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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 Devil in the Budget Reduction Details

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.

Read More

The Devil in the Budget Reduction Details

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

The Devil in the Budget Reduction Details

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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Content

New Atlanticist

Aug 5, 2011

The Devil in the Budget Reduction Details

By Don Snow

After a game of chicken that lasted for weeks, the grand budget reduction package has finally passed. Tinged with more than a hint of disgust and distaste for the unseemly process that got to the final agreement, most people are heaving a sigh of relief that the debt default bullet has been dodged at least […]

United States and Canada

New Atlanticist

Aug 4, 2011

The European Union’s Fort Sumter Moment

By Sarwar Kashmeri

In 1776, the founding fathers of the United States made a grand bargain to ensure the birth of a new republic. They agreed to sideline the new country’s black population, even though the Constitution they were about to endorse proclaimed that all men are created equal. This compromise ensured approval of the constitution and the […]

Economy & Business European Union

New Atlanticist

Aug 4, 2011

Unthinkable is Reality

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

The nail-biting, cliff-hanger produced something that didn’t pass mental math. To raise America’s $14.3 trillion federal debt ceiling hours ahead of Tuesday’s deadline by $2.4 trillion in two stages while committing to equal spending cuts over 10 years — still with me? — was more fool’s bargain than bargain basement. The complete collapse of the […]

Economy & Business United States and Canada

New Atlanticist

Aug 4, 2011

Building the Afghan National Security Force under Fire

By William B. Caldwell IV

The first tranche of geographic transition is now complete in Afghanistan; geographic transition is a positive step, but it will not be risk-free. As recent media accounts have made clear, the Taliban, Haqqani Network, and other insurgent groups seek to regain lost territory. Over the past two years, approximately 2,800 Afghan police and 1,050 Afghan soldiers […]

Afghanistan

New Atlanticist

Aug 3, 2011

An Effective, Affordable Uncommon Defense, Part 3

By Harlan Ullman

The West is in the process of drastic defense reductions, justified by the lack of existential or even serious military adversaries and catalyzed by the toughest economic times in decades. This third column on an uncommon defense argues that absent an existential threat –and draconian budget cuts may well be the only prospect to fill […]

United Kingdom

New Atlanticist

Aug 3, 2011

The Enemy of Iran’s Enemy

By Barbara Slavin

Despite the alarmist headlines, no one should have been shocked by last week’s U.S. Treasury Department designation of a Syrian based in Iran as a conduit for sending money and personnel to al Qaeda. Iran has had links to members of what became known as al Qaeda since the early 1990s, when both had a […]

New Atlanticist

Aug 3, 2011

The Lamps Are Going Out All Over Europe

By Julian Lindley-French

The German-Belgian border. 3 August, 2011. Ninety-seven years ago to the day Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, looked out of his palatial, imperial London office and said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time”. A few hours later two German armies smashed […]

United Kingdom

New Atlanticist

Aug 2, 2011

Fiddling Whilst the West Fails: The Great Globalisation Disaster

By Julian Lindley-French

“Forget these frivolous demands which strike a terror to my fading soul”. So Mephistopheles beseeches Marlowe’s Dr Faustus. With American politicians not so much debating whether or not to sell America’s soul, but for what price, the most profound of strategic questions is now apparent. For how long does the West support a system of […]

Economy & Business

New Atlanticist

Aug 2, 2011

Afghanistan and Libya Point NATO to Five Lessons

By Kurt Volker

Both the wars in Afghanistan and Libya reveal serious flaws in the Alliance. If they can’t be fixed, perhaps it’s time for a ‘back to basics’ NATO and a return to coalitions of the willing. Whether it is a matter of weeks or months, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi will probably fall from power, and opposition forces will likely gain […]

Afghanistan Libya

New Atlanticist

Aug 1, 2011

Somalia: Beyond the Famine

By Peter Pham

Today Somalia is not only the world’s most spectacular case of a failed state—it has, after all, been more than twenty years since the benighted land has had anything resembling a central government—but, thanks to the worst drought in six decades, it is what the United Nations refugee agency has described as the “worst humanitarian […]

Somalia
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