[ PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR 2003 ]

In the year 2003, the Center for International Security and Strategic Studies (CISS) is going to work on Homeland Defense emergency coordination issues in Mississippi, and will offer training for the Mississippi Anti-Terrorist Task Force and the National Guard Association members on the same subject. Depending from funding, we will organize a symposium on international cooperation against the war against terrorism.

In addition, we are going to move into a novel area of research: defense science. This research activity will focus on the latest findings in biological science, and neurological pharmacology, new classes of drugs, and their impact on the testing, selection, and training of our military. We are going to get guidance from the NET Assessment Office of the Secretary of Defense. We are interested in pursuing the People’s Republic of China’s military modernization and its effect on the United States, Japan, and Russia.

[ PAST ACTIVITIES ]

The CISS research activities have focused attention on a wide range of topics, among them an international conference in the Jackson, Mississippi planetarium entitled: "Strategic Defense Initiative: Perception and Reality - An International Update." Other successfully accomplished CISS projects in the strategic studies field dealt with nuclear non-proliferation, peace and conflict resolution studies, as well as an international workshop on psychological operation and political warfare in long-term strategic planning. The CISS researchers payed special attention to Latin America also, and organized several important projects. One workshop dealt with the population growth in Latin America and it's impact on the United States. Another symposium concentrated on Latin American narcotic trade and U.S. national security. The third conference discussed the environmental revitalization of the Gulf of Mexico. The Center organized two Mississippi opinion makers's visits to Japan: a Japan-Mississippi Economic Seminar, and an international symposium on economic and strategic changes in the Pacific. 

The Center's focus has shifted somewhat in 1989 to reflect the changes and challenges of the Post Cold War era. Our international research conference on "Political Pluralism in Eastern Europe and Its Impact on European Stability" at M.S.U. was the very first workshop bringing Solidarity leaders and Catholic journalists from Poland, and opposition democratic party leaders from Hungary into the United States. Another workshop was in Budapest. Here, Hungary explained to our Central European friends the basics of strategic planning and the conduct of security policies. Together with the Atlantic Council of America, we advised East European military and congressional leaders on civil-military relations in a democratic society. We offered suggestions to environmentalists from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria to alleviate dangerous trans-border pollution problems. Our major three year long program: "Japan-United States Committee for Promoting Economic and Social Development in East Central Europe" was a great success. Last but not least, the Center provided background information for the U.S. administration as to whether membership of the newly established Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary into NATO would be a step in the right direction. 

We had an extremely successful multi-national symposium with the participation of Japanese-American and Russian officials and experts on dumped nuclear waste into the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, and the North Pacific Ocean. At the end of the second meeting, we received assurance from the highest level of the Russian government that the Russian Navy would stop the dumping of the nuclear waste from their nuclear powered submarines.