Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts The Philadelphia Papers

The Philadelphia Papers is a series of long-form essays devoted to illuminating the foreign policy and national security issues of the day.  With expert analysis from FPRI’s global network of scholars, the Philadelphia Papers will seek to bring the best of scholarship to bear on issues of policy import.

Israel’s Foreign Policy under Benjamin Netanyahu

The ways in which Prime Ministers of Israel have shaped Israel's foreign policy have often reflected a fairly balanced combination of political, personal, and national interests. This balance is reflected when Prime Ministers sometimes prefer to challenge the political...

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Competitive Shaping in World Politics: A Bibliographic Essay and Course Outline

This Philadelphia Paper provides a theoretical and applied introduction to Competitive Shaping, an umbrella term for a variety of discrete means of contesting the state and the system surrounding it, contesting hearts and minds, and various aspects of how...

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A Guide for the Perplexed: The Israeli National Security Constellation and its Effect on Policymaking

Israel commands inordinate attention—relative to its size—in international media and fora and in the study of international and Middle Eastern politics. Much ink has been spilled on Israeli defense and foreign policy outputs. Much less has been spilled on...

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Assessing Baltic Sea Regional Maritime Security

Russia’s increasingly assertive behavior in Europe has raised concerns about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) readiness for its principal mission of ensuring the security of its member states. The invasion of Ukraine in 2014 has gathered the most...

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Islamists and Autocrats: What the Next Administration Needs to Know about Egypt

Usually we think of Egypt's political future as a contest between secular autocrats, on the one hand, and Islamists, on the other. In doing so, we misapprehend both the autocrats and the Islamists, and Dr. Rock-Singer explains how—and...

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Foresight into 21st Century Conflict: End of the Greatest Illusion?

The number of conflicts is again on the rise as both states and violent actors contend for influence and seek to establish their position. Contrary to optimistic depictions of the present international system, there are powers seeking to alter...

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Great War at Sea: Remembering the Battle of Jutland

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the largest sea fight of the First World War, a clash between the main fleets of Germany and Great Britain that took place on the afternoon and evening of 31 May 1916...

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Parliament without Politics: The Effort to Consolidate Authoritarian Rule

Introduction General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Egypt’s ruler since July 2013, brooks no dissent. Having “saved” Egypt from the Muslim Brothers, he has ruled by decree in the absence of a parliament, supported by a handpicked technocratic cabinet. His security apparatus...

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Where the Lions Are — Gazprom’s “Energetic Pliers” and Aspirations of a Eurasian Archipelago: The Geopolitics of Russia’s Networked Energy Infrastructure

“I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off...

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The Evolution of the Executive and Executive Power in the American Republic

THE MODERN REPUBLIC AND THE BIRTH OF EXECUTIVE POWER As Americans, we take for granted the idea of a government that is both free and yet strong enough to preserve the security of its citizens. But the fact is...

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