On September 21 at the 2012 Global Citizen Awards Dinner, the Atlantic Council’s flagship International Security Program officially became the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. The Council is launching the Scowcroft Center on its 50th anniversary with the goal of engaging traditional transatlantic allies and new global partners on meeting the urgent policy demands of a dramatically changing world.

 

The Scowcroft Center absorbed the Council’s former International Security Program, while building an expanded staff of experts and fellows to increase the Council’s capacity to address cutting-edge regional and global security issues. The Scowcroft Center will continue the Council’s long-standing focus on NATO and the transatlantic partnership, while also studying ‘over the horizon’ regional and functional security challenges to the United States, its allies, and partners.

The Scowcroft Center will work collaboratively with other regional programs and centers at the Council to produce analysis with a global perspective. The Center will maintain the Council’s practice of bringing transatlantic voices to the global security debate and identifying ways to strengthen US ties with traditional allies while also strengthening bonds with new partners. The Center will also focus on developing ties between emerging leaders in the United States and their counterparts in the North Atlantic and beyond, as well as strengthening the voice and participation of women in national security issues.

The Scowcroft Center will honor General Brent Scowcroft’s legacy of service to the United States, the transatlantic community, and the Atlantic Council. It will embody General Scowcroft’s ethos of non-partisan commitment to the cause of international security, support for US international leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and legacy of mentorship to the next generation of leaders.

General James L. Jones will serve as the Chairman of the Scowcroft Center, with Ellen Tauscher, George Lund, and Virginia A. Mulberger serving as the Center’s vice chairs. Atlantic Council Chairman Senator Chuck Hagel and Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe will provide overall leadership for the Center’s activities, which will be directed by Barry Pavel, holder of the Center’s Arnold Kanter Chair.

Work within the Scowcroft Center will orient around one or more of the following seven practice areas:

  • Transatlantic Security: The Scowcroft Center will maintain the Council’s position as the premier institute of analysis on the current and future challenges facing NATO and the transatlantic alliance. The Center’s work on transatlantic security includes its annual conference on missile defense, the work of the Strategic Advisors Group on the future of NATO, analysis on the security implications of the Eurozone crisis, assessments of key regional European security challenges, and policy work on strengthening NATO’s global partnerships.
  • Strategic Foresight: The Strategic Foresight Initiative seeks to understand the potential impact and policy implications of long-term global trends, strategic shocks, and disruptive change. The Initiative supports the creation of the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 report and also focuses on emerging technologies, urbanization, and developing joint assessments of alternative futures with communities of global trends experts.
  • Cyber Statecraft: The Cyber Statecraft Initiative focuses on competition and conflict in cyberspace, the overlap of cybersecurity with traditional national security. The Initiative’s work includes a Cyber 9/12 initiative to discover how best to respond the day after a disruptive cyber attack and work on the possible future directions of cyber conflict in 2030, working with the Strategic Foresight Initiative.
  • Emerging Defense Challenges: Led by the Council’s M.A. and George Lund Fellow, the Emerging Defense Challenges Initiative addresses the fiscal and economic problems that impair the long-term health of defense ministries and industries.
  • Middle East Security: The Scowcroft Center’s Middle East Security Initiative is focused on strengthening the strategic dialogue between the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council, reforming US security assistance to North Africa’s emerging democracies, and leading a track two dialogue on Middle East peace. The Center’s Middle East security work is conducted jointly with the Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.
  • Asia Security Initiative: The Asia Security Initiative is focused on Cross-Strait relations, a US-China Joint Assessment of the emerging strategic landscape and its implications for the bilateral relationship, and improving ties between the United States and its Pacific allies.
  • Initiative on women leaders in national security (official name TBD): The Scowcroft Center will house an initiative led by Ellen Tauscher and Laura Liswood that will enable the Council to emerge as a leader within the transatlantic community in developing rising women leaders in national security and convening senior female experts in national security to influence and inform policy.
  • Brent Scowcroft Leadership Network: The Scowcroft Leadership Network will incorporate established and young leaders from business, government, civil society, and academia into the programming and analysis of the Scowcroft Center. The Scowcroft Leadership Network will conduct programming that builds ties between the next generation of leaders in the United States and their counterparts in allied and partner countries.