Scowcroft Center Commentary, Analysis, & Reports

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New Atlanticist

Jan 7, 2010

South Asia in 2010: Rise of the Asian Giants

By Masood Aziz

With a new year upon us, the imminent challenges faced by Afghanistan and Pakistan are becoming increasingly important. Yet a new and immensely powerful set of global trends are recreating unprecedented opportunities in this region not seen since the apex of the mighty Silk Road.

New Atlanticist

Jan 7, 2010

South Asia in 2010: A Region in Flux

By M.J. Akbar

2010 will be a year of confusion, further confounded by ongoing violence, for west-south-central Asia. The region will be in flux, shifting from nowhere to nowhere, rather than in a transition for which the journey is charted and the destination known.

New Atlanticist

Jan 6, 2010

South Asia in 2010: Shoals Ahead

By Shuja Nawaz

2009 was a year of major decisions in South Asia, especially in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater, as local populations and governments took decisive actions.

New Atlanticist

Jan 6, 2010

South Asia in 2010: A Pivotal Year

By Jonathan Paris

In addition to the obvious trouble spots – Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – the countries that will preoccupy the Obama administration in the coming year are the PITEY nations: Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Yemen.

New Atlanticist

Jan 5, 2010

Progress on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

By Alexandros Petersen

Alexandros Petersen, a nonresident senior fellow at the Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, was interviewed by Azerbaijan’s Today.az on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

New Atlanticist

Jan 4, 2010

Mark Mardell Interview: Part II

By James Joyner

Sarwar Kashmeri, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s International Security Program, continues his interview with Mark Mardell, North America editor of the BBC, for the New Atlanticist Podcast Series.  In this second installment, Mardell discussed relations between NATO allies.

New Atlanticist

Jan 4, 2010

Unholy War in Cyberspace

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

For America’s 16 intelligence agencies, employing some 100,000 spies and analysts with a budget of $50 billion, it is almost mission impossible to figure out what terrorists and would-be terrorists are up to in cyberspace.

New Atlanticist

Dec 23, 2009

Surreal Pakistan

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

In a satirical piece on Pakistan’s “New Media Dictionary,” Nadeem Paracha described “Conspiracy Theory” as “A theory that is not a theory at all but a hard fact on Pakistan’s TV channels,” where anything goes and where 90 percent of Pakistanis get their news.

New Atlanticist

Dec 23, 2009

Pakistani Thermidor?

By Harlan Ullman

Winston Churchill characterized Soviet Russia in terms of riddles and enigmas. Pakistan today can be characterized as seemingly implacable contradictions and collisions between immovable objects and immutable forces — potentially creating the “mother of all quagmires.”

New Atlanticist

Dec 22, 2009

Iranian Westernization a Western Pipe Dream

By Don Snow

The ability of Americans to believe that Iran secretly wants to be just like us but is repressed by unrepresentative political candidates never ceases to amaze me. The dynamic is at work once again surrounding the funueral of “dissident” Grand Ayatollah Mir Hussein Montazeri.

Iran

New Atlanticist

Dec 22, 2009

Changing Hearts and Minds in Pakistan

By Luv Puri

In April, the announcement that Islamic law would be implemented in Pakistan’s Swat Valley made international headlines. The threat to Islamabad, which is less than six hours away, resulted in a quick assault by the Pakistani military which restored control. Since then, there has been little discussion about the state of the people there and […]

New Atlanticist

Dec 21, 2009

USA Gets in the New Trade Game

By Robert Manning

It was all but unnoticed in the U.S. press, but a recent free trade agreement between the European Union and South Korea is a development worth pondering. In the current environment– with the US Congress reluctant to pursue new trade deals (or for that matter, even ratify the FTAs already concluded with Panama, Columbia and […]

New Atlanticist

Dec 21, 2009

Ending the Culture of Suspicion

By Shuja Nawaz

The 21st century has ushered in changes in the global political landscape that demand a transformation of the mindset of policymakers around the globe. NATO and the European Union no longer inhabit a world of black and white, with a clear and defined set of antagonists and allies. Global issues that bring together North America […]

New Atlanticist

Dec 18, 2009

European Energy Policy Needed

By Borut Grgic

Late to the Caspian energy game, China is the first to plug in in a big way.  This weekend, only two years after the project was announced, Chinese President Hu Jintao opened the 1140-mile long pipeline that will carry up to 40 bcm of gas from Turkmenistan to China. This is a huge boon for […]

New Atlanticist

Dec 18, 2009

Iraqi Oil Contracts: Did America Lose Out?

By Don Snow

The announcement last week that the Iraqi government had awarded foreign contracts for the exploitation of a number of its oil fields created a remarkably mild, one-day reaction in the popular press. The gist of the awards, of course, was that virtually everybody, from the Russians and Chinese to the Malaysians and Angolans, were given […]

Iraq

New Atlanticist

Dec 18, 2009

NATO Steps up to the Plate

By Damon Wilson

Afghanistan has eroded support for NATO in Washington. An alliance that has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support is now facing bipartisan skepticism.

Afghanistan NATO

Event Recap

Dec 17, 2009

Vassilis Kaskarelis: Advancing NATO-EU Cooperation

Vassilis Kaskarelis, Greece’s recently posted Ambassador to the United States, joined the Atlantic Council for a private roundtable discussion to offer his assessment of the U.S.-EU relationship and NATO-EU cooperation.

European Union International Organizations

New Atlanticist

Dec 17, 2009

Pakistan’s Year of Decision

By Shuja Nawaz

Even in its waning days, 2009 continues to be a ‘Year of Decision’ in Pakistan, as its fractured polity struggles to right the ship of state while tackling the rising insurgencies inside its borders. This was the year that Pakistan took the battle to the insurgency, first in Swat and Malakand and then into the […]

New Atlanticist

Dec 17, 2009

Iran Could Learn from China’s New Economic Model

By Donald Bandler and Ralph Winnie

The recent demonstrations by pro-democracy activists should provide a clear warning to President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs, who are responsible for maintaining his authority, that the regime must address the social and economic concerns of its well-educated populace if it wants to stay in power. 

Freedom

New Atlanticist

Dec 16, 2009

Stratcon 2010: A Military Route to Freedom?

By Julian Lindley-French

As NATO establishes a new Strategic Concept, the Alliance is re-focusing on its political and military purpose: to defend freedom in the face of those without ethics.

NATO Security & Defense
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