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.

Methane Hydrates: A Second Gas Revolution?

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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New Atlanticist

Apr 1, 2013

Methane Hydrates: A Second Gas Revolution?

By Robert Manning

Speculation is rampant that a new gas cornucopia is coming. After a successful Japanese experiment to extract natural gas from methane hydrates 1,000 meters below the surface and 50 miles off its shores, some are beginning to wonder if the “shale revolution” was just the beginning. But don’t hold your breath. There is no question […]

Energy & Environment Japan

New Atlanticist

Apr 1, 2013

Confronting What We Don’t Know About the Korean Crisis

By Rajan Menon

War cries, threats and counter-threats, moves and counter-moves are emanating from the Korean peninsula. Pundits have pronounced on what’s going on and where things are headed. So this may be a good time to engage in some humility and to reflect on how little we know.

Korea

New Atlanticist

Apr 1, 2013

Trans-Adriatic Pipeline Project Surging Ahead of Rival Nabucco-West: Part II

By Vladimir Socor

The gas producers’ consortium at Shah Deniz in Azerbaijan is holding parallel negotiations with the pipeline project companies, Nabucco and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), to select one of these routes to Europe. March 31 is the deadline for submission of Nabucco-West’s and TAP’s competing offers to the Shah Deniz consortium. The producer consortium’s decision on pipeline […]

Economy & Business Energy & Environment

New Atlanticist

Mar 29, 2013

Building BRICS

By Julian Lindley-French

They represent 25.9 percent of the world’s land mass, 43 percent of the population and 17 percent of global trade. The UN Development Program states that by “2020, the combined economic output of three leading developing countries alone Brazil, China, and India–will surpass the aggregate production of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States.”

Brazil China

New Atlanticist

Mar 29, 2013

The Measured Madness of North Korea

By Rajan Menon

You’ve got to hand it to North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong-un: the man is a past master at panic promotion. He learned from the master, his dad, Kim “Dear Leader” Jong-il, whose tantrums, threats, and theatrics routinely rattled South Korea, Japan, and the United States. The reactions that followed were invariably the same: the […]

New Atlanticist

Mar 29, 2013

Trans-Adriatic Pipeline Project Surging Ahead of Rival Nabucco-West: Part I

By Vladimir Socor

Among the roles of Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline project was that of aborting the EU-backed Nabucco, merely by threatening to preempt Nabucco’s markets along the same route downstream. Conversely, Nabucco’s European rival Trans-Adriatic Pipeline project (TAP) can abort Nabucco by preempting the gas supply source upstream. Both TAP and the reformatted Nabucco-West depend fully on […]

New Atlanticist

Mar 28, 2013

A Visionary Reinvention of the Two-State Solution

By Anne-Marie Slaughter

Imagine a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine in which Palestinians would have the right of return; Israelis could settle wherever they could purchase land in the West Bank; and Jerusalem need not be divided. This is not a fanciful vision, but a creative and eminently sensible reinvention of 21st-century statehood. And President Barack Obama’s […]

European Union International Organizations

New Atlanticist

Mar 28, 2013

An Inconvenient or Irritating Truth: Applying Law to the New Face of Modern Warfare

By Jason Thelen

In war, there are rules. Some were written long ago in treaties. Others are found in binding customs written in volumes of commentary compiled over time. The point is that these rules can all be found in written form to cite and to reference. They can be used to describe who can be targeted in […]

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Mar 28, 2013

Paradigms and National Security

By Derek Reveron

To make sense of our complex world, we rely on paradigms to offer insights to solve problems. After World War II, for example, the dominant paradigm was the Cold War, which envisioned a world divided between free and unfree or democratic-capitalist and authoritarian-socialist countries. The paradigm prevented global cooperation and miscalculations almost led to war. While […]

Cybersecurity National Security

New Atlanticist

Mar 27, 2013

Reason Finally Gets a Voice: The Tallinn Manual on Cyber War and International Law

By Jason Healey

No longer can a professed cyber expert pronounce, “When is a cyber attack an act of war? This is an interesting question.” The Tallinn Manual, compiled by a distinguished group of legal scholars and to be launched tomorrow at an Atlantic Council event, asks this and many more questions and—a novelty for the field of cyber […]

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

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