From the Publisher

ith this issue, the Journal of International Security Affairs inaugurates a new format and welcomes a new editor.

When we started the Journal in the summer of 2001, we had many dreams about what we wanted to accomplish. Thanks to our outgoing editor, Ambassador Harvey Feldman, we have exceeded those expectations in the short time that the Journal has been in existence.

Above all, we wanted the Journal to be a distinctive voice in the already-crowded debate over national security policy. Rather than simply adding more pages to the standard fare found in other journals, we wanted our publication to be a forum for ideas that are rarely voiced elsewhere.

Like in other areas of the media, there are clear margins to the ideas that today’s journals choose to publish, and they generally go from left to center. I am proud to say that the Journal of International Security Affairs has succeeded in extending those margins.

The public reaction has been tremendous. Sales of the Journal continue to rise at a time when sales of other publications have remained flat. And there can be little doubt that we have yet to reach full potential.

For a journal, that potential is very different than for other forms of media. Journals are, by their nature, smaller, more exclusive and more professional. They are intended for readers who are hungry for more than the “fast food” information that we are fed daily. They are designed for those who have the facts, but want to go a few layers deeper. And, because of this different audience, they are put to a very different use.

It is a limited market, but it is one that is ever so important, and it should not be framed by a world that speaks strictly between the margins. The unexplored life, argued Socrates, is not worth living. So too, the unexplored idea may not be worth having.

We are proud to help in the broader pursuit of the idea.