The Institute for National Strategic Studies serves as a focal point for analysis of critical national security policy and defense strategy issues.
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Dec. 16, 2025
Dr. Tom Lynch Contributes U.S. Chapter to The Palgrave Geopolitical Atlas
"Chapter 2: United States" in The Palgrave Geopolitical Atlas: State and Quasi-State Actors in Great Power Competition is part of a comprehensive 54-chapter edited book that examines global state and quasi-state interactions in the new era of Great Power Competition.
Dec. 11, 2025
The Challenge of a Rising, Nuclear-Armed China
This National Institute for Public Policy article examines several specific developments in China’s nuclear arsenal, which, coupled with Beijing’s aggressive foreign policy, hold sobering implications for U.S. national security interests.
Dec. 3, 2025
Strategic Ambiguity: Erdoğan’s Turkey in a Multipolar World
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Finland and Sweden made the historic decision to seek membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Dec. 2, 2025
Can Seoul Take the Lead & The Alliance Expand Its Aperture?
South Korea taking a lead role in conventional deterrence of North Korea, appears linked with enabling the U.S. conventional posture and the alliance's combined posture on the peninsula to better handle multiple threats to the alliance on, around, and beyond it.
The Variables of OPCON: What "Conditions"?
Language around wartime operational control (OPCON) transition has evolved over the last decade, revealing important patterns and subtle (or not so subtle) shifts in position and policy.
Human Agency Under Predictive Insight: Neuroethical Guidance of Behavioral AI
The examination of the Centaur AI system highlights a turning point at the intersection of behavioral science and artificial intelligence, and reveals a compelling truth: human choice displays structured regularity that advanced analytic systems can model.
Nov. 25, 2025
Foreign Terrorist Fighters: A Threat in Stasis
The threat of foreign fighters today is best understood as being in stasis.
INSS joins NUPI Russia Conference 2025
INSS Distinguished Research Fellow Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff participated in the NUPI Russia Conference 2025: Russian power practices and repertoires.
Nov. 24, 2025
Critical Technology Areas Part 2: Implications and Recommendations for the Warfighter and Warfighting
As noted in last week’s special edition Strategic Insights, the Department of War will focus upon furthering research, testing and use of six key domains of disruptive technology (viz., applied artificial intelligence [AI], biomanufacturing, contested logistics technologies, quantum and battlefield information dominance, scaled directed energy, and scaled hypersonics).
Nov. 18, 2025
Convergent Critical Technologies Part 1: The Integrative Transformation of Warfighting
The Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering’s designation of six Critical Technology Areas (CTAs; viz., Applied Artificial Intelligence, Biomanufacturing, Contested Logistics Technologies, Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance, Scaled Directed Energy, and Scaled Hypersonics) constitutes a fundamental conceptualization of how power will be projected, contested, and sustained across the conflict spectrum.