Europe & Eurasia

US strategy toward China’s belt and road initiative

By Gal Luft

The balance in Eurasia is shifting. China’s President Xi Jinping has ambitious visions for Asia, while the rest of the world reshuffles to find its place in the rapidly changing global order. The United States would be better off engaging with the BRI and trying to influence its design and mechanics from within, rather than staying on the sidelines and witnessing its allies gravitating toward China.

Economic Sanctions After Brexit: What Roles Should the Public and Private Sector Play?

By Global Business & Economics Program

On October 3, The Atlantic Council’s Economic Sanctions Initiative held a two-paneled public event entitled: Economic Sanctions After Brexit: What Roles Should the Public and Private Sector Play?

Ukraine’s internally displaced persons hold a key to peace

By Lauren Van Metre, Steven E. Steiner, and Melinda Haring

This paper examines Ukraine’s IDP policies in the context of the largercrisis between Moscow and Kyiv, and is based in part on extensive fieldwork with displaced persons who have settled in Kyiv and Vinnytsia.

Ukraine’s internally displaced persons hold a key to peace

By Lauren Van Metre, Steven E. Steiner, and Melinda Haring

“Ukraine’s displaced persons can and should play a role in a sustained peace process, and many are already building bridges and fostering local reconciliation,” write authors Lauren Van Metre, Steven E. Steiner, and Melinda Haring, in “Ukraine’s Internally Displaced Persons Hold a Key to Peace,” a new issue brief by the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu […]

The military implications of Catalonian secession—an update

By James Hasik

assuming that Catalonia was admitted to NATO, what would the newly independent country contribute? At the 2014 Strategic Foresight Forum at the Atlantic Council, Anne Marie Slaughter of the New America Foundation opined that an independent Catalonia would do a fine job of defending itself. After all, Catalonia is a country of over 7 million people, with more than $300 billion in GDP. Spending just 1.6% of that—well below the widely-ignored NATO threshold, of course—provides over $4.5 billion annually. y de-emphasizing the military forces that any landlocked country will have, and instead steering investments towards those it is comparatively positioned to provide, Catalonia could punch above its weight in European political affairs.

Future Tense: What Next for Catalonia?

Catalonia’s controversial independence referendum has left Spain with many unanswered questions and an unclear path forward, according to Carles Castello-Catchot, chief of staff in the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. On October 1, the regional government of Catalonia in northern Spain went ahead with a referendum that Spain’s constitutional court had deemed […]