Scowcroft Center Commentary, Analysis, & Reports

Grim Prospects in Afghanistan

By Don Snow

The war in Afghanistan is now seven years old, and it is no closer to being over than it was when it began. For years, it has flown beneath the radar cover provided by Iraq. As the Iraq war winds down, however, attention has, as noted earlier this week ("Are We Losing in Afghanistan?"), begun […]

Piracy’s Silver Lining?

By Peter Pham

I recently outlined the growing challenge to international commerce and security posed by the burgeoning piracy in the waters off the Somali coast and lamented that it looked unlikely that the international community would muster the political will to confront the underlying causes of the pirate phenomenon. Nonetheless, there may be an upside to the […]

Privacy, Biometrics and the War on Terror

By Neil Leslie

Anglo-Americans are the exception when it comes to national ID cards. Almost every other major country that has suffered from terrorism in the past quarter-century has instituted some form of compulsory national identification. Germany, Spain, Israel, Turkey, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan have all done so. The United States and the United Kingdom […]

Afghanistan: Necessary But Not Sufficient

By James Joyner

Michael J. Totten takes exception to the frequently expressed view that "the war on terrorism started in Afghanistan and it needs to end there." If Afghanistan were miraculously transformed into the Switzerland of Central Asia, every last one of the Middle East’s rogues gallery of terrorist groups would still exist. The ideology that spawned them […]

Pakistan’s Strategic Moment

By Jeffrey Lightfoot

The massive bombing of the Islamabad Marriott has deeply shaken Pakistan, offering the newly elected civilian leadership a strategic opportunity to aggressively pursue the Islamic militants that threaten the country’s viability and territorial integrity. After alienating Pakistanis with counterproductive military action against militants on the Pakistani side of the Durand line, Washington must now play […]

Russia’s Empty Promises

By James Joyner

Mark Mardell, the BBC’s resident Euroblogger, is quite pleased with Moscow’s concessions to Nicolas Sarkozy and his EU delegation.  While hedging his bets, he writes, “If this first superficial take is as it appears then Sarkozy has done rather well and those who insisted on both unity and a firmish line at the EU summit […]

NATO and the Near Abroad: Beyond Bucharest

By Nikolas Gvosdev

Those predicting that the Russian incursion into Georgia will rejuvenate transatlantic solidarity might be overly optimistic.

Perspectives on peace and security in Korea and Northeast Asia

The Atlantic Council of the United States published a report entitled A Framework for Peace and Security in Korea and Northeast Asia in April 2007. The report was the culmination of deliberations of a working group of distinguished American scholars and practitioners with a wide range of experience on Korea and Northeast Asia and chaired […]

Saving Afghanistan: An Appeal and Plan for Urgent Action

Make no mistake, the international community is not winning in Afghanistan. Unless this reality is understood and action is taken promptly, the future of Afghanistan is bleak, with regional and global impact. The purpose of this paper is to sound the alarm and to propose specific actions that must be taken now if Afghanistan is […]

A Road Map for Restructuring U.S. Relations with Cuba

The U.S. government has sought to advance democratic and free-market change in Cuba for 47 years. Those efforts have failed. Indeed, the transfer of power from Fidel Castro has produced little change in Cuba’s politics and took place with no manifestations of broad popular demands for an end to one-party Communist rule. Instead, the Cuban […]

Cyber Attack: Risk Management Primer for CEOs

No business, government, nongovernmental, or other organization of whatever size is invulnerable to cyber attacks. Business owners and executives, including managing directors, cannot afford to put at risk the security and stability of their operating and financial systems, confidential information, intellectual property, and business transactions to cyber predators through lack of knowledge or initiative.Download the […]