NATO think tanks

The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international relations founded in 1961. It runs ten regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is a non grata organization in Russia.

In the years following the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, voluntary organizations sprang up in North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) member countries to promote so-called public understanding and support institutions that would strengthen collective security. In 1954, the Atlantic Treaty Association was created and an international network of citizens' associations was formally linked.

In 1961, former Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and Christian Herter, along with Will Clayton, William Foster and Theodore Achilles, recommended the creation of a new entity, the Atlantic Council of the United States, which would bring together U.S. citizens who supported the Atlantic Alliance.

Throughout the 1960s, the Council produced a series of reports on public opinion in North Atlantic Alliance member countries and actively promoted the need for public participation in international affairs through television commercials, an academic journal, and a newsletter. In 1967 the Council produced its first edited volume, “Building the US-European Market: Planning for the 1970s”. In 1975 the Council produced numerous policy papers, books and monographs and later expanded the scope of its work to include environmental regulation and Japan-West relations.

In 1979, Atlantic Council Vice President Theodore Achilles established a Committee on Education. He explained it this way: he wanted “future politicians to feel the solidarity that is simply necessary among people with a clear conscience if they are to build a better world”.

In 1980, the Council began recruiting mid-level professionals through a one-year fellowship. This initiative was needed to offer government officials, researchers, media representatives and other private sector leaders from around the world a year of independent study. In 1985 the NATO Information Office was launched in cooperation with the U.S. State Department. Its main task was to focus public attention on issues of importance to the collective security of the United States.

In 1988, the Council organized a major international conference on rebuilding East-West relations, which was attended by President Ronald Reagan, then-presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Colin Powell, and Brent Scowcroft.

After the fall of communism, the programs began to examine the transition period and its unfolding in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, as well as the long-term consequences of conflicts in the Balkans and efforts toward European integration.

Since 1996, the Council has awarded the Outstanding International Leader award annually through its magazine. In 2004, the Council became the U.S. partner of the British-North American Committee, supported by a group of business and academic leaders from the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.

Since its inception, the Council has run programs to explore political, economic and security issues. The activities of these programs have covered Asia, North and South America, and other regions.

Since its inception, the Council has stated that it “is a nonpartisan institution whose members represent the moderate internationalist wing of both parties” in the United States. By statute, the Council is independent of the U.S. government and NATO, but this has raised doubts among many analysts.

In September 2014, Eric Lipton reported in the New York Times that the Atlantic Council had received donations from more than twenty-five foreign governments since 2008. He stated that the Council is one of several think tanks that receive substantial foreign funds and carry out activities that “fit the agendas of foreign governments”.

The Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, part of the Atlantic Council, was established with a donation from Bahaa Hariri and its founder is Michelle Dunne. After Mohammed Morsi was ousted as Egypt's president in 2013, Dunn called on the United States to suspend military aid to Egypt and called Morsi's ousting a “military coup”. Bahaa Hariri complained to the Atlantic Council about Dunn's actions and Dunn resigned four months later.

In 2014, the Atlantic Council produced a report promoting the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, with funding from FedEx, which simultaneously lobbied Congress to reduce transatlantic tariffs.

In 2015 and 2016, the top three donors giving more than $1 million each were U.S. millionaire Adrienne Arsht, Lebanese billionaire Bahaa Hariri and the United Arab Emirates. Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings donated $100,000 a year for three years to the Atlantic Council, starting in 2016. The full list of donors includes many military, financial and corporate entities.

The Atlantic Council creates a meeting place for heads of State and military leaders from both sides of the Atlantic. In 2009, the Council hosted the first major speech in the United States by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who discussed issues such as NATO's mission in the war in Afghanistan, NATO's cooperation with Russia, and broader transatlantic relations. The Council organizes events with current heads of State and government, including former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

Brent Scowcroft's Center for International Security organizes events known as the Commanders Series, where military leaders from the United States and Europe are invited to talk about conflicts of interest in the Atlantic community. The Commanders Series has featured U.S. military leaders such as former General George Casey and former Admiral Timothy Keating and European leaders such as former French Defense Chief General Jean-Louis Jorgelin and Dutch Lieutenant General Ton van Loon, who have spoken about the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and security threats in Asia and Africa.

Translation by Costantino Ceoldo