Six years ago, International Security began the practice of appointing associate editors. We invited Michael Desch, Lynn Eden, Peter Liberman, Kimberly Marten, and Daryl Press to join the journal's editorial team as the first group of associate editors. We are extraordinarily grateful for their assistance. They have provided general editorial advice, helped to review manuscripts, and identified possible submissions. In particular, they have contributed to reducing the time the journal takes to reach decisions on manuscripts. The journal's average turnaround time for submissions is now sixty-five days. We reach decisions on 80 percent of submitted manuscripts in less than three months.
The time has come to begin a process of rotating the journal's associate editors. With this issue we thank all five of the initial associate editors, who served well beyond what was expected to be a three-year term. We are extremely grateful for their wise counsel and willingness to give so much of their time. We welcome new Associate Editors Alexander Downes, Frank Gavin, Kelly Greenhill, and Dan Lindley, who joined us this spring. With the fall 2015 issue, David Edelstein will become an associate editor and Lynn Eden's tenure will end.
With this issue we also bid farewell and thank you to Christoph Bertram, who has decided to leave the International Security Editorial Board after serving continuously since the journal's founding in 1976. Christoph has been a valued colleague and a pillar of the security studies field. We will miss him.
We are pleased to announce that International Security ranked first among international relations journals in the 2014 Impact Factor rankings, which were recently released in the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports. The journal's 2014 Impact Factor of 3.868 was 30 percent higher than its 2013 Impact Factor. It was also the highest Impact Factor of any international relations journal since 2000. We are deeply gratified that so many scholars and policy analysts read and cite International Security.