National Security

Dark Eagle in the Desert: Considerations for Deploying LRHW to CENTCOM

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...

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The Golden Fleet on Paper: Ambition Meets Strategic Contradiction

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...

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Scaling Patriot Production: The Industrial Base Crisis Explained

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...

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Why Niger Can Seize Uranium but Cannot Sell It

More than 1,000 metric tons of yellowcake uranium sit at Airbase 101 adjacent to Niamey’s international airport, loaded onto trucks that have not moved in weeks, a convoy that has become a defining image of a world order in...

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Russia After Putin

Vladimir Putin, 73, has been Russia’s leader for over a quarter of a century and the driving force behind Moscow’s efforts to reassert control over its former Soviet and Tsarist empire. His eventual departure from the world stage will...

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FPRI Experts React | The US Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz

On Monday, April 13th, the United States announced that the US Navy would block Iranian ships entering or exiting the Strait of Hormuz. The announcement came after the first-round of negotiations to formally end the conflict concluded in Islamabad,...

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The UAV-Enabled Anti-Air Defense Campaign in the Third Gulf War

This piece is part of Behind the Front, an FPRI project on the future of US and allied national defense. In late 2020, drones burst onto the national security scene in a new way. During the Nagorno-Karabakh war between...

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Pathways for the War with Iran

After a month of combat operations, the United States and Israel have made it clear that they will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Based on Iran’s history of domestic repression and foreign terrorism, this is a...

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The Royal Navy in the Gulf

This piece is part of Behind the Front, an FPRI project on the future of US and allied national defense. The Royal Navy is set to take a leading role in a multinational “Hormuz Coalition” to reopen the Strait...

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Militias and Iraq’s Role in a Multifaceted Regional War

Introduction Amid the escalating Iran-US-Israel war, Iraq is increasingly becoming one of its central fronts, bringing back into sharp focus a chronic structural dilemma: the role of militias embedded within the state and the consequences of their conduct for...

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