A DEBATE TO MARK THE 50TH VOLUME AND RE-LAUNCH OF SURVIVAL

On February 28, the IISS-US hosted a debate and cocktail reception at the National Press Club in Washington DC to formally mark the re-launch of Survival, the Institute’s journal on global politics and strategy.  The discussion, chaired by Dr Dana Allin, Editor of Survival and Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Affairs, featured a distinguished panel and took its theme from the focus of the re-launch issue:

The Bush Years and Beyond: is the world becoming safer?

Introducing the event, Adam Ward, Executive Director of the IISS-US, said:

‘Relaunching is one term for what we are doing with Survival. But perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we are ‘refreshing’ the journal. We are making no break with our traditions, and we don’t propose to repair what, in all humility, we feel is not broken. 

Instead, Survival is getting its second wind, and doing more:  six issues a year rather than four; short topical essays to match contemplative articles; more review essays and book reviews; more exchanges and contributors’ forums; notices, charts and tables that crisply capture the dimensions of an international policy challenge…

All of these changes and others will add much zest and interest, while subtracting nothing from the journal’s established strengths: topical but not hasty; scholarly but unpedantic; policy-oriented but unbureaucratic; and intellectually ecumenical in approach’.

 The event was attended by current and former government officials, members of the Washington diplomatic community, leading experts, IISS Members, and the press.

Framing the terms of reference for the debate, Dana Allin noted that the question before the panel stood against the context of ‘a very controversial administration and a very exciting election campaign…The world could be getting safer because George W. Bush has been president for seven years. It could be getting safer because he only has a year to go. It might be getting dangerous for either of those reasons. And, of course, it might be an illusion to imagine that who sits in the White House has much effect on the broader trends and forces affecting the fate of mankind’.

Referring to the stark title of the journal he continued: ‘The meaning of the title was clear enough at the end of the 1950s when it was established…. The threat that this journal and this Institute were grappling with was considered, very plausibly, to be existential. The question is how different, how much better or worse, safer or more dangerous, is the world we live in today?'

The panel tackling these issues comprised figures with long associations with the IISS and with Survival:

Philip Gordon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, was editor of Survival  from 1993-1998, while he was also IISS Senior Fellow for US Security Policy.

Ambassador Richard Burt, Senior Director at McLarty Associates, was editor of Survival  from 1976-1977. This was part of a longer stay as an IISS research associate and then Assistant Director at the IISS. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of the IISS-US.

David Ignatius, Columnist and Associate Editor of The Washington Post is a Member of the Board of Directors of the IISS-US.

Ashley Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published an important article in the autumn 2007 issue of Survival entitled ‘China’s Military Space Strategy’.  The February-March issue of Survival features a spirited exchange on that article between Tellis and five discussants.

David Calleo, Dean Acheson Professor and Director of European Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and University Professor at Johns Hopkins, the author of numerous Survival articles including, most recently a review essay in the current issue titled ‘Friendly Critics.’