Atlantic Council - Editors' PICKS - by John Cookson, New Atlantic Editor - The Oval Ofice - Twenty-four important issues - two presidents - three parties - four more years - five Nordic countries

 

This week's edition brought to you by John Cookson, New Atlanticist Editor The First Thing about the Oval Office     NOVEMBER 9, 2024 | Walking into the Oval Office for the first time is disorienting. I’ve been in the US president’s office only once, when years ago I played the small but important role of making sure an audio recorder was working for a journalist’s interview. The sense of history in the room is as physical as the furniture. But it’s disorienting for a more prosaic reason, too: There are no corners. After years spent in rooms with right angles, the lack of these anchoring features sent my spatial awareness spinning. A similar mini vertigo can accompany the change of president, before there is a sense of the “corners”—that is, before the new administration is fully staffed and the sequence and details of its agenda are set. Thankfully, Atlantic Council experts have staked out two dozen provisional orientation points for you in the lead piece below. Read on to get a firmer sense of what to expect from President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office, how the world is reacting, and more.     One question. Twenty-four experts take on twenty-four important issues, which range from global trade and Iran to digital currencies and artificial intelligence. Each expert seeks to answer one question: What will the Trump administration do? If you’re curious about the Korean Peninsula, Markus Garlauskas was the national intelligence officer for North Korea during the previous Trump term, and he thinks that Pyongyang may now escalate and force a reaction from the White House.  Other insights abound in this policy-focused compendium.     Two presidents. Writing in the Economist, Congressman Michael Waltz and the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig argue that the next US president should end conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. The greater threat, they argue, comes from the Chinese Communist Party. Trump, they go on to say, “proudly contrasts the peace of his first term with the wars of the Biden-Harris years.” By following the detailed plan the authors lay out, “the next president can end ongoing conflicts and restore deterrence, global stability, and peace.” (Of note: Waltz is reportedly on a short list of candidates for top national security positions in the incoming administration.)  Read more from the congressman and the scholar.     Three parties. The US election was not the only political shakeup this week. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition fell apart on Wednesday after Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner. It’s indicative of larger political problems, writes Jörn Fleck, who leads our Europe work: “Germany needs to have an honest debate with itself about what it takes to step up and navigate a challenging fiscal, economic, and geopolitical environment.” But as far-left and far-right parties make inroads, he adds, “there are few signs of such a debate across the country’s political landscape.”  Read about the latest Sturm und Drang out of Berlin.     Four more years. A second Trump presidency will likely share some qualities with his first, but the Joe Biden interregnum means that Trump’s second term will also differ from one of direct incumbency in some important and yet-undetermined ways. Leaders, policymakers, and citizens in other countries are just as curious as Americans about what to expect. This week, Atlantic Council experts in more than a dozen countries—from Ukraine to Iraq, Sweden to Israel, Singapore to Serbia—shared how people there view Trump’s win. From Serbian tabloids (one of which is putting up congratulatory billboards) to the advice of a former Australian prime minister (“stand your ground”),  here’s an on-the-ground view of how the world sees Trump 2.0.     Five Nordic countries. With Biden preparing to depart the White House, Sweden and Finland joining NATO surely must rank high on a list of his foreign policy accomplishments. In a new issue brief, Anna Wieslander, who runs our Northern Europe office in Stockholm, explains how the addition of Sweden and Finland to the other three Nordic countries could now reshape the Alliance in the High North. She’s also clear on the threats: “The ‘defense bubble’ that Russia has built over the past decade, through its bastion defense to protect the base area on the Kola Peninsula and the Northeast Passage, has direct implications for the defense of NATO territory in the north.”  Read this before winter arrives in the High North.     Something else catch your eye at the Atlantic Council or beyond this week? Email us at editor@atlanticcouncil.org to let us know.