About

Wind Turbine, Wind Power, Fuel and Power Generation,

Climate Transition and Emerging Technologies

This initiative is intended to deal with global energy connectivity from a longer-term time frame, particularly as it relates to tackling the issue of climate change on a global scale and harnessing emerging technologies (such as green hydrogen, battery storage, etc.) as well as international cooperation to strengthen humanity’s preparedness and resilience for the climate transition.

CHINA-SHAANXI-XI’AN-XI JINPING-KAZAKH PRESIDENT-TALKS (CN)

Countering China: The Missing Eurasian Dimension

The U.S. lately has focused on the Indo-Pacific basins to counter China at sea, but Beijing is a long way from being a maritime power, and its investments in the Belt and Road Initiative show its growing influence over land. Beijing is eyeing the waning influence of Russia as an opportunity to expand its influence in Eurasia, particularly Central Asia. This project seeks to give the U.S. tools to position itself to counter China’s westward march in Eurasia and offer concrete recommendations on how Washington can help build resilience of Central Asian states so they can resist the Chinese ingress.

Drone Trafficking Project

Across the world, criminal organizations are turning to drone technology to smuggle illicit goods and bypass law enforcement detection. Commercial-grade drones, in particular, offer a cheap and efficient alternative to maritime and overland smuggling operations, with advanced payloads that can deliver contraband to transit and destination markets. These same drones can also increase these groups’ abilities to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and even conduct aerial strikes, adding a kinetic component to their illicit activity. Criminal syndicates’ use of underwater drones, commercial drones, and even military-grade drone technology have introduced a new, challenging reality for customs and border security forces. The Drone Trafficking Project seeks to generate new actionable intelligence and analyses all aspects of drone trafficking and its implications. Through open-source intelligence gathering, the project tracks all developments related to drone trafficking sightings and seizures and identify how these patterns can be used to inform public policy. Through its published content and programming, the project seeks to identify innovative policy solutions that can help address drone trafficking’s geopolitical, law enforcement, and security implications. The Drone Trafficking Project was created and is led by Caroline Rose and is part of the Crime-Conflict Nexus Portfolio.

Energy Security and Geopolitics

This initiative is intended to deal with global energy connectivity from a short-to-medium- term time frame, particularly as it relates to energy security (the reliable access to diverse sources of energy) and how that shapes and is shaped by geopolitical trends and events (Russia/Ukraine conflict, China/Taiwan tensions, etc.).

Gender as an Analytical Tool for Foreign Policy

Gender is a tool to understand structural power relations with deep symbolic significance and institutionalized forms of categorizing individuals. Gender is learned, culturally significant, and can change over time; for instance, the assumption that men should be the primary breadwinner or that women are primarily homemakers and caretakers is cultural and changes over time. A gender analysis uses this theory to understand the relationships among men, women, boys, girls, and people of diverse SOGIESC and how their access to resources, their activities, and the constraints they face are predicated on their gender. New Lines’ Gender Analysis Project seeks to apply a gender and intersectional lens to issues of foreign policy and national security, providing policymakers with a richer and more nuanced understanding of current affairs.

Protest Against Violence Against Women In Turkey

Global Responses to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Globally, at least one in three women has experienced some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime. Issues like intimate partner violence, child marriage, human trafficking, and conflict-related sexual violence not only harm those being victimized, but also impact foreign policy objectives of the U.S. and its allies. New Lines’ Global Responses to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Project seeks to bring the issue to the forefront of policy and ensure policymakers around the world are addressing this threat to our liberal world order in the most effective, inclusive manner possible.

Global Rohingya Initiative

The New Lines Institute seeks to re-energize international efforts to address this crisis in a more holistic and effective way through the Global Rohingya Initiative (GRI), crafted in cooperation with and centered on the Rohingya community. GRI is facilitated by the New Lines Institute in support of the Rohingya community. Background For decades, the Rohingya people have been persecuted by their own country and sought uneasy refuge in neighboring countries. Successive Burmese governments have violated their rights to identity, nationality, security, and other fundamental human rights. The Burmese military, which again seized power from a nominally civilian government in a February 2021 coup, has committed atrocities against the Rohingya as part of its systematic denial of their right to live in peace and dignity as full citizens of Myanmar. While the international community, including the recent U.S. determination of genocide, has loudly condemned the violence against the Rohingya and provided substantial humanitarian assistance, long-term, sustainable solutions to the crisis remain elusive.

