The Blue Center for Global Strategic Assessment has announced the recipients of its spring round of Faculty Research Initiative funding. Initiatives are designed to run for one or two years and produce concrete deliverables that will contribute to the exercise of statecraft.

The Blue Center gives priority to research proposals from Yale Jackson School faculty but considers submissions from any Yale-affiliated faculty members.

“These initiatives further round out our cohort of Yale faculty engaged in research related to statecraft,” said Phil Kaplan, executive director of the Blue Center. “In combination with the research funded in the fall, the Center now has a set of projects going that are methodologically and topically diverse, but united in their commitment to produce concrete deliverables and actionable insights for policymakers.”

The spring round of Blue Center Faculty Research Initiative awardees are:

2025 U.S. Tariffs Initiative
Faculty Lead: Amit Khandelwal

The first Trump Administration imposed tariffs mainly on Chinese goods, most of which were maintained or expanded by the Biden administration. In 2025, the second Trump Administration has levied dramatically higher tariffs across virtually all of U.S. imports. This initiative will study the consequences of these tariff hikes on the U.S. economy. The research team will extend its previous analysis of the tariffs imposed in 2018-19, making updates with more recent data and examining the tariffs’ long-run impacts. Additionally, the team will conduct a short-term analysis of the new tariffs imposed in 2025. The findings will be prepared for a paper to be published by Brookings Papers on Economic Activity in Spring 2026.

Indian Transnational Assassination Operations Initiative
Faculty Lead: Sushant Singh

This project investigates India’s alleged extraterritorial assassination operations targeting Sikh dissidents in North America, analyzing their implications for statecraft, international norms, and global security. The study will explore the political, diplomatic, and human rights implications of these operations, as well as their impact on international relations. The research focuses on interstate dynamics, multilateral institutions, and non-state actors to assess how India’s alleged actions reflect broader trends in statecraft, where nations increasingly use covert operations to manage diaspora dissent. The project will draw lessons for other countries facing similar challenges with diaspora dissent and extraterritorial operations. It aims to produce both a monograph on India’s transnational assassination operations and a database of diplomatic communications, legal rulings, and NGO reports on that topic.