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Jeremey Salt, Al-Ahram Weekly | July 20, 2012 Among all the countries involved in the Syrian "cauldron", Turkey's agenda is the hardest to discern. ++ Both committing itself to regime change and sponsoring an armed group for the first time in a neighboring country, Turkey is taking a huge risk. ++ Capitalizing on recent tensions with its neighbor over air space, Turkey is NATO's wedge in this phase of ...More

Andrew Rosenthal, The New York Times | July 19, 2012 When three top officials in Assad's regime were killed in a bombing attack, Russia, with behavior similar to the old Soviet Union, claimed that the West was somehow behind it. ++ When the UNSC votes on whether to extend the oversight of a peace plan, the US and other Western nations will only support the resolution if it also calls for enforceable sanctions ...More

John Bolton, Former US Ambassador to the UN | July 18, 2012 The UN agency WIPO has provided technical support and hardware to Iran and North Korea. ++ Although its contributions are only meant to improve the intellectual-property agencies of both countries, its actions violate UNSC resolutions prohibiting any assistance which could contribute to their nuclear-weapon programs. ++ This lack of accountability and ...More

George Kosmidis, The Jerusalem Post | July 17, 2012 Yemen is struggling with much more than insurgents and al-Qaida cells. ++ The unemployment rate is 35% and the population growth rate is 2.5%. ++ It is necessary for Yemen to diversify its economy away from the oil and gas sectors. ++ This can be done by stabilizing the city of Aden as a prominent deep-water port and free trade zone. ++ Improving security in ...More

Aisling Byrne, Asia Times | July 13, 2012 The Western media has promoted a false narrative on the Syrian conflict. ++ They have created a simplistic story of struggle for democracy and blame the regime for everything. ++ But atrocities committed by the insurgents are rarely reported ++ Or how Russia has attempted to facilitate reconciliation from the onset. ++ This is part of an information campaign to ...More

Dmitri Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center | July 11, 2012 Russia will not change its position on Syria unless the conflict's internal dynamics shift. ++ Moscow does not view Syria as Middle Eastern geopolitics. ++ Rather Russia sees it as about who defines the world order. ++ Moscow consistently opposes military force without a clear UNSC mandate and rejects regime change. ++ Russians are also much less optimistic ...More

Andreas Schockenhoff and Roderich Kiesewetter, Members of the German Bundestag | July 2012 The Euro crisis has been all consuming; German politicians have put all other policy priorities to the side. However, two members of the German parliament have stepped forward into this policy vacuum, and therefore their ideas are highlighted here in the Best of Think Tanks. In a concise nine-page paper, Dr. Andreas Schockenhoff and Roderich Kiesewetter offer ...More

Mure Dickie, Financial Times | July 9, 2012 The chairman of the investigation into the Fukushima disaster lays much of the blame on the shortcomings of Japanese culture. ++ Japan's famous alliance of bureaucracy and big business allows for substandard regulations. ++ However, focusing too much on culture might shift responsibility from those people actually responsible. ++ The problems identified in the ...More

Bergsten & Kirkegaard, Peterson Institute for International Economics | July 2012 Since 2010 many pundits and financial analysts have constantly proclaimed that EU leaders only have three months to save the Euro. The general mood and the outlook gets more and more pessimistic. Thus, the policy brief by Fred Bergsten and Jacob Funk Kirkegaard presents a welcome change of tune. The director and research fellow of the Peterson Institute ...More

Dr. Arunas Molis has been a member of atlantic-community.org since 2009 and works as an associated professor at Vytautas Magnus University and lector at Vilnius University. His range of expertise includes energy security, international relations, European integration and the Baltic States. Before moving to Lithuania, Dr. Molis was affiliated with the Department ...More