A photo of the frontal view of the Rashtrapati Bhavan – The official residence of the President of India.

India: A Rising Geoeconomic Player with Political Problems

Having emerged as the world's fifth-largest economy India is well on its way to projecting influence around the world – though there are considerable domestic political and economic indicators that serve as significant arrestors in the path of New Delhi. The South Asian power seeks to be a key ally of the United States while simultaneously maintaining geopolitical distance from Washington. On the domestic front, India is moving toward an illiberal, majoritarian democracy. The policy space is filled with skewed assessments on the extent to which the right-wing religious nationalism of India’s ruling party will impact the state. This project provides nuanced analysis and forecasts and offers recommendations on for the U.S. to optimize this critical relationship.

Integrating Sustainable Peace

SP outlines the foundations of current thinking in conflict resolution and contributes to the development of practices that lead to positive, sustainable peace. ISP publications synthesize expertise in the field to provide policy and practitioner recommendations with wide- ranging applications for best practices in the ever-changing field of conflict resolution.

Israel-Palestine Roadmap

IPR is mapping a path to peace in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war and decline of U.S. credibility in the region. Stakeholder engagement makes up the basis for IPR’s ambition of providing an actionable roadmap for renewed peace talks that engage all key parties to the conflict. IPR takes a decentralized approach to peace policy for the Israeli-Palestine conflict, a process where policy recommendations and frameworks for peace will be rooted in the knowledge and experience of lower-level stakeholders such as grassroots and civil society to best inform policy at the state level.

Ebrahim Raisi – Ali Sabry meeting in Tehran

Managing Regime Evolution in Iran

The evolutionary regime-change process that has been underway in Iran for the past several years is intensifying under the weight of internal and external pressures. It is highly likely that the IRGC-led military/security establishment will supplant the clergy as the dominant power center once current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leaves power, with serious implications for stability in the country and in its strategic environs. This project examines how Iran will behave in the fast-approaching post-Khamenei era and how the United States can manage the country and the region.

Middle East Methamphetamines Project

A staggering proliferation of methamphetamines—particularly crystal meth—has emerged across the Middle East region. After the Assad regime’s fall in Syria and the seizure of major, industrial-scale labs has created a likely regional shortage of captagon, the supply and demand of methamphetamines are likely to increase. This shapes an emerging crisis for regional public health, security, and governance that should be addressed with urgency and concern by local and international stakeholders. Criminal networks trafficking methamphetamines are taking advantage of the drug’s relatively small size and competitive cost-to-weight ratio, to develop new, innovative smuggling methods to bypass detection. Methamphetamine’s highly addictive nature poses serious risks to public health, with many countries in the Middle East ill-equipped to address the growing need for rehabilitation and harm reduction. Furthermore, methamphetamine’s high price and rising popularity have offered criminal groups—some of them armed actors—opportunities to build alternative revenue streams and accrue both economic and political leverage. The Middle East Methamphetamines Project seeks to generate new actionable intelligence and analyses about all aspects of the regional methamphetamine trade. Through open-source intelligence methods, the project maintains a comprehensive database that monitors all methamphetamine-related arrests, seizures, laboratory raids, and other developments—data that can help determine trade patterns and emerging challenges. The project also maintains a live interactive map that journalists, researchers, and policymakers can use to monitor the trade’s evolution over time and geographic scope, which can be found below. Through its intelligence reports, articles, podcasts, hosted Track II dialogues, and public events, the project serves to encourage innovative, effective policy solutions to address methamphetamine’s security, geopolitical, and health implications in the Middle East region. The Middle East Methamphetamines Project was created and is led by Caroline Rose and is part of the Crime-Conflict Nexus Portfolio.

Multilateral Action Model on Reparations

Developing an effective system for reparation and compensation for Ukraine and Ukrainians for damage caused by the Russian Federation.

Nonstate Actor Accountability Project

The Nonstate Actor Accountability Initiative examines the rise of state collaboration with paramilitary groups, armed militias, and other nonstate actors to achieve domestic and foreign policy objectives. It examines the structure, development, and day-to-day workings of these relationships and their implications for state accountability for human rights abuses under international law.

