About the program

The GeoStrategy Initiative, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, utilizes long-range foresight and strategy development to understand a complex and unpredictable world. Through its work, the initiative strives to revitalize, adapt, and defend a rules-based international system in order to foster peace, prosperity, and freedom for decades to come.

Core pillars

  • Develop sustainable, nonpartisan, forward-leaning strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and its allies and partners through the Atlantic Council Strategy Paper Series, Strategy Consortium, and So What’s The Strategy?
  • Map global security landscapes, identifying challenges and opportunities for strengthening alliances and partnerships with like-minded democracies and deterring authoritarian influence from China and Russia.
  • Assess global trends and drivers of change impacting the complex and unpredictable future for years to come through Global Foresight.
  • Improve human security for a more collaborative, peaceful, prosperous, and free world, pioneering work on food, water, and climate security.

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Latest Strategy In-Depth Analysis and Reports

Latest Strategy Articles and Insights

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Foresight

Latest Foresight In-Depth Analysis and Reports

Latest Foresight Articles and Insights

Latest Foresight events

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The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

Content

Issue Brief

Aug 21, 2025

Winning through people: The human capital advantage in great-power competition

By Beth Foster and Alex Wagner

To maintain military readiness, deter conflict, and preserve its technological edge, the United States must prioritize human capital by investing in resilient service members and a skilled civilian workforce.

Defense Policy Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

Issue Brief

Aug 21, 2025

Addressing China’s military expansion in West Africa and beyond

By Tressa Guenov

As China expands its military reach in West Africa, the United States risks losing strategic ground on the continent. The next National Defense Strategy must confront China’s ambitions beyond the Indo-Pacific, balancing defense diplomacy, bilateral military relationships, and counterterrorism.

Africa China

In the News

Aug 11, 2025

Gray on Fox News ‘America Reports’ on the Trump-Putin meeting

On August 11, Alexander B. Gray, nonresident senior fellow of the GeoStrategy Initiative of the Scowcroft Center, appeared on Fox News to discuss the anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Politics & Diplomacy

In the News

Aug 4, 2025

Michta published in RealClearDefense and featured in RealClearWorld on NATO and European security

On August 1, 2025, Andrew Michta, senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative, was published in RealClearDefense on what Europe’s “rapidly shifting internal power dynamic” may mean for Germany’s role in the continent’s security architecture. The piece was featured in RealClearWorld.

Europe & Eurasia Germany

Report

Aug 1, 2025

Defining Canada’s threat landscape: Resetting for a new reality

By Peter Engelke, Ginger Matchett, Samantha Wong

In a changing strategic landscape, Canada must reinforce its national security and confront the threats of geopolitics, climate change, and emerging technology.

Climate Change & Climate Action Defense Policy

New Atlanticist

Jul 17, 2025

Time remains on Putin’s side. That must change.

By Caroline Zier

The United States can take five specific actions now to disabuse the Russian president of the belief that he can simply play for time in Ukraine.

Conflict Politics & Diplomacy

New Atlanticist

Jul 15, 2025

How Canada can become a global food security superpower

By Ginger Matchett, Peter Engelke

Policymakers and business leaders will need to make significant progress across four specific areas to propel Canadian agriculture forward.

Economy & Business Resilience & Society

In the News

Jul 8, 2025

Gray in the National Interest on the potential intersection of pollution tariffs and trade deals

On July 7, Alexander B. Gray, a nonresident senior fellow with the GeoStrategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, was published in the National Interest on how the US presidential administration could use tariffs on imports produced using highly pollutive methods to level the playing field on trade.

China Economy & Business

New Atlanticist

Jul 3, 2025

In the fight against foreign information manipulation, the US can’t afford to disarm

By Bailey Galicia

The United States must adopt an innovative defense posture that matches the pace and complexity of foreign influence operations.

Disinformation Politics & Diplomacy

In the News

Jun 30, 2025

Michta published in 19FortyFive, RealClearDefense and RealClearWorld on NATO’s defense commitments

On June 30, Andrew Michta, senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative, was published in 19FortyFive on the outcomes of the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague. He argues that the summit underscored the United States’ role as the cornerstone of European security and notes that the pursuit of European defense autonomy remains impractical given current […]

Europe & Eurasia NATO