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.

Trans-Atlantic Austerity: Can NATO Remain Relevant Amid Defense Cuts?

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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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.

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

New Atlanticist

Oct 19, 2010

Trans-Atlantic Austerity: Can NATO Remain Relevant Amid Defense Cuts?

By Ian Brzezinski and Damon Wilson

When NATO leaders convene in Lisbon in November to adopt a new Strategic Concept, the alliance’s blueprint for the future, they will find that trans-Atlantic security has entered an age of austerity. Burdened by weakened economies, allied governments are cutting their defense budgets, some significantly. However, retrenchment and reduced ambitions are not NATO’s only options. […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 19, 2010

The Afghan Peace Process

By Don Snow

There was encouraging news out of Afghanistan this week–for a change. That news was that the Karzai government in Kabul and the Taliban leadership (which part or parts unspecified) have entered into preliminary discussions about meeting face-to-face to pursue a peace settlement to their civil war, in which the United States insinuated itself in 2001 […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 18, 2010

Sarkozy Finds a Cause Worth Fighting For

By Jeffrey Lightfoot

2010 has been a brutal year for French President Nicolas Sarkozy. His UMP party suffered a major setback in regional elections in March. His budget minister has been at the center of a series of murky scandals involving the heiress of the L’Oréal fortune. And his approval ratings have fallen to 30 percent, the lowest […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 18, 2010

Counterrevolution in Ukraine

By Alexander Motyl

Almost six years after it began, the Orange Revolution formally ended on October 1, 2010, when Ukraine’s constitutional court reversed the “political reform” imposed on the presidency as part of the popular democracy movement’s uprising.

Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Oct 15, 2010

NATO’s Obsolescence is Greatly Exaggerated

By James Joyner

Daniel Larison responds to "The Case Against the Case Against NATO" with a strong Realist rebuttal. But it continues to conflate legitimate concerns about American interventionism with the Alliance itself.

New Atlanticist

Oct 15, 2010

COIN Is Dead

By Michael Cohen

Fred Kaplan notices something about that whole COIN strategy in Afghanistan – it ain’t working and the US military is moving on

New Atlanticist

Oct 14, 2010

Worms of Mass Destruction

By Harlan Ullman

The alarms are deafening but who is listening? U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn wrote a remarkable piece in Foreign Affairs warning of the threats and dangers posed by cyberattacks. Shortly thereafter, as if on cue, the Stuxtnet worm struck Iran. Its target was controllers made by Siemens that Iran is using in its […]

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Oct 14, 2010

Pakistan: Dissension in the Ranks

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

Pakistan’s most prominent — and vocal — retired chiefs of the army are demanding that the country’s air force be ordered to shoot down drones and helicopters — and increasingly angry active duty officers are voicing their approval in off-the-record conversations with Pakistani journalists. The country’s senior generals on active duty are being blasted as […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 13, 2010

Fueling Growth in Asia: Energy, Investment, and a Home-Grown Middle Class

By Boyko Nitzov and Rustam Makhmudov

Many would argue that export-oriented Asian economies are the paragon of economic success and an engine of global growth. Plenty of evidence supports this opinion: the economies of China and India grew by 10-11% and 6-7% annually for the greater part of the last ten years, and even when the global financial crisis induced a […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 13, 2010

5 Questions for Kurt Volker

By Jorge Benitez

Kurt Volker is a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and member of the Council’s Strategic Advisors Group. He is also a former US ambassador to NATO and current managing director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. I had the opportunity to discuss his thoughts on some […]

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