International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor In Dhaka

Rohingya Legal Forum

A Special Initiative of New Lines Institute, the Rohingya Legal Forum (RLF) brings together a global group of prominent jurists with a specialization on what has been described as a “slow-burning genocide” of the minority community in Myanmar. The RLF was formed to map out strategies, develop applications of international law, and offer advice on how to address the situation of the Rohingya people. The Forum coordinates and collaborates, where necessary, with international organizations such as the United Nations, International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and governments. The Rohingya Legal Forum is Chaired by New Lines Institute’s Dr. Azeem Ibrahim and is convened by Professor John Packer, Director of the Human Rights Resource and Education Center at the University of Ottawa. The forum is expected to convene as much as possible and exist for as long as it is useful. The group anticipates collaborating with international bodies like the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the International Criminal Court, and relevant governments and NGOs. In addition, the forum anticipates producing periodic research that will be published as memos, special reports, essays, op-eds and journal articles. Publications will discuss research and develop innovative mechanisms for legal recourse for the Rohingya genocide.

Russian Breaches of Genocide Convention in Ukraine

These reports are the first to address one of the more contentious and consequential questions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: whether the war is genocidal in character. With fighting still ongoing, modern tools have made it vital that this question be examined and its truth made known.

Special Project on the Captagon Trade

In recent years, a spike in the production, trade, and consumption of the amphetamine-type stimulant captagon has introduced a new challenge to public health, stability, and human security in the Mediterranean-Gulf zone. The drug’s evolving formula, combined with participation from malign actors aligned with the former Assad regime in Syria, plus Hezbollah, Iran-sponsored proxies, and criminal syndicates, exacerbates insecurity and ultimately raises the risk of conflict in the region. Syria’s decade-long civil war enabled armed actors, including violent and organized crime groups, to profiteer from various illicit markets – a dynamic similar to those in Afghanistan, Brazil, and Colombia. The forecast for the impacts of the captagon trade is serious; in the wake of a supply shortage created by the fall of the Assad regime, the spillover of captagon production and trafficking into new transit hubs creates a more complicated, challenging road ahead for governments. The captagon trade has emerged as a major transnational challenge in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. Millions of pills continue to flood overland and maritime ports across the Middle East, southern Europe, and even as far as East Asia, pointing to growing production capacity, sophisticated smuggling tactics, and emerging demand. This has given rise to new concerns and questions about the captagon trade’s implications for regional law enforcement, health care, security, and geopolitics. The Captagon Trade Project is one of the leading research efforts generating new, cutting-edge qualitative and quantitative analyses about all aspects of the captagon trade. The project uses open-source intelligence to maintain a comprehensive database recording all reported captagon-related arrests, seizures, laboratory raids, and other developments—data that can help reveal trade patterns and emerging challenges. The project also maintains a live interactive map tracing the trade’s evolution and geographic scope. Through intelligence reports, articles, podcasts, hosted Track II dialogues, and public events, the project serves to encourage innovative, effective policy solutions to address the captagon trade’s security, geopolitical, and health implications. The Captagon Trade Project was created and is led by Caroline Rose and is part of the Crime-Conflict Nexus Portfolio.

The Captagon Trade Interactive Map

The Captagon Trade Interactive Map is the most comprehensive open-source data resource for all interdictions related to illicit flows of the amphetamine-type stimulant, captagon. Launched in October 2024, the Captagon Interactive Map pulls from open-source data compiled by the New Lines Institute Captagon Trade Project and Observatory for Political and Economic Networks that catalogue drug seizures, arrests, violent clashes, laboratory busts, and other captagon-related interventions. This tool can help researchers identify how the captagon trade has grown in the Mediterranean-Gulf zone, in addition to capturing new patterns in production, trafficking, and consumption.

