Featured at IFPA

Click on the tabs below to read about new, featured, and recently completed projects and publications and recent and upcoming conferences and workshops.

  • current research
  • publications
  • conferences & workshops
  • articles & presentations
Independent Working Group on Missile Defense
As part of IFPA's missile defense program, the Independent Working Group ( IWG ) on Post-ABM Treaty Missile Defense and the Space Relationship is exploring missile defense architectures that include space-based systems.
April 20, 2012, Capitol Hill conference details and video || project details || report (7.04 MB)
After Hatoyama: Preparing for Japanese Foreign Policy in Transition
This project studies the challenges that the recently elected Japanese government faces as it tries to develop viable alternatives to the bilateralism on which its foreign policy has been predicated for over fifty years.
project details || From Rhetoric to Reality (1.51 MB)
Peacebuilding as a U.S.-Japan Alliance Mission
Working together with partners from Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) and others, IFPA has undertaken this project to examine U.S.-Japan peacebuilding collaboration and how it could strengt || hen the alliance in the long run.
project details || March 31–April 1, 2012, workshop agenda || March 31–April 1, 2012, workshop partcipants || April 2011 workshop
New Strategic Dynamics in the Arctic Region: Implications for National Security and International Collaboration
This project explores and assesses trends that together could transform the Arctic from a relative strategic backwater to a strategic crossroads of global importance.
project details || monograph (47.36 MB) || selected readings
Rapid Strategic Assessment for the NATO Special Operations Headquarters
In support of the NATO Special Operations Headquarters (NSHQ), IFPA is a major contributor to the Rapid Strategic Assessment project, which works with NSHQ in carrying out its core missions.
project details || project-related meetings || NATO Review article by Jacquelyn K. Davis
Peace Regime Building for a Nuclear Weapon-free Korean Peninsula: Next Steps for Capacity Building
In cooperation with institutional partners in Northeast Asia, IFPA is leading a nongovernmental multinational working group to discuss, research, and draft a joint proposal for a Korean peace regime that complements related inter-Korean efforts and facilitates North Korean denuclearization.
interim report (2.65 MB) || project details
Support to the Defense Department, Combatant Commands, and Military Service Leadership
This is an ongoing project for the Department of Defense (DoD), for which the Institute provides detailed policy reports and organizes high-level workshops on critical issues of national security for DoD, combatant command (COCOM), and military service leaderships.
project details
Democracy in Latin America Seminar Series: Challenges of Radical Populism
In association with the Hudson Institute, IFPA has examined radical populism in Latin America in order to provide policy recommendations to leaders of government and civil society in the Hemisphere to help counter anti-democratic forces and authoritarianism.
project details
Sending UCAS to Sea: A Superior Carrier through the Unmanned Combat Air System
This project, launched in 2008, considers the key characteristics, capabilities, and future role in carrier fleet operations of the Navy Unmanned Combat Air System (N-UCAS) now under development.
project details
From Rhetoric to Reality: Foreign-Policy Making under the Democratic Party of Japan
Weston S. Konishi
April 2012, 112 pp
Description
This report examines the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)’s foreign-policy making since it took power in 2009. Prepared as part of a project supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the report looks at the key people, policies, and processes that have come to underlie the DPJ’s foreign-policy making as a ruling party, and it includes an attempt to define and categorize four main foreign policy strains within the party. Rather than focus on the current state of U.S.-Japan relations, this study examines Japan’s broader diplomatic and strategic activity beyond the bilateral relationship while considering how these actions might impact the U.S.-Japan relationship in the future.
report (1.51 MB) || project details
New Strategic Dynamics in the Arctic Region: Implications for National Security and International Collaboration
Charles M. Perry and Bobby Andersen
February 2012, 190 pp
Description
A comprehensive examination of the new strategic map now emerging in the Arctic as the polar ice cap continues to melt, opening a new ocean and giving way to new and ever larger waterways in the High North.
monograph (47.36 MB) || project details || selected readings
Denuclearizing North Korea: Exploring Multilateral Approaches to Risk Reduction and Peace Regime Building
Weston S. Konishi
September 2011, 71 pp
Description
The final project report from a nongovernmental (Track 2) multinational working group led by IFPA to address security issues on the Korean peninsula.
