In-depth research and reports

Our programs and centers deliver relevant, policy-focused research that matters to inform debate and action. Our focus is always on moving debate forward, integrating analysis with active, relevant conclusions throughout our published work.

Report

Jan 16, 2015

Antimicrobial resistance as an emerging threat to national security

By Maxine Builder

In Antimicrobial Resistance as an Emerging Threat to National Security, Maxine Builder, Research Associate for the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Health Program, outlines the growing threat posed by this issue, and its potential implications for national security, before positing several potential solutions and policy recommendations.

National Security Security & Defense

Issue Brief

Dec 23, 2014

The case for a new federalism in Libya

By Karim Mezran and Mohamed Eljarh

Following Muammar Qaddafi’s ouster more than three years ago, Libya fragmented, and the absence of a capable central government opened up the space for a violent political struggle over the country’s key resources and state institutions that continues today. Given Libya’s troubled history with centralization, there is a need for a rethink about a post-revolutionary […]

Libya

Issue Brief

Dec 23, 2014

The Die Is Cast: Confronting Russian Aggression in Eastern Europe

By Christopher Musselman

Despite a crumbling economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin remains defiant in increasing Moscow’s influence in eastern Europe. In Ukraine, cease-fire agreements have only prolonged Kyiv’s battle against Russian-backed separatists in its east. Simultaneously, the Kremlin’s subversive economic and political actions in eastern Europe and former Soviet states continue unabated, confirming that Ukraine is unlikely to […]

NATO Russia

Report

Dec 15, 2014

Addressing the food, water, and energy nexus: transatlantic perspectives and Africa’s great chance

By Peter Engelke

Addressing the Food, Water, and Energy Nexus: Transatlantic Perspectives and Africa’s Great Chance, a joint collaboration between the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and the Strategic Foresight Initiative of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, examines how Africa can best leverage its food, water, and energy resources for sustainable development.

Africa Energy & Environment

Report

Nov 21, 2014

Completing Europe – From the North-South Corridor to Energy, Transportation, and Telecommunications Union

By Atlantic Council and CEEP

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, much progress has been made toward fulfilling the vision of a Europe whole and free. However, much work remains to complete a critical element of this vision, the creation of a single European market. That will require the development of infrastructure networks that bind together the […]

Issue Brief

Nov 18, 2014

Mitigating the security risks posed by a near-nuclear Iran

By Matthew Kroenig

Deal or no deal, Iran will still pose a destabilizing nuclear security threat, writes Senior Fellow Matthew Kroenig As worldwide attention focuses on the international negotiators rushing to finish a nuclear deal with Iran before a self-imposed November 24 deadline, we are in danger of overlooking the fact that Iran’s extant nuclear capability already presents […]

Iran National Security

Report

Nov 14, 2014

The transatlantic trade and investment partnership: Big opportunities for small business

By Garrett Workman

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in both the United States and European Union stand to gain significantly from the implementation of an ambitious Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP). Using data from a targeted survey and interviews conducted with SME executives on both sides of the Atlantic, The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: Big Opportunities […]

European Union Macroeconomics

Report

Nov 5, 2014

Confidence-Building Measures in Cyberspace: A Multistakeholder Approach for Stability and Security

By Jason Healey, John C. Mallery, Klara Tothova Jordan, and Nathaniel V. Youd

Read the Report (PDF)Confidence-building measures (CBMs) are an instrument of interstate relations aimed to strengthen international peace and security by reducing and eliminating the causes of mistrust, fear, misunderstanding, and miscalculations that states have about the military activities of other states. The anonymous and complex nature of the Internet and the potency, low cost, and […]

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

Report

Oct 31, 2014

The shale revolution and the new geopolitics of energy

By Robert A. Manning

Technological advancements have led to an energy revolution in the United States. In The Shale Revolution and the New Geopolitics of Energy, Manning explains that the shale revolution affects everything from the makeup of the global energy market to America’s core strategic interests abroad.