The Iraq-Syria Withdrawal Project

As the U.S. seeks to draw down its presence in the Middle East, particularly amid regional escalation, there is a greater likelihood for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and termination of the Counter-ISIS Operation Inherent Resolve Mission in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. has laid out an incremental reconsolidation and drawdown process for its near-2,500 forces stationed in Iraq, it has no clear plan for its 2,000 forces stationed in Northeast Syria. Among the many unknowns include questions of how will partner force capacity be affected by the removal of American intelligence provision, air cover, and assistance? How can the U.S. facilitate a drawdown in Iraq and Syria that does not repeat the same mistakes made during the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal process? How can Washington protect its partners and communities on the ground from malign and adversarial actors while executing its departure, ensuring local stability and human security? The Iraq-Syria Withdrawal Project seeks to answer these questions through thought leadership and expertise, generating analyses about the spectrum of risks and opportunities that exist within a draw-down process under Operation Inherent Resolve. Drawing from an array of experts who have extensive experience in navigating Iraq and Syria’s complex security landscapes, this project generates reports, articles, podcasts, and events illuminating pathways that American policymakers and military leaders can seize upon to ensure a responsible way forward for the U.S.’ forward posture in Iraq and Syria. The Iraq-Syria Withdrawal Project was created and is led by Caroline Rose and is part of the Military Withdrawals Portfolio.

The Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan Project

There are many lessons to be learned from the U.S. withdrawal of military forces that concluded 20 years of U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The swift evacuation process contributed to the deaths of 13 American servicemembers and hundreds of Afghan civilians. Ultimately, the withdrawal unintentionally played a role in shaping a power vacuum that Taliban insurgents, along with terrorist actors such as the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), exploited to sow seeds of insecurity. While Washington’s attention has largely shifted away from Afghanistan, it’s vital to draw lessons from both the execution and long-standing implications of the withdrawal. Particularly as the U.S. considers pulling its presence in the Middle East, it’s important to comparatively assess the lessons learned, indirect costs, and current state of play within Afghanistan’s post-withdrawal security landscape. Ultimately, how can the U.S. avert the same mistakes it made during its Afghanistan withdrawal process? The Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan Project seeks to answer this question by fostering thought leadership and expertise, generating analyses about the different tactical, operational, and strategic elements that played a role in the U.S.’ withdrawal process, as well as the existing reality in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Drawing from an array of experts who have extensive experience navigating the withdrawal and post-withdrawal process in Afghanistan, this project generates reports, articles, podcasts, and events about lessons learned and a future policy approach. The Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan Project was created and is led by Caroline Rose and is part of the Military Withdrawals Portfolio.

The Taliban Poppy Ban Project

In April 2022, the Taliban imposed a blanket ban on all poppy and ephedra cultivation inside Afghanistan to crack down on drug production and blunt the country’s reputation as the world’s top heroin producer and emerging hub for methamphetamines manufacturing. As it seeks diplomatic recognition, the Taliban has touted this effort as a key initiative to gain credibility with key international actors. The ban has, largely, been effective. Afghanistan—once the source of 90% of the world’s heroin supply—has experienced a near-total reduction in poppy cultivation. The cultivation of ephedra, similarly, has steadily declined. This policy has heavily impacted Afghanistan's agricultural sector, with wheat crop replacement strategies failing to address rising poverty rates and economic pressures within rural areas. However, the reverberations of this policy have affected international markets. As heroin and methamphetamine destination markets abroad, such as the European Union and Middle East, have braced for a supply shortage imposed by the Taliban’s ban, the space for alternative, new synthetic drugs have opened for criminal actors to fill—a development that creates new challenges for law enforcement and public health. The Taliban Poppy Ban Project seeks to generate new actionable intelligence and analyses about how the Taliban’s ban on poppy and ephedra has impacted local and international drug markets, security, and public health. Through its programming and written publications, the project seeks to generate thought-provoking research and analysis about the Taliban poppy and ephedra ban’s geopolitical, law enforcement, and security implications, as well as identify creative, effective policy solutions. The Taliban Poppy Ban Project was created and is led by Caroline Rose and is part of the Crime-Conflict Nexus Portfolio.

Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Transport of Turkiye-Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan

Trans-Caspian Energy and Trade Corridor

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the need to reduce dependency on Russia for energy resources. Russia has long been the main source of oil and gas for Europe, and Moscow has made sure that all energy traverses through its territory. The Kremlin’s weakening, exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, is an opportunity to establish a connective channel linking Central Asia and the South Caucasus region to Turkey and then on to Europe. This project seeks to understand the geopolitical arrestors in the path of the development of this corridor and identify what the United States and its allies and partners can do to realize it.

