Mauritania

Founded in 1955, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) is one of the nation's oldest "think tanks." It brings the insights of scholarship to bear on issues in American foreign policy. Through its Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education, FPRI promotes international and civic literacy in the classroom by "teaching the teachers." The FPRI's Middle East Program focuses on Gulf security, monitors the Arab-Israeli peace process, and sponsors an annual conference for teachers on the Middle East, plus periodical briefings on key developments in the region. The scholars of FPRI include a former aide to three U.S. secretaries of state, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a former president of Swarthmore College and a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, and two former staff members of the National Security Council. Among the FPRI's trustees is a former Secretary of States and a former Secretary of the Navy (and among the FPRI's former trustees and interns, two current Undersecretaries of Defense) not to mention two university presidents emeritus, and a foundation president, and several active or retired corporate CEOS. And the FPRI counts among their extended network of scholars--especially, their Inter-University Study Groups--representatives of diverse disciplines, including political science, history, economics, law, management, religion, sociology, and psychology.