Atlantic Council

The Council assembled an outstanding delegation of young professionals and students to attend the Atlantic Treaty Association’s 54th General Assembly in November.

Under the auspices of the Council's Young Atlanticist program, Dr Ashraf Ghani led an off-the-record roundtable entitled, 'Fixing Failed States and Securing Afghanistan's Future'. Ghani, Chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness and former Minister of Finance of Afghanistan, discussed the challenge failed states pose to the global community.

As world leaders met this April for the largest NATO summit in Alliance history, future leaders from across the Euro-Atlantic region and Afghanistan convened in Bucharest to grapple with the major security issues facing the Atlantic Community t

A half-day student conference hosted by Americans for Informed Democracy and The Atlantic Council brought together young global leaders from across the U.S. for workshops, speakers, and discussions on whether and how the transatlantic community can work together to build effective international laws and institutions.

On Thursday, May 3rd, the Atlantic Council was honored to host Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of the Republic of Latvia, for a webcast discussion with students in Washington DC and on campuses across United States.  As President Vike-Freiberga addressed students at the Council, students on campuses across the US participated in a live webcast, submitting questions to the President.

 Through the network of Atlantic Treaty Association, the Atlantic Council has the opportunity to nominate university-level students of U.S. citizenship to attend seminars in Europe and North America. These meetings, which generally focus on foreign policy and international security issues, offer a valuable chance for transatlantic exchange on current issues.

From November 27 – 29, 2006, forty-nine young leaders from thirty-two states examined the agenda of the 2006 Riga NATO summit and offered their solutions to regional and global security problems. Representing countries in the Alliance, the Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, and other nations like Afghanistan and Australia, the successor generation of the Alliance shared their views and experiences on nation-building in Afghanistan, NATO’s Partnerships, NATO’s relationship with Russia, NATO’s enlargement and energy security.

Together with the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area, the Council’s Office of Education sponsored “Beyond Politics – Prospects and Problems with International Peacekeeping Operations” to provide an on-the-ground picture of the state of international peacekeeping operations and to foster broad discussion on how US interests are advanced by participati

On October 16-19 2006, the Atlantic Council welcomed 36 young leaders to Washington for a four day seminar on transformation and the transatlantic relationship. The events began with a dinner in which the participants were joined by Ambassador Robert Hunter, President of the Atlantic Treaty Association, and Jim Townsend of the Atlantic Council.

 In August, the Office of Education co-sponsored two Young Leaders Summits with Americans for Informed Democracy to examine transatlantic approaches to security and development.