Content

Issue Brief

Feb 17, 2015

False dichotomy: Stability versus reform in the Arab world

By Danya Greenfield and Faysal Itani

To cling to current short-sighted policies and to help sustain dysfunctional states in the Middle East for the sake of short-term security would condemn the region to poverty and further instability, which threaten to have negative consequences for US interests. A new Atlantic Council report rejects the notion that the United States must choose between […]

Democratic Transitions Middle East

Issue Brief

Jan 21, 2015

A transatlantic approach for the Arab world: Stability through inclusivity, good governance, and prosperity

By Fran Burwell, Danya Greenfield, Amy Hawthorne

A new Atlantic Council report warns against the tendency of Europe and the United States to sideline political and economic reform in the Middle East while they pursue urgent security priorities in this turbulent region. Instead, the transatlantic partners should forge a shared strategy to encourage political systems that can protect Arab citizens’ basic rights, […]

European Union International Organizations

Issue Brief

Dec 23, 2014

The case for a new federalism in Libya

By Karim Mezran and Mohamed Eljarh

Following Muammar Qaddafi’s ouster more than three years ago, Libya fragmented, and the absence of a capable central government opened up the space for a violent political struggle over the country’s key resources and state institutions that continues today. Given Libya’s troubled history with centralization, there is a need for a rethink about a post-revolutionary […]

Libya

Issue Brief

Dec 23, 2014

The Die Is Cast: Confronting Russian Aggression in Eastern Europe

By Christopher Musselman

Despite a crumbling economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin remains defiant in increasing Moscow’s influence in eastern Europe. In Ukraine, cease-fire agreements have only prolonged Kyiv’s battle against Russian-backed separatists in its east. Simultaneously, the Kremlin’s subversive economic and political actions in eastern Europe and former Soviet states continue unabated, confirming that Ukraine is unlikely to […]

NATO Russia

Issue Brief

Nov 18, 2014

Mitigating the security risks posed by a near-nuclear Iran

By Matthew Kroenig

Deal or no deal, Iran will still pose a destabilizing nuclear security threat, writes Senior Fellow Matthew Kroenig As worldwide attention focuses on the international negotiators rushing to finish a nuclear deal with Iran before a self-imposed November 24 deadline, we are in danger of overlooking the fact that Iran’s extant nuclear capability already presents […]

Iran National Security

Issue Brief

Oct 27, 2014

Reforming Tunisia’s troubled security sector

By Bassem Bouguerra

In a new Atlantic Council issue brief titled “Reforming Tunisia’s Troubled Security Sector,” Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East nonresident fellow and security sector reform activist Bassem Bouguerra explains the barriers to reforming the North African country’s troubled security apparatus and offers possible paths forward for reform. Rather than undermining government efforts to counter […]

Extremism North Africa

Issue Brief

Oct 9, 2014

A blueprint for a comprehensive US counterterrorism strategy in Yemen

By Barbara K. Bodine and Danya Greenfield

A new Atlantic Council issue brief argues that current US counterterrorism efforts in Yemen fail to address deeper structural issues that foment extremism and destabilize Yemen’s central government. In “A Blueprint for a Comprehensive US Counterterrorism Strategy in Yemen,” former US Ambassador to Yemen Barbara K. Bodine and Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East […]

Yemen

Issue Brief

Oct 9, 2014

Do drone strikes in Yemen undermine US security objectives?

By Danya Greenfield and Stefanie A. Hausheer

Despite President Obama’s assertion that the United States’ counterterrorism strategy targeting militants in Yemen and Somalia provide a “successful” model to be emulated in its fight against ISIS, a new Atlantic Council issue brief assesess the use of drones and the US strategy in Yemen, and argues this approach is shortsighted and threatens US national […]

Yemen

Issue Brief

Oct 3, 2014

Diplomacy for a diffuse world

By Roxanne Cabral, Peter Engelke, Katherine Brown, and Anne Terman Wedner

“Diplomacy for a Diffuse World,” the latest from the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, in partnership with the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, examines how key global trends—the diffusion of power and the rise of individual empowerment—significantly impact the way the United States government must conduct diplomacy.

Civil Society Politics & Diplomacy

Issue Brief

Oct 2, 2014

ISIS war game: The coming stalemate

By Bilal Y. Saab and Michael S. Tyson

On September 22, the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security conducted a war game to examine the type of strategic interaction that might ensue between the US-led coalition and Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) fighters over the next six months. The latest issue brief from the Brent Scowcroft Center on International […]

Iraq Syria
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