The Atlantic Dialogues: Daily Analysis on the Conference
The Atlantic Dialogues is a partnership between The German Marshall Fund of the United States and OCP Policy Center. Gathering for the fifth time, The Atlantic Dialogues is designed to broaden the transatlantic dialogue to include issues and voices from around the Atlantic Basin and to reinforce North-South and South-South Atlantic dialogue.
Throughout in this year's gathering, GMF Non-Resident Fellow Guillaume Xavier-Bender wrote a daily analysis of day's the conversations and themes:
The Atlantic Dialogues: Day 1
Crosswinds of Change Over the Atlantic
The sun is finally peeking through the clouds. The morning grayness is persistent, but slowly dissipating. I am reminded by the freshness of the air that despite the desert all around, we are in December. Marrakesh. The year 2016, with its unforeseen political, economic, and social storms, is coming to a close in a couple of weeks. Finally. And as the second day of the 5th Atlantic Dialogues is about to start, I wonder if today’s discussions will be as clouded as they were yesterday. Yes, the times they are changin’, yet again.
Mindsets and mental maps have always been at the core of The Atlantic Dialogues. How to challenge them? How to ensure that our understanding of the Atlantic space, and of global affairs more broadly, takes into account fundamental disruptions and ongoing transitions? How to anticipate instability when openness, mobility, tolerance, and trust are questioned on all shores?
The Atlantic Dialogues: Day 2
A World Up-Side-Down?
They trickle in the conversation like raindrops from morning leaves. Concepts.
A number of them have emerged as inevitable in this second day of The Atlantic Dialogues: disconnect, partnership, resilience, prevention, governance, mutualisation, inclusion, instability, and perception. Yet the word that resonated most, in speech and in mind, was unpredictability.