A study group composed of policy figures, military experts, and policy analysts studied such issues as the technical and political aspects of the U.S. and Soviet command and control systems over nuclear forces; the devolution and delegation of authority to use nuclear weapons; and the synergistic effects of U.S. and Soviet actions during a crisis.

Managing the ABM Treaty Regime into the 21st Century: This study analyzed ways in which the underlying objectives of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could continue to be realized in the future.

This study examined the political and technical aspects of missile defenses, as well as the implications of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Agreement and the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative.

This London symposium examined the nature and implications of participation by Western European countries in the Strategic Defense Initiative being undertaken by the United States.

This study addressed an urgent issue: How can NATO improve its conventional weapons capacity to enhance its deterrent to aggression and lessen its dependence on possible early use of nuclear weapons?

In 1985, the Academy hosted a major international symposium commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist and the “father of quantum mechanics.” The symposium’s papers were published in collective volume in 1988.

This conference had its origins in the divergence that was clearly taking place in 1982 between the traditional arms control community and the freeze movement. The conference brought together freeze proponents, arms control specialists, government officials, and public interest group leaders in the hope that some differences could be resolved, the essential issues identified, and an agenda of work formulated. The proceedings were subsequently published.

The Academy co-sponsored a workshop to explore the feasibility of the United States and the Soviet Union agreeing to halt production of the radioactive, warhead-boosting agent tritium and to pace steady, significant reductions in their arsenals at the relatively rapid rate of tritium’s decay – the so-called “tritium factor.”

This project attempted to deal constructively with the principal issues raised by the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The resulting report, initially published as a double-issue of Dædalus, does not reach conclusions about the desirability or feasibility of the SDI; rather, it presents favorable, opposing, and skeptical views about the relevant scientific, technological, strategic, and political issues involved.

This multi-pronged project examined shifts in the boundaries between the internal affairs of member states whose sovereignty is protected by the United Nations Charter and those matters which the U.N. and other international organizations deem to be within their cognizance.

This project investigated how environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources might contribute to social strife and conflict in many parts of the world.

A follow up to an earlier Academy study titled “Environmental Change and Acute Conflict,” this project examined how state capacity influences governmental responses to environmental scarcities, and potential subsequent conflict, in developing countries.

Working with Argonne National Laboratory and the Midwest Consortium of International Security Studies, the Academy co-sponsored two conferences on global climate change, with one focusing on international security issues and the other focusing on social and economic consequences.

This project examined the major political, economic, and security obstacles standing in the way of a durable Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.

This project brought together physical scientists, legal experts, space program directors, economists, political scientists, and policymakers from all space-faring nations to discuss how to mitigate the problem of ever-increasing quantities of man-made orbital debris in space.

In 1994, the Committee on International Security Studies (CISS) hosted the first major international workshop on the dangers posed by the increased proliferation of small arms and light weapons to areas of conflict around the world.

Between the first meeting for this project and the 1992 publication of the book, the Soviet Union collapsed. This created profound implications for the way Americans and the West thought about security policy. The earlier meetings brought together Soviet and U.S. scholars and security policy specialists to discuss changes in the Soviet Union, and the later session also invited specialists in Eastern European affairs.

This project examined superpower relations during the Cold War as a cooperative effort in order to illuminate the constraints and opportunities that will influence possible superpower cooperation in the future.

The Academy co-sponsored a conference at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, that invited philosophers and political scientists to examine what was driving the global resurgence of nationalism and to discuss how the conflicts it engenders can be resolved.

This major comparative study of anti-modernist, anti-secular militant religious movements on five continents and within seven world religious traditions resulted in multiple influential publications.