Issues

Conflict Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Women

Regions

North & West Africa North Africa United States and Canada
About Related Content

All Content

Dispatches

Feb 3, 2026

The Marine Corps presence in Okinawa is critical to deterring China and North Korea

By Caleb Eames, Amy Cowley

Shifting US forces away from Okinawa would undermine deterrence in the Indo-Pacific by pulling critical rapid-response forces from the First Island Chain.

Conflict
Defense Policy

Report

Jul 3, 2025

The National Defense Strategy Project

By Atlantic Council experts

As the world enters a pivotal new phase in global security, the United States must not only respond to current challenges but also anticipate those on the horizon. 

Artificial Intelligence
Defense Policy

Issue Brief

Jul 3, 2025

Homeland defense in an era of new strategic threats

By Clementine G. Starling-Daniels, Amy Cowley

From launching cyberattacks to targeting critical infrastructure, US rivals are bringing the fight closer to home. Defending against these threats will require not just military might, but smarter defense planning, greater resilience, and military modernization.

Defense Industry
Defense Policy

Amy Cowley is an assistant director in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.  

Previously, Cowley worked at Women In International Security as a gender and global security program assistant, contributing to work on the gendered impacts of conflict. As a graduate student, she studied conflict and conflict resolution, focusing on the drivers of conflict, transitional justice, stabilization, and peacebuilding. She completed a study abroad at the American University in Cairo, and her final capstone project studied post-conflict peacebuilding and community reconciliation in North Africa after the Arab Spring. 

She received a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Utah State University.