Policy Papers

Starship, due to its reusability, size, and power, will dramatically improve access to low Earth orbit that will greatly support the expansion of public-and private-sector activity in space.

Commercial-level Space-based solar power (SSP) satellites will reduce dependence on fossil fuels, dramatically shift global energy markets, build economic and geopolitical influence, and accelerate military and space power projection.

Renewed alignment between America and South Korea is opening new possibilities to elevate the U.S.-ROK alliance from a regional partnership to a global project. However, the China policies of Washington and Seoul are complicating these possibilities.

Since 2005, Congress has recognized that an asteroid impact represents a serious threat to national security. Though Congress tasked NASA to survey hazardous asteroids larger than 140m by 2020, sixteen years later it remains incomplete.

Civil and military space investments significantly benefit the U.S. economy and national security. Yet, DoD space, NASA space, and overall federal space funding are insufficient for the U.S. to compete in the new space age.

The U.S. has become dependent on a potential adversary for some of the most crucial materials in high technology production: rare earth elements.

Measured by the standards outlined in Article II of the Genocide Convention, it becomes clear that Chinese authorities are, at a minimum, guilty of three separate acts of genocide in Xinjiang.

Given the curvature of the Earth, as well as the speed, altitude, and maneuverability of hypersonics, the only way to provide coverage is to place sensors in orbit around the Earth.

Understanding the logic of China’s atrocities in Xinjiang is impossible apart from accounting for the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) needs Xinjiang to function as a critical OBOR hub, and is cracking down on Uyghurs and other minority groups to establish total control over the territory. U.S. policymakers should exploit this logic and consider sanctioning commerce passing through Xinjiang.

Any discussion of space development needs to begin with a basic question: is it worth it?

Britain’s decision to allow Huawei built 5G infrastructure presents acute challenges to the U.S.

Hypersonic weapons are coming online just as the United States shifts its focus back to great power competition as its most pressing national security threat.

In the Spring of 2017, the management of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the U.S. government’s official coordinating body for international media, approached the American Foreign Policy Council with a request. In response to persistent criticism from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, as well as mounting pressure from the newly-inaugurated Trump administration, the agency sought to commission an independent review of the content of its Persian-language media outreach. Such a process, BBG professionals explained, would help the agency to identify and rectify significant deficiencies at a time when the role of U.S. broadcasting toward the Islamic Republic was a topic of growing scrutiny (and skepticism) among those formulating the country’s strategy toward Iran...

In 2015, Russia formally entered the Syrian conflict, becoming the Assad regime’s second sponsor, alongside Iran. The grounds for that intervention, we now know, were laid at a 2015 meeting between Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

As Central Asians seek to design structures of cooperation that fit their needs, they should certainly build on the achievements of the late 1990s.

In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s May 8th decision to formally end America’s participation in the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), there has been significant speculation about potential responses on the part of the Iranian leadership.

How does North Korea use cyber means to achieve its political and military objectives? Ever since the Korean War, North Korea’s stated foreign policy goal has been to reunify the Korean peninsula under its rule.

Among the Islamic Republic of Iran’s central strategic goals are the preservation of its political regime and its ascension to what it views as its rightful place as the regional hegemon of the Middle East.

The passage this summer of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, a wide-ranging legislative package that imposed new economic pressure on Russia, Iran and North Korea, reignited the debate over U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic.

The Obama administration’s Iran policy has been driven by the conviction that reaching a deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons program would constitute a historic diplomatic breakthrough, lead to a fundamental transformation in U.S.-Iranian relations, and prompt significant changes in the Islamic Republic’s international behavior.