The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis

In the dynamic security setting of the twenty-first century, we at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA) continue to build on our achievements over a period of more than thirty years. These include innovative analyses that identify over-the-horizon challenges and set forth creative policy options. We seek not only to respond to pressing issues but also to anticipate future problems that will confront the policy community. Our studies bring together the broad range of factors—political, military, economic, and diplomatic—as well as the actors—civilian and military, from the United States and abroad—shaping the setting within which policy solutions are forged. We address broadly based strategic level issues, together with specific problems facing policy makers and others having a direct interest in national security.

Our work encompasses counterproliferation strategies to cope with the challenges of states and terrorists possibly in possession of weapons of mass destruction; key security issues in regions of importance—from the Middle East to East Asia, from Europe to this hemisphere; building layered defenses for homeland security; the problems of failed states that may or have become terrorist havens; the implications of unconventional and irregular warfare for U.S. strategy and force levels; rethinking deterrence requirements for new security needs; and the emerging geopolitical setting that is being shaped by technologies for cyberwar and a host of other asymmetrical threats, as well as the needs of energy security.

We have organized large numbers of high-level workshops and completed forward-looking studies on emerging risks to homeland security and on the best ways to counter them at the federal, state, and local levels, and in concert with allies and coalition partners. IFPA analysts have examined changes to overseas basing structures to improve U.S. strategic flexibility, and they have assessed ways of transforming Cold War alliances into twenty-first-century frameworks for coalition building and security cooperation to counter global terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We have conducted comprehensive surveys of the potential for political and economic reform, as well as the best ways to promote democratization.

Our cutting-edge work identifies strategies and capabilities as well as policy options in a world in which the customary boundaries between international and domestic security have been obliterated by our vulnerability at home from threats originating far from our shores. As homeland security has become an integral part of national security, a large number of professions, occupations, and issues once considered to be largely or exclusively in either the foreign-policy realm or the domestic realm have been brought together. Clearly, if we are to surmount twenty-first-century challenges, a new mindset must continue to be nurtured in which the “dots are connected” in unaccustomed ways in a rapidly changing world.

Based in the private sector but having extensive networks beyond the official policy community at home and abroad, IFPA is uniquely positioned to provide innovative solutions to complex challenges requiring this new mindset. We draw regularly on expertise in the civilian and military communities in countries around the world, in and out of government, to assist in our work.

We strive to meet urgent official policy needs as well as to identify future issues. Our analyses, workshops, and conferences are greatly valued and in high demand both within government circles and in the private sector. We work closely with senior policy makers in the executive branch and the military leadership, as well as with members of Congress and with the corporate community. With events that we sponsor or organize, we facilitate cross-departmental, interagency, and international dialogue to produce more integrated, strategically focused policies that otherwise would not be possible, given the compartmentalization of governmental structures. We examine in greater depth and within a longer timeframe critical policy problems that are often overshadowed by daily events.

This website provides detailed, up-to-date information about IFPA and our many programmatic activities. We invite you to browse our site to learn more about IFPA's work and to feel free to contact us with questions or comments.

Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.
President
May 2009