Adelphi series
About the Book Series
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.
The Rise of Economic Statecraft: Implications for Governments and the Private Sector
1st Edition
By Maria Shagina
October 13, 2026
The dramatic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, US–China strategic competition and subsequent shocks have brought economic security to the forefront of international politics. Western governments now seek to reduce strategic vulnerabilities and strengthen ...
The Derisking Race: China, America and the Fragmentation of the Global Economy
1st Edition
By Aaron L. Friedberg
September 30, 2026
The United States and China are engaged in what can best be described as a derisking race. Having encouraged their economies to become deeply intertwined, each nation is now attempting to achieve significant separation from the other. Neither side currently seeks to decouple completely. Instead, ...
Sir John Chipman: A Strategic Lifetime
1st Edition
Edited
By Bastian Giegerich, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
June 23, 2026
Sir John Chipman KCMG served as Director-General and Chief Executive of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) from 1993 to 2023. Along with his tenure as Executive Chairman since 2023, and the research positions he held from 1983 before being appointed Director, this represents a...
Contending with American Exceptionalism
1st Edition
By Kori Schake
March 17, 2026
For 250 years, the United States of America has been propelled by a sense of its exceptional nature and mission. For the past 80 years, much of the world has been structured around the order Washington built out of the ashes of the Second World War. But for many Americans and observers of America, ...
India and the Rebalancing of Asia
1st Edition
By C. Raja Mohan
September 23, 2025
Few regions have transformed as consequentially as Asia in the twenty-first century. In recent decades, China has risen faster than its neighbours and today outranks its major proximate competitors – India and Japan – on economic and defence indices by huge margins. The United States’ interest in ...
Evaluating Japan’s New Grand Strategy
1st Edition
By Robert Ward
May 30, 2025
Geopolitical stresses in the Indo-Pacific are increasing and intensifying. These stresses derive from China’s more assertive regional behaviour; growing alignments between China and Russia on the one hand and Russia and North Korea on the other; and most recently from the apparent recalibration of ...
Strategy and Grand Strategy
1st Edition
By Joshua Rovner
January 14, 2025
Wartime leaders should understand the link between violent means and political ends. They should also have a sense of how strategic decisions will affect the post-war peace. Yet they often fail to make these connections. Mistaking strategy for grand strategy, or misunderstanding the relationship ...
Cyber Operations and Their Responsible Use
1st Edition
By Marcus Willett
November 21, 2024
In the twenty-first century, cyberspace and the ‘real world’ have become inseparable. The stability and security of cyberspace therefore affect, in increasingly profound ways, the economies, international reputations, national security, military capabilities and global influence of states. In their...
Deterrence, Diplomacy and the Risk of Conflict Over Taiwan
1st Edition
By Bill Emmott
July 15, 2024
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine confirmed that revived great-power competition has heightened the prospect of global conflict, while restoring the concept of deterrence to centre stage. The stakes in a conflict in East Asia, however, would be even higher than those in Ukraine. A war over ...
New Answers to Old Questions: Myanmar Before and After the 2021 Coup d’État
1st Edition
By Aaron Connelly, Shona Loong
June 26, 2024
Outside Myanmar, the 2021 coup d’état has often been portrayed as the end of a hopeful period for the country. In this Adelphi book, however, Aaron Connelly and Shona Loong argue that the Aung San Suu Kyi government that preceded it was a false dawn, unlikely to fulfil the international community's...
The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty: Rethinking International Relations and American Grand Strategy in a New Era
1st Edition
By Francis J. Gavin
March 07, 2024
The underlying structure, incentives and costs shaping international relations, state behaviour and the nature of power are profoundly different today to how they were in the past, in ways that are scarcely recognised and widely misunderstood. For much of history, world politics was marked by ...
Japan and the IISS: Connecting Western and Japanese Strategic Thought from the Cold War to the War on Ukraine
1st Edition
Edited
By Robert Ward, Yuka Koshino, Matthieu Lebreton
December 12, 2023
Strategic links between Japan and Europe during the Cold War were limited. During this period the IISS helped bridge the gap between the two, exposing its membership base to the international affairs of Asia and Japan and providing Japanese scholars, strategists and diplomats with a platform from ...