Critical Threats Project

The Critical Threats Project (CTP) is a research program housed at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank known for neoconservative foreign policy views. Founded in 2009, CTP focuses on open-source intelligence analysis of threats to U.S. security, particularly Iran and Salafi-jihadist groups. Its analytical framing tends to align with hawkish U.S. security policy, which overlaps significantly with the Trump administration's maximum-pressure approach to Iran, though CTP does not cover domestic politics or the administration directly.