U.S. Foreign Policy

The Obama Doctrine and the Lessons of Iraq

The Obama Doctrine is like the Holy Grail. Skeptics have doubted whether it even exists. The quest for the Obama Doctrine reveals a president with the wisdom to resist doctrinaire thinking. But at the same time, Obama’s focus on avoiding the mistakes of Iraq could itself prove dangerously rigid. Read “The Obama Doctrine and the Lessons of Iraq” »

China

China and the Politics of Oil

Let’s consider the history of great powers in the age of oil, then turn to China’s options for securing its imports, and conclude with some thoughts on the implications of Beijing’s choices for other states in Asia and for the United States. The analysis suggests that China is pursuing an indirect strategy designed to alter the geo-strategic map in China’s favor. To ensure stability along key oil routes, then, the United States may have to build up the defenses of friendly or allied states or, at least, encourage their cooperation. Read “China and the Politics of Oil” »

Europe

Who Killed Europe? A Provocation

Who if anyone is to blame for the current European crisis? It is not enough to blame the Greeks, but once you begin expanding the list of suspects it is hard to know where to stop. One is reminded of Agatha Christie’s 'Murder on the Orient Express', where Hercule Poirot is initially confused by the fact that everyone had both motive and opportunity— until he realizes that everyone participated in the murder. Read “Who Killed Europe?” »

Of Related Interest:

Middle East Media Monitor

The Muslim Brotherhood and Washington: Courtship and Its Discontents

The Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success has not come without its costs. Not only is the Brotherhood now required to come up with solutions to Egypt’s endemic problems and collapsing economy, but the movement’s ascendancy has also placed it squarely in the spotlight, with its every move being scrutinized by a press dominated by unsympathetic non-Islamists. Most importantly, the same elections that brought it to prominence have also given rise to Salafis, who are promising to be the greatest challenge the Brotherhood has ever faced. Read “The Muslim Brotherhood and Washington” »

The Military

The 2012 Presidential Election Campaign: Toward a Defensible Defense Budget

Although national security has not been a major component of the election campaign so far, it will undoubtedly become a critical element of comparison between the two contenders as the campaign heats up this summer. To address the distinction between the candidates and their positions, I will present a number of facts and issues in a dialectic argument. Read “Toward a Defensible Defense Budget” »

Russia

The Threat of Russian Nationalism

The rise of the democratic opposition to the Putin regime is being shadowed by the appearance of a more ominous type of opposition, that of extreme nationalists. The rise of nationalism in Russia, in turn, is not an accident. It is directly related to Putin’s accession to power. Read “The Threat of Russian Nationalism” »

Of Related Interest:

Mali

The Coup in Mali — Background and Foreground

The recent coup in Mali not only revealed the fragility of African electoral democracies, but it also exposed a kind of domino effect of the North African “Arab spring” in the countries of “the Sahel.” We need to see the Mali coup in the context of mounting challenges by forces of separatism as well as radical jihadism. All the African countries with large Muslim populations face problems similar to Mali, in varying degree. Read “The Coup in Mali” »

France

The 2012 French Presidential Election and the Future of the Fifth Republic

In 2007 Gaullism gained a new avatar: Nicolas Sarkozy. Five years on the French economy limps along with anemic growth, public finances and the external balance of trade are woeful, whilst Angela Merkel calls the shots in the European Union. This is a dismal record, coming on the back of three decades of budget deficits and eroding global influence — so dismal, in fact, as to question both whether the Fifth Republic created by de Gaulle is fit for purpose and what Sarkozy or his main competitor, François Hollande of the Socialist Party, can do to rescue it. Read “The 2012 French Presidential Election” »

The Military

Soft War = Smart War? Think Again

We Americans do not yet live in a post-American world. By advocating more soft power and smarter counterinsurgency— by, essentially, pushing to outfit us for soft war— those who would re-orient our military are making two sets of errors. First, they misread 21st century realities. Second, they misread human nature. Read “Soft War = Smart War? Think Again” »

Arab Spring

Understanding the Resilience of Monarchy During the Arab Spring

Over a year into the Arab Spring, it is presidents and colonels, not kings and princes, who have proven most vulnerable to social upheaval. Do autocratic kingdoms brandish some special trait, such as cultural legitimacy or institutional statecraft, which makes them inherently more stable than republican dictatorships? Read “Monarchy During the Arab Spring” »

