Institute for Security, Diplomacy, and Innovation

Help Pepperdine establish itself as a leading center for forward-thinking, constructive discussion and policy regarding foreign relations and national security.

In a world where complex networks of national alliances create thorny foreign policy dilemmas and new security threats seem to emerge every day, the Institute for Security, Diplomacy, and Innovation at Pepperdine is bringing together both School of Public Policy students and the world’s leading foreign policy thinkers and strategists to approach these challenges from new perspectives and forge creative solutions.

The Institute for Diplomacy, Security, and Innovation at Pepperdine University was established to bridge the gap between intellectual and policy ideas and decision-making in a rapidly evolving global order. Under the leadership of Kiron Skinner, Pepperdine's inaugural Taube Family Chair of International Relations and Politics, the institute achieves this goal through guiding priorities organized around the concepts of a new geography and American grand strategy that are specifically tailored to 21st-century domestic and geopolitical realities. The activities of the institute include seminars, conferences, and summits, as well as publication of research-based and opinion essays in its Journal of Diplomacy, Security, and Innovation. With the launch of this institute, Pepperdine continues to serve as a global leader in higher education, deepening its expertise and scholarship in foreign policy and national security.

The military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, the bellicosity of China and Russia, the rising power and independence of nations of the Global South, and fractures in the Western alliance have made designing a new grand strategy for the United States and the world a more urgent matter. A key element is the rapid reappraisal of the geopolitical landscape, which is producing a new geography. Defined in terms of looking at the globe through novel zones of economic, political, digital, transportation, and energy freedom, the new geography has the potential both to connect nations within a region and nations from very distant regions in ways that disable their dependence on malign actors of all sorts, including authoritarian regimes. These emerging zones of freedom in turn contribute to a reduction in population disruption, illegal migration, and terrorism while enhancing religious liberty and human flourishing.