French soldiers from barkhane military operation in Sahel

Transnational Fragility

Africa is the second-largest continent in the world, with an estimated 1.26 billion people residing in 54 countries. Africa is home to vast resources such as oil, liquefied natural gas, rare earth minerals, and a diverse population that should have set the continent up for success; however, with a past filled with exploitation, colonialism, government corruption, tribal warfare, and terrorism, Africa has struggled to reach its full potential. Though the United States has historically remained minimally engaged in Africa compared to other parts of the world, such as the Middle East or Latin America, with the rise of Chinese and Russian influence in the region,, it is essential that the United States enhance its engagements on the continent. Guided by the values and principles of the New Lines Institute, the Transnational Fragility program looks at varying indicators of fragility that contribute to regional instability. This initiative is designed to craft policy options to address the drivers of fragility that will enable the United States to advance its strategic goals in the region and combat malign influences. The Transnational Fragility Initiative seeks to accomplish this endeavor by providing an in-depth analysis of how factors of state fragility lead to regional instability and, affect the United States and its partners. The Initiative is focused on three lines of effort.

Uyghur Scholars Working Group

In an effort to deal with the international crisis stemming from China’s industrial-scale repression of its Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim minorities, the New Lines Institute established the Uyghur Scholars Working Group (USWG) in 2020. The USWG brings together experts to enhance situational awareness on the conditions that millions of ethnic Turkic Muslims face in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The group engages in research and analysis on how the U.S. government and its allies and partners can best deal with Beijing’s efforts to erase Uyghur identity and culture. The USWG also publishes the Uyghur Series, an occasional series presenting research, analysis, and policy recommendations on the events unfolding in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. Additionally, we host occasional events and workshops.

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Western Balkans Observatory

As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds on, the conflict has destabilized other regions of Eurasia that have recently experienced civil war and ethnic cleansing, including the Western Balkans. This is a region where Russia remains an active player and where escalated conflict risks radicalizing violent elements among Europe’s Christian far right and Islamists. The institutions and established mechanisms to avert a bloody return to the conflicts of the dissolution of Yugoslavia are failing. Given these dynamics, a new initiative to analyze this changing landscape is necessary. The Balkans Observatory is an initiative by New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy to provide rigorous, non-partisan analysis for policymakers on the Western Balkans. The Observatory is a hub for policymakers, legislators, and academics to discuss emerging challenges and crises in the region through essays, events, and roundtables. The Observatory seeks to fill the void in policy-oriented research on the Western Balkans amid broadening concern over the region’s deteriorating security dynamics. Please check this page regularly for new essays and events.

Women, Peace, and Security

In 2000, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) in recognition of the critical role that women play in achieving sustainable international peace and security. The WPS agenda also provides a framework for the inclusion of gendered perspectives and the full participation of women in peace processes and conflict prevention efforts. Over 100 countries have developed National Action Plans on WPS, including the United States, which is one of the few countries that has also codified the agenda into law. New Lines’ WPS project seeks to contribute to the expansion and acceleration of the agenda by providing policy analysis and recommendations for WPS practitioners around the world. The WPS Project also provides a bridge between government agencies and civil society organizations working on issues related to WPS.

Annual Report

Vision

Mission & Purpose

Expertise

Principles

Portfolios

Tech Sovereignty & Security

Gender Policy

Mass Atrocities and International Law

Initiatives

Climate Transition and Emerging Technologies

Countering China: The Missing Eurasian Dimension

Drone Trafficking Project

Energy Security and Geopolitics

Gender as an Analytical Tool for Foreign Policy

Global Responses to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Global Rohingya Initiative

India: A Rising Geoeconomic Player with Political Problems

Integrating Sustainable Peace

Israel-Palestine Roadmap

Managing Regime Evolution in Iran

Middle East Methamphetamines Project

Multilateral Action Model on Reparations

Nonstate Actor Accountability Project

Rohingya Legal Forum

Russian Breaches of Genocide Convention in Ukraine

Special Project on the Captagon Trade

The Captagon Trade Interactive Map

The Iraq-Syria Withdrawal Project

The Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan Project

The Taliban Poppy Ban Project

Trans-Caspian Energy and Trade Corridor

Transnational Fragility

Uyghur Scholars Working Group

Western Balkans Observatory

Women, Peace, and Security