Policy Papers

The Nine Gates of Power: China’s Passageways to the World Ocean

June 6, 2025 Kyle Kinnie American Foreign Policy Council

In December 2010, the Asahi Shimbun published a remarkable roadmap laying out the future trajectory of Chinese maritime expansion. In its analysis, the Shimbun outlined a geographically contingent thesis of Chinese geopolitical strategy—one on which the scholar Tetsuo Kotani elaborated further in a 2019 academic paper. Both publications argue that Chinese maritime access to the Pacific and Indian Oceans is effectively constrained through a series of islands and straits in the First Island Chain. These potential chokepoints constitute the “Nine Gates” through which Chinese maritime commerce and sea power must flow. 

Understanding ASEAN

March 17, 2025 Larry M. Wortzel American Foreign Policy Council

ASEAN has grown from a small, consensus-based group into a significant regional bloc, now at the center of U.S.-China competition. Its expanded scope and diverse membership make it both a key player and a complex challenge for external powers.

Identifying the Next TikTok: Which Apps Could Washington Target Next?

September 13, 2024 Joel Thayer American Foreign Policy Council

Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (the Act). The Act specifically mentions ByteDance and TikTok, which means that they and their subsidiaries are required to divest. However, the law's scope is not limited to just TikTok and ByteDance. The Act broadly applies foreign ownership restrictions to apps operating within the United States. Specific attention is given in this paper to WeChat and Temu.

The Road to Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential Election

December 14, 2023 Larry M. Wortzel American Foreign Policy Council

On January 13, 2024, the Republic of China, also known as “Nationalist China” and Taiwan, will hold its next presidential election. This will be the eighth direct election of a president in Taiwan, the first having been held in 1996. It will also be a contest that showcases the island’s changing identity politics, shifting political preferences, and potential security challenges. 

AFPC Iran Strategy Brief no. 14: How Israel Thinks About Iran’s Future

October 4, 2023 Ilan I. Berman

For Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran represents both a cardinal security challenge and an existential danger. The country’s current clerical regime is estimated to be connected to some “80 percent” of the contemporary security problems confronting the Jewish state.[1] These include not only Iran’s increasingly mature nuclear program, but also its extensive sponsorship of extremist proxies throughout the Mideast, as well as the radical expansionist ideology that continues to animate the regime in Tehran.

The Starship Singularity

February 22, 2023 Peter Garretson Space Policy Review

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.

Clarifying the Planetary Defense Mission

June 15, 2021 Peter Garretson Defense Technology Program Brief

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.

Xinjiang and the Genocide Question

January 15, 2021 David Knapp Indo-Pacific Security Program Memorandum

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.

Primary Jurisdiction of Humanitarian Concern: A New Tool to Blunt China’s Campaign in Xinjiang

September 25, 2020 American Foreign Policy Council

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.

Iran Strategy Brief No. 13: Reforming U.S. Persian Language Media - A preliminary Assessment

April 22, 2019 Ilan I. Berman

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...

Cyber Threats in the Space Domain

March 30, 2016 Jennifer McArdle

The ability to access and exploit space has long been woven into the fabric of American national power. It is a critical component of global political leadership, the economy, and military power. Unfortunately, those pillars are increasingly at risk. The spread of space technology to new international actors and the increasing sophistication of those capabilities have made it possible to threaten American space systems directly. The national security community is accustomed to analyzing these threats and vulnerabilities and is pursuing a reasonable mix of policies and programs to address them. (Whether those actions are sufficient is subject to debate). However, over the last decade space and cyberspace have grown increasingly integrated. This opens up new vulnerabilities in American space systems, and gives a greater number of actors the potential to exploit those vulnerabilities...

Understanding Cybersecurity - Part 5 | Military Cyber Operations

November 9, 2015 Richard M. Harrison

What is the role of cybersecurity in the conduct of war and ongoing security operations? Policymakers, academics, and journalists often think of cybersecurity as a single domain problem. That is to say, they view cyber operations as taking place solely within its own domain—one that is separate from land, sea, air or space. This perspective, however, overlooks the fact that computer systems and networks pervade society and the physical environment, and are present to some degree in all physical environs and across the three levels of war (strategic, operational, and tactical). Modern militaries employ forces in a “joint” manner, combining the specific platforms and technologies of different services to achieve a more effective force. National security policymakers should similarly see both kinetic and cyber capabilities as part of a broad set of tools available to achieve their objectives. Thinking of cybersecurity as a limited or separate space, wholly distinct from the other domains of conflict, limits the potential for understanding its strategic utility...

