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
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.

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

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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New Atlanticist

May 18, 2011

Somaliland at 20

By Peter Pham

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the day when, in the wake of the collapse of the Somali state, clan elders in the onetime British Protectorate of Somaliland proclaimed their sovereignty. In the two decades since, while the rest of the country became the exemplar par excellence of a failed state, one best known today […]

New Atlanticist

May 18, 2011

Pakistan and Middle East Peace: Missions Impossible

By Harlan Ullman

During World War I and the height of the German U-boat campaign in the Atlantic that was sinking scores of ships and killing thousands of civilians, the great American humorist Will Rogers was asked for his solution to ending the submarine threat. Rogers replied “boil off the oceans” realizing the impossibility of his advice. When […]

New Atlanticist

May 17, 2011

A Time for Unity

By Robert Bracknell

Osama Bin Laden is no more. The latest Afghan war assessment notes frangible, delicate progress, but progress nonetheless. Commanders returning from Afghanistan cite real and substantial advances in the areas for which they were responsible, and even the newspapers give the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan some chance for success.

New Atlanticist

May 17, 2011

Locating the Sources of Extremism in Pakistan

By Luv Puri

In 2006, a friend of mine took me to Abbottabad, which falls on the Karakorran highway, and introduced it as a city of oranges while driving from Islamabad to earthquake impacted areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Muzaffarabad district of Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Abbottabad, which was the final abode of the world’s most wanted man, […]

New Atlanticist

May 17, 2011

Atlantic Update 5/17/11

By Klee Aiken

The battle to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn begins in earnest, as Asia looks to wrestle control from a Europe keen on keeping the IMF focused on the Euro debt crisis. Greece continues to struggle, Portugal receives a stipend until the IMF and EU finance minsters can assess the post-election picture, and Irish commentators call for the […]

New Atlanticist

May 16, 2011

America’s New Cyberspace Strategy

By Jason Healey

At an Atlantic Council event last year, the singer Bono declared, “From rock stars in DC to street kids in Rio, from Harlem to Haiti, from Cape Town to Cairo, we all have a stake in this word America.” The White House’s new International Strategy for Cyberspace [PDF] roots that promise of rights and freedoms for all […]

Cybersecurity
Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

May 16, 2011

Raging at Rawalpindi

By Shuja Nawaz

The United States has long complained that Pakistan’s military and intelligence services are playing a double game when it comes to terrorism and extremism: publicly promising cooperation-and indeed delivering some-while privately supporting America’s enemies. They point to Pakistan’s apparent reluctance to take on groups like the Haqqaani network, a Taliban affiliate that launches attacks on […]

New Atlanticist

May 16, 2011

Premature Celebration

By Robert Bracknell

Osama bin Laden is dead, radio stations are playing tough-sounding Toby Keith and patriotic Lee Greenwood songs, and the Washington Nationals are even giving away free tickets to military members, in a broad-based gesture of gratitude for 10 years of dogged pursuit of the terrorist rogue. Pundits are deconstructing the raid and its planning to […]

New Atlanticist

May 16, 2011

Atlantic Update 5/16/11

By Klee Aiken

Europe reacts to the arrest of IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, France’s "first "Anglo-Saxon" sex scandal." Britain calls for widening the range of targets over Libya, while eyeing further defense cuts within, and Medvedev is irked by what is seen as sidelining Russia out of European missile defense.

New Atlanticist

May 13, 2011

The Perfect Storm in Af-Pak

By Shuja Nawaz

With the killing of Osama bin Laden, attention has shifted to the endgame in Afghanistan. But a persistent problem remains inside Pakistan: the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban. This homegrown terrorist organization swore war against the state when the army was sent into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan. For the past […]

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