Taking a broad view of the conflict spectrum, Security Sweep covers traditional international security topics such as nuclear proliferation and military doctrine, as well as dimensions of human security such as immigration and political integration. This wide-angle lens reflects the dual orientation of the Ridgway Center and Ford Institute, the two University of Pittsburgh security think tanks sponsoring the blog.

Features such as the Chalk Talk corner mark the Ridgway Center and Ford Institute’s unique status as institutions where the study of conflict from person to planet is integrated into the academic life of a major research university. Yet Security Sweep also aspires to stimulate thought and discussion beyond the academy, by inviting interlocutors from government, media, business, and the general public to join the conversation. Through such interactive exchanges, Security Sweep connects academic researchers with broader audiences, thereby churning public debates and honing nascent lines of scholarly inquiry on security matters.

To foster meaningful and constructive discussion, we follow these guiding principles:

• We aim to provide insightful and informed perspectives on salient issues spanning the security continuum;
• Our moderators post submitted comments, except for spam and remarks that are off-topic, denigrating or offensive;
• We strive to reply to comments when appropriate;
• We are respectful when disagreeing with others’ opinions.

Security sweep is a group-authored weblog, featuring contributions from three lead authors and cameo appearances by invited guests. Unless otherwise noted, the ideas expressed are the authors’ personal viewpoints, and do not represent official positions of the Ridgway Center, the Ford Institute, the University of Pittsburgh, or any other institution.

Lead authors

William W. Keller is professor of international security and political science at the University of Pittsburgh where he holds the Wesley W. Posvar chair in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and is director of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies. He is a past executive director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a principal research scientist and research director of the M.I.T. Japan Program (1998-2002). His research interests include internal security, terrorism, and WMD proliferation; East Asia economic and security issues; the political economy of multinational corporations; and the arms trade. Prior to joining M.I.T., he served as deputy director of the Center for Trade and Commercial Diplomacy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. From 1987-95, he directed international projects at the Office of Technology Assessment in Washington, DC. He is the author, coauthor, and editor of numerous articles and books, including Crisis and Innovation in Asian Technology (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003); The Myth of the Global Corporation (Princeton Univ. Press, 1998); Arm In Arm: The Political Economy of the Global Arms Trade (Basic Books, 1995), and The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: Rise and Fall of a Domestic Intelligence State (Princeton Univ. Press, 1989). Dr. Keller is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University.

Gordon Mitchell is associate professor of communication and deputy director of the Ridgway Center for International Security Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. In research concentrating on public argument and rhetoric of science, Mitchell (Ph.D., Northwestern University) has examined public controversies surrounding missile defense and the deliberative dynamics of preventive war decision-making. His book Strategic Deception (Michigan State Univ. Press, 2000) won the National Communication Association’s Winans-Wichelns Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address, while his Hitting First (co-edited in 2006 with William Keller) is the lead title in the University of Pittsburgh’s Ridgway-Ford “Security Continuum” book series. Mitchell’s research has also appeared in journals such as The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs; Science, Technology, and Human Values; and The Quarterly Journal of Speech, while his briefing papers have been published by organizations including the Federation of American Scientists, the International Security Information Service (UK and Europe), and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. As an intercollegiate debate coach, Mitchell has guided teams to three national championships and currently serves as director of the University of Pittsburgh’s William Pitt Debating Union.

Simon Reich is director of the Ford Institute for Human Security and has held a faculty appointment as a professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs since 1987. Reich (Ph.D., MA, Cornell University) was the director of research and analysis for the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in England in 2000-01, and he has been awarded the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship, as well as fellowships from the Kellogg Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, and numerous other organizations. He is a former president of the International Political Economy Section of the International Studies Association. Professor Reich wrote The Fruits of Fascism: Postwar Prosperity in Historical Perspective (Cornell Univ. Press, 1990); he has coauthored three books, one of them — The Myth of the Global Corporation (Princeton Univ. Press, 1998) — with William Keller; and he has coauthored two major government reports — Multinationals and the U.S. Technology Base (Office of Technology Assessment, 1994) and Multinational Corporations and the National Interest (Office of Technology Assessment, 1993).

Guest authors

Charli Carpenter is assistant professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of International and Public Affairs. Her teaching and research interests include national security ethics, the laws of war, transnational advocacy networks, gender and political violence, war crimes, comparative genocide studies, humanitarian affairs and the role of information technology in human security. She has a particular interest in the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security. She is the author of Innocent Women and Children: Gender, Norms and the Protection of Civilians, and has just finished editing a volume of essays entitled Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones. She has also published numerous articles in journals such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Security Dialogue and Human Rights Quarterly and has served as a consultant for the United Nations.