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 Lawrence Freedman
June 30, 1998
Rapid developments in information technology and precision weaponry are said to herald a 'revolution in military affairs' (RMA), making possible quick and decisive victories with minimal casualties and collateral damage. But has such a revolution taken place? The issues that drive conflict will ...
By Tim Huxley, Susan Willett
July 27, 2005
During the 1990s, military spending, arms procurement and defence industrialisation have all increased rapidly in East Asia. Although these developments do not constitute an arms race, they nevertheless have important implications for suppliers of defence equipment, for arms control and for ...
By Lucie Béraud-Sudreau
March 26, 2020
Ever since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958, France has believed its strategic independence to be predicated on self-sufficiency in modern weapons. In order to maintain the requisite defence-industrial base, in the context of limited domestic orders, successive governments have ...
By Michael Howard, Benjamin Rhode
February 17, 2020
With the death of Professor Sir Michael Howard, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) lost not only its president emeritus but the last of its founders and intellectual parents. The foremost military historian of his generation, Sir Michael embodied and epitomised a historical ...
By William Walker
March 08, 2005
First Published in 2005. How should the 'problem of order' associated with weapons of mass destrcution be understood and addressed today? Have the problem and its solution been misconceived and misrepresented, as manifested by the problematic aftermath of Iraq War? Has 9/11 rendered ...
By James Hamill
January 16, 2018
When Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president on 10 May 1994, South Africa enjoyed an unprecedented global standing. Much of the international community, particularly Western states, saw the new South Africa as well equipped to play a dynamic and dominant role on the continent; promoting conflict ...
By Sarah Raine
June 05, 2019
Europe has suffered a decade of crises, with sovereign-debt troubles leading to austerity policies that exacerbated divisions inside member states and between them. Thereafter the Union was confronted with the challenges posed by a revanchist Russia in Ukraine and by a surge in migration from the ...
By Mark Fitzpatrick, Michael Elleman, Paulina Izewicz
January 17, 2019
In July 2015, eight parties – France, Germany and the United Kingdom, together with the European Union and China, Russia and the United States on the one side, and Iran on the other – adopted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. Under the agreement,...
By Chris Alden
January 26, 2006
The book presents and analyses South African foreign policy, from the onset of the democratic transition of Nelson Mandela in 1994 to the contemporary period. The focus of the study is on the question of South African leadership in the context of this transition....
By Samir Puri
January 11, 2019
What constitutes an effective and realistic strategy for dealing with non-state armed groups? This question has bedevilled states the world over. From Colombia and FARC, Turkey and the PKK, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the persistent insurgency in Iraq – the governments concerned ...
By Brian Ganson, Achim Wennmann
June 01, 2016
Large-scale investments in fragile states – in Latin America, Africa, the former Soviet Union and Asia – become magnets for conflict, which undermines business, development and security. International policy responds with regulation, state-building and institutional reform, with poor and often ...
Edited
By Ben Fishman
November 18, 2015
This book is the first comprehensive examination of North Africa’s political, security, and economic developments since the 2011 Arab Uprisings shook the Middle East. North Africa in Transition examines how the people and governments of North Africa have responded to the Arab uprisings that shook ...