

New Atlanticist

Sep 25, 2013

Rouhani Charts Cautious Course in UN Debut

By Barbara Slavin

Midway through Hassan Rouhani’s debut on the international stage, his American reviews are mixed. The Iranian president bypassed a chance to shake hands and chat with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly despite anticipation in both Iran and the United States that such an encounter would happen. “Too complicated” for the […]

Iran

New Atlanticist

Sep 25, 2013

The Rule of Ten, US Military Power, and 2020 Hindsight

By Harlan Ullman

Legitimate yelps of pain along with klaxons sounding alarms are reverberating throughout the Pentagon. The cause is sequestration and annual cuts of $50 billion for ten years to defense spending mandated by last year’s Budget Control Act. While $50 billion a year against an annual budget of $500-600 billion may not seem draconic, the simple […]

United States and Canada

New Atlanticist

Sep 24, 2013

The Real Reason al-Shabab Attacked a Mall in Kenya

By Bronwyn Bruton

Kenya has suffered devastating terror attacks in the past, worst among them al-Qaeda’s bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi (and simultaneously in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) in 1998. That attack killed almost two hundred Kenyans, and was followed in 2002 by an attempted missile strike on an Israeli commercial airline and the destruction of […]

East Africa

New Atlanticist

Sep 24, 2013

Fixing the Financial System

By Andrew Chrismer

What the G20 Reform Commitments Could Mean for the Transatlantic Economic Relationship As the world’s economies rebound from the global recession, international institutions including the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the Group of Twenty (G20) have begun to get serious about fixing the global financial system.

Economy & Business

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