Category: Timely Commentary & Analysis

Ukraine Leader Offers “Partnership” With Russia if it Exits Crimea

By Atlantic Council

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk offered to negotiate an “equal partnership” with Russia if it ends its invasion of Crimea, and praised the Western response to the crisis following his talks today at the White House. “I would like to reiterate that we still want to have a free, equal partnership… with Russia. And we […]

Putin’s Failure in Crimea

By Paul Goble

Five Ways the Kremlin Has Weakened Itself at Home and Abroad Russian President Vladimir Putin and his supporters in Moscow and the West are explaining and justifying his invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea in various ways and celebrating the divisions and weaknesses of the West that it has highlighted, but in every case, they are treating […]

US Ambassadors to South and Central Asia Briefing

On Wednesday, March 12, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the Dinu Patricu Eurasia Center and the US Department of State’s South and Central Asian Affairs Bureau hosted a special Capitol Hill briefing with US Ambassadors to four South Asian and four Central Asian nations.

Crimea: Putin’s Afghanistan?

By Harlan Ullman

As President Vladimir Putin seems to be finalizing Russian suzerainty over Crimea, capitols in Europe and Washington are struggling to find ways to reverse this land grab.  Unfortunately, short of using force—a response no one considers sane—for the short term, the cupboard of options is relatively bare.  Canceling visas, boycotting the G-8 meeting in Sochi, […]

NATO’s Cybersecurity Challenges

On March 12, 2014, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, Ambassador Sorin Ducaru met with experts from the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security to discuss NATO's cybersecurity challenges.

Three Years On, Arab Transitions Remain Incomplete

Three years after a wave of popular uprisings swept aside long-standing regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, the future of the region remains uncertain. The Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East held a panel discussion on March 11th to discuss the current state of the Arab transitions to look ahead at economic and […]

Post-Imperial Blues

By Robert A. Manning and James Clad

As Syria burns, Iran negotiations drag on and Ukraine melts down, the absence of decisive US action just about anywhere is causing great heartburn to the strategic mindset that brought you Iraq, Libya and other nation-building successes. US and EU helplessness in the face of Russian intervention in the Ukraine has turned that into an […]

Crisis in Ukraine: Military Options and Planning

While much of the discussion in the West on responding to the crisis in Ukraine has been about targeted sanctions against Russian oligarchs and the oil industry, the latest developments in Crimea have turned the situation in a more militaristic direction. Recently, Russian troops seized a military hospital in Simferopol along with a missile base […]

Iran Working Group Examines Financial and Cyber Deterrence

Despite the interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear program in November 2013, Iran’s nuclear program remains is arguably one of the greatest emerging challenges to US national and regional security interests. US President Barack Obama has reiterated that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable and that the administration is prepared to take all necessary measures to […]