Issue briefs and reports

Developing an agenda for international financial institutions and central bank digital currency

By Greg Brownstein and Utsav Saksena

Is the emerging architecture appropriate, effective, and sufficient to manage the global transition to digital money? This report focuses on three domains: financial stability, development and financial inclusion, and global payment systems.

Governance reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions

By Sienna Nordquist and Joel Christoph

The paper emphasizes the need for a governance reform roadmap at the IMF and World Bank focusing on quota reallocation, diplomatic efforts, and a commitment to diversity and democratic principles.

Navigating subsidy reform at the WTO

By Sona Muzikarova and Sophia Busch

The legitimacy of the World Trade Organization is in question. The United States and its allies, and leaders in the organization, can better wield its potential to address global issues, specifically to reduce inefficiencies from fragmentation caused by subsidies.

Welcome to 2034: What the world could look like in ten years, according to nearly 300 experts  

To survey the future, we polled global strategists and foresight practitioners on our most burning questions about the biggest drivers of change over the next decade. Check out their forecasts on everything from the likelihood of war over Taiwan to the future of AI.

The Global Foresight 2024 survey: Full results

In the fall of 2023, the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security surveyed the future, asking leading global strategists and foresight practitioners around the world to answer our most burning questions about the biggest drivers of change over the next ten years. Here are the full results. 

Russia’s growing dark fleet: Risks for the global maritime order

By Elisabeth Braw

Russia's dark fleet poses a significant threat to maritime security, forming the basis of Moscow's grayzone aggression against Western institutions.

False promises: The authoritarian development models of China and Russia

By Joseph Lemoine, Dan Negrea, Patrick Quirk, Lauren Van Metre

Are authoritarian regimes more successful than free countries in offering prosperity to their people? The answer is decidedly no, yet China and Russia advertise the “benefits” and “promise” of their authoritarian development model. This paper showcases why and how the authoritarian development model is inferior to that of free societies.

Climate change prioritization in low-income and developing countries

By Amin Mohseni-Cheraghlou and Henry Evans

This policy brief examines the impact of climate change on education, health, and other development priorities for low-income and developing countries.

Navigating Sweden’s NATO membership: Insights for political and operational adaptation

By Viltaute Zarembaite, Christopher Skaluba, Ann Marie Dailey

Sweden is on the cusp of joining Finland as NATO's newest members, bridging a crucial gap in the region's security architecture and creating new opportunities for closer security cooperation. Once Sweden is in NATO, the Baltic Sea will be a geographically coherent strategic space—or, in more casual parlance, a "NATO lake."

How to hold the Islamic Republic of Iran accountable in European courts

By Gissou Nia, Celeste Kmiotek, Lisandra Novo, Alyssa T. Yamamoto

While there are no viable domestic routes toward accountability within Iran, national judicial systems in other states present an alternative path to justice. This report examines prospects for initiating prosecutions against IRI perpetrators in European jurisdictions.