Special Reports

Executive Summary China’s latest Five-Year Plan signals that it has become more pessimistic about the global environment, seeing it as uncertain and unstable. However, the Chinese Communist Party sees opportunity in that instability to promote the Community of Common...

Executive Summary A small group of Russian nationalists has been calling to “reclaim” Russia’s colonial territories since the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991. After the Kremlin finally acted on these aspirations by invading parts of Ukraine, the number...

Introduction For much of the post–Cold War period, Central Asia was framed as a space of Sino-Russian coordination, institutionalized through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and underwritten by a tacit division of labor: Russia provided security, and China delivered...

 Introduction Kyrgyzstan was once viewed as the “island of democracy “in Central Asia. That changed in the last five years due to the tandem of President Sadyr Japarov and head of the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) Kamchybek...

  Following the 12-day war in late June 2025, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) immediately began a project to understand how the region has changed and what the military action could mean for future combat. The project and...

Executive Summary Russia’s policy execution structure decentralizes responsibility for the reintegration of war participants, while centralizing credits for success stories, because the execution of the policy is rife with political risks but keeping the narrative of reintegration under tight...

  On a cool night in April 2024, the Iranian military surprised American and coalition war planners. It launched a massive salvo of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles at Israel, following an Israeli air attack on an Iranian...

USNORTHCOM’s Role and Place in a Changing Circumpolar Security Environment Executive Summary The United States has quickly adapted to the new security environment in a changing Arctic, as the region must deal with geopolitical tension stemming from Russia, the...

  The 12-Day War between Iran and Israel in June 2025 exposed critical weaknesses in the Islamic Republic’s military, strategic, and ideological frameworks, marking a turning point for the regime. The Iranian government’s failure to achieve its political and...

  Introduction There are two remarkable stories about defenses during the war between Israel and Iran in June 2025. One is the failure of Iran’s much-discussed air defense system; the other, the success of the Israeli missile defense system....