Special Reports provide in-depth analysis on a particular topic or issue and provide policy recommendations.


 

The Roots of Russian Military Dysfunction

  Executive Summary An unwillingness to decentralize decision making authority and a failure to communicate accurate information are the most consequential weaknesses at the state level that have contributed to the Russian military’s subpar performance to date in the...

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Putin the Green? The Unintended Consequences of Russia’s Energy War on Europe

  After Russia’s February 24, 2022, re-invasion of Ukraine, all eyes turned to the brutal spectacle of Europe’s largest war since 1945. Yet, Russia’s ill-fated attempt to assert its sphere of influence in Europe has not been confined to...

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Turkey’s New Foreign Policy: Ankara’s Ambitions, Regional Responses, and Implications for the United States

  For the past century, Turkey’s foreign policy has been driven by the need to preserve the achievements of the Lausanne Treaty in the face of often serious threats from major powers. As a result, Turkey was a predominantly...

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On the Horns of a Dilemma: Will Corruption Bring Down the Chinese Communist Party?

  Executive Summary When the People’s Republic of China’s president and Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he publicly acknowledged that the Party faced an existential crisis from pervasive corruption at all levels of...

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Will Russia Survive Until 2084?

  Will Russia survive until 2084? Readers may recognize the query as an allusion to Andrei Amalrik’s historic 1969 essay, “Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?,” which itself was an allusion to Orwell’s famed novel. As with Amalrik’s...

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U.S.-Japan-Taiwan Dialogue: Deterrence, Defense, and Trilateral Cooperation

  DISCLAIMER: The dialogue discussed in this report was sponsored by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency and their Strategic Trends Research Initiative (STRI) program. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect...

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The Art of the Possible: Minimizing Risks as a New European Order Takes Shape

  Note: Research for this analysis was completed on October 13, 2022. The text does not reflect events since that date. Executive Summary Russia’s war on Ukraine is poised to bring into being a new European security order. Although...

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Afghanistan After Zawahiri: America’s Counterterrorism Options in the New South Asia

  Despite the attention in Washington currently paid to developments in Ukraine and the Taiwan Strait, terrorism remains a threat to US national security. The recent counterterrorism strike against Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul highlights that the fight against al-Qaeda,...

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Security Challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean

Introduction On May 2–3 2022, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Syria/Iraq Office and the Foreign Policy Research Institute convened a panel of foreign policy experts for a dialogue on security challenges present in the Eastern Mediterranean. The first day addressed state fragility...

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The Evolving Political-Military Aims in the War in Ukraine After 100 Days

  Russian war aims have contracted from conquering Ukraine to simply expanding the territory of the statelets it supposedly went to war to protect. By contrast, Ukraine’s war aims have grown from survival to the recovery of all territory...

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