Category: Timely Commentary & Analysis

Diplomacy with Iran Through a European Lens

By Nazia Khan

Despite a current political focus on nuclear talks, opening the human rights dialogue with Iran is an essential European Union (EU) priority. Speaking at an Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center roundtable, European Parliament Member Marietje Schaake stressed the need to place human rights at the forefront of the official agenda and to avoid a zero-sum […]

Senators McCain, Durbin Push Congress to Sanction Russia

US Senate leaders John McCain [R-AZ] and Dick Durbin [D-IL] urged Congress to pass quickly – within a week – strong economic sanctions against Russia for its armed seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. In a conference call hosted by the Atlantic Council with journalists and council members, Durbin and McCain, both members of the Senate […]

Youth Activism in the Gulf States: Breaking Taboos

The rise of social media has had a profound effect on youth throughout the world, but in the Gulf in particular this new outlet for information exchange has created a space for activism that was impossible until now. On March 21, 2014, the Atlantic Council launched a new issue brief, “Breaking Taboos: Youth Activism in the […]

Is the Indian Nuclear Tiger Changing Its Stripes?

Data, Interpretation, and Fact A central question within the current nuclear discourse is whether or not India has fundamentally altered the manner in which it has traditionally conducted nuclear business. Dr. Gaurav Kampani of the Norwegian Institute of Defense Studies and Toby Dalton, Deputy Director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for […]

Afghanistan: Top US Official Says Corruption May Ruin a Fragile ‘Reconstruction’

Uncontrolled corruption in Afghanistan could cost the United States what fragile progress it has made in the most expensive reconstruction of another country it has ever attempted, according to the most senior US official monitoring that program. As the Obama administration prepares to end the longest war of US history, it is relying on reconstruction […]

Crafting Public Diplomacy for an Urbanized World

On March 20, the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, in partnership with the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, hosted a roundtable focusing on the future of public diplomacy in the context of global trends. Titled Crafting Public Diplomacy for an Urbanized World, the roundtable examined how the US government, through public […]

NATO Secretary General Discusses Ukraine Crisis, Wales Summit with the Atlantic Council

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen discussed the crisis in Ukraine and the preparations for the upcoming NATO summit in Wales with members of the Atlantic Council and the Washington, DC security and policy community in a working breakfast on March 19, 2014. The event was moderated by Frederick Kempe, president and CEO of the […]