Atlantic Council

The Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East is pleased to release a new issue brief, "Lessons from Constitution-Making in Tunisia," authored by non-resident fellow Duncan Pickard who examines the challenges and lessons learned from the country's constitution-writing process.

On Monday December 10, 2012 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the National Intelligence Council's (NIC) latest Global Trends report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds. The Global Trends project engages expertise from outside government on factors of such as globalization, demography and the environment, producing a forward-looking document to aid policymakers in their long term planning on key issues of worldwide importance.

Envisioning 2030: US Strategy for a Post-Western World is a report released today by the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative that urges the Obama Administration to seize a historic opportunity to ensure America’s global interests over the long term.

In the latest in the series of “IntelBriefs” on African security issues being produced by the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center in partnership with the Soufan Group, an international strategic consultancy, Ansari Center Deputy Director Bronwyn Bruton notes that the rate of attacks by Somali pirates has plunged and attributes the drop mostly to the adoption of self-protection measures, including the use of armed security teams, by the private sector.

For the Smarter Alliance Initiative, Tom Parkhouse, senior fellow with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, and Leendert van Bochoven emphasize in “An Agenda for NATO-EU-Private Sector Cyber Collaboration,” that a secure cyber environment will encourage investment in the Euro-Atlantic area, increase competitiveness of Euro-Atlantic business, and promote export of Euro-Atlantic cyber security products.

In “Strategic Cyber Early Warning: A Phased Adaptive Approach for NATO," a paper from the Smarter Alliance Initiative, Jason Healey, director of the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, and Leendert van Bochoven, NATO and European Defense leader at IBM, formulate steps for NATO to improve its cyber warning system.

The Atlantic Council's Energy and Environment Program released a report entitled: "Impact of Municipal, Industrial, and Commercial Water Needs on the Energy Water Nexus: Challenges, Solutions, and Recommendations," which highlights the issues that were brought to light in the June 2012 workshop Water and Watts: the Potential to Save Energy and Water in the Municipal, Industrial and Commercial Sectors.

In the latest in the series of “IntelBriefs” on African security issues being produced by the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center in partnership with the Soufan Group, an international strategic consultancy, Ansari Center Director J. Peter Pham explores the background behind the destruction of an arms factory south of Khartoum last week—an attack which Sudanese officials have blamed on Israel, whose government has refused comment—to Iran’s growing reach in Africa, both as a strategic objective in itself and as a means to funnel arms to Tehran’s allies elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East.

The Counter-Piracy Task Force, a collaboration between the Atlantic Council's Michael S. Ansari Africa Center and Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security release its report on "Managing the Global Response to Maritime Piracy."

The latest Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center issue brief, “ Ukraine’s Parliamentary Election 2012: A Critical Moment for Democracy,” by assistant director Anna Borshchevskaya, reviews key issues in the country’s October 28 parliamentary (Verkhovna Rada) elections.