The modern ªeld of international security studies is roughly half a century old. It emerged after World War II and took hold in the 1950s. 1 The journal International Security has spanned half that period, having now completed twenty-ªve years of publication. During that time, the world and the ªeld have changed dramatically. We are not in the habit of utilizing the pages of this journal for introspective or self-referential ruminations, but it seems appropriate to mark the passage of a quarter-century with some reºections on the history of the journal, the evolution of the ªeld within which it operates, and the altered world that the ªeld seeks to understand, explain, and perhaps even inºuence. Here, the aim is simply to sketch suggestive snapshots of then and now, in the hope of conveying the magnitude and character of the changes that a quarter of a century has wrought. This exercise provides the opportunity to revisit some of the issues and articles that have justiªed and animated the pages of International Security over its ªrst twenty-ªve years. 2
The Origins and Conception of International SecurityNearly thirty years ago, then-President of the Ford Foundation McGeorge Bundy launched a major initiative to promote university-based research and