Category: Content Series

Mexico Passes Landmark Energy Reform

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

In the last hour, the Mexican Congress passed energy reform that will fundamentally transform the country by opening up foreign investment in the energy sector for the first time in 75 years. The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center also will be issuing the first comprehensive analysis of the reform on Thursday, December 19, which […]

Marczak on Venezuelan Election Results

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Question: What do the results suggest about the level of support for the president, the opposition and where the country may be headed? Is a big change likely to come about in Venezuela in 2014? Chavismo may have won the popular vote in the December 8 municipal elections, but the opposition can rightly claim its […]

Corporate Strategy Forum Discusses Transformation

On December 11, the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security held a private, roundtable discussion for its Corporate Strategy Forum on the topic of “Near-Death and Transformation.” Speaking to the issues of transformation during a sharp inflection in customer preferences and competition were Michael Bayer, president and CEO of Dumbarton Strategies LLC, and Mike Giersch, […]

Ukraine on the Edge

By Sabine Freizer

Need for Dialogue on Institutional Reform Too many of the statements being made by foreign officials on the political crisis growing in Ukraine over the past three weeks have described it as a clash between pro-Western values and Russian imperialism. But talking about values will not provide a solution to the dispute. Instead all parties […]

Obama, Castro Shake Hands

By Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

On Tuesday, December 10, US President Barack Obama reached out for an historic handshake with Cuban President Raúl Castro as he was walking to the podium to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela at FNB stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. The US withdrew diplomatic recognition of Cuba in 1961 and continues to impose an embargo.

The Danger of Divergence: Transatlantic Financial Reform & the G20 Agenda

By Chris Brummer

Since the last report on this topic—The Danger of Divergence: Transatlantic Cooperation on Financial Reform, published in 2010 by the Atlantic Council and Thomson Reuters—the United States and Europe have worked to translate an ever-growing body of international financial regulations into legally binding domestic regulations. Although this process has been largely harmonious and remarkably consistent, […]

Today RQ-180, Tomorrow LRS-B

By James Hasik

News of Northrop Grumman’s stealthy RQ-180 drone aircraft, revealed just yesterday by Aviation Week & Space Technology, may be of more than tactical significance. As our friend Byron Callan argued immediately thereafter in a report for investors, it provides an industrial signal as well: competition in fixed-wing military aircraft is still vigorous in the United States. If Northrop […]

Not Cheap, but is it Urgently Needed?

By James Hasik

Platforms, Payloads, and the LRS-B The other week I wrote about how the US Air Force’s projected price for its hoped-for Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B)—just $550 million each—might not be believable. We will hear the argument, of course, that whatever the cost, it simply must be paid, as the alternative is an aging and irrelevant bomber fleet. […]