Category: Timely Commentary & Analysis

Will a Counterterrorism Operation in Pakistan Succeed Under Current Conditions?

While Pakistan’s government and its Taliban movement formally have started peace talks, events there suggest that the coming months may as likely bring a Pakistani military offensive, long sought by the United States, against the country’s biggest territorial stronghold of the Taliban and other militant groups. In latter January, the Pakistani military and the Taliban […]

ELP Fellows Convene in Islamabad

Pakistan is a young and increasingly urban society, which lends tremendous opportunity for progress through its demographic dividend. The youth, who account for nearly 60 percent of Pakistan’s population, will ultimately determine Pakistan’s future course. To help empower these young people in Pakistan, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center launched the Emerging Leaders of Pakistan […]

Mexico’s Energy Reform: What’s Next for Business?

If Mexico’s energy reform succeeds, Mexico will evolve from a major supplier of oil to strategic global supplier in the next decade, David Goldwyn—the State Department’s former special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs—told a conference of energy executives in Houston, Texas. The Mexican Congress moved into phase two of energy reform in February […]

Kosovo on Stabilizing Peace With Serbia

‘Kosovo’s Euro-Atlantic Integration’ is Path to Peace, Foreign Minister Says Fourteen years after Serbia, Kosovo, and NATO signed the agreement that ended a decade of war in the Balkans, the European Union is still working to consolidate that peace, notably by implementing last year’s deal to normalize Serbia-Kosovo relations. Days before the EU hosted a […]

Urbanization in Latin America

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Cities are global leaders whose innovative policies are increasingly transcending boundaries to shape domestic and international trends. The relative power of cities to influence the global agenda will only increase in the coming decades. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas; by 2050, 70 percent, or more than six billion people, […]

Asian Ex-Officials Map Path to Peace In and Around Afghanistan

A team of sixty former officials and other experts from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and neighboring countries is lobbying those governments to stabilize the region by restoring Afghanistan’s strategic neutrality at the center of Asia. The group, including ex-ministers, diplomats and legislators, as well as scholars, has drafted a roadmap to defusing regional conflicts that, if […]

On the Road To Medellín: Urban Innovation at Home and Abroad

Cities are at the forefront of global leadership. Not only are cities where all global trends—such as increased diffusion of power, individual empowerment, and the complex interplay of the food-water-energy nexus—come together, but local governments and their partners are already addressing this century’s great global challenges and finding innovative solutions.

Policy Workshop on NATO in an Era of Global Competition

The year 2014 will be pivotal for NATO as it draws down from the mission in Afghanistan, prepares for the 2014 summit in Wales, and grapples with new political challenges to the transatlantic community, from the crisis in Ukraine to the ongoing Syrian civil war. While NATO remains a manifestation of the values and commitments […]

Munich Security Conference Luncheon

The Munich Security Conference was first launched over five decades ago with a clear purpose: to be the world’s foremost annual gathering for the international security community. While the Munich Security Conference has remained the world’s preeminent international security conference since its inception, the contours of the international security landscape have changed dramatically in the […]