IFPA Projects

Space & Missile Defense Project

Although the United States is the dominant player in space, a growing number of countries are accessing space for both military and commercial purposes, challenging U.S. preeminence. This year-long study will undertake a net assessment of space and U.S. national security, including space-based defenses, and, based on the assessment, produce a report setting forth the key elements of a space strategy. More...

Iran with Nuclear Weapons: Anticipating the Consequences for U.S. Security

Based on the assumption, unpalatable as it may seem, that a nuclear Iran is all but inevitable, this project focuses on three critically important questions: What are the geopolitical consequences of a nuclear Iran for the United States ? What would a nuclear Iran mean for U.S. defense and deterrence requirements at the regional and global levels? And what, in particular, would the United States need to do, diplomatically and militarily, to reassure friends and allies, and to strengthen extended deterrence, in the face of a nuclear Iran? More...

Iran with Nuclear Weapons: Literature Review & Briefing

With the assumption, unpalatable as it may seem, that a nuclear Iran is all but inevitable, it is of crucial importance to identify how nuclear weapons would fit into Iran’s national security strategy and in what manner they may be deployed. To begin this task, IFPA has assembled background materials that introduce the Iranian strategic setting. More...

The U.S.-Japan Alliance and the Future of Extended Deterrence

In the new setting since North Korea’s nuclear test, IFPA undertakes a fresh assessment of thinking in Japan and the United States about extended deterrence in Northeast Asia. More...

Finding the Right Mix: Disaster Diplomacy, National Security, and International Cooperation

With the generous support of the Smith Richardson Foundation, IFPA is undertaking a project to provide U.S. policy makers with enhanced tools for planning, managing, and concluding a major disaster operation effectively and in a manner that explicitly advances U.S. strategic objectives. More...

In Times of Crisis: Global and Local Civil-Military Disaster Relief Coordination in the United States and Japan

With support from the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership (CGP), IFPAis leading this collaborative effort by U.S. and Japanese specialists to conduct research and foster dialogue among civilian and military groups for the purposes of improving their civil-military communication in domestic and international crises. Joining IFPA in this project is the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University and Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS). More...

Identifying Trends in Japan-DPRK Relations and Implications for U.S. Policy

This recently completed project funded by theSmith-Richardson Foundation examined the determining factors behind Japan's evolving North Korea policy and how they will affect America's strategic and tactical approaches to the DPRK. More...

Strengthening Forces for Democratization

This new project is part of IFPA's ongoing work on democratization. The project's focus is democratic transformation in the Middle East and Central Asia. More...

North American Homeland Security and Defense: 
Enhancing U.S Joint Planning and Cooperation with Canada and Mexico in the War against Terrorism

IFPA recently received a grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation in Washington, D.C., to develop options to increase homeland defense/security cooperation between the United States and Canada and between the United States and Mexico.   A central element is safeguarding U.S. borders from weapons of mass destruction.  More...

The Post-ABM Treaty Missile Defense and
Space Relationship Project

As part of the IFPA missile defense program, the Independent Working Group on Post-ABM Treaty Missile Defense and the Space Relationship project is exploring missile defense architectures that include space-based systems.  IFPA will produce an independent working group report in 2005 that will provide an assessment of missile defense requirements beyond the deployment currently underway, together with opportunities to benefit from existing and new technologies including Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)-legacy systems.

Building on the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG): Exploring the Prospects for Expanding the TCOG Process as a Key U.S.-South Korea and U.S.-Japan Alliance Management Tool

In September 2003, IFPA, in collaboration with leading policy research institutions in Japan and South Korea, received a generous grant from the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership (CGP) to begin work on a unique, two-year policy research project to strengthen the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-South Korea relationships and enhance regional stability by improving the tools for alliance management. More...

Planning for Long-term U.S. Military Engagement in Central Asia

In September 2002, the Smith Richardson Foundation funded a study proposed by IFPA to examine the military and operational requirements that can be anticipated to drive U.S. security planning for operations in Central Asia and adjacent regions over the next ten to twenty years. More...

Homeland Defense and Consequence Management

As the U.S. home territory becomes increasingly vulnerable to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and other unconventional threats such as cyberterrorism, it, like its principal NATO allies and its key allies in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, can no longer be considered a sanctuary in a dangerous world. More...

Stability and Confidence Building on the Korean Peninsula:
Meshing Korean Reconciliation with U.S. Security Requirements

IFPA believes that this study, funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, will make a truly unique contribution both to the broad policy debate on the U.S. response to Korean reconciliation and to the articulation of a restructured military posture better suited to the geopolitical conditions of a reconciled (if not reunified) Korea. More...

Building Six-Party Capacity for a WMD-Free Korea

Supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, this three-year study involves all of the countries in the six-party process and examines how these countries can build a regional organization to help implement the key aspects (security assurances, dismantlement/verification regimes, economic assistance for North Korea) of a denuclearization agreement reached with North Korea. More...