Analysis

This piece is part of Behind the Front, an FPRI project on the future of US and allied national defense. The United Kingdom’s Defence Investment Plan (DIP) has now finally been published after substantial delay and controversy, aiming to...

“We’ve hooked up some machinery,” said Tommy, “that amounts to a mechanical translator… When you’re ready to talk to the skipper of the other ship, sir, I think we’re ready.” In First Contact, Murray Leinster described science fiction’s very...

This piece is part of Behind the Front, an FPRI project on the future of US and allied national defense. The president asked Congress to approve a Pentagon funding request of $1.5 trillion for next year’s defense budget. This...

The following analysis was originally published on Two Marines, a newsletter on Russia’s war in Ukraine, defense technology, and modern warfare, on June 5, 2026.  One of the Russian military’s most important developments in 2024-2025 was the establishment of the...

The United States enters the second half of the 2020s facing a fundamental question in Africa: Is Washington still seen as a strategic partner of choice, or is it becoming a transactional power whose engagement is seen as narrow,...

2017: The Coup that Wasn’t  The November 2017 military move in Zimbabwe that marked the end of Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule opened a completely new phase in the southern African country’s troubled politics. Although the military leadership insisted that...

This piece is part of Behind the Front, an FPRI project on the future of US and allied national defense. At the end of April, Gerry Doyle at Bloomberg reported that CENTCOM had requested the deployment of Dark Eagle...

This piece is part of Behind the Front, an FPRI project on the future of US and allied national defense. The new US Navy Shipbuilding Plan has arrived. It is lavishly produced, rich in operational color, and bracingly confident...

Introduction  Zimbabwe created a US dollar-denominated exchange in Victoria Falls, the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX), to offer issuers and investors a rules-based “hard currency land” for capital raising and secondary trading, in an environment where domestic currency instability...

This piece is part of Behind the Front, an FPRI project on the future of US and allied national defense. On April 10, after coalition forces had fired at least 1,700 Patriots in just five weeks, the Pentagon announced...