The “Arab Spring”: The Origins Of A Misnomer

The tumultuous events that have swept through the Middle East during the last year or so were widely referred to in the West as the “Arab Spring.” The media was awash with expectations of a secular democratic upheaval; Islamist movements, we were told, were on the margins of events and an overrated force in Arab politics. They were being pushed aside by the new, younger generation of secular democrats organized through the ultra-modern social networks of Facebook and Twitter, much alike their Western counterparts. None of this proved to be true. Read “The “Arab Spring”: The Origins Of A Misnomer” »

Of Related Interest:

Iran and Israel

Iran in Israel’s Strategic Calculus

Will Israel attack Iran? Yes or no? The less satisfactory answer, the less media-worthy answer, but perhaps the more accurate and honest answer is that “it depends.” Read “Iran in Israel’s Strategic Calculus” »

Israel and Iran: Everyone Is Asking the Wrong Question

I do not believe the Israelis ever have seriously considered a conventional military strike as an effective way of stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The more pertinent question is Will nuclear weapons be used by Israel against Iran? Read “Israel and Iran”

Yemen

The Crisis in Yemen: al-Qaeda, Saleh, and Governmental Instability

This essay examines the challenges and conditions in contemporary Yemen. Part one addresses demographic factors; part two considers political trends; and part three evaluates threats to Yemen’s political and territorial security, including the Houthi insurrection, the southern secessionist movement, and al-Qaeda’s attempts to re-colonize the Arabian Peninsula. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need to ground our analysis and our policy in a rich understanding of local realities. Read “The Crisis in Yemen” »

Of Related Interest:

Jordan

The Politics of Protest in Jordan

We need to step back and consider a longer history of protests in any case we are examining. We should do this not only to identify the precursors to revolutions or insights about possible future events. The point of looking back also should be to help us understand what might happen in the present. Read “The Politics of Protest in Jordan” »

Of Related Interest:

Mexico

Mexico’s Presidential Contest: Calderón’s “Hail Mary” Pass?

Just as Americans were watching the Giants nose out the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, President Felipe Calderón has his eyes fixed on a much most important showdown in Mexico—the July 1 presidential contest. He and his center-right National Action Party (PAN) have scored back-to-back triumphs (2000 and 2006) in this sexennial free-for-all.  Yet the odds are so long against them this year that the chief executive is contemplating a political version of the Hail Mary pass to give momentum to his party’s candidate and, if victory remains a longshot, at least prevent a humiliating third-place finish.Read “Calderón’s “Hail Mary” Pass?” »

Asia Program Conference

Contested Terrain: China’s Periphery and International Relations in Asia

FPRI’s annual Asia Program conference was held in cooperation with the Reserve Officers Association on November 4, 2011, in Washington, D.C. Read “Contested Terrain” »

North Korea

Is The Kim Family Regime Rational And Why Don’t The North Korean People Rebel?

With the death of Kim Jong-il and the ensuing temporary focus on North Korea, I was recently asked whether the North would ever carry out the irrational act of using its very limited nuclear weapons against the South when such an action would cause the end of the regime? In addition, given the horrendous suffering of the North, many rightly question why North Koreans do not rebel against the tyrannical and criminal dictatorship — arguably one of the worst violators of human rights in modern history — of the Kim Family Regime (KFR)? Read “Is The Kim Family Regime Rational” »

Gilbert Rozman on Kim Jong Il

FPRI Senior Fellow, Gilbert Rozman, comments on the death of Kim Jong Il, future developments in North Korea and the implications for the region and U.S. foreign policy.

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From the FPRI Archive:

FPRI Radio - Does Eastern Europe Offer Lessons for the Arab World?

Adrian A. Basora

Ambassador Adrian Basora is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Director of the Project on Democratic Transitions, an in-depth assessment of the political, economic and social transitions of post-communist Europe/Eurasia twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Taiwan Elections

Taiwan’s 2012 Presidential And Legislative Elections:
Winners, Losers, And Implications

The American political phrase, “Don’t change horses in midstream,” does not, alas, translate well in Taiwan, but it does capture much of the tone of the recent elections on the island. Voters opted for continuity over perceived risk and uncertainty—including in relations with Mainland China—when they returned President Ma Ying-jeou (whose surname, appropriately enough, means “horse”) to a second and final four-year term and gave his Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party a continued majority in the legislature. Read “Taiwan’s 2012 Presidential And Legislative Elections” »

Taiwan's Presidential and Legislative Election:
Implications for Cross-Strait Relations, U.S. Policy and Domestic Politics.

