The ACRPS is pleased to announce the establishment of its new Strategic Studies Unit, tasked with producing in-depth critical studies on sensitive strategic and security issues in the Arab region and the world. The Unit will present its findings in the form of strategic briefings, reports, peer-reviewed papers and books for the use of decision-makers and specialist academics and journalists as well as the reading public. It will also hold an annual conference covering different issues relating to regional and global security and strategy as well as occasional seminars. The Unit will publish a yearly report observing the qualitative and quantitative developments in armed non-government organizations in the Arab World. Its content will be released in both Arabic and English.

The Unit will also contribute to the ACRPS’s academic production in the field of critical strategic and security studies, cooperating with the existing Policy Studies unit and the Critical Security Studies Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. It will provide in-depth knowledge and academic analysis of important security and strategic issues from a critical Arab perspective. The Unit will also seek to meet the needs of Arab and non-Arab readers, academics and experts interested in strategic and security issues in the Arab region for academic reports on relevant contemporary issues. It will work to build a network of Arab and non-Arab experts specialized in strategy issues and challenges in the Arab region.

The Strategic Studies Unit has already held its first conference, From Bullets to Ballots, which took place on 3-4 November 2018. Bullets to Ballots was the first seminar of its kind in the Arab World to approach the transition from armed to unarmed political action from an academic perspective, as well as enjoying an unprecedented range of political and academic expertise through its diverse list of participants. The Unit’s second conference, Militias and Armies, will be held on 22 and 23 February 2020. The Conference will consider armed groups both loyal and opposed to regimes, hybrid warfare, foreign intervention (armed organizations allied with a state or states), the dynamics of transformation from irregular militia to organized army and vice versa (organized army to militia) and the development of sub-state organizations’ tactical and operational capabilities.