Committee on International Security Studies

The Committee on International Security Studies (CISS) plans and sponsors research on current and emerging challenges to global peace and security. John Steinbruner (University of Maryland) and Carl Kaysen (MIT) serve as CISS cochairs.

Profound social, economic, environmental, and technological transformations now underway will affect the prospects for peace and human well-being in the coming decades. Accommodating these changes will be the primary challenge of states, nongovernmental organizations, corporations, and multilateral institutions. A concern for this process of transformation and international accommodation is at the core of CISS-sponsored research.

CISS has sustained an innovative program of public policy studies for more than 20 years. In the 1980s, CISS sponsored path-breaking analyses of the implications of the Strategic Defense Initiative and the militarization of space. In the 1990s, CISS projects helped to redefine the field of international security studies by focusing on such issues as the relationship between environmental scarcity and violent conflict, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, the problem of humanitarian intervention, and the challenge of strengthening institutions of international justice. Current CISS projects focus on the rules governing the use of outer space, the global nuclear future, and countering corruption in nation-states.

The Committee's success is a product of its diversity. Developing an understanding, in a relevant timeframe, of how global changes will unfold and interact requires drawing together bodies of knowledge from disparate disciplinary and professional fields. It also depends upon the collaboration of researchers from around the world. CISS has maintained its productivity by drawing upon the Academy’s unique attributes of an intellectually diverse membership and a flexible mode of operation.