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Begin New Search Topic Economics Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Atlantic Council

11. Middle East 2020: Shaped by or Shaper of Global Trends?

Author:
Mathew J. Burrows
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
With new crises sprouting almost on a daily basis in the Middle East, there is increasing interest in knowing the possible medium- and long-term consequences of the cascading developments in the region. This report attempts to think about the alternative futures possible in the Middle East over the next five to ten years. This is a shorter-term forecast than usual, but in the Middle East more deep-seated and structural factors are in flux than in most other regions. A longer-term forecast would allow for more optimism, but would be less useful for decision-makers who not only need a bird's eye view of where developments are headed but also a notion of the pressure points to effect positive change now.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, Regime Change, and Political Activism
Political Geography:
Middle East

12. Stabilizing Afghanistan: Proposals for Improving Security, Governance, and Aid/Economic Development

Author:
Tobias Ellwood
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Afghanistan's future remains bleak. After a painful decade, all must now admit that Plan A (as outlined in the Bonn Accord1 and confirmed in the Afghan constitution has yet to create the necessary foundations for stability. Much of the international community privately acknowledges the gloomy outlook and now seeks a decent interval of stability after 2014 to distance itself from the responsibility for what might happen next as global attention turns to the jihadist threat in the Sahel region of Africa.
Topic:
Security, Development, Economics, International Cooperation, Governance, and Reform
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Africa

13. Envisioning 2030: US Strategy for the Coming Technology Revolution

Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
This report has a simple message: We are not prepared for the negative consequences of many new technologies or as well-positioned as we should be to take full advantage of the benefits. Emerging technologies are likely to be more beneficial than detrimental, but the opposite could be true if we are not careful. This report examines emerging technologies in three broad areas—energy, smart cities, and manufacturing—that are playing critical yet disruptive roles: all present opportunities for the US and its partners, but also huge challenges and risks.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, and Hegemony
Political Geography:
United States

14. The United States, Russia, and Europe: Trilateral Security Dialogue in the Absence of Strategic Partnership

Author:
Isabelle Francois
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The past twenty years have been marked by a series of setbacks and disappointments in the US-European-Russian dialogue, despite regular attempts to develop a strategic partnership. In this cyclical relationship, 2012 was a low point in Western relations with Russia, from the calculated absence of President Vladimir Putin at the NATO summit in Chicago to the Russian ban on American adoptions of Russian orphans, and the US reaction to the Sergei Magnitsky case. The year 2013 could have been the beginning of an upswing in the trilateral dialogue. In April, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on the margins of the G8 foreign ministers' gathering in London. At the same time, US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon called on Putin in Moscow, where he hand-delivered a letter from President Barack Obama detailing potential areas of cooperation. A series of meetings between Russian and American officials throughout the summer saw a new diplomatic push to reframe the US–Russia relationship in the run-up to the Group of Eight meeting in June and the G20 meeting in September 2013. However, the Edward Snowden affair and Obama's subsequent decision to cancel the planned September meeting with Putin in light of insufficient progress on bilateral issues point to a pause in the relationship.
Topic:
International Relations and Economics
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, America, and Europe

15. The Europe We Would Like to Inherit: Toward a Visionary New Pragmatism

Author:
Dustin Dehez, Muddassar Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Spela Kranjc, and Ivo Sobral
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Europe urgently needs to move forward on a number of crucial reforms simultaneously. To face the challenges of the recession, we need better economic integration. The crisis of the Euro zone is not only a debt crisis. What Europe is facing is a multitude of different crises, of which the debt crises in Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and Italy are only a small part. All European countries have accumulated huge debts, their social security models are facing an inevitable demographic challenge of enormous proportions. The conventional crisis management response—austerity—has failed to create a foundation for future economic stability. To survive, Europe needs to rethink the very foundations of its economic policies for a population that is older and a Europe more fractured. Europe needs to open itself up to immigration, foster regulation and integration of financial markets, overhaul social security structures set up decades ago, galvanize productive investment in new post-carbon industries that will create jobs and spur technological innovation, and invest in a security sector that is capable of projecting stability.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Politics, and Reform
Political Geography:
Europe, Greece, Spain, Italy, and Cyprus

16. Mexico Rising: Comprehensive Energy Reform at Last?

Author:
David J. Goldwyn
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Mexico's Congress passed its final hurdle to reform the Constitution and allow for private investment in the energy industry on December 12, 2013. This significant achievement heralds the most comprehensive energy reform in the last seventy-five years of the country's history.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Oil
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Mexico

17. Redefining Leadership in the Global Nuclear Energy Market

Author:
Andrew Paterson and Walter Howes
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Global energy demand will increase substantially in the coming decades under pressure from global trends, including an increasing population that will reach 9 billion by 2040, and, for the first time in history, will be overwhelmingly urban. Meeting basic global energy needs will require the use of all available sources of energy while addressing and minimizing environmental and climate impacts. Nuclear energy is an established part of the world's electricity mix, and provides large-scale, reliable, base-load electricity demand. As such, it seems to be well matched to fit into an increasingly urban world that aims to mediate environmental challenges.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
United States and Asia

18. Fueling America and the Energy Water Nexus

Author:
Richard L. Lawson, Mihaela Carstei, Blythe Lyons, and John Lyman
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
A substantive dialogue has emerged in the United States under the rubric of “the energy and water nexus,” representing the deepening understanding of the circular relationship between water and energy. Both are essential building blocks of US economic and physical security, and interface with efforts to improve health and prosperity. On a national level, the criticality of this relationship to economic and public prosperity is often ignored, as energy and water impacts are largely specific to a watershed or a local surface water source. Simply put, energy security and the availability of water are both critical elements of US national security. Furthermore, ensuring adequate water supplies underpins the production of energy resources, which remains a major driver of the US economy.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, Human Rights, and Water
Political Geography:
America

19. Envisioning 2030: US Strategy for a Post-Western World

Author:
Robert A. Manning
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The National Intelligence Council in its new report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, argues that the historic moment the Obama Administration now confronts “recalls past transition points–such as 1815, 1919, 1945, and 1989–when the path forward was not clear-cut and the world faced the possibility of different global futures.”
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Globalization, Politics, and Hegemony
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Atlantic Ocean

20. Pakistan in the Danger Zone

Author:
Shuja Nawaz
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The Afghanistan war may be lost on the battlefields of Pakistan, where a vicious conflict is now being fought by Pakistan against a homegrown insurgency spawned by the war across its Western frontier. A year after we at the Atlantic Council raised a warning flag about the effects of failure in Afghanistan and the need to meet Pakistan's urgent needs in its existential war against militancy and terrorism, the situation in Pakistan remains on edge. Domestic politics remain in a constant state of flux, with some progress toward a democratic polity overshadowed by periodic upheavals and conflicts between the ruling coalition and the emerging judiciary. The military's actions against the Taliban insurgency appear to have succeeded in dislocating the homegrown terrorists but the necessary civilian effort to complement military action is still not evident. The government does not appear to have the will or the ability to muster support for longer-term reform or sustainable policies. The economy appears to have stabilized somewhat; but security, governance, and energy shortages are major challenges that require strong, consistent, incorruptible leadership rather than political brinkmanship, cronyism, and corruption that remains endemic nationwide. Recent constitutional developments offer a glimmer of hope that may allow the civilian government to restore confidence in its ability to deliver both on the domestic and external front. But the government needs to stop relying on external actors to bail it out and take matters into its own hands.
Topic:
Security, Development, Economics, Government, Governance, and Reform
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Southeast Asia