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New Atlanticist

May 2, 2012

Could Iran Nuclear Talks Founder over Sanctions Relief?

By Laura Rozen and Barbara Slavin

As Iran ponders whether to accept curbs on its nuclear program, it worries less about the possibility of foreign military attack than about the relentless onslaught of economic sanctions that are squeezing its oil-based economy. US and European officials have said that only tangible progress in the talks due to resume in Baghdad May 23 […]

Iran Nuclear Nonproliferation

New Atlanticist

May 2, 2012

Beyond OBL: Time for Bold Moves

By Shuja Nawaz

What a difference a year makes! Today school children play cricket on the ground where a year ago Osama Bin Laden lived…and died. The sun is shining in Abbottabad. But clouds fill the horizon for the United States-Pakistan relationship.

Pakistan

New Atlanticist

May 1, 2012

The Third (Iranian) Way

By Amos Yadlin and Yoel Guzansky

Most analysis of the Iranian nuclear program deals with two extreme scenarios: an Iranian breakout to nuclear weapons or a capitulation under international pressure to abandon the project completely. There is a third option: a threshold state that has the ability to assemble a nuclear weapon but chooses not to. Charging toward military nuclear capability, […]

Iran Nuclear Nonproliferation

New Atlanticist

May 1, 2012

Chinese Navy Joins Carrier Club; Still Junior Member

By Michael Hannan

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) continues to prepare its new aircraft carrier (SHI LANG) for operations and train a nascent cadre of naval aviators to launch and return to the deck of a moving ship. Beyond developing the day-to-day tasks involved with driving a carrier and conducting flight operations, the Chinese military must painstakingly […]

China

New Atlanticist

May 1, 2012

Algerian Elections: A Turning Point?

By Karim Mezran

Parliamentary elections in Algeria have been set for May 10. They come at a very delicate moment in the political life of the country after the wave of changes that have affected practically all its neighbors. The question of whether Algeria, one of North Africa’s most resilient authoritarian holdouts, will be the next to succumb […]

New Atlanticist

Apr 30, 2012

How Risky Was the Osama bin Laden Raid?

By James Joyner

CFR’s Micah Zenko asks, “How Risky Was the Osama bin Laden Raid?”

New Atlanticist

Apr 30, 2012

Pakistan: The Hotel California of World Politics

By Julian Lindley-French

Pakistan is a nuclear power with a population of some 187 million of whom between 25 and 30 percent live below the UN-defined poverty line situated in just about the most fraught place on the planet. This weekend’s tragic and brutal murder of Red Cross aid worker Khalil Dale has once again brought home how […]

Afghanistan Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Apr 30, 2012

Hungary Through the Mirror

By Kurt Volker

Read any column about Hungary today and it will tell you how Prime Minister Viktor Orban is tearing up checks and balances and asserting one-sided control over Hungary’s democratic institutions. The European Union, the IMF, the Venice Commission and the U.S. government have all responded, demanding changes in many of the laws hastily waved through […]

European Union International Organizations

New Atlanticist

Apr 27, 2012

Why We Need a Smart NATO

By Julian Lindley-French

There is some contention as to who actually said it – Winston Churchill, Admiral Lord Fisher, or Ernest Rutherford but in any case some Brit once said, “Gentlemen, we have run out of money. Now is the time to think.”

NATO Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Apr 27, 2012

An Incomplete Justice

By Peter Pham

The verdict delivered Thursday against Charles G. Taylor for crimes against humanity ends a saga that began on Christmas Eve 1989, when Mr. Taylor and a group of Libyan-trained followers invaded Liberia, igniting a regional conflagration that eventually engulfed parts of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. Although Mr. Taylor’s conviction, by a special tribunal […]

North & West Africa