History of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy magazine

Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, which started in 1972, was circulated exclusively to senior government, defense, intelligence and industry officials in more than 170 countries worldwide for 54 years.

In 2026, it was decided to make it available online and to a wider audience.

The journal was founded by Gregory Copley and Dr Stefan Possony in San Francisco, California, in April 1972.

The Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy monthly journal in April 2026 celebrates its 54th anniversary as the only international, unclassified report dealing with global strategic issues from the perspective of Grand Strategy.

From the start, each edition of Strategic Policy (originally called just Defense & Foreign Affairs) has included comprehensive analysis on topics of global strategic influence. From the beginning, the objective of the journal was to look at, and understand, the "big picture", but to do so in detail.

This material — now read by some 170 governments at the highest levels because of its professional, non-partisan approach — offers unique insights and trend analysis. It was the only service to forecast, for example, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It forecast, in April 1972, that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat would remove the Soviets from Egypt. It outlined proposals in 1973 for a space-based energy-derived ABM system.

Defense & Foreign Affairs forecast during the 1970s the break-up of the USSR in the 1990s. It carried unique — and ultimately verified — information on Libya's WMD programs over the decade before Qadhafi's revelation of them.

Lately, it has been unique in reporting and analysis of the origins of current state-sponsored and transnational terrorism, the strategic build-up of North Korea and Iran, and analyzing significant developments in the Middle East, ahead of the breaking incidents. Indeed, from 1972 onward, it pioneered analysis of terrorism, and was one of the first publications to routinely study terrorism, particularly from the standpoint of psychological strategy and psywar.

Its coverage has been extensive in many areas in which it has taken a pioneering and unique approach. In the 1980s, for example, it looked at the emergence of India as a strategic power, and in the 1990s looked at the growing strategic importance of West African energy resources.