Search

Begin New Search Topic Foreign Policy

1501. Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO's Strategic Concept

Author:
Boyko Noev and Harlan Ullman
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is overseeing the drafting of NATO's latest Strategic Concept, set to replace the current version approved in 1999. Even though only a decade has passed, changes across the globe have been stunning and in some cases revolutionary. For NATO, we believe the challenge of the Strategic Concept is to address the question of whether NATO is still relevant or whether it has become a relic. We strongly believe the former. However, that can no longer be taken for granted. Twenty years after the Soviet Union imploded, the Alliance must finally find a new strategic anchor for its raison d'être or deal with the implications of becoming a relic or an Alliance that may have served its purpose.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Asia

1502. Deploying Knowledge: Reforming and Modernizing NATO Defense Education

Author:
Julian Lindley-French and Harlan Ullman
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
NATO must do more with less. The only way this can work is to exercise our intellects and brainpower. That leads to the absolute need for a continuous learning process in which knowledge and understanding are the goals. The complexity of the strategic environment demands no less. This applies to all ranks and services.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Reform
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

1503. Uncertain Kyrgyzstan: Rebalancing U.S. Policy

Author:
Ross Wilson and Damon Wilson
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Kyrgyzstan is lurching forward, its future uncertain. Eleven weeks after street protests forced the collapse of the regime of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and three weeks after the worst ethnic violence in the country's history, a measure of security-enforced calm has returned. The apparently successful June 27 referendum on a new constitution and mandate for Interim President Roza Otunbayeva will provide legitimacy and confidence to the government. But Otunbayeva and the group around her appear to underestimate the difficulties they face and to overestimate their ability to control events. They will have to work hard to overcome divisions among their ranks, staggering political and economic challenges, the risks of renewed violence in the south and antipathy toward Kyrgyzstan elsewhere in Central Asia.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Central Asia

1504. The Iran Stalemate and the Need for Strategic Patience

Author:
Barbara Slavin
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Seventeen months after disputed presidential elections, the Iranian government has forced opposition protestors off the streets but continues to face an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy that is undermining its capacity to implement effective domestic and foreign policies.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

1505. U.S.-Iran Relations: Policy Compendium

Author:
Kenneth Katzman
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
This chapter contains major policy statements and documents on Iran primarily from the current and previous U.S. Administrations. The statements and documents presented here are intended to be illustrative of themes in U.S. policy toward Iran. Statements on specifi c aspects of U.S. policy toward Iran, such as U.S. interpretations of Iran's disputed June 12, 2009 presidential election, Iran's positions on multilateral meetings on its nuclear program, its holding of dual U.S.-Iranian nationals periodically, are a frequent feature of daily State Department and White House press briefi ngs on U.S. foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Treaties and Agreements, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and United Nations

1506. Astana on the Atlantic: Transatlantic Strategy in Central Asia and the OSCE

Author:
Ross Wilson and Damon Wilson
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
An arc of potential disorder and instability increasingly looms over Central Asia. This year's political turmoil and ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan illustrated the difficulties and dangers before the region –and that American interests confront there. Much of Central Asia is not succeeding economically or politically. Parts of it face the prospect of indigenous extremist violence and/or could become new safe havens for transnational threats emanating from Afghanistan. U.S. strategies that for years aimed to support the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and success of the new Central Asian states have come to be dominated by the exigencies of the Afghan war and an increasingly unproductive conversation on human rights and democracy. As a result, those strategies are failing, and U.S. policy is being marginalized.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Central Asia

1507. Advancing U.S., African, and Global Interests: Security and Stability in the West African Maritime Domain

Author:
Kristen E. Smith and John Raidt
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The United States possesses clear and compelling national interests in West Africa, particularly in the region's maritime domain. These vital security, economic, and humanitarian interests, including reliable long-term access to energy, shared largely by the African people and the international community, are at grave risk from regional instability and the increasing potential for state failures in an economically and politically distressed area of over 250 million people.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

1508. Australia-East Asia/US Relations

Author:
Graeme Dobell
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In 2010, Australia saw a first-term-elected prime minister deposed by his own party and then a federal election that produced a hung Parliament. The Labor Parliamentary caucus removal of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on June 24 ushered in Australia‟s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, who waited only three weeks after replacing Rudd before calling a national election, seeking her own mandate from the voters. Instead, the election on Aug. 21 returned the first hung Parliament since World War II. The new Labor government will live on the permanent brink of defeat – fearing an MP‟s heart attack, a defection, a by-election. Gillard has won the right to negotiate for her policy preferences, not to impose them. Running a minority government will demand an almost unremitting domestic focus from Gillard. She has promised a more consultative, inclusive style of politics. The Australian Financial Review summed up the difference between the two leaders with this quote from a senior ministerial adviser: “Kevin governed from a two-man tent. Julia will need a marquee.” Style changes between the Rudd and Gillard governments will be marked. But policy continuity will often be the norm, especially in foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, and War
Political Geography:
East Asia and Australia

1509. A New Global Player

Author:
Julia E. Sweig
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Brazil's rapid economic growth has transformed the country into a new global heavyweight, but Brazil must not let an overly ambitious foreign policy agenda distract it from lingering domestic challenges.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Brazil and Latin America

1510. Self-Inflicted Wounds: Debates and Divisions within al-Qa'ida and its Periphery

Author:
Assaf Moghadam(ed.) and Brian Fishman(ed.)
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
As we approach the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks next September, the United States, its Western allies, and nearly all states in the Islamic world are facing a weakened jihadi enemy, but one still capable of inflicting, or threatening to inflict, spectacular acts of terrorist violence. The recent attempts to send package bombs on cargo planes is only the latest in a series of plots suggesting that although al-Qaida and its cohorts have suffered a number of setbacks, the group and its affiliates and associates continue to pose a serious challenge to the security of the United States and its allies.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Islam, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States