In the January 14, 2012 elections, Taiwanese voters faced a choice not only between giving a second term to Ma Ying-jeou or replacing him with Tsai Ing-wen, but a similar choice between retaining a supermajority for Ma’s KMT or giving Tsai’s DPP a larger share.

FPRI Senior Fellows Shelley Rigger, Vincent Wang, Terry Cooke and Jacques deLisle assess the elections’ meaning and implications: Why did the winners win and the losers lose? What does the outcome portend for cross-Strait relations during the next four years? What is likely to be the impact on U.S. policy toward, and relations with, Taipei and Beijing? What are the implications for the future of Taiwan’s democracy and for the significant economic, social and foreign policy decisions Taiwan’s government faces in the near term?

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Syria

Opposition Groups In Syria: Myths And Realities

Revolutionary periods have a way of compressing history. Events unfold so quickly, and the flow of information is so dense, that our ability to comprehend them is diminished. This condition pervades the present political situation in Syria, fostering numerous popular fictions that contribute to miscalculating strategies of action. Two related popular fictions stand out in assessing the prospects of prolonged civil conflict or outright civil war. The first fiction insinuates a clear bifurcation between regime supporters and regime opponents. The second fiction, related to the first, suggests that sectarian divisions define clear lines of support and opposition to the Ba‘ath regime. Read “Opposition Groups In Syria: Myths And Realities” »

Think Tanks and Foreign Policy Program

The Global “Go-To Think Tanks”:
The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations in the World

Gone are the days when a think tank could operate with the motto “research it, write it and they will find it”. Today, think tanks must be lean, mean, policy machines. The report that follows summarizes the findings of a pilot project to identify some of the leading think tanks in the world, and provides lists of what might be called the “go to think tanks” in every region.

FPRI Radio - Military Budget

Kori Schake

Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of FPRI's Board of Advisors. She discusses the U.S. military budget.

This topic was the subject of her recent Orbis article,Margin Call: How To Cut A Trillion From Defense, Volume 56, Issue 1 Winter 2012

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Venezuela

Venezuela Heads Deeper Into Militant Narcoterrorism

As if the world needed further evidence, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s new political appointments in the early days of January confirm his regime’s descent into militant narcoterrorism and increases the possibility of a coup d’état by a military junta should Chávez lose his grip on power either through his cancer (from which he dubiously claims to now be cured) or through an electoral defeat on October 7. Read “Venezuela Heads Deeper Into Militant Narcoterrorism” »

Of Related Interest:

Military Ethics And Irregular Warfare

Risk, Military Ethics And Irregular Warfare

Traditional military ethics accepts that soldiers have a reasonable interest in taking the least risk possible when conducting operations. However, when that risk is transferred to noncombatants, these same ethics require soldiers to observe the constraints of proportionality and discrimination to limit how much risk they transfer. In this view, assuming extra risk on the part of soldiers is obligatory, at least up to the point of mission failure. Since the limits of risks are identified with the requirement to accomplish missions, preserving lives of soldiers is experienced more as a concession to the requirements of military necessity and not an obligation itself. Read “Risk, Military Ethics and Irregular Warfare” »

Pennsylvania Homeland Security

Risk And Re-Org: Infrastructure Protection In The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Executive Summary

Since the events of September 11, 2001, homeland security has become one of the most important responsibilities at all levels of government. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, however, systemic inefficiencies arose that precluded progress under the former governance structure. In particular, these inefficiencies stifled the ability of the state to perform virtually any of the Critical Infrastructure Protection duties intended to facilitate the resiliency of the Commonwealth through the identification of assets, the analysis of risk, and the development of strategies to mitigate that risk. While some attempts were made to address these issues in the decade since 9/11, the results mostly exacerbated existing issues rather than instilling any long-term solutions. Read “Risk And Re-Org” »

Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs

Muslim Brotherhood Organizations In America: Goals, Ideologies, And Strategies

The Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest and most influential Islamist movement. It was founded in Egypt in 1928. And, like most of the grassroots movements that appeared in Egypt at the time, it was strongly opposed to colonial rule and advocated Egyptian independence. But while most of the movements that opposed British colonialism at the time in Egypt took from Western ideologies, the Brotherhood based its discourse on Islam. Creating what would become the model of generations of Islamists, the Brotherhood saw in Islam the answer to Western military, political, economic, and cultural influence over the Muslim world. Read “The Muslim Brotherhood” »

The Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs was established in 1996, with a gift from John M. Templeton, Jr., M.D., president of the John Templeton Foundation. In 1995, Dr. Templeton retired from his medical practice to serve full-time as president of the Foundation. After receiving a B.A. from Yale University, Dr. Templeton earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained in pediatric surgery under Dr. C. Everett Koop at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. After serving two years in the U.S. Navy, in 1977 he returned to CHOP, where he served on the staff as pediatric surgeon and trauma program director. He also served as professor of pediatric surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Templeton has published numerous papers in medical and professional journals, in addition to two books, A Searcher’s Life and Thrift and Generosity: The Joy of Giving.

