Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

The Scowcroft Strategy Initiative serves to directly advance the Scowcroft Center’s core mission by developing sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world. Its competencies in long-range foresight and strategy development are vital assets to government and business leaders as they navigate 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.

The New American Engagement Initiative challenges prevailing assumptions governing U.S. foreign policy, particularly those involving the military and the use of force, and offers real-world solutions to urgent problems that deploy the full range of American diplomatic, economic, and other capabilities.

The Transatlantic Security Initiative (TSI) brings together senior officials and experts from Europe and North America to share insights, strengthen cooperation, and develop innovative approaches to the key challenges facing NATO and the transatlantic community. Through high-profile public convenings, off-the-record strategy sessions, war-gaming, digital engagement, and content-rich publications, the initiative directly advances the Council’s core mission of informing the transatlantic security debate.

The Asia Security Initiative (ASI) develops purposeful programming designed to create an Atlantic-Pacific Community that can adapt, revitalize, and defend the rules-based international order in Asia. The effort is grounded in a dual approach of providing fresh perspectives on traditional issues (regional security and political-economic architecture) while assessing a new agenda of non-traditional topics (cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things) to develop new strategies and policies.

Forward Defense (FD) helps the United States and its allies and partners contend with great-power competitors and maintain favorable balances of power. This new practice area in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security produces Forward-looking analyses of the trends, technologies, and concepts that will define the future of warfare, and the alliances needed for the 21st century. Through the futures we forecast, the scenarios we wargame, and the analyses we produce, FD develops actionable strategies and policies for deterrence and defense, while shaping US and allied operational concepts and the role of defense industry in addressing the most significant military challenges at the heart of great-power competition.

The Cyber Statecraft Initiative (CSI) works at the nexus of geopolitics and cybersecurity to craft strategies to help shape the conduct of statecraft and to better inform and secure users of technology. This work extends through the competition of state and non-state actors, the security of the internet and computing systems, the safety of operational technology and physical systems, and the communities of cyberspace. The Initiative convenes a diverse network of passionate and knowledgeable contributors, bridging the gap among technical, policy, and user communities.

The Atlantic Council’s work on Middle East security honors the legacy of Brent Scowcroft and his tireless efforts to build a new security architecture for the region. Our work in this area addresses the full range of security threats and challenges including the danger of interstate warfare, the role of terrorist groups and other nonstate actors, and the underlying security threats facing countries in the region.

This paper is a preliminary look at the geopolitical implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and sketches three scenarios for the possible direction of the global system post-COVID-19.

Taking stock: Where are geopolitics headed in the COVID-19 era? The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed pressure points in the global order and threatens to unravel the rules-based international system. This paper examines the geopolitical implications of the pandemic by identifying key strategic shocks and tensions exacerbated by the virus. It also identifies uncertainties for the global order and provides policy recommendations for how the United States and its allies should address the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an acute public health and economic crisis that is further destabilizing an already weakened rules-based international system. With cooperation, determination, and resolve, however, the United States and its allies can recover from the crisis and revitalize an adapted rules-based system to bring about decades of future freedom, peace, and prosperity.

The Atlantic Council’s flagship speakers’ forum for senior military and defense leaders. The series provides a platform to discuss current strategic issues with an impressive audience drawn from across Washington’s policy community, including think tanks, media, industry, embassies, and the US government.

The Atlantic Council Strategy Papers series (ACSP) is the Atlantic Council’s flagship outlet for publishing high-level, strategic thinking. The series seeks to develop and promote sustainable, non-partisan strategies on the most important challenges facing the United States and its allies. The papers are authored by leading authorities and including a range of established and emerging strategic thinkers, from within and outside the Atlantic Council. The series is overseen by the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and works in conjunction with other Atlantic Council Centers to create regional strategy task forces focusing on East Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Iran.

We proactively shape intersectional strategies to address the impact of gender on international security while supporting early- and mid-career professional women in national and international security and defense.