American Strategy Program
 

Geopolitics of Energy Initiative

The Geopolitics of Energy Initiative is animated by an assessment that preserving and enhancing the stability of global energy markets over the next quarter century will be not only an economic and environmental challenge, but will also be the most significant long-term strategic challenge facing the United States during this period. Substantively, the work of the Initiative starts from the premise that ongoing structural shifts in global energy markets have important political and economic implications that are not adequately understood or discussed in the ongoing debate over American foreign policy.

The New America Foundation is dedicated to understanding these implications and, in turn, to developing analytic frameworks for thinking about energy security as a foreign policy issue.

Publications

What Serious Diplomacy Looks Like -- in Turkey

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was expected to come to the White House on Thursday for a meeting with President Barack Obama. Erdogan's visit has now been postponed, and the decision to postpone comes on the heels of the Turkish leader's high-profile visit to Iran this week.

Flynt Leverett | Politico | October 29, 2009

Obama's Iranian Lifeline

Tehran threw President Barack Obama a badly needed "lifeline" for his Iran policy at last week's nuclear discussions in Geneva: It promised U.N. access to a recently declared nuclear site and committed "in principle" to ship low-enriched uranium, or LEU, abroad to make fuel rods for producing medical isotopes. If Geneva had been a "bust," Obama would have been committed to mustering international endorsement for what his secretary of state calls "crippling" sanctions against Iran -- even though no

Flynt Leverett | Politico | October 6, 2009

How to Press the Advantage With Iran

Tehran's disclosure that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qum has derailed the Obama administration's already faltering efforts to engage with Iran. The United States will now cling even more tightly to the futile hope that international pressure and domestic instability will induce major changes in Iranian decision-making.

Flynt Leverett | New York Times | September 29, 2009

A Road Map to Nowhere

This week, Barack Obama's Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell met in New York with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to begin discussing a potential "compromise" regarding the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Israel's continued settlement expansion has been at the top of America's Middle East agenda since Obama's Cairo speech in June, when he declared that "the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."

Flynt Leverett | Foreign Policy | July 1, 2009

'Extraordinary Amount of Wishful Thinking' by US

Many in Iran and the West assume that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election was the product of fraud. American Iran expert Flynt Leverett told SPIEGEL ONLINE that the irregularities likely weren't as bad as in Florida in 2000. Now, the US has to make the regime an offer.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scored an overwhelming victory in the Iranian presidential elections held on Friday. Are you surprised?

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Events

Iran's Next President?

An exclusive national poll taken ahead of Iran’s presidential election is discussed by Ken Ballen, Azadeh Porzand, and Flynt Leverett. Steve Clemons moderated the discussion.
06/08/2009 - 12:15pm
06/08/2009 - 1:45pm

Who Will Emerge Stronger After the Crisis?

Will China and the Gulf oil states have the U.S. over the proverbial barrel, or will the world's leading capitalist economy get lucky once again? On May 26, 2009, two of the New America Foundation's leading experts on geopolitics and the global economy joined with Foreign Policy magazine to debate which countries will emerge relatively stronger in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

05/26/2009 - 12:15pm
05/26/2009 - 1:45pm

A Grand Bargain With Iran

The next U.S. president, whether it is Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama, should reorient American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran as fundamentally as President Nixon transformed American policy toward the People's Republic of China in the early 1970s. This is the argument put forth by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett in "Time for a U.S.-Iranian Grand Bargain," the third proposal in New America's Big Ideas series. Their idea is also explored in… more

10/07/2008 - 12:00pm
10/07/2008 - 1:30pm

Restructuring World Economic Power Relations through High Oil Prices

Because of the Middle East's critical role in global energy markets, the Iraq War raises important questions about the shifting distribution of economic and financial power around the world. This in turn raises important implications for America's international standing.

Oystein Noreng is Norway's leading energy economist and a profoundly insightful commentator on the geopolitical factors affecting global energy markets. Since 1990, Noreng has been Professor and FINA Chair in petroleum economics and management at the Norwegian… more

04/25/2007 - 12:15pm
04/25/2007 - 1:45pm

U.S.- Iran Relations

This full-day conference on the future of U.S.-Iran relations, co-sponsored by the National Iranian American Council, was held as scheduled on Wednesday, despite the inclement weather and delayed opening of federal government offices.

Video of this event is available at right, while an MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below.

This event was supported by the Pluralism Fund, Kenbe Foundation, Ploughshares Fund and Open Society Institute.

02/14/2007 - 9:30am
02/14/2007 - 3:00pm

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