Atlantic Community:Open Think Tank Article "Happy Holidays! Highlights from 2011"

A look back at some of the highlights from 2011 at Atlantic Community:

Memos

The past year has seen the publication of seven Atlantic Memos:

Arab Spring: The West's Chance for a Fresh Start

How to Invest in Afghanistan's Long-Term Stability

Women: The Key to Conflict Resolution

NATO Partnerships: Strengthening Ties with Asia

Security Despite Austerity: Improving Europe's Defense

Goodbye to EU Prestige Thinking: Redefining the CSDP

Beyond Trade: Establishing a European Presence in Asia

Q&As

The Editorial Team organized online dialogues between our members and two senior NATO representatives:

Jamie Shea, Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges

General Stéphane Abrial, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation

Writing Competitions

We concluded two major op-ed and policy workshop competitions:

Empowering Women in International Relations

The mission of the open think tank atlantic-community.org is to broaden the foreign policy debate, give a voice to a new generation of thinkers and to contribute to a more diverse transatlantic strategic community. Since women are still underrepresented in positions of power and political leadership, a key part of this mission is providing publishing and networking opportunities to encourage more young women to share their own ideas on international security issues with senior experts. This coincides with the goals of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for increasing the influence of women in all aspects of peace and security and was passed on October 30, 2000.

To mark the 10th anniversary of this landmark UN Resolution and help realize its aims, we organized the op-ed competition "Women on Transatlantic Security," sponsored by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division and the United States Mission to NATO.

Ideas with Impact: Students Advise Decision Makers

We concluded this competition for students at German universities with a dialogue between the US Ambassador Philip D. Murphy, CDU/CSU Foreign Policy Spokesperson Philipp Mißfelder and the winners of our student competition, who presented their teams' policy recommendations regarding Iran’s nuclear program, Russia and the West, and climate change.

The competition encouraged students to develop policy recommendations for pressing issues that have continuously seen deadlock in the international community, yet also offer new opportunities for increased transatlantic cooperation: The policy workshop had two components: a) an opinion article written by students in one of three categories and b) an online debate among the shortlisted authors, who had to collaborate to develop a memorandum for policy makers.

You can watch a video of the presentations and the feedback from the decision makers.

Expert Survey

Building on Lisbon

Joerg Wolf & Victoria Naselskaya: Russia’s strategic community strongly supports Moscow’s cooperation with NATO in Afghanistan and considers missile defense the cornerstone of NATO-Russia relations. While the experts are surprisingly optimistic regarding the success of this ambitious project, they are also concerned by the lack of trust and equality in the partnership.

How You Can Get Involved at Atlantic-Community.org

Please continue to engage in the debates and contribute op-eds on the most important challenges that Europe and North America face. Op-eds only need to be 500 - 700 words long and contain a clear thesis with policy recommendations. By doing so, you will be making your voices heard in the foreign policy discourse. Here is some advice on writing for our open think tank.

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