My research primarily focuses on two areas. First is applying the research and teaching I did some years ago on principles of intelligence to the needs of the post-9/11 security environment. I am undertaking a comparative study of effective intelligence practices and the intelligence culture required to manage weak states and non-state armed groups, particularly coalitions of political, terrorist, and criminal groups.

The second focus is on developing both governmental/law enforcement and cultural/educational approaches to prevent and manage nontraditional security challenges. Almost all diagnoses and prescriptions for developing democracy and the rule of law have focused on state institutions, and economic variables. My research, which began several years ago under UN auspices, is focused on the requirements of a culture sympathetic to the rule of law. There have been some very interesting and promising cases, for example, in Western Sicily and Hong Kong, where the combination of the institutional and the cultural approaches have yielded important results. I have been working with various types of formal and informal educational leaders and sectors in parts of Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, Peru, El Salvador), the Caucuses (Republic of Georgia), and the Middle East (Lebanon) to ascertain if significant cultural change can be brought about over a relatively short term, ten to twenty years, to complement efforts at institutional reform in these regions.