For more information on the MIT Security Studies Program see the SSP website.
The International Security Group brings to bear expertise in bureaucratic politics, foreign area studies, and international relations theory to explore many of the most vexing problems of world politics. Led by political scientists, the group engages graduate students, faculty, and research scientists from across MIT who study proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, conventional forces, civil-military relations, US defense policies, Asian security and ethnic conflict.
The growing military technology and defense budget gap between the United States and most of its allies is straining the coalition that many advocate as the mechanism for coping with the wave of failed states, civil wars, and terrorism that marks the post Cold War era. The integration of an ever more developed but still undemocratic China into the world community tests the stability of regional and international relations and the pursuit of al-Qaeda, if mishandled, could cause new conflicts in the Middle East, and between the industrialized world and Islam.
Political Economy of National Security Working Group is led by Professor Richard Samuels and Dr. Cindy Williams . The working group, which meets monthly, brings together faculty, research associates, and graduate students with widely varying experience, theoretical perspectives, and methodological preferences, but who have a shared interest in understanding how militaries are funded and how equipment is produced and procured. As with other SSP working groups, this one combines its members' regional and government experience with their theoretical and comparative concerns in order to inform and enrich each others scholarly research. Topics include tracking money flows across borders, the effect of changing market structures on defense/security, use of economic tools for defense (including sanctions), the effect of trade flows on security relationships, arms trade, procurement, the defense industrial base, dual use technology, budgeting (and off-budget defense spending), and lobbying.
The RMA Innovation Working Group is lead by Harvey Sapolsky and focuses on the origins, development, adoption, and impact of the so called Revolution in Military Affairs, the combination of networks, stealth, and precision that some say is revolutionizing warfare as practiced by the United States. The group, which draws its members from inside and outside MIT, is especially interested in the roles of the armed services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense in aiding or retarding the innovation. The project will produce a book prepared by the participants.
The Complex Systems Integration and Management Working Group is jointly sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC and the Security Studies Program. The focus of the effort, which involves meetings in Washington and the participation of specialists from government, industry, and academia, is on the large scale projects that are intended to integrate service and allied capabilities and that challenge the ability of the government to manage and absorb. Pierre Chao of CSIS and Harvey Sapolsky are the co-leaders.Humanitarian Intervention Working Group offered jointly with Harvard and chaired at MIT by Professor Stephen Van Evera, an international relations theorist.
Insurgency and Irregular Warfare Working Group brings together academics from various disciplines — international relations, comparative politics, and the natural sciences — to explore current problems related to insurgency and counter-insurgency. The goal is to generate meaningful scholarly work on a host of current academic and policy issues that straddle existing disciplinary boundaries. By engaging graduate students and faculty from a number of fields at MIT, the founders hope to stimulate new thinking on a number of important topics. Roger Petersen is the faculty sponsor of this working group. Colin Jackson and Austin Long are the co-leaders of the group.
See the research page on the SSP website.