'Security Matters' in a changing world order

gettyimages 56667803 A computer workstation bears the National Security Agency logo inside the Threat Operations Center inside the Washington suburb of Fort Meade, Maryland, intelligence gathering operation in 2006. The Security Matters class lectures examined the many facets of U.S. and global security.

The CISAC lecture series, "Security Matters," surveyed the most pressing security issues facing the world today. Topics include cybersecurity, nuclear proliferation, insurgency and intervention, terrorism, biosecurity, lessons learned from the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis – as well as the future of U.S. leadership in the world.

The lectures come almost entirely from the 2014 winter term of International Security (PS114S), co-taught by intelligence expert and CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart and terrorism authority Martha Crenshaw co-taught the Security Matters class in 2015. (Zegart recently co-wrote a journal paper on why the U.S. might adjust its national security approach in light of a changing international order.)

“This series is the first in what we hope will be a continuing experiment of new modes and methods to enhance our education mission,” said Zegart. “We have two goals in mind: The first is to expand CISAC's reach in educating the world about international security issues. The second is to innovate inside our Stanford classrooms.

Guest lecturers for the Security Matters series include former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry; former FBI Director Robert Mueller gives us an Inside-the-Beltway look at the day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Other lectures are by notable Stanford professors such as plutonium science expert Siegfried Hecker, political scientist Francis Fukuyama, nuclear historians and political scientists David Holloway and Scott Sagan, and tProfessor Abbas Milani explains Iran’s nuclear ambitions; Eikenberry lectures on the Afghanistan War and the future of Central Asia; and former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute talks about the importance of cybersecurity. 

The series of 30 classroom and office lectures is broken down into 157 shorter clips. The talks are packaged under these security themes:

Into the Future: Emerging Insecurities

Insurgency, Asymmetrical Conflict and Military Intervention

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

The Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

International Security and State Power