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 Steven Miller (Harvard University) serve as CISS co-chairs.
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
30 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 global nuclear future, developing a new U.S.
policy toward Russia, and an examination of international agreements to limit cyber
attacks.
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.
Global security has long been a concern of the Academy. One of the earliest volumes
of the Academy's journal,
Dædalus, was a 1960 Special Issue on Arms Control that helped fashion
an intellectual framework for the fledgling area of nuclear weapons arms control.
Since the publication of that seminal issue, the Academy has retained its strong
commitment to engaging contemporary security challenges, especially as they expand
to include such new concerns as overpopulation, environmental degradation, terrorism,
small-arms trade, corruption, carbon-based energy dependence, and the development
of space-based weapons.
Current or Emerging Projects:
Browse CISS Publications
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