New Atlanticist

America Needs a Rudyard Kipling

By Sarwar Kashmeri

 Not long ago Britain was the world’s hegemon. Nothing stood in the way of British might. Or as the famous saying had it, the sun never set on the British Empire. As it was then with Britain, so it is now with the United States. Somewhere in the world the sun is always rising on […]

Julian Assange’s Misrule of Law

By Ana Palacio

The uproar surrounding Ecuador’s grant of political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has obscured huge inconsistencies. Only by examining them can we understand what is truly at stake in the case.

Governments Must Thrive in Complex World

By Peter Ho

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) was an unexpected event, a black swan. The virus entered Singapore on 25 February 2003, carried by three women who had returned from Hong Kong. It quickly spread. By the time the crisis was declared over in Singapore, 33 people had died out of the 238 people infected.

West Must Invest in Caspian Sea Energy

By Farid Osmanov

Tensions in the Caspian basin intensified this summer when Turkmenistan said it will bring a dispute about ownership of energy-rich Caspian Sea fields against Azerbaijan before the UN International Court of Justice. The atmosphere of distrust this incident created might seriously undermine the feasibility of future energy projects aimed at reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian […]

Far Away Islands of Which We Know Nothing

By Julian Lindley-French

It is a worrying vision of a dangerous future. Last week Chinese ‘activists’ landed on the Japanese-controlled but disputed islands of Senkaku (Diaoyu in Chinese) followed swiftly by Japanese nationalists. On the face of it this dispute seems almost tragi-comic, a plot straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan. Just one of those momentary summer headlines […]

Cyber-something: It’s Not Cyberwar, Exactly, But It’s a National Security Priority

By Derek Reveron

 With cyberattacks gaining increasing media attention, it soon becomes apparent that our language does not quite match reality. War, for example, is understood to be state-directed violence to achieve political purposes. Adding a qualifier like a “one thousand battle deaths annually” certainly excludes every reported incident of cyberwar, which more closely resembles espionage, sabotage, or […]

Why Mitt Romney Needs a Picture with Lech Walesa?

By Daria Dylla

For his first overseas trip, Mitt Romney chose to visit three countries: Israel, Great Britain and Poland. Whereas choosing Israel and Great Britain did not surprise anyone, there is room for speculation about the decision to visit Poland. 

A Continuing Misalliance?

By Shuja Nawaz

The tattered relationship between the United States and Pakistan has been patched up yet again—with the political equivalent of duct tape. A low-level Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by bureaucrats, not political leaders, to provide a diplomatic fig leaf.

North Korean Makeover: Reminiscent of Post-Mao China

Radical changes are taking place in North Korea. It’s been seven months since the state commissioned new leader Kim Jong-Un, and now the Supreme Leader is challenging military control, exposing the Kim family to the public, and reassessing North Korea’s economic strategy and its approach to external cultural influences. We may be seeing the beginnings […]