New Atlanticist

Rwandan Election: Proper Perspective Needed

It has been little more than a week since incumbent Paul Kagame won Rwanda’s August 9 presidential election with 93% of the vote. It was not a vote for an open, Western style democracy but rather one for continued security and stability, which, not surprisingly, are highly valued by Rwandans since the 1994 genocide.

Transatlantic Relations from German Perspective

By Sarwar Kashmeri

In a recent installment of the New Atlanticist Podcast Series Atlantic Council senior fellow Sarwar Kashmeri interviews Irmtraud Richardson, Brussels-based correspondent for German public radio and television service ARD. Richardson discusses Germany’s outlook on the EU, as well as the state of U.S.-German and U.S.-EU relations.

Bombing Iran Would Have Unintended Consequences

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

For the first two weeks of August, the Internet buzzed with "inside knowledge" of an Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the month. One of most quoted warnings came from Philip Giraldi, a polyglot former CIA operative who writes for the American Conservative and is no friend of Israel. "We spend […]

Why We Need Big Oil

By Alexandros Petersen

In the aftermath of the largest oil spill in history, Big Oil — never the greatest of PR cases — has lost most of the few friends it ever had. When BP — whose assets stretch from Azerbaijan to Libya to the Alaskan Arctic — announced last month that it was planning to shrink in […]

Pakistani SOS

By Harlan Ullman

If Shakespeare were to write a tragedy today, it could well begin: “Alas poor Pakistan. I knew it well.” Facing existential economic and security threats, it hardly needed a third, in this case the catastrophic “super flood” that became a massive water sword slashing through Pakistan’s underbelly. Estimates are that as many as 20 million […]

German Economy Surges by Defying Stimulus Strategy: View from Europe

By Scott Bleiweis

Many of the world’s largest economies, the U.S. included, have trumpeted the necessity of increasing spending to jumpstart growth. Meanwhile Europe’s largest economy, Germany, defiantly stuck to its plan of spending cuts, limited unemployment benefits, and a focus on exports. Though widely questioned for its economically conservative policies, Germany is now having the last laugh: […]

What Battle for Hearts and Minds?

By Raymond Pritchett

I spent some of the day going over the figures regarding the damage in Pakistan, and the damage that has taken place over the last several days of the monsoon season is beyond what any single nuclear weapon is capable of. Even more interesting, the areas impacted in Pakistan are the areas that every single […]

America’s Nuclear Future

By Kurt Volker

"We should build a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation. … We must harness the power of nuclear energy on behalf of our efforts to combat climate change, and to advance peace and opportunity for all people." […]