project report (765 KB) || project details
The Marine Corps: America's Expeditionary Force in Readiness
39th IFPA-Fletcher Conference on National Security Strategy and Policy
Conference report
July 2011, 107 pp
report (3.45 MB) || post-conference website
The U.S. Approach to Peacebuilding: From a Whole-of-Government to a Whole-of-Alliance Approach with Japan
Weston S. Konishi and Charles T. McClean
June 2011, 14 pp
Description
This paper was first presented at a one-day bilateral workshop on April 29, 2011, held in conjunction with the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) in Washington, D.C. In the papers, authors aim to assess each government's “whole-of-government” or interagency coordination of peacebuilding policies and to identify priorities, assets, and expertise as applied to Afghanistan and Sudan. The goal of the project is to explore the strengths and weaknesses of both the United States and Japan’s respective initiatives with an eye toward how the two allies can best cooperate and work synergistically in a “whole of alliance” approach to peacebuilding operations in vulnerable or failing states.
peacebuilding paper (164 KB) || workshop agenda || project details
Peacebuilding as a U.S.-Japan Alliance Mission: Developing a Complementary “Whole-of-Alliance” Approach
Weston S. Konishi
May 2011, 8 pp
Description
Summary of an April 29, 2011, workshop held in conjunction with the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Washington, D.C.
workshop summary (164 KB) || workshop agenda || project details
Grand Strategy & the Strategic Triad: Capitol Hill Conference held by the Independent Working Group (IWG) on Missile Defense and the Space Relationship
April 20, 2012, Washington, D.C.
Description
The Independent Working Group (IWG) on Missile Defense and the Space Relationship held this Capitol Hill conference on April 20, 2012, in Washington, D.C. Organized by IFPA, the meeting brought together expertise on space, nuclear modernization, and missile defense to discuss the synergistic relationships among these core components of a broader twenty-first-century U.S. grand strategy for national security. The focus was priority issues and programs within and among space, nuclear modernization, and missile defense. Presentations were given by a panel of experts drawn primarily from IWG membership. The conference drew at least seventy-five participants from House and Senate staffs, the U.S. military services, the official civilian government, and the broader Washington, D.C., policy community. The program was videotaped as part of an effort to give broader dissemination to the presentations and discussion.
conference details and video || project details
U.S.-Japan Peacebuilding Cooperation: Roles and Recommendations
March 31 – April 1, 2012, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka, Japan
Description
This workshop, organized by IFPA and the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), was part of IFPA's ongoing Peacebuilding as a U.S.-Japan Alliance Mission project.
project details || workshop agenda || workshop participants || April 2011 workshop
Implementing a New Vision for SOCOM: Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities
February 29, 2012, Washington, D.C., a SOCOM-IFPA workshop
Counter-Piracy and Counter-Terrorism Planning for Somalia and the Horn of Africa: Implications for NATO and NSHQ Planning
January 10, 2012, The Hague, the Netherlands
Description
IFPA collaborated with the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies to organize the seventh NATO SOF Coordination Centre (NSCC) Senior Steering Group (SSG) meeting, a workshop on Somalia and future requirements for counter-piracy and counter-terrorism planning. The workshop explored options for dealing with piracy and its potential use by al-Shabab to destabilize Somalia and its regional partners, and to understand more precisely the possibilities for and/or constraints on an expanded use of NATO, the European Union (EU), or national forces to support the African Union mission in Somalia (AUMIS), to shore up the position of the Transnational Federal Government (TFG) in and possibly beyond Mogadishu, and to empower regional forces in their fight against violent extremists on the African continent. A related workshop objective was to explore the possibilities for enhancing and broadening intelligence collaboration on counter-piracy and counter-terrorism planning between NATO and the EU, and how such collaboration could enable NATO SOF to position themselves more effectively should the Alliance’s political leaders decide to support a more forward-leaning position on Somalia and the Horn of Africa, either to facilitate World Food Program deliveries or to employ the use of force, under a new UNSC mandate, to target jihadi training camps, pirate bases, or other related logistical infrastructure on the ground in Somalia. 
meeting agenda || project details || list of all SAG/SSG meetings
NATO Special Operations Headquarters Senior Steering Group Meeting
May 24 – May 26, 2011, Krakow, Poland
Description
The fifth SSG meeting took place in Krakow, Poland, on May 24–26, 2011, in conjunction with the NATO SOF Commanders' Conference and the dedication of the new Polish SOF Headquarters. The NATO SOF Commanders' Conference featured a panel presentation by four SSG members, focusing on lessons-learned from Afghanistan and recent operations. The four SSG members who participated on this panel — Dr. Jacquelyn K. Davis, Dr. Rob de Wijk, Commodore Lars Wille-Jorgensen, and Dr. Andrzej Karkoszka — || had each traveled to Afghanistan with members of the NSHQ and met with ISAF and national SOF teams to hear their perspectives on lessons-learned and the way ahead for NATO SOF planning, training and education, and capabilities development. This meeting also featured the participation of senior Polish defense officials and leaders from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), including Admiral Eric Olson.
slides (896 KB) || project details
NATO after 9/11: A US Perspective
By Jacquelyn K. Davis, September 2011
article available online