Inflection Points

Inflection Points

A weekly column by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe, Inflection Points focuses on the global challenges facing the United States and how to best address them.

Subscribe

Inflection Points with Frederick Kempe podcast

Content

Inflection Points

Jul 15, 2024

This might be NATO’s greatest struggle yet—and it’s global

By Frederick Kempe

At its Washington summit, NATO acknowledged how China and Russia are working together to revise the global order. But what will the Alliance do about it?

China Europe & Eurasia

Inflection Points Today

Jul 9, 2024

Putin, Xi, Orbán, and Modi provide a disturbing backdrop to the start of the NATO Summit

By Frederick Kempe

The split screens haunting the NATO Summit include a deadly attack on a children’s hospital and meetings with autocrats in Moscow and Beijing.

China Europe & Eurasia

Inflection Points

Jul 8, 2024

The NATO Summit faces three simultaneous threats

By Frederick Kempe

Autocracies’ growing common cause, democracies’ continued weaknesses, and an insufficient recognition of the gravity of the historic moment confront the Alliance as it meets in Washington.

Central Asia China

Inflection Points Today

Jul 4, 2024

What do Biden, Macron, and Sunak have in common? They brought it on themselves. 

By Frederick Kempe

US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are suffering from self-inflicted wounds that are likely to have long-term political and economic consequences.

Economy & Business Elections

Inflection Points

Jun 27, 2024

Dispatch from Taiwan: Countering the Beijing strangler

By Frederick Kempe

Some Taiwanese officials worry less about a sudden Chinese military invasion than about slow strangulation by Beijing.

China Indo-Pacific

Inflection Points Today

Jun 20, 2024

The troubling significance of Putin’s Pyongyang deal

By Frederick Kempe

The Russian president was feted in North Korea this week, showing how a confederation of autocracies is emerging to support the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine and each other.

Conflict Korea

Inflection Points

Jun 12, 2024

A Putin summer surprise for NATO? Worries are growing.

By Frederick Kempe

The Russian president likely wants to undercut NATO’s upcoming summit in Washington. The Alliance should ready a surprise of its own.

Conflict Europe & Eurasia

Inflection Points Today

Jun 11, 2024

Macron rolls the dice on France’s future

By Frederick Kempe

The French president could have responded in many ways to Sunday's humiliation in European elections. He took perhaps the riskiest course available.

Elections Europe & Eurasia

Inflection Points Today

Jun 6, 2024

On D-Day, beware the ‘new axis’

By Frederick Kempe

The United States and its allies confront a purposeful set of powerful adversaries in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

China Europe & Eurasia

Inflection Points

May 21, 2024

Netanyahu’s political survival rests on a strategic awakening

By Frederick Kempe

Growing threats to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival may have a greater immediate impact on the Middle East than the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

Iran Israel
Load More