The Adelphi series is The International Institute for Strategic Studies' flagship contribution to policy-relevant, original academic research.
Six books are published each year. They provide rigorous analysis of contemporary strategic and defence topics that is useful to politicians and diplomats, as well as academic researchers, foreign-affairs analysts, defence commentators and journalists.
By Geoffrey Till
December 27, 2012
The navies of China, India and to a lesser extent Japan are expanding rapidly at present. This has the potential to alter the US-dominated naval balance in Asia-Pacific but it also raises a question: are the region’s powers involved in a naval arms race? Naval development is and always has been a ...
By Audrey Kurth Cronin
June 06, 2008
Like all other terrorist movements, al-Qaeda will end. While it has traits that exploit and reflect the current international context, it is not utterly without precedent: some aspects of al-Qaeda are unusual, but many are not. Terrorist groups end according to recognisable patterns that have ...
By Peter R. Neumann
April 15, 2009
In Britain alone, several thousand young Muslims are thought to be part of violent extremist networks. How did they become involved? What are the mechanisms and dynamics through which European Muslims join al-Qaeda and groups inspired by al-Qaeda? This paper explains the processes whereby European...
By Brendan Taylor
June 22, 2010
Economic sanctions are becoming increasingly central to shaping strategic outcomes in the twenty-first century. They afford great powers a means by which to seek to influence the behaviour of states, to demonstrate international leadership and to express common values for the benefit of the ...
By Hilary Synnott
September 29, 2009
This book argues that any strategy for dealing with Pakistan requires an understanding of the country’s complex and turbulent history and of the weaknesses of its political and other institutions. It describes how, in the absence of an inherent national identity, successive military and civilian ...
By The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
October 11, 2012
As another presidential election looms, the America’s role in global affairs and security has emerged as one of the campaign’s great battle lines. The struggle not just to define but also to preserve American power is no modern phenomenon: questions of intervention and projection have dominated the...
By David R. Mares
August 16, 2012
This book explores interstate conflict and its dynamics in the context of Latin America’s contemporary conflict management experience. The myth of Latin America as a region of peace means that each time the use of force rises to the level of global attention (e.g., Ecuador-Peru 1995 or ...
By Nigel Inkster, Virginia Comolli
June 21, 2012
The world’s wealthiest nations have expended vast blood and treasure in tracking and capturing traffickers, dealers and consumers of narcotics, as well as destroying crops and confiscating shipments. Yet the global trade in illicit drugs is thriving, with no apparent change in the level of ...
By William Potter, Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova
April 03, 2012
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is the largest and most diverse political grouping of states engaged on issues related to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. Drawing on the authors’ first-hand experiences as members of NAM observer-state delegations in NPT and IAEA negotiations, as well as ...
Edited
By Toby Dodge, Nicholas Redman
February 13, 2012
As the international security forces prepare to depart from Afghanistan, this Adelphi turns attention to the ability of a ravaged country to tackle its myriad security problems, overcome crippling poverty and corruption and somehow revive its devastated economy. The government faces daunting ...
By David J. Betz, Tim Stevens
January 26, 2012
The major aim of Cyberspace and the State is to provide conceptual orientation on the new strategic environment of the Information Age. It seeks to restore the equilibrium of policy-makers which has been disturbed by recent cyber scares, as well as to bring clarity to academic debate on the subject...
By Tanya Ogilvie-White
October 20, 2011
This timely book, published in the lead up to the 2012-14 decision on Trident renewal, makes available for the first time the late Sir Michael Quinlan’s private correspondence on nuclear deterrence. It shows why Sir Michael, as Policy Director and then Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence...