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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.
Atlantic Council SAG Members Nominated for Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military Literature
The Oxford Handbook of War, edited by Atlantic Council Strategic Advisors Group members Julian Lindley-French and Yves Boyer, has been nominated for the prestigious Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature awarded by the Royal United Services Institute.
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
SCO Offers Neutral Venue for Engagement
Lynn Roche | March 19, 2009
The Obama administration's decision to sit in on next week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) meeting in Moscow is a welcome sign of U.S. readiness to engage on many levels to deal with real world issues. This conference on Afghanistan, which is a guest member, could help its neighbors play a more direct role in security and stability there. If that happens in coordination with the West and NATO, so much the better. France also plans to attend the Moscow meeting, which comes just before the March 31 international conference on Afghanistan at The Hague. To be all pointing in the same direction, that is, toward Afghan security, will be a significant step.
The SCO grew out of the Shanghai Five founded in 1996 to coordinate border security between five nations of Central Asia – Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – and added Uzbekistan in 2001. It has usually been viewed as an attempt to counterbalance NATO and therefore, suspect.
That outlook is short-sighted.
Focusing on mutual security issues such as counter-terrorism and drug trafficking in this thorny part of the world, the SCO provides a valuable function that the West hasn’t taken advantage of so far. The observer states (India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan) also have strong interests in stability in the region – and several of them are already our partners. Beyond the SCO security agenda, talking about trade and development helps these countries coordinate on a regional level.
One interesting signal of SCO intentions is the March 19 decision that Iran would not become a full member in 2009. Apparently Iran is too much of a liability because of its nuclear program. The SCO wants to avoid taking on that problem given the mutual assistance guarantee provided to SCO members.
It’s the right time to enlist the SCO’s input and assistance on Afghanistan. It’s an opportunity to work with Russia and China in a multilateral forum, hopefully leaving some of our bilateral baggage at the door. Given the sensitive logistics of working in Afghanistan that recently saw the decision to close the U.S. air base at Manas, only to be offered a route through Russia, the U.S. and NATO need to work with Afghanistan’s neighbors if at all possible.
If the SCO can provide a forum for those discussions, we should seize the moment.
Lynn Roche is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.
