Atlantic Council

NATO allies should construct a new relationship with Russia, so that mutual challenges and threats faced by both sides can be addressed more effectively. By keeping Russia as an auxiliary partner in the international security environment, Western powers expend tireless effort competing with the Russians on issues ranging from North Korea and Iran, to missile defense and NATO expansion.

NATO allies should construct a new relationship with Russia, so that mutual challenges and threats faced by both sides can be addressed more effectively. By keeping Russia as an auxiliary partner in the international security environment, Western powers expend tireless effort competing with the Russians on issues ranging from North Korea and Iran, to missile defense and NATO expansion.

Will this weekend's G20 summit really be "Bretton Woods II?"  The answer from Europe (like the U.S.) seems to be no. 

Tomorrow, leaders of the top industrialized countries and the key emerging economies that make up the G20 will meet in Washington for a Global Economic Summit. This meeting is a critical first step towards international coordination in addressing the current financial crisis.

One truism that I've noted over the years is that any event that I experience in person will invariably be reported in the press quite differently.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told the Atlantic Council this afternoon that al Qaeda's safe haven in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal areas have provided a "sanctuary" that has "allowed it to recover some capacity lost when expelled from Afghanistan" nearly seven years ago.

These remarks were delivered recently at the Atlantic Council's conference on Reforming NATO for the 21st Century.

The Kremlin's latest move to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad is the first time since the Cold War that Russia has "declared its intention to create a military threat to the West." Yet the nature of the threat does not represent a fundamental challenge to U.S. or European security and has been largely overblown on both sides.

Facing a worsening economic situation and a war in Iraq that will be difficult to end—in short, grave overstretch—the next U.S. administration will seek to return to a more multilateral foreign policy and attempt to work closely with Europe. But Europe may not be willing or able to meet American expectations to play a larger role in international security.

Oil prices have plummeted in recent weeks, hitting a 20-month low of $59 per barrel, a 60 percent drop-off from its summer high of $147.  One might reasonably think that this would be crippling to a country like Russia, which relies so heavily on energy exports to stake its claim to major power status. 

The Troika Dialog team, though, argues that it's much more complicated than that.