Atlantic Council of the United States, Inc.
Project Title
For one time funding for a project assessing the capabilities to reduce further nuclear escalation after first nuclear use as part of a Request for Proposals for the Consortium to Reduce Nuclear Dangers
Date
Dec. 11, 2025
Duration
24 months
Description
The threat of limited nuclear escalation in regional conflicts involving the U.S. and Russia or China is increasingly plausible, yet U.S. policymakers lack robust, empirically grounded insights into how such escalation would shape modern conflict. Most prior analysis has relied on deductive reasoning or strategic-level tabletop exercises that fail to capture operational dynamics. This project aims to fill this gap by designing and conducting a series of operational-level wargames to examine how limited nuclear strikes affect conflict outcomes, escalation dynamics, and crisis stability. The effort will generate practical recommendations to prevent and manage limited nuclear escalation.
Website
Project Title
For a U.S.-China dialogue on high-tech innovation and competition
Date
Sep. 11, 2025
Duration
18 months
Description
The Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub seeks to address the growing knowledge and policy gap in U.S. understanding of China’s rapid technological advancements in AI, biotech, quantum, and robotics. Without direct access to on-the-ground developments in China or the technical background to understand these advancements, U.S. policymakers are increasingly detached from the information they need to effectively assess and respond to China’s rise. With Carnegie support, this project aims to break current analytical bubbles on China by facilitating direct engagement between U.S. experts and China’s leading tech firms and think tanks to build understandingon respective high-tech capabilities and policies. Through a delegation of senior and rising experts, led by former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, the project will generate actionable policy recommendations and conduct high-level briefings aimed at informing and updating U.S. policy toward China.
Website
Project Title
For a project assessing the consequences of China’s economic slowdown for Africa
Date
Jun. 06, 2024
Duration
24 months
Description
China’s economic slowdown as it emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that its seemingly inevitable dramatic economic growth can no longer be taken for granted. Emerging market and developing countries, particularly in Africa, face the greatest risks from this slowdown, since they have greatly counted on the benefits of China’s high-growth period. However, the magnitude and direction of these impacts are poorly understood. A partnership between the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and the Rhodium Group aims to take stock of China’s economic footprint in Africa and develop a quantitative framework to evaluate the spillover effects of changes in China’s domestic economy on developments on the continent. This project seeks to help stakeholders plan for potential disruptions in Chinese-African economic interactions and the global economy, more broadly, as well as assess their geopolitical implications.
Website
Project Title
For a project on U.S. foreign policy
Date
Jun. 03, 2021
Duration
12 months
Description
The New American Engagement Initiative (NAEI) of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security assesses prevailing assumptions governing U.S. foreign policy with a focus on managing risks, setting priorities, and allocating resources. It stresses the consideration of unconventional thinking in helping the American policy officials and the engaged public to put dangers into perspective and embrace global engagement through diplomacy, trade, and mutually beneficial cultural exchange. With renewed Corporation support, the NAEI will produce short issue briefs on key foreign policy topics, convene workshops and events to amplify the initiative’s message, and engage with policy officials in the Executive and Legislative branches.
Website
Project Title
For a project on U.S. foreign policy
Date
Jun. 04, 2020
Duration
12 months
Description
Changing global dynamics are impacting U.S. national and international security. The nongovernmental expert community has long been engaged in assessing policy directions and recommendingoptions for pursuing them. Corporation support will contribute to this process with the aim ofmanaginginternationalrisks and makingeffective resource allocation decisions. The work will entail research, publications, and convenings striving tobenefit the U.S. foreign policymaking establishment and relevant audiences.
Website
Project Title
For a project on cross-national perspectives on the future of cyber security
Date
Mar. 08, 2018
Duration
21 months
Description
The rise of national security cyber capabilities creates questions about the norms, understandings, and standards around their use. How would cyber capabilities be used in a time of rising tensions? Would a 21st century Cuban Missile Crisis involve cyber-attacks? Are there dynamics that reduce the likelihood of cyber-attacks when international tensions rise? Led by the Atlantic Council, this project will conduct simulations to test how groups interact and react with cyber capabilities in times of escalating tensions. The research is designed to improve the academic and policy communities’ understanding of strategic preferences in cyberspace.
Website
Project Title
For the generation of policy-relevant and multipolar solutions to global challenges
Date
Sep. 07, 2017
Duration
32 months
Description
Today’s global challenges require multinational responses. The Atlantic Council, together with Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) in Moscow, and counterparts from institutions in Europe, China, and India, will develop a series of recommended policy responses to global challenges identified by a joint Atlantic Council-IMEMO long-term strategic forecasting report released last year. The project will culminate with a series of media and policy workshops in participant countries, as well as the publication of a complete report consolidating all the agreed upon recommendations.
Website
Project Title
For a project on cyber, space, missile defense developments and strategic stability
Date
Sep. 07, 2017
Duration
24 months
Description
Prevailing wisdom is that new technologies create nuclear risk when they create first-strike incentives; this project explores an alternative view that new technologies may be destabilizing when they narrow the gap between incumbent and revisionist powers. The project will convene workshops and construct an index of the international balance of power on several key technologies (cyber, missile defense, and space), then use strategic foresight methods to understand how these trends may affect the future distribution of power. The project seeks concrete recommendations to policymakers about tools they could employ (from arms control and export control regimes to foreign military assistance and targeted technology transfers) to enhance nuclear stability.
Website
Project Title
For religion, identity, and human rights in the Middle East
Date
Mar. 03, 2016
Duration
29 months
Description
This proposal is recommended in the context of the new program area to explore programming rooted in the frame of human rights. The goal of this project is to address the unraveling political order in the Middle East and the rise of violence. The Hariri Center gathered an array of regional stakeholders and international experts to identify ways in which citizens in the Middle East can build and support institutions that offer legitimacy as an alternative to violence. The project will chart a course of action by convening a group of legal scholars in 2016 to work towards restoring human rights as an integral part of religious discourse. The Center will also lead a Track II diplomacy process in 2017 with high-ranking state officials in the Middle East to create an action plan to change policies that encourage violations of human rights.
Website
Project Title
For a joint U.S.-Russia assessment of future global trends
Date
Dec. 10, 2015
Duration
12 months
Website
Project Title
For a joint U.S.-Russia assessment of future global trends
Date
Dec. 04, 2014
Duration
12 months
Website
Project Title
As a final grant for the Emerging Leaders of Pakistan project, a program to bring young Pakistani leaders to the United States to expose them to a wide range of American people and institutions
Date
Sep. 12, 2013
Duration
28 months
Website
Project Title
For the U.S.-Pakistan Program
Date
Sep. 12, 2013
Duration
19 months
Website
Project Title
For a project on Russia's security relationship with the United States and its allies
Date
Jun. 06, 2013
Duration
18 months
Website
Project Title
For a project on political and economic transitions in the Arab region
Date
Sep. 13, 2012
Duration
24 months
Website
Project Title
A one-time only grant for the Center for Transatlantic Security Studies' project on the United States, Russia, and Europe
Date
Jun. 14, 2012
Duration
12 months
Website
Project Title
For a program to bring young Pakistani leaders to the United States to expose them to a wide range of American people and Institutions
Date
Sep. 22, 2011
Duration
30 months