Energy & Environment Energy Markets & Governance

Issue Brief

Oct 27, 2014

Reforming Tunisia’s troubled security sector

By Bassem Bouguerra

In a new Atlantic Council issue brief titled “Reforming Tunisia’s Troubled Security Sector,” Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East nonresident fellow and security sector reform activist Bassem Bouguerra explains the barriers to reforming the North African country’s troubled security apparatus and offers possible paths forward for reform. Rather than undermining government efforts to counter […]

Extremism North Africa

Report

Oct 9, 2014

Atlantic Council Survey: The Future of NATO

By Atlantic Council

Does the sixty-five-year-old alliance still matter today? We asked a select group of future transatlantic leaders from NATO member and partner Nations to weigh in. In advance of the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales, United Kingdom, the Atlantic Council asked a select group of future leaders (ages twenty-five to thirty-five) in NATO member and partner countries about […]

NATO Security & Defense

Issue Brief

Oct 9, 2014

A blueprint for a comprehensive US counterterrorism strategy in Yemen

By Barbara K. Bodine and Danya Greenfield

A new Atlantic Council issue brief argues that current US counterterrorism efforts in Yemen fail to address deeper structural issues that foment extremism and destabilize Yemen’s central government. In “A Blueprint for a Comprehensive US Counterterrorism Strategy in Yemen,” former US Ambassador to Yemen Barbara K. Bodine and Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East […]

Yemen

Issue Brief

Oct 9, 2014

Do drone strikes in Yemen undermine US security objectives?

By Danya Greenfield and Stefanie A. Hausheer

Despite President Obama’s assertion that the United States’ counterterrorism strategy targeting militants in Yemen and Somalia provide a “successful” model to be emulated in its fight against ISIS, a new Atlantic Council issue brief assesess the use of drones and the US strategy in Yemen, and argues this approach is shortsighted and threatens US national […]

Yemen

Report

Oct 8, 2014

Online Voting: Rewards and Risks

By Peter Haynes

When it comes to elections, the vast majority of the world still votes on paper. Yet given the universal connectivity of services where almost every task can be completed online or electronically, this illustrates a curious anomaly. Why are those technologies that have revolutionized our daily lives not being used to bring the electoral process […]

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

Report

Oct 6, 2014

The future of US extended deterrence in Asia to 2025

By Robert A. Manning

US leadership, undergirded by the US military, has played a central role in ensuring the stability necessary to produce remarkable economic and political transformations in Northeast Asia. More specifically, American commitments to defend its allies in Northeast Asia, with nuclear weapons if necessary, have deterred major power war, prevented regional conflict, stemmed nuclear proliferation, and […]

China Defense Policy

Issue Brief

Oct 3, 2014

Diplomacy for a diffuse world

By Roxanne Cabral, Peter Engelke, Katherine Brown, and Anne Terman Wedner

“Diplomacy for a Diffuse World,” the latest from the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, in partnership with the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, examines how key global trends—the diffusion of power and the rise of individual empowerment—significantly impact the way the United States government must conduct diplomacy.

Civil Society Politics & Diplomacy

Issue Brief

Oct 2, 2014

ISIS war game: The coming stalemate

By Bilal Y. Saab and Michael S. Tyson

On September 22, the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security conducted a war game to examine the type of strategic interaction that might ensue between the US-led coalition and Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) fighters over the next six months. The latest issue brief from the Brent Scowcroft Center on International […]

Iraq Syria

Report

Sep 30, 2014

Rethinking European Security

By Isabelle François

The Ukraine crisis and the Russian annexation of Crimea have reshaped the security environment in Europe. In 2014, Western experts and decision-makers grappled with how a partner of NATO and the European Union (EU) and a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe could so blatantly […]

Russia Ukraine

Issue Brief

Sep 26, 2014

Democratized Destruction: Global Security in the Hacker Era

By James Hasik and Mark Revor

The democratized innovations of today’s hacker era have a dark side: democratized destruction, underwritten by advanced information technologies, and spread by highly empowered individuals with very undemocratic intent. The breadth, pace, diffusion, and potential for concealment of these advances may be creating new vulnerabilities for the same technologically advanced societies that spawned them. Fortunately, the […]

Issue Brief

Aug 29, 2014

NATO’s Cyber Capabilities: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

By Jason Healey and Klara Tothova Jordan

For over a decade, NATO has greatly improved its cyber capabilities. In a new issue brief, “NATO’s Cyber Capabilities: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” Jason Healey, director, and Klara Tothova Jordan, assistant director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council, argue that there is still much […]

Cybersecurity Security & Defense
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