Since its foundation in 1958, the IISS has regularly demonstrated its intellectual agility and structural flexibility. In its early years, and with a very small staff, the Institute concentrated on the problems posed by nuclear weapons in the modern world. In the 1960s and 1970s, the IISS made a major contribution to the elaboration of concepts of nuclear deterrence and arms control in the nuclear age. Early on, the Institute saw the need to concentrate on conflicts outside the East–West theatre in Europe, and in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s it elaborated a major regional-security programme.
With a slightly expanded staff, the IISS began examining the local origins of, and prospective solutions to, conflicts of all kinds in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. This allowed the Institute to take its work to many areas of the world. In the 1980s and early 1990s, for example, the IISS held conferences in Costa Rica, Egypt, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe, amongst other places, often in collaboration with local institutes and universities. With this background and intellectual disposition, the Institute was well placed to analyse the aftermath of the Cold War, when the problems of ethnic conflict, dramatic political change, peacekeeping, and local arms control – which it had previously studied in the regional context – became central issues of international concern.
In the latter half of the 1990s, the IISS further developed its research and publications programmes, and its workshop and conference activities. This will ensure its place as the leading independent organisation providing essential information and analysis for high-level debate about strategic change. Committed to retaining this position, the Institute demonstrates in its academic work and operating practices a judicious combination of conservatism and risk. As a policy institute, it has a dual responsibility: to innovate; and to influence. It will thus continue to develop its research programme and its working methods to meet this responsibility with efficiency and élan.
