Politics & Diplomacy

Caesar Act: The Syrian people are sapped while Assad grows stronger

By Qussai Jukhadar & Elizabeth Tsurkov

The Bashar al-Assad regime is unconcerned about Syrian lives and, thus, worsening economic misery is unlikely to shift its calculations.

Belarus uprising faces Kremlin-backed crackdown

By Peter Dickinson

Belarusian pro-democracy protests are now in their fourth week but Russian support for beleaguered dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka has revitalized his regime. How will the crisis evolve in the coming weeks?

Pro-Kremlin media misrepresent Belarusian opposition’s policy platform

By Roman Osadchuk

An “anti-Russian” national security reform agenda that pro-Kremlin media linked to the opposition was never part of the opposition’s official platform.

Pro-Lukashenka Telegram channels amplify disinformation

By Nika Aleksejeva

Telegram channels deploy anti-protester narratives to win back public support for Lukashenka.

Atlantic Council welcomes Sudanese ambassador with private roundtable

By Africa Center

On Tuesday, September 1, the Africa Center hosted a private roundtable with newly-arrived Sudanese Ambassador to the United States H.E. Noureldin Satti. Appointed to his position in May, Satti is the first Sudanese ambassador formally accredited to Washington in twenty years.

Pro-Kremlin MPs and oligarchs wage lawfare on Ukraine’s reform agenda

By Tetiana Shevchuk

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court has declared the 2015 appointment of Artem Sytnyk as director of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) unconstitutional, placing the country's reform agenda in doubt.

Energy cooperation in the Middle East is a necessary step toward regional security

By Ariel Ezrahi

Mutual energy dependencies can help mitigate political tensions, creating incentives to cooperate and possibly facilitating a positive momentum towards solving some of the MENA region’s thornier outstanding political conflicts

A no strings attached policy toward Sudan

Secretary Pompeo’s stopover in Sudan last week marked another momentous step forward in the rapidly warming bilateral relationship between Sudan and the United States—the first visit to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, by a US Secretary of State in fifteen years. Unlike Condoleezza Rice’s stopover in 2005, aimed at heaping pressure and opprobrium on the country’s then-autocratic […]