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Kazakhstan and the United States: Twenty Years of Ambiguous Partnership
The Five Futures of Cyber Conflict and Cooperation
US Lessons for the Eurozone Restoring Confidence through Transparency
Prospects and Challenges for Increasing India-Pakistan Trade
A US-EU Action Plan for Supporting Democratization: Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia
Council News
Jonathan Paris Discusses Syrian Crisis with France 24
Jonathan Paris, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, appeared on France 24 to discuss Russia's support for the Assad regime and what it means for a possible UN resolution against Syria.
Damon Wilson US Senate Testimony: Ukraine at a Crossroads
On February 1, Atlantic Council executive vice president Damon Wilson testified at a hearing of the US Senate Committe on Foreign Relations on the topic: "Ukraine at a Crossroads: What's at Stake for the US and Europe?"
Michele Dunne on US-Egypt Relations for NPR's Morning Edition
Relations between the US and Egypt have taken a downturn since Egyptian authorities raided the offices of seventeen nongovernmental organizations in December - three of them US-funded. Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, spoke on NPR's Morning Edition about the situation and what it means for US aid to Egypt.
FEATURED ISSUE
The South Asia Center receives guidance and support from many experts throughout the world. Our senior fellows, guest-speakers, Center patrons, and visitors contribute heavily to the Center’s mission to “wage peace,” and engage the international community in the region. The Center asked our contributors the simple, but key question, “What you do expect in 2012?”
REGISTER
Craddock: NATO Political Leadership AWOL
James Joyner | May 11, 2009
Supreme Allied Commander John Bantz Craddock told the Atlantic Council that "political leadership in NATO is AWOL" and that fixing the "imbalance" between an enormous strategic ambition and modest political will is vital for success in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The general acknowledged Afghanistan as the most vital mission of the Alliance and stated that there are three strategic objectives: security and stability, good governance, and reconstruction and development. While NATO has a direct role in only the first, it has an indirect role in the other two. While acknowledging the constant refrain of "We don't do nation-building," he said that strengthening Afghan governing institutions was "the critical path" to operational success. He declared, "We can be perfect in securing the area but if government fails, we fail." While this is ultimately the responsibility of the Afghan leaders themselves, Craddock contends NATO has not done enough to help them along.
More fundamentally, the Alliance has not kept its promises. It has not come close to funding the objectives it set for itself in 2006, upon taking control of the mission, and it is clear that the domestic political interests of NATO member states have been paramount over Alliance goals — even though said goals were achieved through painstaking consensus building. Craddock understands that political leaders in democracies have to consider public opinion. At the same time, however, he said "It's the job of leaders to persuade the citizenry" on important foreign policy goals and that "often, this has not been the case."
Asked in the Q&A about today's replacement of David McKiernan with Stanley McChrystal as ISAF commander, he twice demurred, calling it a "U.S. decision" rather than a NATO one. He did allow that he was "informed but not consulted" on the decision.
James Joyner is managing editor of the Atlantic Council.
