President's message

President's Message

In the dynamic security setting of the twenty-first century, we at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA) continue to build on our thirty-year record of achievements. These include innovative analyses that identify over-the-horizon challenges and set forth effective national and U.S.-allied responses. Even before 9/11, for example, we had organized several high-level workshops and completed forward-looking studies on emerging risks to homeland security and the best ways to counter them at the federal, state, and local levels, and in concert with friends and allies. Similarly, well ahead of the current official focus on military transformation, IFPA was engaged in pioneering work on missile defense and its contribution to new thinking on deterrence, and our analysts produced numerous assessments of how new technologies and organizational reforms could help bolster the ability of U.S. military forces to meet the demands of the post-Cold War security environment. In recent years, 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 more useful frameworks for coalition building and security cooperation to counter global terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, we have conducted comprehensive surveys of the potential for political and economic reform, as well as the best ways to promote democratization in newly independent and transitioning countries, particularly in Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

Our cutting-edge work addresses the need to identify strategies and capabilities as well as policy options in a world where the customary boundary between international and domestic security has been all but obliterated by U.S. vulnerability at home from threats originating far from American shores. Homeland security has become an integral part of U.S. national security, and as a result, sectors, professions, occupations, and issues once considered to be separate must be brought together in innovative ways in order to cope with novel security issues. Clearly, if the United States is to surmount twenty-first-century challenges, a new mindset must be nurtured in which the “dots are connected” in unaccustomed ways. Based in the private sector but having extensive networks that encompass and extend 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 community needs, taking into account broader interagency and U.S.-allied/coalition partner 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 dialogue to produce more integrated, strategically focused policies that otherwise would not be possible, given the compartmentalization of governmental structures. With growing support from foundations, we are able to examine in greater depth and within a longer timeframe critical policy problems that are often overlooked in the press of daily events.
In the years ahead, we plan to build continue to offer responsive, integrated analyses of national security issues in the challenging twenty-first-century security setting.

Our web site 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