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

Jan 13, 2010

The Coming Pentagon Boost: Obama Strong on War Funding

By Damon Wilson

For all the talk around town of increasing pressure on defense spending in a time of austerity, high unemployment and eye-popping deficits, the Pentagon budget is poised to reach the historic level of $700 billion – a 4.8 % increase over Obama’s FY2010 request (and a 125% increase since 2001).

New Atlanticist

Jan 12, 2010

America’s Billion Dollar Intelligence Boondoggle

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

The Jordanian “triple” agent bomber whose suicide killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan December 30 was a physician and self-avowed jihadist whose virulent anti-Americanism was well-known in the capital city of Amman. Homam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi, 33, “moderated” a Yemen-based, radical Islamic forum (Hisbah.net) on which he said his “ultimate dream in life is […]

New Atlanticist

Jan 12, 2010

Stop France Arming Russia

By David Smith

 ship Mistral tied up at a downtown Saint Petersburg pier November 23. With the golden dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral shimmering in the background, the amphibious assault ship made a perfect sales promotion picture, which was precisely its mission. Some in Paris—led by the Elysée Palace—want to sell Mistral class ships to Russia, a venture […]

New Atlanticist

Jan 11, 2010

Who is Running Our Afghanistan Policy?

By Bernard Finel

In a recent report, Major General Michael T. Flynn, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in Afghanistan levels a damning indictment against the U.S. conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan

New Atlanticist

Jan 8, 2010

Al Qaeda a Moving Target

By Don Snow

Connections between the Christmas Underwear Bomber and the Ft. Hood massacre to a radical cleric in Yemen have once again returned that desert country to the center of the ongoing contest against terror and its most notorious emblem, Al Qaeda. It is, of course, not the first time Americans (including much of the media) have […]

New Atlanticist

Jan 8, 2010

South Asia in 2010: Black Swans

By Cyril Almeida

Black swans. Thanks to the irascible Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the world is now familiar with the term. But perhaps few places should beware of the black swan like Pakistan should, or at least those in the business of making predictions about Pakistan.

New Atlanticist

Jan 8, 2010

South Asia in 2010: Difficult Times Could Get Worse

By Bruce Riedel

The war in Afghanistan will intensify in 2010 as NATO tries to regain the initiative from the insurgency.  Casualties will rise.  By year’s end we will only begin to see whether or not Obama’s strategy shows signs of reversing the momentum away from the Taliban.

New Atlanticist

Jan 8, 2010

South Asia in 2010: High Stakes

By Hilary Synnott

The 2009 strategy towards Afghanistan will fall to be reassessed in 2010. If exasperation and domestic political expediency override hard-headed analysis and lead to a reliance on kinetic options as a presumed final alternative, the consequences in the region – and for the U.S. – will be truly bleak.

New Atlanticist

Jan 7, 2010

The Cost of Korean Reunification

By Peter Beck

North Korea’s nuclear program has preoccupied foreign policy makers for years, but it’s not the only problem on the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jong Il’s regime looks increasingly unstable and could collapse.

New Atlanticist

Jan 7, 2010

South Asia in 2010: A Bleak Future

By Ahmed Rashid

2010 will be a year of critical challenges for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both nations need to move towards political stability, succeed against extremism and attain economic growth.

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
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