United States and Canada

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 […]

Intelligence Sharing: Getting the National Counterterrorism Analysts on the Same Data Sheet

Colonel Daniel Putbrese, USAF, an Atlantic Council Senior Fellow, argues in  “Intelligence Sharing: Getting the National Counterterrorism Analysts on the Same Data Sheet” that it is imperative that national counterterrorism centers be able to access undisseminated  data before it has been analyzed, filtered, and/or packaged and that doing so requires a radical change in the […]

Libya and the United States: The Next Steps

Over the past several years, the Atlantic Council’s International Security Program has taken a position that, in due course, the United States’ adversarial relationships with countries, such as Libya, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea will eventually be restructured both in recognition of changes in the nature or policies of these difficult regimes, and in […]

Global Futures and Implications for U.S. Basing

This Atlantic Council report examines the geopolitical context that will likely frame the security environment of the next 20 to 40 years and identifies the implications of U.S. bases in foreign countries. We organized a group of former senior military leaders, diplomats, business leaders, and other experts, with the goal of pooling their wisdom and […]

The New Partnership: Building Russia-West Cooperation on Strategic Challenges

The challenge of transcending the Cold War relationship between Russia and the West and supplanting it with a new partnership capable of dealing cooperatively with the major international issues of the time has been a major focus of policy for the past decade and a half. This report, prepared by non-official leaders and experts from […]

Moldova Matters: Why Progress is Still Possible on Ukraine’s Southwestern Flank

By Pamela Hyde Smith

The Atlantic Council asked Pamela Hyde Smith, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Moldova from 2001 to 2003, to highlight the dangers of the Transnistria situation and to suggest some policy approaches to its resolution. In this paper, Ambassador Smith outlines the challenges faced by Moldova and gives her analysis of how they can best […]

U.S.-Cuban Relations: An Analytic Compendium of U.S. Policies, Laws, and Regulations

By Dianne E. Rennack & Mark P. Sullivan

This compendium presents the texts of the U.S. policy statements, laws, and regulations (or relevant parts thereof) that govern U.S. relations with Cuba, on both the bilateral and multilateral levels. Preceding each group of documents is an analytic summary, which highlights the context, major provisions, and significance of the policies, laws, or regulations in question […]

Military Force Transformation: Progress, Costs, Benefits and Tasks Remaining

By S. J. Deitchman

Following the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a consensus has emerged that the transformation of the U.S. military has been a success. But, as current events in Iraq and elsewhere demonstrate, U.S. force transformation is not yet complete. This report elaborates not only the history, costs and benefits of transformation to date, but also […]

The Transatlantic Economy in 2020: A Partnership for the Future?

The United States and the European Union maintain the world’s largest and most significant economic relationship, which in turn is a foundation supporting the transatlantic political partnership. By some estimates, the transatlantic economy — including two-way trade and foreign affiliate sales — totals $2.5 trillion and is responsible for 14 million jobs in the United […]