GeoStrategy Initiative Analysis and Events

The Fletcher School and Atlantic Council Tackle Resurgent Authoritarianism and Tools to Respond

By Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security

On April 29 2016, The Fletcher School and the Atlantic Council hosted the inaugural conference on resurgent authoritarianism which brought the security and democratic development communities together to discuss combatting corrupt authoritarian regimes in pivotal regions where the U.S. has national security interests.

The Future of US Competitiveness

By Robert A. Manning

  The world is on the cusp of a new industrial revolution, the convergence and synergy of emerging technologies—artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, 3D printing, sensing technology, advanced manufacturing, new materials, biotech—all built on a digital information technology platform, transforming how we work and live. The United States has been on the cutting edge of […]

The Smartest Places on Earth – Why Rustbelts are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation

By Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center

“The Smartest Places on Earth- Why Rustbelts are the emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation” Exploring how the rustbelts form yesterday can be the “brainbelts” of tomorrow, Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker counter recent conventional wisdom that American and northern European economies have lost their initiative in innovation and their competitive edge. Their book, The Smartest […]

Imagining the Future: An Interview with Greg Lindsay

By Greg Lindsay

With this interview series, we want to explore narratives about future industries and how our lives will look decades from now with expert viewpoints from around the world. Below is a 5-question interview with expert Greg Lindsay: 

Innovation, leadership, and national security

By Franklin D. Kramer and James A. Wrightson, Jr.

This report proposes that both the US government and the American private sector take significant steps to encourage innovation beyond what the United States, already an innovative society, has successfully accomplished.

Impressions from a Trip to Japan

For one week in February, an Atlantic Council team and peers from Washington-based academic institutions and think tanks visited Tokyo, Hiroshima, Saijo, and Miyajima to learn about the culture, traditions, and international policies of Japan. We attended meetings with representatives of government agencies, private companies, and local think tanks. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored […]

The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945

By J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke

The Earth has entered a new age—the Anthropocene—in which humans are the most powerful influence on global ecology. Since the mid-twentieth century, the accelerating pace of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and population growth has thrust the planet into a massive uncontrolled experiment. The Great Acceleration explains its causes and consequences, highlighting the role of […]

Trump’s ‘Sopranos’ Worldview Would Undo Asian Alliances

By Robert A. Manning

In a series of recent comments—most notably in extensive interviews with the New York Times— Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has sketched a worldview and policies toward US allies that could unravel the entire post-World War II order. Among other things, Trump says he would renegotiate all existing trade agreements, and […]

Climate change and US national security: Past, present, future

By Peter Engelke and Daniel Chiu

What is the the past, present, and future of climate security in the United States? The question going forward is whether climate security will remain restricted to discussions within academia, civil society, and a few dedicated places within the US government, or if it will acquire a more pivotal role in the formulation of US national security strategy.

Autocracies failed and unfailed: limited strategies for state building

By Stephen D. Krasner

The fundamental challenge for modern wealthy democracies committed to promoting better governance is that their opportunities are hostage to the preferences of national elites in closed-access polities, where political power is exercised in arbitrary ways, and where most of the population lacks access to services, including the rule of law.

Bridging the Security-Democracy Gap: Tools for Responding to Resurgent Authoritarianism

By Torrey Taussig

A quarter-century after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading authoritarian regimes are thriving in the twenty-first century global security environment. As Freedom House reports, “fundamentally antidemocratic governments have strengthened their hold on power by making at least some of the common set of concessions – largely illusory […]

Global System on the Brink: Pathways toward a New Normal

By Brent Scowcroft Center

Read the Book (PDF) Following the release of a short report in December 2015, the Atlantic Council and the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) have now released the full volume of research behind the report, Global System on the Brink: Pathways toward a New Normal. The longer book goes in-depth on […]