International Security Policy

IGCC remains highly committed to its original field of study, and security policy implications cross-cut all of IGCC's programs. Beyond preventive diplomacy and "track two" initiatives, for many years IGCC conducted teaching seminars for the academic and policy communities on nonproliferation issues. Recent IGCC training programs such as "Public Policy and Nuclear Threats" and "Public Policy and Biological Threats" continue the IGCC tradition of informing and instructing future decision makers.

Current Projects
Past Projects
Selected Publications

Past IGCC projects on International Security Policy

Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

In 1996, IGCC brought UC-area experts to the Los Alamos National Laboratory for a program on The Challenges of International Security. Three recent IGCC teaching seminars for UC, Cal State and California community college faculty and graduate students were: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons (1996, Profs. Kenneth WALTZ, UC Berkeley and Scott SAGAN, Stanford U.); The Challenges of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Emerging Issues of Supply and Demand (1997, Women in International Security); and Strategic Weapons Proliferation (1998, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center).

In 1998, when South Asian nuclear tests renewed attention on nuclear weapons issues, IGCC hosted a Washington seminar entitled Nuclear Developments in South Asia: Challenges for US Policy. Dr. Neil JOECK (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Prof. Robert SCALAPINO (UC Berkeley), and eminent experts reviewed US policy, regional developments, and future options (IGCC Newsletter Fall 1998).

Global and Regional Security Governance

The Cold War principle of mutually assured destruction paradoxically provided predictability to east-west rivalry. Today, while the danger of global nuclear war has receded, the stable certainty of that era may have been lost. In the first decade of the post-Cold war period, non-state actors have surfaced prepared to use new forms of terrorism, directed at both military and civilian targets. We have also witnessed an unexpected outbreak of regional conflicts and have become increasingly aware of dangers emanating from so-called "rogue states," whose leaders abide neither by international treaties nor by conventional forms of conflict resolution. 9/11 terrorism underscored the need for achieving a new global system of security governance, but considerable obstacles to achieving such a system remain. These involve a) different threat assessments, b) divergent perceptions of security threats to states, and c) differing response preferences amongst major states (e.g., ranging from unilateral action, to ad hoc coalitions, and to institutionalized multilateralism. Similarly, we observe variable inclinations toward "hard power" military options and "soft power" diplomatic or economic pressures in response to those security challenges (Nye, 2000).

The Global and Regional Security project, sponsored by the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and the Institute for International, Comparative and Area Studies (IICAS) at UC San Diego, comparatively analyses the challenges of global and regional security governance and the changed security agendas. It considers the prospects for global and/or regional security governance by focusing on perceptions held by elites in the G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and China. It further seeks to identify areas divergent and convergent interests that may facilitate or inhibit international cooperation.

Global Issues in the German-American Partnership: Changing Relations with Russia and China

The end of the Cold War created an initial euphoria based on the diminished likelihood of large-scale conflicts, but this gradually gave way to the reality of explosive regional conflicts. Conflicts were particularly strong in the Near East, with the 1990–91 Gulf War, and in southeastern Europe, where historic divisions festered into ethnic cleansing and sectarian war. The nature of security threats is also changing as we move from interstate tensions and conflicts to less predictable and often underestimated non-state terrorists prepared to launch attacks on civilian targets. In these contexts, governments have begun to adapt their security priorities and alliance relations. Solidly established patterns of transatlantic cooperation remain in place, but new relations with former adversaries have also emerged.

The Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, in cooperation with the Federal German Press and Information Office, the Deutsch-Amerikanischer Arbeitskreis/German-American Research Group (DAA) and the Consortium for Atlantic Studies (CAS) held a conference 14–16 March 2002 to examine and evaluate Changing Transatlantic Relations with Russia and China in the context of these new security threats. Attendees included leading scholars and governmental experts on Russia, China, and international relations, drawn from across the United States and Germany. Consistent with the mission of IGCC, participants represented several campuses of the University of California as well.

The principal goals of this project are to deepen our understanding of the nature of new security threats and to evaluate the extent of new forms of cooperation and competition between the U.S.-European partnership and Russia and China. A related goal involves the fostering of regular communication and cooperation within an international community of scholars and policy makers.

Given the tragic shocks of September 11 and its aftermath, it is indisputable that understanding new forms of international competition and cooperation in response to terrorism is a matter of the highest importance.

IGCC’s partners in this undertaking are the German Press and Information Office (BPA) of the Federal Government, Berlin, the Deutsch-Amerikanischer Arbeitskreis, the Consortium for Atlantic Studies and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS).

Durable Settlements to Civil Wars

From 1994-1997, a landmark project directed by Profs. David Lake (IGCC Research Director for International Relations) and Donald Rothchild (UC Davis) slashed through a decade of muddy thinking in examining when and how ethnic conflicts start, and spread, and how best to manage them. "The International Spread and Management of Ethnic Conflict:Fear Diffusion, and Escalation" involved a working group of 40 UC scholars, U.S. officials, and foreign policy-makers who produced a series of publications. In 1997, Prof. Barbara Walter (IGCC Research Director for International Security) built on this work to launch an examination of civil wars since 1945, to determine what factors are key to building successful, long-term peace settlements. Prof. Walter held a Washington, D.C., policy briefing, met with U.S. State Department officials and Congressional staff, and published a book of her findings.

Promoting Regional Cooperation in the Middle East

In 1993, after a request from Israel's foreign minister, Profs. Susan Shirk (IGCC) and Steven Spiegel (UCLA) created the project "Promoting Regional Cooperation in the Middle East." This initiative commissioned policy memos and proposals for improving the chances of the multilateral talks on arms control, economic cooperation, environmental issues, refugees, and water resources.

The Future of United States–India Relations

In collaboration with the Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, IGCC hosted a two-day workshop in 2001 to forecast how Indo-American relations may develop over the next ten to twenty years, what role each country has in developing those relations, and how security and economic factors affect such developments. The short, focused meeting explored how the two countries might improve their ties, especially in light of increased tensions over nuclear tests. Indian officials and strategists responsible for drafting India's new nuclear doctrine were invited to interact in their personal, unofficial capacities with U.S. officials and South Asia area experts. The meeting, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, produced practical thinking about the future of Indo-American relations.

Building Institutions to Regulate Ethnic and Regional Conflicts in the Soviet Successor States

The 1990-91 collapse of the Soviet Union was a remarkably peaceful process marred by only small-scale clashes between the forces of the Soviet state and its secessionists. However, conflicts within the union republics and its successor states were intense and often violent. Three types of domestic conflicts have broken the peace: protracted political conflicts among regionally-based leadership factions, seeking control of the central government; conflicts for autonomy or secession have pitted both regional and ethnic groups against their central governments; and communal conflicts among ethnic communities contesting ownership of land. When outside powers have intervened, in some instances these domestic conflicts have become international confrontations. This escalation has resulted in war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in tense standoffs between Russia and Ukraine over the Crimea, and diplomatic crises between Russia and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia over their Russian-speaking minorities.

Building Institutions to Regulate Ethnic and Regional Conflicts in The Soviet Successor States assembled specialists on the Soviet successor states and specialists on conflict-regulating institutions in order to study the problem of conflict-regulating institutions in the former Soviet Union. The project identified post-Soviet institutional arrangements that have already worked to prevent or diffuse intense conflicts; identify new institutional arrangements on the bargaining table in the search for settlements to intense conflicts; and evaluate the robustness of each institutional arrangement in light of settlements experience in other regions. The project will report findings in policy papers and an edited volume, and authors will present policy recommendations to an invited audience of academic and policy specialists in Washington, D.C.

Selected Publications on International Security Policy

Number: Policy Paper 56
Title: Maritime Aspects of Arms Control and Security Improvement in the Middle East
Author(s): David N. Griffiths
Published by: IGCC
Pages: 28
Year of Publication: 2000
Related PolicyPack: PolicyPack 56

Number: Policy Paper 52
Title: Understanding Europe's New Common Foreign and Security Policy
Author(s): Michael Smith
Published by: IGCC
Pages: 35
Year of Publication: 2000
Related PolicyPack: PolicyPack 52

Old Series

Number: Policy Paper 05 (Old Series)
Title: SDI: Two Views of Professional Responsibility
Author(s): David Lorge Parnas, Danny Cohen
Published by: IGCC
Pages: 24
Year of Publication: 1987

Number: Research Paper 04
Title:Where Have All the Profits Gone? An Analysis of the Major U.S. Defense Contractors: 1950–1985
Author(s): David E. Kaun
ISBN: 0-934637-9-1
Pages:
Published by: IGCC
Year of Publication: 1988

Number: Research Paper 03
Title: Science Advice to Presidents: From Test Bans to the Strategic Defense Initiative
Author(s): G. Allen Greb
ISBN: 0-934637-04-0
Pages: 21
Published by: IGCC
Year of Publication: 1987

Number: Research Paper 01
Title: Nuclear Fission: Reaction to the Discovery in 1939
Author(s): Lawrence Badash, Elizabeth Hodes, Adolph Tiddens
ISBN: 0-934637-01-6
Pages: 53
Published by: IGCC
Year of Publication: 1985

Number: Policy Brief 01 (old series)
Title: What Do We Do with Nuclear Weapons Now?
Author: Michael May
Published by: IGCC
Pages: 21
Year of Publication: 1990

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