CENTER FOR STRATEGY AND MILITARY POWER

The CSMP conducts objective, rigorous, and timely research on key national security issues.

Director: Dr. Kim Cragin

The INSS Center for Strategy and Military Power (CSMP) conducts objective, rigorous, and timely research on key national security issues. CSMP research and analysis responds to the needs of decisionmakers in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, combatant commands, Services, as well as other national security stakeholders. It also pays particular attention to emerging strategic trends that pose longer term challenges for U.S. national security.

 

Areas of Focus 

“Big Five” Threats

Defense Strategy & Policy

Allies and Partners

Recent Publications

The Cover of Dialogue | Episode 50, ROK-U.S. Alliance: The Near Future—A Dialogue with Dr. Clint Work, a Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies podcast
ROK-U.S. Alliance: The Near Future—A Dialogue with Dr. Clint Work
By Dr. Clint Work | Sept. 9, 2025
Dr. Clint Work joined the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) Dialogue podcast.
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Commanding General for the unified U.N. forces Aiding the Republic of Korea to repel the North Korean Communists, and a staff officer (right) inspecting a Communist tank, destroyed during the recent U.N. landings at Incho, September 1950.
The Variables of OPCON
By Dr. Clint Work | Aug. 1, 2025
The control rod logic, while not outwardly promoted by U.S. officials, had reemerged to shape the process around the status of wartime OPCON.
Podcast cover art for
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Geopolitics in the South Caucasus
By Max Bergmann and Maria Snegovaya | July 16, 2025
Jeffrey Mankoff, a Distinguished Research Fellow in the INSS Center for Strategy and Military Power (CSMP), joined The Russian Roulette podcast.
Cover of The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 48 Iss 2
Iran’s Strategic Crossroads: Options Beyond the Axis?
By Mahsa Rouhi | July 7, 2025
Events of 2023-2024, culminating with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, have brought Iran’s regional strategy—a triad of ballistic missile capabilities, nuclear latency, and a decentralized network of regional armed partners—to a moment of reckoning.
President Donald Trump sits with senior national security officials in the White House Situation Room during the U.S. operation targeting Iran's nuclear program on June 22, 2025. Photo credit: White House photo via whitehouse.gov; Public Domain.
A Better Way to Talk About Risk
By Dr. Kim Cragin | July 6, 2025
Defense planners are prepared to accept risk to deter China, but what does that mean for counterterrorism?
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Meet the Experts

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