GeoStrategy Initiative Analysis and Events

Read and watch the GeoStrategy’s timely reports, issue briefs, articles, events, and videos to assess the world’s biggest strategic issues. The GeoStrategy Initiative develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and its allies and partners. Its competencies in long-range foresight and strategy development are vital assets to government and business leaders as they navigate a complex and unpredictable world.

Analysis

Transcript

Sep 17, 2013

Transcript: Report Launch: China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future

On September 17 the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative hosted a distinguished panel discussion for the launch of the China-US Cooperation: Key to Global Future report, the culmination of a yearlong US-China Joint Assessment Project. For the project, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, housed in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, partnered with the China Institute of International […]

China

Transcript

Sep 17, 2013

Prepared Remarks by Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai on China-US Cooperation

Prepared remarks by Ambassador Cui Tiankai of the People’s Republic of China delivered at a launch event for the report China-US Cooperation: Key to the Future on September 17, 2013.

China United States and Canada

Report

Sep 17, 2013

China-US cooperation: key to the global future

By China-US Joint Working Group

China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future calls for the creation of a Vision Group of senior American and Chinese nongovernment and former government experts to build on the idea of a new great power relationship proposed by China’s President Xi Jinping.

China Chinese

Issue Brief

Sep 12, 2013

Big Data is changing your world… more than you know

By Banning Garrett

In the latest FutureScape brief from the Atlantic Council's Strategic Foresight Initiative (SFI) at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, SFI’s Senior Fellow for Innovation and Global Trends Banning Garrett assesses the ubiquity of big data and the opportunities and risks it poses to our lives.

Internet Technology & Innovation
E.M. Forster

New Atlanticist

Aug 12, 2013

In the Shadow of Forster’s Room

By Peter Haynes

What might the world look like a century from now? This is not an idle question: if we were able to forecast the ultra-long-term future with at least some degree of accuracy, our approach to policymaking would be very different. For example, if we consider federally funded R&D since World War II, much of it […]

New Atlanticist

Aug 5, 2013

Sun Tzu Would Disapprove of China’s Strategy

By Robert A. Manning

The ghosts of history continue to imperil the promise of an “Asian Century.” The latest in a troubling chain of events was the visit to Beijing recently by Japanese vice minister Akitaka Saiki aimed at mending frayed relations with China. Saiki had barely disembarked from his flight when the official Chinese media ruled out a […]

China

Issue Brief

Jul 24, 2013

A world run on algorithms?

By Banning Garrett

In the latest FutureScape brief from the Atlantic Council's Strategic Foresight Initiative (SFI) at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, SFI’s Senior Fellow for Innovation and Global Trends, Banning Garrett, assesses how algorithms now run much of our lives and in the future will be increasingly ubiquitous in ever more aspects of our personal and work life.

Technology & Innovation

Event Recap

Jul 18, 2013

Long-Term Trends and their Implications for the Transatlantic Partnership

On Tuesday, July 16, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative and Program on Transatlantic Relations hosted a roundtable discussion on “Long-Term Trends and their Implications for the Transatlantic Partnership.” Fred Kempe, Atlantic Council president and CEO, provided opening remarks for the event. Moderation of remarks was provided by Fran G. Burwell, vice-president and director of […]

FutureSource

Jul 18, 2013

Why Cities Still Need Nations (and Vice Versa)

By Peter Engelke

Cities are fashionable these days, and for good reason. Global demographic shifts have been forcing a much broader awareness of urbanization’s tremendous scope and scale. As a result, people are discovering or rediscovering the many virtues of city life, helping to spark awareness that when cities function well, they drive economic growth and technological innovation, […]

Issue Brief

Jul 15, 2013

Rising robotics and the Third Industrial Revolution

By Robert A. Manning

In the latest FutureScape brief from the Atlantic Council's Strategic Foresight Initiative in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Senior Fellow Robert A. Manning assesses the onset of the era of robotics, one component of a technological transformation that is reshaping the world.

Resilience & Society Technology & Innovation

Issue Brief

Jul 9, 2013

Global trends 2030: challenges and opportunities for Europe

By Robert A. Manning

Tailored to address the distinct challenges Europe faces, this report draws upon the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds and provides further, in-depth analysis on the policy priorities and opportunities for Europe in the future.

