Scowcroft Center Commentary, Analysis, & Reports

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 […]

Ahmadinejad Dinner’s Main Course Is All Image

By Frederick Kempe

The questions I had scribbled in my notebook, going into what would become a three-hour dinner meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were key to knowing how dangerous he might be. 1) How much power does he have? 2) Is he as deranged as his rhetoric would suggest? Behind the first question was whether he […]

Iraq Debate: Strategy Not Tactics

The current debate on Iraq is wrongly “focused on the tactics of the moment” rather than the long-term strategic questions, retired Marine General James L. Jones told a full house at the Atlantic Council and a C-SPAN audience. The way forward requires thinking “beyond the next election.” Download the PDF

Independent Commision on the Security Forces of Iraq

Retired Marine General James Jones, Chairman of the Atlantic Council, chaired the Committee that produced this report assessing Iraq’s national police force. The report’s overall assessment said “the Iraqi armed forces – Army, Special Forces, Navy, and Air Force – are increasingly effective and are capable of assuming greater responsibility for the internal security of […]

Korea and Northeast Asia peace and security framework

The United States has few more important policy goals than eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The risk that the repressive Pyongyang regime could transfer nuclear weapons and materials to rogue states or terrorist groups weighs particularly heavy on the minds of U.S. policymakers. Executive Summary U.S. negotiators in February 2007 achieved a breakthrough in […]

U.S. Challenges and Choices in the Gulf: Saudi Arabia

The September 11th terrorist attacks and their aftermath have not altered Saudi Arabia’s fundamental importance in the international arena nor its importance to the United States. Saudi Arabia remains the source of much of the world’s oil reserves, the site of the holiest places in Islam, and the crossroad of strategic lines of communication between […]