Scowcroft Center Commentary, Analysis, & Reports

Explore the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s latest insights, commentary, articles, media hits, and in-depth reports

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New Atlanticist

Apr 1, 2009

Russia Must Also Hit the Reset Button

By Damon Wilson

In London today, President Obama will begin to test whether he can hit the reset button in U.S.-Russian relations during his first bilateral meeting with President Medvedev.  This is not the first time the United States has tried to “reset” relations with a post-Soviet Moscow.

Russia

New Atlanticist

Mar 31, 2009

Ricks’ The Gamble: Much Better Than Fiasco

By Magnus Nordenman

Thomas Ricks’ new book The Gamble is an excellent account of how the US strategy in Iraq changed in late 2006 in response to the near disaster that was the US occupation of Iraq starting in 2003.

New Atlanticist

Mar 28, 2009

Obama’s Afghanistan Plan: What’s So New About It?

By James Joyner

President Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan has won the backhanded praise of Hamid Karzai, who termed it “better than we were expecting.”  Gordon Brown has lauded the plan as well and called for NATO to do more.

Afghanistan NATO

New Atlanticist

Mar 25, 2009

Pakistan – USA Trust Gap Must be Closed

By Harlan Ullman

George Bernard Shaw quipped that England and America were two like nations divided by a common language.  Today, Pakistan and America are divided by far more than language. One of the most divisive dangers beyond al Qaeda and extremism is the looming trust deficit between Pakistan and America. 

Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Mar 23, 2009

Counterinsurgency Trap: Future of the US Military

By Michael Cohen

Steven Metz, who teaches at the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, reports that he was attending a recent DoD symposium and that “everyone nodded when a speaker said that the threats of the future will be dispersed, non-state entities, but few seemed to understand that this obviates the very essence of American strategy and […]

New Atlanticist

Mar 23, 2009

Naval Transformation: Adding Ploughshares

By Derek Reveron

Much attention has been given to the ways militaries are changing focuses on the ground forces, which conduct peacekeeping, stability operations, and counterinsurgency. After all, NATO countries have more than 200,000 soldiers and marines deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. These ground forces have learned the hard lessons of stability operations and are re-equipping with new […]

New Atlanticist

Mar 20, 2009

Counterinsurgency Consensus Misguided

By Steve Hynd

John McCain and Joe Lieberman have an op-ed in the Washington Post  telling President Obama to…do exactly what he’s already doing in Afghanistan. McCain and Lieberman, the former the designated point man for neocon pressure to keep the Afghan occupation long and strong, have found themselves arguing against previous Obama administration rhetoric designed to keep […]

Afghanistan

New Atlanticist

Mar 18, 2009

French NATO Return Provides Opportunity to Reflect

By James Joyner

Kenneth Weisbrode, a fellow at the European University Institute, argues in a U.S. News essay that the return of France to NATO’s military command offers an opportunity to clarify the institution’s missions but is otherwise no great panacea.

New Atlanticist

Mar 18, 2009

Pakistan: Peril or Promise?

By Harlan Ullman

You are president of Pakistan.  Your country faces seemingly intractable and simultaneous crises. You rightly believe that an existential threat to your nation is posed by the insurgencies led by religious zealots and extremists.

Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Mar 18, 2009

Obama’s Iran Initiative

By James Joyner

Then-candidate Barack Obama avowed in the YouTube debate of July 23, 2007 that, yes, he would “be willing to meet separately, without precondition . . . with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venzuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries.”   While he took a lot of flak for […]

Iran

New Atlanticist

Mar 13, 2009

Does De Gaulle Still Matter?

By Jeffrey Lightfoot

Forty-three years after General Charles de Gaulle’s removal of France from NATO’s integrated command structure, Nicolas Sarkozy announced in an important speech that his country will reverse this symbolically important legacy of Gaullist heritage at the upcoming NATO summit.

NATO Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Mar 12, 2009

Don’t Let the Pentagon Implode

By Harlan Ullman

This week the National Defense University and the Atlantic Council jointly hosted a major conference in Washington on the future of the Department of Defense, drawing literary license from President Obama by calling it “Audacity for Change – Transforming How the Pentagon Conducts Its Business.”

New Atlanticist

Mar 12, 2009

A U.S. Backed North-South Corridor

By Alexandros Petersen

It is a pet peeve of many a “Eurasianist” geopolitical analyst that the U.S. State Department groups Central and South Asia together in its organizational structure.  There may be historical links across Afghanistan, they argue, but these pale in comparison to the Caspian-Central Asia region’s links to Russia, the West, and even China.  Indeed, the […]

New Atlanticist

Mar 10, 2009

Pakistan Army Hits Back at Taliban

By Peter Cassata

Pakistan’s military has successfully driven Taliban militants from Bajaur Agency, a small chunk of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) sandwiched between Afghanistan and the Northwest Frontier Province.  The news is welcome, but Bajaur’s relatively small area and milder terrain make the victory much more difficult to replicate in other regions of the FATA.

Pakistan

New Atlanticist

Mar 6, 2009

Wanted: New Afghan Supply Routes

By Peter Cassata

On top of its decision to close the U.S. airbase at Manas, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted yesterday to end agreements with eleven other countries that also use the base, including several European states, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, Reuters reports.

Afghanistan

New Atlanticist

Mar 3, 2009

Russian Elections Follow Latin America Model

By James Joyner

Russia held local elections Sunday but most observers are crying Foul! Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party has swept local elections that other parties and independent observers said were awash with voting irregularities.

Russia

New Atlanticist

Mar 2, 2009

NATO’s Three Faces

By James Joyner

In a new essay at The National Interest, Richard Betts makes a point I’ve been making since before this blog started:  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is one of the most successful alliances of all time, but after the cold war and the successful completion of its mission, NATO suffered an identity crisis. It now […]

NATO Security & Defense

New Atlanticist

Mar 2, 2009

Iran: Next Stop, Nuclear Weapons

By Peter Cassata

Iran now possesses enough fissile material to produce at least one nuclear bomb, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mullen said over the weekend.  Mullen’s statement follows a February 19 report released by the IAEA that concluded it had underestimated the amount of Iran’s enriched uranium by about one third.

Iran

New Atlanticist

Feb 28, 2009

Caspian Energy Policy Adrift at Sea

By Borut Grgic

Caspian leaders want offers for their gas but instead the EU is holding a series of energy conferences that compete with each other. Europe’s project to create a southern gas corridor bringing Caspian gas to European households is on the verge of collapse. In part that is because Turkey has become a big obstacle to […]

Energy & Environment

New Atlanticist

Feb 27, 2009

Poland Expects Worst on Missile Defense

By James Joyner

Warsaw seems resigned to the Obama administration reneging on an agreement signed by its predecessor to put a missile defense system in Poland.

Missile Defense Poland
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