Teachers' Conference

Great Battles and Their Impact on American History

FPRI’s Wachman Center, in association with the First Division Museum at Cantigny, is proud to be presenting their seventh weekend-long conference for teachers on subjects in military history. On April 21-22, we will be focusing on great battles and how they have shaped American history. We are proud to feature the leading scholars and practitioners on the subject. Complete Conference Information »

Previous History Institutes on Military History
Including audios, videos, papers and lesson plans.

Program on Teaching Military History

Asia Program Conference

Contested Terrain: China’s Periphery and International Relations in Asia

China’s long-term rise and its recent international assertiveness have made long-standing and recently emerging issues of relations along China’s periphery matters of pressing international concern. The rapid development that has provided the material underpinnings for China’s rapid rise as a regional power has been fueled partly by economic integration along China’s periphery. Foreign investment flows, integration in a regional supply chain that feeds global markets and burgeoning intraregional trade have made Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and other states in East Asia key participants in China’s rise and eroded the economic significance of political borders in the region.

Keynote address by Michael Green on Implications for U.S. Policy and Interests

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Materials from earlier FPRI Asia program conferences

Happy Birthday USMC

The Marine Mask Of War

In an era in which our national security establishment is being asked to consider draconian cuts as part of the Nation’s reaction to its strained fiscal health, it behooves us to truly understand the unique character of the institutions that make up our armed services. More specifically, on this date, celebrated around the world as the 236th birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps, we should pause and appreciate the particular contributions that our Corps of Marines provides for us and the great value the Nation garners from its investment in its Force-in-Readiness. Read “The Marine Mask Of War” »

Of Related Interest:

Middle East Media Monitor

The Muslim Brotherhood and Washington: Courtship and Its Discontents

The Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success has not come without its costs. Not only is the Brotherhood now required to come up with solutions to Egypt’s endemic problems and collapsing economy, but the movement’s ascendancy has also placed it squarely in the spotlight, with its every move being scrutinized by a press dominated by unsympathetic non-Islamists. Most importantly, the same elections that brought it to prominence have also given rise to Salafis, who are promising to be the greatest challenge the Brotherhood has ever faced. Read “The Muslim Brotherhood and Washington” »

Middle East Circa 2016

The Middle East Circa 2016

When I received the assignment for today, it reminded me of that 1999 book, Dow 36,000. At the time the authors wrote it, the Dow stood at 10,300, and the book became a bestseller. But today the Dow is only 20 percent higher than it was then-it’s only at 12,700. Last February, one of the co-authors wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Why I Was Wrong About ‘Dow 36,000’.” “What happened?” he wrote. “The world changed.” Well, what a surprise. Now there was a lot of talk that sounded like “Middle East 36,000” just a couple of months ago. This is a new Middle East, everything you thought you knew is wrong, bet on revolution and you´ll be rewarded handsomely with democracy. Let’s face it: Americans like optimistic scenarios that end with all of us rich and the rest of the world democratic. There’s much in the American century since World War Two to foster such optimism. But while you enjoy reading your copy of “Middle East 36,000.” I’m going to quickly tell you what’s in the small print in the prospectus-the part that’s in Arabic.” Read “The Middle East Circa 2016” »

Hertog Program on Grand Strategy

History And Strategies: Grand, Maritime, And American

A classic treatise on grand strategy specifically addressed the geopolitics of the Pacific Rim in the aftermath of the First World War. Its cautionary conclusion warned that great powers drawn to compete for commerce and empire in the vast vacuum of the North Pacific invariably over-reached. Bids for hegemony by Spain and Portugal, then Britain and Russia, had already been thwarted and the likelihood in the 20th century was that Japan would be tempted to overreach followed, perhaps, by the United States. Read “History And Strategies” »

