Special Reports

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

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s U.S. Cell [1988–95]: the Ideological Foundations of Its Propaganda Strategy

Introduction Arab nationalism, territorial nationalism, and Arab socialism, among other ideologies, all heralded the restoration of the Middle East in early twentieth century to its pre-colonial, former glory. During the 1950s, various leaders and movements had surfaced, each attempting...

Read more »

The Hu-Obama Summit and U.S.-China Relations

Introduction In November 2009, United States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao held their first summit meeting in Beijing, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute published a collection of essays by scholars from the United States, the...

Read more »

The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics and Terrorism in the Arab Middle East

Introduction Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, a bloody conflict broke out between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shias. This conflict has led some observers to see the entire region through the prism of the age-old Sunni-Shia struggle. However,...

Read more »

Abraham Lincoln: Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime

Introduction In his recent study of Abraham Lincoln’s wartime leadership, Tried by War, the eminent historian James McPherson writes that “in the vast literature on the sixteenth president … the amount of attention devoted to his role as commander-in-chief...

Read more »

What are We Fighting For? Western Civilization, American Identity, and U.S. Foreign Policy

This January 2009 e-book by James Kurth, FPRI Senior Fellow and Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, discusses the foundations of Western and specifically American civilization, the ideals which make them worth fighting for.   The...

Read more »

Latin America’s Terrorist and Insurgent Groups: History and Status

Radical Islam in the Maghreb – 2005