Article
This April, the Belfer Center''s quarterly journal, International Security, celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. IS was founded in 1976 at the initiative of Paul Doty, BCSIA''s Founder and Director Emeritus and is widely recognized as the leading journal in the field of security studies.
Kenneth Waltz, for example, regards IS as "the best journal in the field." John Lewis Gaddis believes that "International Security is easily the most important and consistently interesting journal in the field." Alexander George writes that "IS does better than any of its ''competitors'' in ''bridging the gap'' between scholarly analytic communication and the world of policy specialists."
International Security has attempted to offer sophisticated and provocative analyses of issues in international politics, with particular emphasis on the use, threat, and control of military force. The authors of its articles have come from many disciplines, including political science, physics, history, and economics. The journal''s editors always have sought out the work of emerging authors, and they are proud to have published the early work of many scholars who are now prominent, including Stephen Van Evera, Jack Snyder, Barry Posen, Michael McFaul, Scott Sagan, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt, among many others.
Many of the articles in IS have become "classics" in the field. The summer 1984 articles on the origins of the First World War are prominent examples that continue to be read today. More recently, articles on the implications of the end of the Cold War, the environmental sources of violent conflict, the effectiveness of the Patriot missile in the Gulf War, the limits of the "democratic peace" proposition, and the role of formal methods in security studies all have stimulated wide-ranging debates. IS articles consistently rank among the most frequently cited, according to the publishers of Journal Citation Reports.
Looking forward, the editors plan to continue International Security''s editorial traditions as the journal begins its second twenty-five years.
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/BCSIA/ISP.nsf/www/IS
(Sean Lynn-Jones contributed to this article.)