Additional products from the Hertog Program

Philadelphia's Maritime History

Philadelphia: How One City’s Maritime History Changed The World

Few cities can claim a more extraordinary historical legacy than Philadelphia. The evolution of what is now sometimes referred to as the Pax Americana— considering all that this term really implies, including the political, the economic, and the military—truly took its initial form right here. The various influences which led to the American form of Democracy, the American manifestations of individual and religious freedom (and of individual rights and responsibilities), the American forms of economic enterprise (in most all of its guises), the American ideals of civic participation (even in contention), and even much of the American military (especially naval and marine), all truly first coalesced in this city—and then, evolving, spread back outwards to the world. This process began well before the events of the American Revolution and it continued well into the early 20th century. This is a spectacular legacy indeed, and the words “Philadelphia Freedom,” therefore, do still have some measure of resonance around the world even today. Read “Philadelphia: How One City’s Maritime History Changed The World” »

Foreign Fighters

The Foreign Fighter Problem: Recent Trends And Case Studies

FPRI's Program on National Security held a conference on the foreign fighter problem, September 27-28, 2010, in Washington, DC at the Reserve Officers Association, which cosponsored the conference. General William Ward, Commander of US Africa Command, delivered a videotaped message to the conferees, and Terence Ford, Director of Intelligence and Knowledge Development for US Africa Command, delivered the keynote. Read “The Foreign Fighter Problem: Recent Trends And Case Studies” »

From the FPRI Archive July 2003

Islam in America

... there is a long record of antipathy between America and at least certain Muslim states, if not Islam itself. Muslims in America have been trying for a long time to make themselves recognized as fully American. It is ironic in light of recent events that one of the great criticisms of the Bush administration in its first few months was that it was too closely tied to Muslim causes in this country. Read “Islam in America” »

For Educators

FPRI Featured Footnotes

To the Shores of Tripoli

James Sanzare taught social studies in the Philadelphia School District for over thirty years and has visited 200 countries or other territorial entities. This paper is a report on his 2005 trip to Libya. Read “To the Shores of Tripoli” »

Recent Footnotes

Teaching The Middle East:
Between Authoritarianism And Reform

What Our Students – And Our Political Leaders – Don’t Know About The Middle East

In September 2002 Adam Garfinkle wrote “What Our Children Should Learn about 9/11.”.

Ten years have passed since 9/11 and more than nine years have passed since I wrote that piece. I would not change a word had I to write it over again, but I have learned plenty over the past decade. I have therefore found the exercise of reflecting on this short essay quite illuminating, if also a little disheartening. Without repeating that little essay to you now, I want to go back over each of the four points, especially the first one, in order to reflect on what the past decade has wrought. Read “What Our Students – And Our Political Leaders – Don’t Know About The Middle East” »

Iran’s Internal Dynamics

Since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has never been free of political intrigue. However, since the disputed June 2009 presidential election, the level of intrigue has increased. And the recent pubic rift between the two highest office holders—the unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the elected president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad—may very well be pushing Iran and the Islamic Republic regime close to the brink. While the denouement of this latest political wrangling has yet to be written, the “writing on the wall” suggests that the results will be anything but anti-climactic. Read “Iran’s Internal Dynamics” »

The Middle East and the US in Geopolitical Perspective

Michael S. Doran

October 16, 2011 / Philadelphia, PA

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These presentations were part of Teaching The Middle East: Between Authoritarianism And Reform, a History Institute for Teachers.

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FPRI Featured Orbis Articles

Soft Power in a Hard Place:
China, Taiwan, Cross-Straight Relations and U.S. Policy

Soft power, like so much else in relations between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, is asymmetrical and freighted with implications for U.S. policy and U.S.-China relations. For China, soft power largely serves—or strives—to reduce alarm (or at least reaction) among other states concerned about China’s new-found hard power or, perhaps more realistically, the hard power that China’s economic rise can underwrite. Much of the value for Beijing of soft power is—and is likely to remain for quite some time— its potential contribution to reducing the likelihood that other states will react to China’s rising hard power in ways that could threaten China’s interests.
Read Soft Power in a Hard Place:
China, Taiwan, Cross-Straight Relations and U.S. Policy »
PDF

Change and the American Security Paradigm

While we have always assumed a neat institutional distinction between the United States’ internal defenses and the military power mobilized to protect its international interests, are porous borders and trans-national syndicates blurring those boundaries?
Read Change and the American Security Paradigm » PDF

How the U.S. Lost the Naval War of 2015

Coupling its new asymmetric naval force to visionary maritime strategy and oceans policy, China ensured that all elements of national power promoted its goal of dominating the East China Sea. The United States, in contrast, had a declining naval force, maritime strategy focused on lower order partnerships, and a national oceans policy that devalued strategic interests in freedom of navigation. Read How the U.S. Lost the Naval War of 2015 » PDF