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1. The New Angola: A Conversation with Foreign Minister Manuel Domingos Augusto

Author:
Atlantic Council
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
A twenty-five-year civil war, coupled with rapid oil-fueled growth, shaped Angola into a country ripe with contradictions. It is Sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy and the region’s second largest oil producer. However, many Angolans live on less than $2 a day and social indicators, from education to life expectancy, are low. When President João Lourenço was elected in 2017, many people rejoiced his promise of a “new Angola.” Since then, his government has taken swift action to fight “the cancer of corruption,” clean up the business environment, and diversify the economy, reducing the country’s overdependence on oil revenues. But to make meaningful progress, Angola needs to attract greater foreign investment in sectors beyond petroleum. Please join the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on Monday, August 19, for a timely conversation with H.E. Manuel Domingos Augusto, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Angola, on the US-Angola partnership going forward.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Priority Venezuela: The Global Reverberations of a Humanitarian Crisis

Author:
Atlantic Council
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
As world leaders gather in New York, one crisis – Venezuela -- threatens to increasingly spread beyond its borders without renewed international attention. The Western Hemisphere’s largest man-made emergency is the result of years of Nicolás Maduro’s failed economic policies, cronyism, corruption, and systemic human rights violations. Now is the time to refocus and reaffirm the world’s attention to the global implications of Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Venezuela and Global Focus

3. NATO at Seventy: Filling NATO’s Critical Defense-Capability Gaps

Author:
Wolfgang Schroeder
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
As a young, single-seat fighter pilot based in Germany in the Royal Air Force of the early 1980s, I enjoyed a degree of certainty about my role in life. The world was, to all intents and purposes, a bi-polar place. We knew exactly from where our threat emanated and, indeed, had comprehensive standing plans for dealing with it. In the event of an attack by the Warsaw Pact on NATO’s eastern flank, we had pre-designated areas in which we would interdict any enemy military force heading westwards. We had pre-planned missions for systematically taking down all elements of Soviet air power — be it through suppression of enemy air defense sensors and surfaceto-air systems or denial of his airfields’ operating surfaces. In the event that the conflict escalated too rapidly, or went too far, we even had plans to resort to the ultimate sanction of the pre-planned and graduated employment of tactical nuclear weapons. Our plans, and our skills, were tested on a frequent and regular basis. It was no rare experience to be woken by a siren in the middle of the night to be called to duty. Our response time was measured, as was the ability to demonstrate our preparedness to brief our wartime missions, arm our aircraft, and prove our abilities to be airborne within the allocated time period. The results of these exercises—known as NATO Tactical Evaluations (TacEvals)—were equally rigorous in the Land and Maritime domains. Their results were widely shared within Alliance circles. Achieving a “one” for a TacEval result was every commanding officer’s goal
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Ecology Meets Geopolitics

Author:
Peter Engelke and David Michel
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Himalayan Asia is a shorthand term referring to the Asian countries that depend on river water from the high mountain ranges of the Tibetan Plateau. As the rivers produced by the Himalayas and other mountain ranges on the Plateau are under increasingly serious pressure, water insecurity threatens much of the continent’s peace and security. Himalayan Asia’s transboundary water dynamics threaten to erode interstate cooperation, including among the continent’s major powers, risk worsening geopolitical competition, and heighten the odds of domestic and interstate conflict. Yet there are viable pathways for avoiding such outcomes, the most important of which treat water as a shared resource to be managed cooperatively.
Topic:
Peace Studies and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Asia

5. Transatlantic Air Power and What to Do Now: Key to Deterrence, Key to Collective Defense

Author:
Frank Gorenc
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
As the world enters an era of great-power competition, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) faces a renewed challenge from an old adversary. A Europe whole, free, and at peace is now at risk as Russian aggression challenges the traditional rules-based world order. Russia’s activities in and against Ukraine and Georgia, rampant intrusion on Western democratic processes and political discourse, blatant assassination attempts on NATO soil, support for rogue regimes in Syria and Iran, and military deployments and force accumulation in Kaliningrad and Crimea, as well as in the Sea of Azov, demonstrate that the threat is as real and compelling as it ever was.
Topic:
International Affairs, Democracy, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Dealing with the Offshore Economy

Author:
Alan Riley
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Given that offshore tax havens are largely located in small, independent states or self-governing territories, it could be assumed that they have little connection to OECD states and major financial centers such as London and New York. This is not the case. The so-called tax havens are in fact part of a much larger network of financial and corporate services that depends on lawyers, accountants, and bankers located in major Western cities. Only one part of the havens’ business actually involves providing lower tax rates to individual foreign account holders
Topic:
International Affairs and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Navigating the Energy Transition

Author:
David Koranyi
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
As energy markets and technologies rapidly change, international oil companies (IOCs) are facing a set of interconnected challenges that will fundamentally affect their business models. From changes in the supply and demand picture, to shifts in how energy is produced and consumed, to public pressure to decrease greenhouse gas footprints, companies have a wide range of issues to consider as they decide how to prepare for an unpredictable future. In a new issue brief, “Navigating the Energy Transition: International Oil Company Diversification Strategies,” Global Energy Center Senior Fellow David Koranyi provides a macro picture of select IOC’s strategic (re)thinking and explores some of the strategies IOCs have undertaken to diversify their portfolios and prepare for the unfolding energy transition.
Topic:
Energy Policy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. China's Changing Role in the Middle East

Author:
Atlantic Council
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
China's Changing Role in the Middle East
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
China

9. Russia’s Energy Strategy

Author:
Tatiana Mitrova
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The fate of the “Russian Energy Strategy Up to 2035” paper—a key document defining the country`s strategic priorities in this critically important industry and submitted by Russia’s Energy Ministry every five years—illustrates well the contradictory predicament of Russia’s energy sector. In 2015, after two years of preparations, the latest version was submitted to the government, but national authorities have not approved it until now. Behind the scenes, many conflicting interests prevent the setting of a clear and coherent long-term vision.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Russia

10. Beyond Control: Iran and its Opponents Locked in a Lopsided Confrontation

Author:
Borzou Daragahi
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
For much of its four decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been blessed with a weak political opposition. While Iran has faced competent and powerful foreign enemies—such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the United States, and Israel—its Iranian political challengers, both domestically and abroad, have been largely fragmented, unrealistic in their aims, and sometimes as authoritarian as the regime. But, though few credible Iran watchers argue that opposition groups and figures arrayed against Tehran’s establishment pose a serious threat, Iran treats them as if they are mortal dangers to the regime. This paper attempts to sketch out the landscape of the various major political opposition groups, and begin to grapple with the question of why Iran perceives them as such a challenge
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus