This issue marks the one-year anniversary of CGP’s flagship policy product, The Navigator. The Navigator provides insightful analysis, policy recommendations, and forecasting of the week’s most pressing issues. This week, however, we are taking the opportunity to reflect on The Navigator’s success in raising the profile of CGP and establishing our presence in the policy arena.  

CGP launched The Navigator to provide nuanced analysis and foster inclusive discourse on issues at the intersection of U.S. foreign policy and geopolitics of Muslim-majority countries.  We are proud that The Navigator represents diverse viewpoints in terms of our authors’ political leanings, gender, ethnic backgrounds, and academic disciplines. In addition to CGP fellows, we tapped into national and international experts to enrich the weekly policy conversation. They share a high-caliber subject matter expertise that distills policy prescriptions from a solid academic understanding of the issues and a strong desire to enhance the quality of our nation’s policy discourse. We are grateful to Hassan Abbas, Sahar Aziz, Stephen Blank, Nathan Brown, Ariel Cohen, Dalia Fahmy, Hassan Hassan, Theodore Karasik, Muqtedar Khan, Christopher Kolenda, Manal Omar, Asma Uddin, and many others whose scholarly inputs have made the Navigator a cutting-edge publication that has gained numerous accolades from the Washington policy community.  

Over the past year, The Navigator has addressed a broad range of issues that affect our country’s foreign policy and national security. Among the challenging topics we have addressed are: the threat from Daesh and the broader jihadist landscape; Israel and the Saudi-Iranian Geosectarian Struggle; Iran’s projection of power in the region amid domestic challenges; Saudi Arabia’s political and economic evolution; changes in Turkey’s domestic politics and regional geopolitical position; and Israel’s attempts to manage increasing insecurity in its strategic environment and challenges stemming from its occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

Many issues of The Navigator became the basis for public panel discussions and conversations at the U.S. State Department on an array of timely topics including the Rohingya refugee crisis and Daesh counter-messaging analytics. CGP authors debriefed congressional staff members and senior officials at USAID, the U.S. State Department, the Department of Defense, National Defense University, the European Union, and leading civil society organizations in Washington, D.C., New York City, London, and in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.  

We started this journey with a relentless drive for analytical excellence and a commitment to enhance the policy discourse. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to strengthen U.S. foreign policy with sound recommendations for a more secure and stable world.

Thank you for your readership and continued support,

– CGP Staff