Issue briefs and reports

Libya and the United States: The Next Steps

Over the past several years, the Atlantic Council’s International Security Program has taken a position that, in due course, the United States’ adversarial relationships with countries, such as Libya, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea will eventually be restructured both in recognition of changes in the nature or policies of these difficult regimes, and in […]

Transatlantic Transformation: Building a NATO-EU Security Architecture

Since 1989, the security environment facing the United States and its European allies has changed beyond recognition. The Soviet Union has disintegrated, as has the division of Europe between East and West, and new threats have arisen. The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s demonstrated that instability and war emerging from failing states could affect […]

Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic Ambitions

By Steven Pifer

Since his inauguration in January 2005, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has repeatedly stated that his foremost foreign policy goal is his country’s integration into European and Euro-Atlantic institutions. “Joining Europe” today, be it preparing a country for a bid to enter the European Union or NATO, is an extraordinarily complex business. It will require the […]

China: What could go wrong?

By Harry Harding

China has done remarkably well in its development over the last twenty-five years. It has achieved and sustained high rates of economic growth, lifting millions out of poverty. It has achieved a significant place in the international economy. It is widely regarded as a major power, not only in Asia but also increasingly on a […]

China succeeding beyond expectations

By Albert Keidel

What are the implications if China sustains nine-percent growth through 2010? This is the basic question posed by conference organizers. The relevant time frame is what matters most. If China merely maintains nine-percent growth until the year 2010, the implications are not great. Too much is left unknown about what comes after 2010. Even with […]

China as a regional player

By Edward J. Lincoln

China ought to be able to produce a relatively high economic growth rate over at least the next decade. There are a number of problems confronting the economy, but one of the great lessons of the past half-century of world economic growth is how much growth can result even when economies have considerable institutional flaws. […]

China and the World Economy Workshop

The Workshop on China and the World Economy, sponsored by the Atlantic Council of the United States and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, convened December 7, 2005, and January 9, 2006, at the Atlantic Council. The conference was chaired by Franklin D. Kramer of the Atlantic Council. Robert A. Kapp […]

China as employer and consumer: Economic outlook for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010)

By Arthur R. Kroeber

Economic growth in China is underpinned by very powerful structural factors that will remain in place for many years. These factors suggest that China will be able to sustain a high rate of growth in output and job creation during the period when the population of working age is at its peak (2005-2015), and that […]

China as consumer

By Kenneth Lieberthal

This article seeks to examine two key issues that will be major drivers of consumption in China over the coming five years: urbanization and environmental amelioration. Whether the issues identified will be the largest factors over this time frame remains unclear, but each of these two areas warrants considerable attention as a very significant contributor […]