FEATURED COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS

The Yalta Conference at seventy-five: Lessons from history

New Atlanticist Jul 5, 2024

Dispatch from Warsaw: Poland’s military and economic rise is coming just in time, as the West wobbles

By Daniel Fried

Its rise at home and its strategic clarity about Russia have placed Poland in the first rank of European powers for the first time in centuries.
NATO Poland
The Yalta Conference at seventy-five: Lessons from history

EnergySource Apr 3, 2024

Central and Eastern Europe needs to rethink its approach to energy security

By Pawel Czyzak and Nolan Theisen

The upcoming Three Seas Initiative Summit is an opportune time for Central and Eastern European leaders to pivot toward clean, affordable, and local renewables to build energy security.
Central Asia Central Europe
The Yalta Conference at seventy-five: Lessons from history

New Atlanticist Mar 6, 2024

NATO enlargement at twenty-five: How we got there and what it achieved

By Jerzy Koźmiński and Daniel Fried

Two and a half decades after Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO, their membership continues to protect them from Russian aggression.
Central Europe Hungary

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Content

New Atlanticist

Feb 7, 2020

The Yalta Conference at seventy-five: Lessons from history

By Daniel Fried

One lesson is that core values may have more viability than it seems, especially in the long term: for two generations after 1945, foreign policy professionals and scholars concluded that Roosevelt’s weak defense of Poland at and immediately after Yalta was pointless (or cynical) and that the principles of the Atlantic Charter were inapplicable east of the Iron Curtain. Soviet domination there, it was implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) accepted, was forever. But it turned out otherwise. The Yalta Conference failed but Yalta Europe was not forever. The strategic vision that Roosevelt spelled out in the Atlantic Charter and sought to realize at Yalta—even if miserably—now seems the right one.

Central Europe Politics & Diplomacy

New Atlanticist

Jan 6, 2020

“The truth shall make you free”

By Daniel Fried

Dealing with the gaps, failures, and sins of the national past is what honest countries do. Living with a lie, including a lie about history, is like an untreated infection: it is unlikely to improve with time and will weaken the whole body.

Central Europe Poland

New Atlanticist

Dec 3, 2019

NATO is defined by its success—not its tensions

By David A. Wemer

While international headlines have focused on high-profile disputes within the NATO alliance over a litany of issues including defense spending, trade, Syria, and Brexit, transatlantic leaders stressed on December 3 that these disagreements are dwarfed by the continued success of the seventy-year-old alliance.

NATO Poland

Transcripts

Dec 3, 2019

NATO Engages transcript: Defense and deterrence for a new era

By Atlantic Council

After an introduction by Dr. Karin Von Hippel, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, H.E. Andrzej Duda, president of Poland and H.E. Zoran Zaev and prime minister of the Republic of North Macedonia speak on a panel moderated by Stephen Sackur, presenter on BBC Hardtalk

NATO Poland

New Atlanticist

Nov 7, 2019

We must never stop tearing down walls

By Jakub Wiśniewski

If there is one thing to learn from history it is that no accomplishment is complete or forever. There is always some wall, in literal or figurative sense, being built or rebuilt somewhere.

Central Europe Democratic Transitions

In the News

Oct 31, 2019

Simonyi quoted in Voice of America Russia on Hungary-Russia relations

By Atlantic Council

Conflict Geopolitics & Energy Security

New Atlanticist

Oct 21, 2019

Poland, America, and a new West

By Daniel Fried

To keep the “good times” in Poland, and the good times in US-Polish relations which helped lead the good times generally, Americans and Poles alike need to make efforts and show wisdom.

Democratic Transitions Nationalism

New Atlanticist

Sep 20, 2019

How to make a lasting regime change: A guide for aspiring (democratic) reformers

By Jakub Wiśniewski

Why did the Central Europeans succeed when so many efforts at regime change from within failed – ending in tears, bitter disappointment or bloodshed?

Central Europe Democratic Transitions

New Atlanticist

Aug 13, 2019

To deal with bad ideas, develop better solutions

By Daniel Fried

Putin’s Russia has a track record of using gas exports as political pressure, for example, against Ukraine in the years leading up to Putin’s attack on that country in 2014 and has threatened to do the same to Central European countries, including those in the European Union.

Central Europe Energy Markets & Governance

New Atlanticist

Aug 12, 2019

House amendment could scuttle US attempts to decrease reliance on Russian gas

By Agnia Grigas

Today, the European Union relies on Russia for between 30 to 40 percent of its gas imports, while Germany’s dependency rate on Russian gas is growing rapidly, putting US military installations in Germany dependent on continued energy supply from Russia.

Central Europe Russia
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Experts

Millennium fellow

David Dorosz

Deputy Mayor of Budapest for Climate and Development, City of Budapest

Millennium Leadership Program

Central Europe Climate Change & Climate Action

Millennium fellow

Katrin Eggenberger

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Justice and Culture of the Principality of Liechtenstein

Millennium Leadership Program

Central Europe Eastern Europe

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Zoltán Fehér

Nonresident Fellow

Global China Hub

Central Europe China

Staff

Jonah Fisher

Senior Director

Millennium Leadership Program

Arabic Central Europe

Staff

Denise Forsthuber

Deputy Director, Strategic Engagement and Operations

Europe Center Transform Europe Initiative

Central Europe Eastern Europe

Fellow

Daniel Fried

Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow

Economic Statecraft Initiative Eurasia Center

Eastern Europe Democratic Transitions
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