Washington (December 10)— The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) announces the release of three new publications examining maritime, energy, and foreign policy issues affecting the Southern Atlantic basin.

Written by GMF and guest experts, The Fractured Ocean: Current Challenges to Maritime Policy in the Wider Atlantic, Energy and the Atlantic: The Shifting Energy Landscape of the Atlantic Basin, and China and India: New Actors in the Southern Atlantic analyze the changing dynamics in the Southern Atlantic as the region emerges as a significant player in the international community and challenges the traditional political order.

All three texts form part of the Wider Atlantic Program that aims to promote a more comprehensive approach to Atlanticism, with north-south and south-south relations at the core. The Program also includes a GMF-OCP Foundation initiative called the Atlantic Dialogues, an annual high-level gathering of the most influential public- and private-sector leaders from around the Atlantic basin for open, informal discussion on cross-regional issues in Rabat, Morocco.

"These three major reports bring our work on southern Atlantic issues to a wider policy audience. They complement our annual Atlantic Dialogues forum, and highlight some of the leading issues facing stakeholders around the Atlantic Basin, north and south. The new studies underscore the value of our on-going partnership with Morocco's OCP Foundation," said Dr. Ian O. Lesser, GMF senior director of foreign and Security policy and executive director of GMF’s Brussels office.

The Fractured Ocean: Current Challenges to Maritime Policy in the Wider Atlantic is written by John Richardson, Armando Marques Guedes, Xavier de la Gorce, Anne-François de Saint Salvy, and Paul Holthus. The book looks at the challenges posed by human activity on the Atlantic Ocean itself, and around its coasts, looking at it not so much as a vast expanse separating the Americas from Africa and Europe but rather as a shared resource and an important connector.

Energy and the Atlantic: The Shifting Energy Landscape of the Atlantic Basin, written by Paul Isbell,investigates how recent changes in global geopolitics — including the emergence of the developing world and structural crises in the northern Atlantic — have collided with ongoing trends in the energy sector to transform the future prospects of the Atlantic Basin. Many of these energy vectors are either unique to the basin or are more advanced in the Atlantic than in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific.

China and India: New Actors in the Southern Atlantic is written by Emiliano Alessandri, William Inboden, Dhruva Jaishankar, Joseph Quinlan, Andrew Small, and Amy Studdart. The paper delves into how China’s and India’s rapidly expanding economic presence in the region is now coming under closer scrutiny. Although traditional powers in North America and Europe continue to wield considerable influence in the Atlantic Basin, and the region remains a low foreign policy priority for both China and India, for the first time, states in the Southern Atlantic are beginning to have concerns about the effects of China’s presence in particular — particularly a sense of overdependence on its economy and unbalanced trade relations — while remaining appreciative of its role as an alternative engine of growth to the West.

A forthcoming addition to the series is The Rise of Global Cities authored by Neal Pierce, Anthony Townsend, and Adam Freed. This report identifies the key opportunities and challenges posed by the growing number of globally engaged cities and then zeroes in on two key examples: the role of technology in reshaping the global significance of urban centers and the role of cities in shaping the global response to climate change. The books come on the heels of other publications in the Wider Atlantic Series including Morocco’s New Geopolitics: A Wider Atlantic Perspective and Filling in the Gaps—Critical Linkages in Promoting African Food Security: An Atlantic Basin Perspective.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) strengthens transatlantic cooperation on regional, national, and global challenges and opportunities in the spirit of the Marshall Plan.

GMF does this by supporting individuals and institutions working in the transatlantic sphere, by convening leaders and members of the policy and business communities, by contributing research and analysis on transatlantic topics, and by providing exchange opportunities to foster renewed commitment to the transatlantic relationship.

In addition, GMF supports a number of initiatives to strengthen democracies. Founded in 1972 as a non-partisan, non-profit organization through a gift from Germany as a permanent memorial to Marshall Plan assistance, GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, GMF has seven offices in Europe: Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara, Bucharest, and Warsaw. GMF also has smaller representations in Bratislava, Turin, and Stockholm.