Central Europe Eastern Europe

Issue Brief

Jun 12, 2013

Labor, technology, and innovation in Europe: facing global risk through increased resiliency

By Peter Engelke and Robert A. Manning

The world is currently undergoing a Third Industrial Revolution, one which challenges the long-term economic vitality of the transatlantic community. In the midst of this third revolution, Europe and the United States face growing threats from structural risks that, if left unaddressed, will undermine chances for long-term recovery from current economic difficulties.

Resilience Technology & Innovation

FutureSource

May 28, 2013

Strategic Foresight: Planning for the Unknowable and the Unavoidable

By Catherine Putz

We do not have to predict the future in order to plan for it. The core concern of strategic foresight is not a simplistic identification of what technology we will use in twenty years, for example, but what effects technological change will have on our national interests. Understanding geopolitical and technological tides will assist policymakers […]

Event Recap

May 16, 2013

Technology and Governance in the World’s Cities

On Thursday, May 16, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight initiative (SFI) of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security hosted a roundtable discussion with Dr. Mathew Burrows, counselor for the US National Intelligence Council and Dr. Parag Khanna, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and adjunct professor of the Lee Kuan Yew School of […]

Disruptive tech workshop

Event Recap

May 10, 2013

Disruptive Technologies Prompt Concerns About Privacy, Unemployment

On Friday, May 10, 2013 the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight initiative (SFI), of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, in partnership with Singularity University, hosted a discussion with Mr. Salim Ismail, founding executive director and global ambassador, and Mr. David Roberts, vice president of community development and graduate studies program director, both of Singularity […]

New Atlanticist

May 7, 2013

Will Chinese Nationalism Lead to War with Japan and the United States?

By Banning Garrett

Will Chinese assertiveness and nationalism lead to war with Japan and the United States, trumping the impact of globalization and growing interdependence? A recent Financial Times commentary by John Plender recently raised this prospect, a familiar theme in much of the Western media and among Washington foreign policy pundits.

China East Asia

Event Recap

Apr 25, 2013

Roundtable on Urbanization and the Global Future

On Thursday, April 25 the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight initiative (SFI), of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, hosted a roundtable discussion with Dr. Tim Campbell, chairman of the board at the Urban Age Institute, Mr. William Cobbett, manager of Cities Alliance, Ms. Reta Jo Lewis, special representative for global intergovernmental affairs, US Department […]

New Atlanticist

Apr 11, 2013

More Self-Sufficient Cities in a 3D Printing World

By Neal Peirce

There has been plenty of hype recently about the wonders of three dimensional printing – a fast-emerging technology that may be able to reproduce any object from an instrument for sublime music (a Stradivarius violin) to a potential weapon of death (a bullet-firing gun). But 3D printing machines can do more than produce objects. They […]

Intelligence Security & Defense

Event Recap

Apr 9, 2013

Sustainable Transport for Global Development and Climate Protection

On Tuesday, April 9, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight initiative (SFI), of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, hosted a roundtable discussion with Dr. Otaviano Canuto, vice president and head of the poverty reduction and economic management network, World Bank, Mr. Holger Dalkmann, director of EMBARQ, the World Resource Institute for sustainable transport, Mr. […]

New Atlanticist

Apr 4, 2013

Disrupting Undersea Cables: Cyberspace’s Hidden Vulnerability

By Paul Saffo

Early last week, operators noted that there were disruptions on multiple undersea communications cables that terminated in Egypt and nearby destinations, including I-ME-WE, TE-North, EIG, and SEA-ME-WE-3. The sheer number of breaks struck some observers as an odd coincidence, but was chalked up to the chronic problem of dragging ship anchors or tangled bottom-nets snagging the […]

Cybersecurity Security & Defense

Events

The GeoStrategy Initiative, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, leverages strategy development and long-range foresight to serve as the preeminent thought-leader and convener for policy-relevant analysis and solutions to understand a complex and unpredictable world. Through its work, the initiative strives to revitalize, adapt, and defend a rules-based international system in order to foster peace, prosperity, and freedom for decades to come.

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.