All Options on the Table

Matthew Kroenig is an Associate Professor and International Relations Field Chair in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at The Atlantic Council. He is an expert on U.S. national security policy and strategy, international relations theory, nuclear deterrence, arms control, nuclear nonproliferation, Iran, and counterterrorism.Presented on October 21, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. in the Klaus Computing Building, room 1116.Runtime: 68:55 minutesMatthew Kroenig discusses the security implications of a nuclear-armed Iran. While making it clear that he does not advocate war, he claims that all signs point to the Islamic Republic’s interest in the bomb and that time is rapidly elapsing for an effective negotiated or even credible preemptive strike. He argues that on balance the “costs” and challenges of a preemptive strike would prove to be less than those associated with attempting to contain a nuclear armed Iran. The latter scenario, for example, would further destabilize the Middle East, encourage arms racing, and significantly increase the odds of a regional nuclear conflict. Given these high stakes, Kroenig advocates that U.S. policymakers keep the option of preemptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure on the table

The Nuclear Revolution, Relative Gains, and International Nuclear Assistance

Why do states provide sensitive nuclear assistance to nonnuclear-weapon states? The author argues that states provide international nuclear assistance to constrain other more powerful states. The evidence suggests that the empirical pattern of nuclear assistance is best explained by a number of strategic preconditions: relative power, dependence on a superpower patron, and the nature of the nuclear recipient’s security environment. This research speaks to a broader debate about the impact of nuclear proliferation on the international system. It shows that the costs of nuclear proliferation are most heavily borne by the international system’s most powerful states

Homeland Security vs. the Madisonian Impulse: State Building and Anti-Statism after September 11

The shock of war is closely associated with the growth of the state, in the United States and elsewhere. Yet each proposal to significantly consolidate or expand executive power in the United States since September 11th has been resisted, refined, or even rejected outright. We argue that this outcome—theoretically unexpected and contrary to conventional wisdom—is the result of enduring aspects of America’s domestic political structure: the division of power at the federal level between three co-equal and overlapping branches, the relative ease with which non-governmental interest groups circumscribe the state’s capacity to regulate or monitor private transactions, and the intensity with which guardians of the state’s purposely fragmented institutions guard their organizational turf. These persistent aspects of US political life, designed by the nation’s founders to impede the concentration of state power, have substantially shaped the means by which contemporary guardians of the American state pursue “homeland security.

Homeland Security vs. the Madisonian Impulse: State Building and Anti-Statism after September 11

The shock of war is closely associated with the growth of the state, in the United States and elsewhere. Yet each proposal to significantly consolidate or expand executive power in the United States since September 11th has been resisted, refined, or even rejected outright. We argue that this outcome—theoretically unexpected and contrary to conventional wisdom—is the result of enduring aspects of America’s domestic political structure: the division of power at the federal level between three co-equal and overlapping branches, the relative ease with which non-governmental interest groups circumscribe the state’s capacity to regulate or monitor private transactions, and the intensity with which guardians of the state’s purposely fragmented institutions guard their organizational turf. These persistent aspects of US political life, designed by the nation’s founders to impede the concentration of state power, have substantially shaped the means by which contemporary guardians of the American state pursue “homeland security.

Do Countries Need Freedom to Achieve Prosperity? Introducing the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The Atlantic Council's Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries—and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations. To aid in this task, this report introduces the new Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes.The Freedom Index measures economic, political, and legal freedom for nearly every country in the world, using the latest available data when the index was constructed at the end of 2021. The Prosperity Index measures economic wellbeing and human flourishing for the same countries and time period. In addition, we collected historical data to allow us to track and analyze change over time. We constructed the same indexes going back in five-year increments for the years 2006, 2011, and 2016; 2006 is the earliest date for which data on our indicators are available.To be sure, there are limits to any data-collection effort. The world changes quickly, and the data we collected at the end of 2021 may not still represent current realities in every case. Russia, for example, is less free today than when we collected the data, due to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and his related crackdowns at home. In addition, we needed to choose indicators that could be applied across all countries and over time, but these generalized measures may not always fit neatly with the unique circumstances in every country. Still, despite these limitations, we believe that these indexes provide new and valuable information on global freedom and prosperity.Going forward, we plan to update the indexes annually. The methodology to produce the indexes is straightforward and transparent, and is described in detail in the appendix