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
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.

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

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

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New Atlanticist

Jun 1, 2011

Auschwitz

By Julian Lindley-French

Sunday, I walked in Auschwitz – Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. I walked before the walls of Elysium, the final resting place of the heroic and virtuous. I paid my respects to people, not numbers. Three of whom spoke to me – Anne Kraus, Hana Weisenkind, and Berta Eppinghausen. They spoke to me not because […]

New Atlanticist

Jun 1, 2011

Berlin 1961: The East German Refugee Who Became a Beauty Queen

By Frederick Kempe

She was East German leader Walter Ulbricht’s ultimate humiliation in a year when a hemorrhage of refugees was threatening the existence of his Communist state. As Ulbricht maneuvered behind the scenes to win Soviet approval to close his Berlin border, one of his refugees was strutting down the catwalk of a Miami Beach stage in […]

New Atlanticist

May 31, 2011

Pakistan Has a Mountain to Climb

By Shuja Nawaz

In an interview with Ullekh NP of The Economic Times, Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz warns that attacks on soft targets are going to rise rapidly in the subcontinent.

New Atlanticist

May 31, 2011

Select Foreign Response to the U.S. International Cyber Strategy

By Jason Healey

The Obama Administration’s International Cyber Strategy, launched last week, was met by the Russian and Chinese press with a mix of generally negative reactions. The most negative were rooted in skepticism and mistrust about U.S. motives as well as perceived hypocrisy underlying the proposed cyber standards.

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

May 31, 2011

Time for Peace Talks

By Maleeha Lodhi

In more ways than one, Osama bin Laden’s death has changed the dynamic in the region and offered a new opportunity to pursue a political settlement to end the almost decade long war in Afghanistan. Bin Laden’s killing by a covert American mission has injected unprecedented strains in the long troubled Pakistan-US relationship. But in […]

New Atlanticist

May 27, 2011

Warsaw, Wroclaw and Transatlantic Priorities

By Ian Brzezinski

This week Poland will host President Obama and twenty European heads of state. The Warsaw summit presents an important opportunity to reinforce consensus and joint action in the realms of security, economic cooperation, and the promotion of democracy in and beyond Europe. The meeting will set the tone for Poland’s approaching EU Presidency and is […]

Europe & Eurasia

New Atlanticist

May 27, 2011

US and Poland: What Unites Us?

By Bart Szewczyk

In preparation for President Obama’s upcoming trip to Warsaw, the US Embassy in Poland ran a contest asking Polish citizens, “What unites us”? It is an equally fundamental issue for American citizens. Indeed, the close partnership between the US and Poland over the past two decades—built on a historical bond between the two peoples forged […]

New Atlanticist

May 27, 2011

Balkans 2011: A Road Not Travelled?

By Julian Lindley-French

“Somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference”. So wrote American poet Robert Frost a century ago. He could have been speaking of my Balkan experience. Has a corner been turned? Ratko Mladic has been arrested. Or, […]

New Atlanticist

May 27, 2011

Arab Spring’s Somber Warning

By Harlan Ullman

This column has forecast how the Arab Spring could too easily metastasize when or if the powerful causal forces of great public discontent aren’t dispersed or reliever. What is interesting is to speculate whether the power of discontent could spread and not merely within the region. What is happening in Europe and in the United […]

New Atlanticist

May 26, 2011

Obama’s Crucial Moment in Poland

By Kurt Volker Vejvoda Damon Wilson

President Obama’s visit to Europe this week is giving him the opportunity to bury once and for all perceptions that have dogged his administration from the outset: that the US has lost interest in Europe, and has put a higher priority on resetting relations with an authoritarian Russia than it has on the completion of […]

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