Fast Thinking

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Fast Thinking

Jan 12, 2021

FAST THINKING: What’s next for the insurrectionists?

By Atlantic Council

For weeks on far-right networks across the web, extremists discussed their plans for violence. Is it happening again?

Elections National Security

Fast Thinking

Jan 11, 2021

FAST THINKING: A diplomat to lead the CIA

By Atlantic Council

The choice is conventional and unorthodox at once: but Bill Burns has thirty-plus years of experience. Can he make it work?

Elections Politics & Diplomacy

Fast Thinking

Jan 8, 2021

FAST THINKING: What Biden can do with a Democratic Congress

By Atlantic Council

Democrats have control of both Congress and the executive branch for the first time in a decade. That really opens things up for the incoming Biden administration, not least when it comes to its policy agenda on the economy, climate change, and national security. What can we expect?

Elections National Security

Fast Thinking

Jan 7, 2021

FAST THINKING: How the Capitol riot was coordinated online

By Atlantic Council

The team at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab has conducted exhaustive research into how the event happened, combing through social media and other networks frequented by the far right. Let’s break down what they found.

International Norms National Security

Fast Thinking

Jan 4, 2021

FAST THINKING: What’s Iran thinking?

By Atlantic Council

Tehran seized a South Korean tanker while also announcing that it had begun increasing its uranium enrichment levels to 20 percent. Why?

Iran Korea

Fast Thinking

Dec 24, 2020

FAST THINKING: There’s finally a Brexit deal. Now what?

By Atlantic Council

Four years of negotiations. Much political acrimony. The fall and rise (and fall and rise) of British premiers. Through it all, a British public wondering what their future would look like and when they could finally move on from their limbo. A Brexit trade deal is here at last. How should we feel?

Economy & Business European Union

Fast Thinking

Dec 23, 2020

FAST THINKING: Will a Brexit deal be home for Christmas?

By Atlantic Council

The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator said yesterday that a trade deal could come before Christmas. That would be quite the gift for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who faces the prospect of his country "crashing out" of its old trading arrangements with the EU.

Economy & Business European Union

Fast Thinking

Dec 21, 2020

Can Bibi and Biden get along?

By Shalom Lipner and Katherine Wolff

Few world leaders have been as close to Donald Trump as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pushed policies—from suspected covert attacks against Iran to expanded settlements in the West Bank—that will likely antagonize the US president-elect.

Defense Policy Iran

Fast Thinking

Dec 16, 2020

How the Federal Reserve just set the terms for the 2021 recovery

By Nitya Biyani and Ole Moehr

This year was perhaps the most ambitious in the history of the US Federal Reserve. To weather the financial effects of the pandemic, the Fed kept interest rates low and injected an unprecedented amount of funds into the economy.

Economy & Business United States and Canada

Fast Thinking

Dec 16, 2020

FAST THINKING: The Fed caps its most important year ever

By Atlantic Council

The Fed increased QE to unprecedented levels to keep financial fallout from the pandemic at bay. That, combined with the Fed’s move to lower its benchmark interest rate to zero, made this the most important year in the history of US monetary policy.

Economy & Business Financial Regulation