Research

The Information Warfare Working Group is a newly launched multidisciplinary working group comprised of Stanford University scholars who meet quarterly to address the issue of cyber-enabled information warfare

An extensive literature review, combined with analysis by Robert Carlin, Siegfried Hecker, and other subject-matter experts, provides a comprehensive picture of the evolution of North Korea's nuclear program.

The Critical Infrastructure Initiative aims to address the growing threat that cyber-incidents pose to the functioning of the basic infrastructure that societies depend upon. Stanford has partnered with 11 other organizations to found the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), an institute focused on research and education designed to enhance the resiliency of the nation’s critical infrastructures. The Critical Infrastructure Initiative involves two projects designed to foster critical-infrastructure cyber resilience:  Cybersecurity Assurance for Critical Infrastructure and Regulation and Power Grid Resilience.

The Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) addresses critical challenges to international security through methodologically rigorous, evidence-based analyses of insurgency, civil war and other sources of politically motivated violence. ESOC aims to empower high quality of conflict analysis by creating and maintaining a repository of micro-level data across multiple conflict cases and making these data available to a broader community of scholars and policy analysts.

The Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN) and CISAC are collaborating to support a special initiative on international conflict resolution. The two centers share a concern with the pressing issues of peacebuilding today: the resolution of international and intergroup conflict; war-to-peace transitions, and the strengthening of institutions and communities to prevent future conflict.

Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker was the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory when the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991. The economy of the post-Soviet states was in severe crisis; the state borders were redrawn, the security environment changed completely; and tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and more than 1,000 tons of fissile materials across the former Soviet states were inadequately protected.

This research project launched in 2009 traces the evolution of militant organizations and the interactions that develop among them over time. Findings have been presented in interactive maps on a separate website.  These maps – which are visual representations of the architecture of terrorist groups in a series of conflicts – show how relationships among militant organizations change over time, as well as presenting in-depth profiles of individual groups and comprehensive lists of their activities.

The Nuclear Risk Reduction initiative engages technical and policy experts to reduce nuclear risks by promoting collaboration between the United States and Russia, China and Pakistan. To achieve this, NRR conducts academic research on issues such as the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and hosts events to encourage expanding scientific collaboration around nuclear materials security and accountability, diversion scenarios of nuclear materials and emergency response to nuclear terrorism.

The Preventive Defense Project (PDP) is a research effort directed by former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry. Preventive Defense is a concept for U.S. defense strategy in the post-Cold War era, premised on the belief that the absence of an imminent, major, traditional military threat to American security presents today's leaders with an unaccustomed challenge and opportunity to prevent future Cold War-scale threats to international security from emerging.

The Project on Peace and Cooperation in the Asian-Pacific Region has been a cornerstone of research at the Center for International Security and Cooperation for three decades. It supports initiatives on security cooperation and tension reduction in the Asia-Pacific region with special emphasis on China and Korea. Currently, it focuses on Asian nuclear issues and Northeast Asia regional peace issues.

The “Reset” initiative engages technical experts, government officials and members of the public in a series of focused discussions on the U.S. Waste Management Strategy and Policy.  The meetings are organized by an international Steering Committee. The project is funded by the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford.  The meetings are hosted by the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Some of the projects that have been archived or completed include: