Conflict and Security provides a framework for objective analysis of contemporary international security issues. Scholars and practitioners choose the Journal as a venue to present progressive ideas on peace and security. By examining issues such as the future role of intelligence, traditional state-to-state conflict, asymmetrical threats of terrorism, weapons proliferation and weak states, Conflict and Security is at the forefront of providing contextual analysis of the issues that will challenge states, policymakers, NGOs and the leaders of the private sector in the twenty-first century.

Proliferation Security Initiative:
A Piece of the Arms Control Puzzle

By Wade Boese

Libya’s December 2003 renunciation of its chemical and nuclear weapons programs and the exposure of the A.Q. Khan nuclear black market network two months later rank as the most prominent nonproliferation successes of the last several years. Bush administration officials attributed both developments, in part, to an earlier interdiction of the ship BBC China, steaming toward Libya loaded with nuclear contraband. This seizure occurred as part of the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) to intercept shipments of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their components worldwide. With the Bush administration hyping the initiative as one of its leading achievements, PSI soon became the poster child for stopping proliferation. more...

Transforming U.S. Espionage:
A Contrarian's Approach

By Jennifer Sims

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, national security experts have tried to identify the causes of U.S. intelligence failures and propose structural reforms to remedy them. Yet in designing proposals for reform, experts have overlooked a contradiction with important implications for intelligence. On the one hand, academic and government-sponsored research has substantiated a disturbing trend of which the growing terrorist threat is just one part—the rise of hostile networks, net-centric warfare, and “smart mobs” empowered by modern personalized communications and the Internet.1 The prescription: de-emphasize central authority and empower lower levels of decision making because, according to this view, “it takes networks to fight networks.”2 more...