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.

The Strategic Influence Game 1: High Noon in the High North

New Atlanticist
Jul 29, 2025

The Russia pressure menu: Options to convince Putin to negotiate on Ukraine 

As the US president cuts his deadline for Russia to ten days, there are several options for him to increase pressure on Moscow to pursue peace.

Read More

The Strategic Influence Game 1: High Noon in the High North

New Atlanticist
Jul 24, 2025

Dispatch from Manila: A lesson in calling out Chinese maritime aggression

By
Markus Garlauskas, Philip W. Yu

As the Philippines has focused more on Chinese threats to itself, Manila also seems increasingly inclined to see its own security as connected to that of the broader region.

China
Indo-Pacific

The Strategic Influence Game 1: High Noon in the High North

New Atlanticist
Jul 1, 2025

The US must enforce sanctions to prevent Iran from rebuilding its nuclear program

By
Kimberly Donovan

To ensure that Tehran cannot get its hands on the financial resources it would need to rebuild its nuclear program, Iran sanctions enforcement should start with China.

Economic Sanctions
Iran

Stay updated

Get your weekly newsletter with expert’s analysis on the most important global issues.


Explore our unique analysis

Fast Thinking

When major global news breaks, the Atlantic Council’s experts have you covered—delivering their sharpest rapid insight and forward-looking analysis direct to your inbox.

Read more

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.

Read more

Markup

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

Read more

Content

New Atlanticist

Oct 11, 2011

The Strategic Influence Game 1: High Noon in the High North

By Julian Lindley-French

Who said geopolitics is dead? Ninety-four years on from the October 1917 revolution if anyone had any lingering illusions that Russia is a democracy they were surely dispelled by the 24 September announcement that President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin would simply swap jobs in 2012. Moscow likes to call Russia a ‘managed democracy’. In […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 11, 2011

Afghanistan and the Future of US Foreign Policy

By Derek Reveron

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, one thing is clear-the United States now seeks to export security around the world.

New Atlanticist

Oct 7, 2011

Pressure Builds on Iran at Nuclear Watchdog Agency

By Barbara Slavin

As Iran continues a slow march toward potential nuclear weapons capability, diplomatic action to contain the programme is likely to shift to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose director general, Yukiya Amano, has taken a harder line than his predecessor about alleged military research by Iran’s nuclear scientists. Experts on the Iranian nuclear programme […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 7, 2011

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin: The Once and Future Czar

By David Smith

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on September 24 surprised political observers with what many believed was an early announcement that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will be the regime’s candidate for president in the March 4, 2012 elections. "I think it would be correct,” Medvedev told a United Russia Party Congress, “for the congress to support the candidacy […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 7, 2011

Rebooting the IMF

By Hilda Ochoa-Brillembourg

When computers malfunction there is often a simple recourse: Rebooting. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been through an undeservedly rough patch. As the fiscal policeman to the developing world, it lost relevance, as policemen do, when the going was good: Emerging markets were booming, liquidity was abundant, trade was growing, and, by and large, […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 7, 2011

China Currency Manipulation: Protectionism Not The Answer

By Hugh De Santis

Not for nothing is election season in Washington called “silly season.” The latest example is the China currency bill pushed by co-sponsors Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and supported by many Republicans.

New Atlanticist

Oct 6, 2011

Afghanistan War: Ten Years Later

By James Joyner

Ten years ago tomorrow, President Bush announced that “the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.”  In his announcement, Bush told us that “These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, […]

Afghanistan

New Atlanticist

Oct 6, 2011

Crux of the Crisis

By Maleeha Lodhi

Diplomatic efforts have helped in the past week to defuse the latest crisis to rock Pakistan-US relations. Although the immediate tensions have dissipated these developments have reaffirmed the tenuous quality of the relationship. This was the third crisis in a rollercoaster year which started with the protracted row over the Raymond Davis affair and was […]

Afghanistan Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Oct 6, 2011

Whither or Wither Pakistan?

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

Before retiring last week, U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen made 27 trips to Pakistan as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that convinced him he had established a close personal relationship with his opposite number, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani — only to conclude in farewell interviews that he is still baffled by the world’s […]

Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Oct 6, 2011

Afghanistan Ten Years On

By Julian Lindley-French

The first Afghan war of the twenty-first century is coming to an end as the first Afghan civil war begins. Ten years ago today the first Western soldiers were about to set foot on Afghan soil. The Taliban were then routed and it seemed likely that Al Qaeda would soon be denied the space that […]

Afghanistan
Load More