Understanding Cybersecurity - Part 4 | Internet Security Governance

October 1, 2015 Richard M. Harrison

Internet Security Governance covers the policy challenges that arise from building and governing security in the Internet’s architecture and key protocols. It is not a description of security for computers and networks (Information Assurance), how to manage the negotiated structure and key functions of the Internet (Internet Governance), or the pursuit of criminal groups and other threat actors (Cyber Crime). Internet Security Governance is the discussion of defensively oriented technical and legal topics that cross national boundaries and/or involve security of the underlying protocols and hardware which make up the Internet...

The War Against ISIS Through Social Media

July 6, 2015 Richard M. Harrison

On July 7, the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) held the fourth installment of its Defense Technology Program’s Understanding Cybersecurity lunch briefing series for Congressional Staffers. This event, entitled, “How the Caliphate is Communicating:” Understanding and Countering the Islamic State’s Messaging outlined how and why the Islamic State has been winning the “war of ideas” through the use of social media, and how the group is using social media to further its operations...

Understanding Cybersecurity - Part 3 | Cyber Crime

June 29, 2015 Richard M. Harrison

Cyber crime covers a wide range of activities that includes theft, fraud and harassment; stealing valuable intellectual property as part of industrial espionage; committing financial fraud and credit card theft; and disrupting internet services for ideological goals (“hacktivism”). The crimes target both firms and consumers, and while they rarely result in physical harm or property damage, there can still be severe consequences...

Iran Strategy Brief No. 7: Iran’s Various Voices

June 16, 2015 Ilan I. Berman

Is the Islamic Republic of Iran a country or a cause? For decades, the question is one that has bedeviled Western observers. Foreign politicians and diplomats long have struggled to reconcile the Iranian regime’s radical rhetoric and destructive international behavior with its pragmatic participation in numerous treaty arrangements, and its prominent role in various multilateral forums.

Understanding Cybersecurity - Part 2 | Information Assurance

April 14, 2015 Richard M. Harrison

Information Assurance is the art and science of securing computer systems and networks against efforts by third parties to disable, intrude, or otherwise impede operations. It is the focus of most “cybersecurity” professionals in the technical community. The principal goals are to maintain an information system’s Confidentiality (the secrecy of information as it is used and stored), Integrity, reliability of data and equipment, and Availability, that a computer system is ready and able to function as needed. Information Assurance includes writing secure software, deploying it safely, and managing it to minimize the risk of compromise.

Asia for the Asians

January 28, 2015 Joshua EisenmanRichard M. Harrison

In recent months, Xi Jinping’s China has rolled out a large number of new foreign policy initiatives. Some of these have been economic proposals such as the BRICS Bank; the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; the China-Korea and China-Australia free trade agreements; the land and maritime silk road proposals; a massive, albeit not entirely transparent, energy deal with Russia; an increasingly effective effort to promote international trade denominated in the yuan or Renminbi; and an attempt to push ahead with either the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific.

Understanding Cybersecurity - Part 1 | Redefining Cybersecurity

January 21, 2015 Richard M. Harrison

Cybersecurity is an often abused and much misused term that was once intended to describe and now serves better to confuse. While originally intended to cover security related issues associated with “cyberspace,” a phrase coined by author William Gibson in the short story “Burning Chrome,” it has become the byword for a staggeringly diverse array of topics. While this is frustrating, the term is popular as shorthand, so we offer this paper to identify and explain four clusters of related topics under the larger umbrella of “cybersecurity.” Each is a distinct issue area with unique technical and policy challenges, while retaining some association to the others...

American Deterrence and Future Conflicts

December 21, 2014 Richard M. Harrison

On the centennial of the start of World War I—a war that began largely as a result of crisis miscalculations and escalations—we are entering a new era with important implications for deterrence, escalation control, and coalition management. Today, like at the time of World War I, we confront a large number of actors who have the potential to misread cues and red lines while relying on treaty relationships if they miscalculate. Then, as now, military technologies were widely diffused. Prevailing assumptions about how an adversary (or potential adversary) would react in a crisis or confrontation were based on imperfect intelligence and inadequate understanding of red lines...

U. S. & European Perspectives of Current and Evolving Security Challenges

October 30, 2014 Richard M. Harrison

As we think through the role that the United States might play in addressing future security challenges in the European and Eurasian arenas in coming years, it would seem appropriate to have some indication of the thinking, thoughts, and ideas of our partners and allies—especially those in NATO. Americans may feel strongly about issues such as missile defense, countering terrorism and stopping Iran from developing a nuclear capability, but do European and Eurasian allies feel the same?...

Protecting the Warfighter in an Austere Budget Environment

September 23, 2014 Richard M. Harrison

Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying, “Gentlemen, we have run out of money. Now we have to think.” A similar statement is attributed to Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealand physicist often cited as the “father” of nuclear physics. Regardless of who uttered this quote, many believe it appropriately summarizes the state of America’s defense establishment today. “Fiscal austerity” is the environment in which national security decisions are made...