Program on National Security

While the 9/11 attacks ushered in a decade of war for the United States, many other threats, challenges, and opportunities remain on the horizon besides al Qaeda and its affiliated movements. The FPRI’s Program on National Security focuses on these trends by examining contemporary and emergent concerns for American and international security through a wide aperture. In particular the program focuses on:

• American grand strategy

• The current and future global geopolitical environment that affect the U.S. and its interests

• The ends (strategies), ways (organization and methods of force employment), and means (force structures and capabilities) that impact the use of military force

• Counterterrorism and homeland security

• Development, diplomacy, and informational issues that contribute to the holistic implementation of strategy.

Program Activities

Building on several conferences convened by FPRI’s Defense Task Force starting in 1996, which culminated in the publication of a book in 2002 entitled America the Vulnerable: Our Military Problems and How to Fix Them, FPRI’s Program on National Security is designed to address the issues raised above through a focus on research, publication, and education.

• Research. The program holds annual conferences that have resulted in major policy prescriptive reports. Conferences thus far have dealt with the role of the reserves and National Guard in the 21st Century; the American military strategy and force structure writ large; civil-military relations in the U.S. after the Iraq War; national security challenges for the Obama Administration; and “The Foreign Fighter Problem.” Other research projects have dealt with American and British approaches to stability operations and Afghan police reform.

• Field Research. Biologists, anthropologists, and sociologists define field research as “the collection of information outside of a laboratory or workplace setting.”  Foreign policy field research requires the curiosity to search for, as FPRI senior fellow James Kurth once said, "the realities and mentalities of the localities."  FPRI's national security program develops and retains scholars skilled in the art and science of geopolitical travel, encouraging both inquisitiveness to explore the world and sufficient street smarts to return safely to tell the story.

• Publication. In addition to the reports mentioned above, program materials are published as E-Books, FPRI E-Notes (distributed to over 25,000 individuals in over 85 countries), and through other publication outlets (journals, newspapers, etc.).

• Education. The program contributes to FPRI’s education program through the hosting of occasional lectures and by offering internship opportunities to college students. Additionally, the program has developed History Institutes for secondary school educators on the teaching of American and world military history, held at the First Division Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton, Illinois. Future such events are being planned. (You can see more about the previous teaching military history institutes www.fpri.org/education/militaryhistory.)