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Nawaz Offers Views on Changing Pakistani Perceptions of U.S.
Shuja Nawaz, Director of the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, was interviewed on The Takeaway morning radio news program on the Pakistan flood situation. The discussion focused on the U.S. being the single largest donor of aid, and the potential for Pakistanis to shift their perceptions of America. Nawaz insists that the U.S. should stay the course with aid to Pakistan, but warns of the long-term effects of America's goodwill, stating that "changing image takes a long time."
Nancy Walker Addresses U.S. Africa Command Conference
Dr. Nancy J. Walker, Director of the Ansari Africa Center, gave the keynote address at Africa Command’s Senior Leader Offsite Conference in Starnberg, Germany on August 26, 2010.
South Asia Center's Shikha Bhatnagar Spotlighted
Shikha Bhatnagar's recent appointment as Associate Director of the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council, is yet another manifestation of a growing trend of second generation Indian Americans' advent into leading Washington, DC think tanks as senior policy analysts and associates.
Chuck Hagel Discusses START Ratification on RussiaToday
Atlantic Council Chairman Chuck Hagel was interviewed for RussiaToday on delays in ratification of the START treaty in both the U.S. and Russia.
FEATURED ISSUE
In August the sunny calm and quiet that is a Swedish summer will be shattered by the impact of Joint Direct Attack Munitions dropped by F-16CM Fighting Falcons from US Air Force Europe.
Failures on Both Sides of the Atlantic
James Joyner | June 01, 2009
Charlie McCreevy, the EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, says that, while many Europeans like to "delude themselves that the financial crisis was a purely American virus," the fact of the matter is that "there were failures on both sides of the Atlantic."
Speaking at the Atlantic Council just moments ago in a speech that was both surprisingly candid and often humorous, McCreevy forthrightly both defended the general concept of free trade and the natural tendency of democratic politicians to seek advantage for their constituents. While urging that "we can no longer rely on outmoded notions of national regulation," he tacitly acknowledged that we were likely to continue doing just that. While we have "a fully global economy and have to cooperate regionally, bilaterally, and globally" and therefore "need to build a new financial regulatory system together," there are no institutional means for meaningfully doing so.
He observed that "the EU is a very peculiar construct" because it operates on consensus. Even his own office, powerful as it is, can only issue rules for the Eurozone; even there, the EU only oversees monetary policy, not financial policy. And, while just about every member state agrees that reforms are necessary, actually going through the procedures necessary to make major changes "would take a decade or more." Thus, he and other EU leaders are muddling through, attempting to graft reforms onto the current system.
McGreevy noted that "No government anywhere can make the necessary reforms" for dealing with the current crisis "without becoming politically unpopular." And politicians worldwide are unlikely to alienate their constituents, not simply because they wish to be reelected, but because it's very difficult to look people in danger of losing their jobs — or who have already done so — in the eye and preach to them on the virtue of free markets.
Much of this is obvious — indeed, McGreevy said that "it goes without saying" that national interest comes first — but it was refreshing to hear such a prominent EU official so candidly admit that truth.
James Joyner is managing editor of the Atlantic Council. Photo by Julie Hittle.
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