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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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 1, 2010

Instant Diplomacy

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

Along with instant coffee, instant soup, instant oven cleaners, instant Viagra, instant pain relief from four-hour Viagra, it was only a matter of time before instant diplomacy made its debut on the nation’s comedy channels. Some foreign leaders have concluded American youth — and many older Americans, too — have tuned out serious news and […]

New Atlanticist

Oct 1, 2010

Pakistan Blocks NATO Supply Lines, Testing Fragile Relationship

By James Joyner

Pakistan has blocked NATO’s primary supply line into Afghanistan in retaliation for an air strike that killed three Pakistani paramilitaries. Reporting for FT, Farhan Bokhari notes that this will not have an immediate impact on operations but would if the embargo held for long, since "Most of the fuel, food and building materials for the […]

New Atlanticist

Sep 30, 2010

5 Questions for Kori Schake

By Jorge Benitez

Kori Schake is the former Director for Defense Strategy and Requirements at the National Security Council. She is currently a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and an associate professor of international security studies at the United States Military Academy. I had the opportunity to discuss her thoughts on some key issues of interest to […]

New Atlanticist

Sep 30, 2010

Afghanistan: In It To Win It?

By Kurt Volker

When Gen. David Petraeus assumed command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, he delivered exactly the right message: “We are in this to win.” Surely, that message was welcomed by Afghan women who fear subjugation; by parents who fear seeing their daughters sprayed with acid for attending school; by decent people trying to […]

New Atlanticist

Sep 29, 2010

Averting Catastrophe in South Asia

By Harlan Ullman

We can joke that the United States and Great Britain are two nations divided by a common language. But the gap between the United States and Pakistan is neither humorous nor easily reconciled. Only a fundamental improvement in mutual understanding can rectify the enormous misunderstandings and misperceptions on both sides that threaten this crucial relationship […]

New Atlanticist

Sep 29, 2010

Prime Minister Erdogan Calls for Regional Cooperation and Integration

By Ross Wilson and Michelle M. Smith

In a keynote address on September 29 before the Atlantic Council’s second annual Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum in Istanbul, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke to an audience of 250 government and business leaders.

New Atlanticist

Sep 28, 2010

NATO’s Relevance

By James Joyner

“Is NATO irrelevant?” That’s a question that Harvard’s Steve Walt asked on his Foreign Policy blog last week and a major subtext of the NATO Beyond Afghanistan conference held yesterday at the Atlantic Council.

New Atlanticist

Sep 28, 2010

9/11 Imbroglio

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

No sooner did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggest from the rostrum of the U.N. General Assembly that most of the world believes the U.S. government was involved in a 9/11 conspiracy, than 32 nations followed the U.S. delegation as it walked out. These were members of NATO, the European Union (21 countries are members of […]

International Organizations
Politics & Diplomacy

New Atlanticist

Sep 27, 2010

Afghan Realities

By James Stavridis

Gilles Dorronsoro, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued in the New York Times on Sept. 15 that the Western coalition will not defeat the insurgency in Afghanistan, and “needs to start facing reality and begin negotiating with the Taliban before it’s too late.” NATO’s commander responds.

New Atlanticist

Sep 27, 2010

Yanukovych in Wonderland

By Alexander Motyl

The policy and business elites who attended the Atlantic Council’s September 24th luncheon in New York with Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych may be wondering just what he meant by what he said—and, more important, by what he did not say.

NATO
Security & Defense

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