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Newsletter:  Dec 2001/ Issue 1
PNNL and UW Form Institute for Global and Regional Security Studies

The Institute for Global and Regional Security Studies (IGRSS), jointly launched in September of 2000 by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Washington (UW), has enjoyed an active first year. The objective of the Institute is to expand UW programs for teaching, research, and outreach on global security issues from both global and regional perspectives. While the new institute conducts research and hosts events pertaining to a wide range of security issues, a primary focus is nuclear weapons proliferation and prevention.

Professor Christopher Jones, acting director of IGRSS and professor at the UW’s Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS), describes the Institute as an “innovative collaboration on the part of the University of Washington and PNNL to increase… the level of expertise and knowledge in areas concerning nuclear proliferation.”

The Institute provides support for a number of projects, including preparation of Ambassador Thomas Graham’s unique memoir on US arms control policy, covering the period from the SALT I and ABM treaties of 1972 to the renewal of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995 and negotiation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Ph.D. candidate in Political Science, Toby Dalton, received funding from the Institute to edit the manuscript, which will be published by the University of Washington Press and IGRSS. IGRSS funded a workshop and edited a volume on civil-military relations in emerging democracies, a project directed by Professor Mary Callahan of JSIS. The Institute has also contributed to establishing the UW Center on Ethnic Conflict and Conflict Resolution, which received a major grant from the Mellon Foundation for continued study of violent ethnic conflict.

Other first year IGRSS activities include co-sponsoring a lecture series, Putin and the New Russian Foreign Policy, and establishing a conference partnership to begin next year with the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security, which receives most of its funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

IGRSS initiated three new courses at the UW: The Two Koreas in the New Millennium, Arms Control and International Law, and International Law and Multilateral Intervention in the Balkans. The Institute also contributed to a year-long lecture series in which various security experts from around the country participated.

IGRSS is managed by a three-person board consisting of acting director, Professor Jones; Political Science Professor Steve Hanson, chair of the UW’s Russia, East Europe and Central Asia Studies (REECAS) program; and Mark Leek, political scientist at the Pacific Northwest Center for Global Security (PNWCGS) at PNNL, which has contributed funding to IGRSS. Leek is also Adjunct Professor in the UW’s Department of Political Science.

“In our first year we have developed a core group of faculty committed to expanding the Institute’s work within the UW, and externally with PNNL and other organizations,” stated Director Jones.

The new institute draws the participation of many professors with expertise in regions from Northeast, South and Central Asia, to the Middle East, and Europe, as well as the REECAS program. One of the Institute’s long-term goals is to bring faculty into regular communication with PNNL Staff providing scientific and technical support to the US Government.

The Institute is preparing a public lecture series built around the arms control course that Ambassador Graham will teach in the spring of 2002. IGRSS is also collaborating with the University of Washington Press to publish additional security studies, including one on the missile technology control regime.

On November 29-30, IGRSS sponsored a conference on NATO Enlargement and the Baltic States on the UW campus. Participating speakers included: Ambassadors Vygaudas Usackas of Lithuania, and Aivis Ronis of Latvia; Deputy Undersecretary for Political Affairs Vaino Reinart of Estonia; and Director of the Moscow Office of the Center for Defense, Ivan Safranchuk. Other participants included representatives from the academic, government and think tank communities, including US Ambassador Robert Hunter, Dr. Ron Asmus of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute.