In-depth research and reports

Delist or not delist: A $2.2 trillion US-China auditing dispute

By Jeremy Mark

The economic and financial forces set in motion by the COVID-10 pandemic—global recession and ultra-loose monetary policies that have driven a cross-border search for higher yield—have contributed to a slow shift of international capital toward China’s markets. Now, intensified US-China tensions—especially the targeting of Chinese companies for delisting from US stock markets—have the potential to heighten that trend.

Russia after Putin: How to rebuild the state

By Anders Åslund and Leonid Gozman

We do not know when and how President Putin’s regime will end, but there are signs that it is struggling and the end could come in the foreseeable future. We need to start discussing now how a new state should be built on the ruins of the old system.

The North Atlantic community renewed: Challenges, trends, and solutions

By Richard D. Hooker, Jr.

With 900 million people and $1 trillion in defense spending, the United States and Europe represent by far the largest, oldest, and most capable economic and security community in the world.

Iraq: A road map for recovery

By C. Anthony Pfaff

In a new report, Iraq: A roadmap for recovery, Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff outlines some of the most important discussions, findings, and recommendations of the dialogue.

Russia’s nuclear activity in 2019: Increasing strength and pressure

By Maxim Starchak

Russia’s nuclear arsenal is a cornerstone of its political and military influence. 2019 stands out as a year with notable shifts in activity, with key indications that nuclear forces will remain a critical mechanism for Moscow to exert pressure.

Weaponized: How rumors about COVID-19’s origins led to a narrative arms race

By Luiza Bandeira, Nika Aleksejeva, Tessa Knight, Jean le Roux, Graham Brookie, Iain Robertson, Andy Carvin, Zarine Kharazian

A joint research project from the Digital Forensic Research Lab and the Associate Press on information environments during the first six months of COVID-19.

Toward a future EU-UK relationship in foreign policy and defense

By Gen. Stéphane Abrial, Sir Peter Westmacott, Olivier-Rémy Bel

The UK and the EU will continue to share the same geography, the same strategic environment, and the same values, a reality recognized on both sides of the Channel. As the UK moves on from the Brexit process, it should find in the EU a partner sharing the same values and aspirations.

Atlantic Council’s DFRLab publishes new report in Just Security: #StopTheSteal: A timeline of social media and extremist activities leading up to 1/6 insurrection

In-depth investigation offers the most comprehensive timeline for #StopTheSteal to date.

Toward trilateral arms control: Options for bringing China into the fold

By Matthew Kroenig, Mark J. Massa

The Cold War-era paradigm of bilateral arms control between the United States and Russia is becoming increasingly untenable. Including a rising China with a growing nuclear arsenal is essential. This issue brief shows the way forward with options for bringing China into the nuclear arms control fold on a trilateral basis with the United States and Russia.

Ensuring Energy Security in a Renewables World

By Ben Hertz-Shargel

Renewable sources of energy are gaining an increasing share of the US energy mix, bolstered by state-level commitments as well as corporate power purchase agreements. However, while renewables have become increasingly cost competitive, they still face challenges, especially related to intermittency and storage. The Global Energy Center’s new issue brief, “Ensuring Energy Security in a […]

Assumption #1: Revisionist states are the cause of great-power competition

By Emma Ashford

Policymakers should intensify efforts to understand the scope of ambition of other states, focus less on forward deployment and engage in reassurance measures.

Pathologies of obfuscation: Nobody understands cyber operations or wargaming

By Nina Kollars and Benjamin Schechter

National security and defense professionals have long utilized wargames to better understand hypothetical conflict scenarios. With conflict in the cyber domain becoming a more prominent piece in wargames in the national security community, this issue brief seeks to identify the common pathologies, or potential pitfalls, of cyber wargaming.

The Longer Telegram: Toward a new American China strategy

By Anonymous

China presents the most important challenge to the United States in the twenty-first century. To address this challenge, the United States urgently needs “an integrated, operational, and bipartisan national strategy.”

Biden and Belarus: A strategy for the new administration

By Anders Åslund, Melinda Haring, John E. Herbst, Alexander Vershbow

Joe Biden has an historic opportunity to bring Europe together and reverse the tide of dictatorship by building an international coalition to support democracy in Belarus. This strategy lays out key recommendations for the Biden administration as it prepares its policy toward Belarus.

The United States, Germany, and world order: New priorities for a changing alliance

By Roderick Kefferpütz, Jeremy Stern

Treating each divergence in security policy as an isolated incident may have allowed policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic to ignore the unpleasant fact that the United States and Germany could have increasingly disparate perceptions of threats and strategic cultures.

Choosing wisely: How the Biden administration can build a better coalition on international energy and climate policy in a post-COVID world

By David L. Goldwyn, Andrea Clabough

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have inherited a country deep in crisis. At the same time, President Biden has asserted that the United States will regain its mantle of leadership of the liberal order, reset its international partnerships, and, perhaps most importantly, rebuild as a clean, green superpower putting the global community back on track to meet its climate commitments.

How the rest of the world responds to the US-China split

By Hung Tran

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated fragmentation of the postwar world order. Its most poignant manifestation is in an intensifying competition between the United States and China for political and strategic influence. How countries respond to this split, unwelcome by most, depends on whether they see themselves as competitors to China, or as “price takers” in the international economic system.

The 2021 Global Energy Agenda

By Randolph Bell, Jennifer T. Gordon, Paul Kielstra, and Andrew Marshall (Editors)

The inaugural edition of the Global Energy Agenda provides context for the unprecedented year that has passed. It features a survey of thought leaders in the energy sector, as well as a series of essays by the leading figures in energy, to set the energy agenda for 2021.

Mapping green innovation ecosystems: Evaluating the success factors for the world’s leading greentech-innovation centers

By Peter Engelke, Margaret Jackson, Randolph Bell

Enabling current and future generations to mitigate climate change requires the urgent creation and scaling up of technologies that minimize and reverse the impact of human activities on the environment.

The hard work ahead in improving US-India agricultural trade

By Mark Linscott and Scott Sindelar

Between the United States and India, challenges on trade, specifically agricultural trade, persist. This analysis concludes that both countries should pursue a multi-pronged approach to expanding bilateral agricultural trade.