The routine employment of torture on the popular television series 24 has given rise to the charge that the program lends verisimilitude to  the questionable premise that torture is a legitimate and effective means of interrogation. A growing body of evidence suggests the critics' charge is correct. Indeed, the Dean of the US Military Academy at West Point grew sufficiently concerned about the pernicious effects 24 was having on his cadets that he traveled to California to meet with the show's creators to ask them to tone down the use of torture on the program. The Intelligence Science Board has echoed the critics' concerns, arguing that similar reality-distorting attitudes towards torture can be seen in the public at large. But how and why can a wholly fictional program like 24 actually influence political reality? Is this case something of an exception, or more akin to the rule?  Unfortunately, evidence suggests that fiction and other socially constructed portrayals of political reality-including propaganda, false flag operations and conspiracy theories-have long exercised demonstrable effects on political reality, often in unforeseen and unintentional ways.

Through the lens of the invasion panic that gripped Great Britain in the late nineteenth century, Greenhill will explore how and why national security-related "social facts"-i.e., things that are deemed to be "true" simply because they are widely believed to be true-can become broadly adopted and disseminated and, by extension, thereby influence the development and conduct of national security policy. Greenhill will further explore what this historical case can tell us about the theoretical and policy implications such "social facts" may hold for the threats we face today, including terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Kelly M. Greenhill is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Tufts University and Research Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She holds a Ph.D. and an S.M. from M.I.T., a C.S.S. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from UC Berkeley. Greenhill previously held pre- or post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and at CISAC.

Her work has appeared in a variety of venues, including the journals International Security, Security Studies, and International Migration as well as in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and in briefs prepared for the U.S. Supreme Court. Greenhill has two books shortly forthcoming with Cornell University Press: the first, Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, focuses on the use of large-scale population movements as instruments of state-level coercion; and the second, Sex, Drugs and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict (co-edited with Peter Andreas), examines the politicization and manipulation of crime and conflict-related statistics. She is currently at work on a new book, a cross-national study that explores why, when, and under what conditions, fiction, so-called "social facts" and other non-factual sources of information-such as rumors, conspiracy theories and propaganda-materially influence the development and conduct of national security policies.

Lynn Eden is Associate Director for Research at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that oil causes international contention by explaining how the high costs of petroleum conquest deter territorial aggression. In oil-rich territories, interstate violence is inspired by other factors. The claim is tested through an examination of Nigeria and Cameroon's dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula, drawing on the author's fieldwork in both countries.

Emily Meierding is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a predoctoral fellow at CISAC. Her dissertation examines how the presence of petroleum resources affects the initiation and escalation of international territorial disputes. She has conducted dissertation research and language study in Syria, Morocco, Nigeria and Cameroon. Meierding holds a BA in History from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

Jessica Gottlieb is a PhD Candidate in the Political Science Department at Stanford University.  Her research is on the relationship between democracy and development, particularly in her region of interest, francophone West Africa.  She studies the impact of decentralization and local democracy on political accountability and public goods outcomes.   She received her BA in Political Science from Yale University and has also spent time in Washington, DC working at the Center for Global Development. 

Steve Coll is president of New America Foundation, and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. Previously he spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent and senior editor at The Washington Post, serving as the paper's managing editor from 1998 to 2004. He is the author of six books, including The Deal of the Century: The Break Up of AT&T (1986); The Taking of Getty Oil (1987); Eagle on the Street, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the SEC's battle with Wall Street (with David A. Vise, 1991); On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey into South Asia (1994), Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004); and The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century (2008).

Mr. Coll's professional awards include two Pulitzer Prizes. He won the first of these, for explanatory journalism, in 1990, for his series, with David A. Vise, about the SEC. His second was awarded in 2005, for his book, Ghost Wars, which also won the Council on Foreign Relations' Arthur Ross award; the Overseas Press Club award and the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book published on international affairs during 2004. Other awards include the 1992 Livingston Award for outstanding foreign reporting; the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award for his coverage of the civil war in Sierra Leone; and a second Overseas Press Club Award for international magazine writing. Mr. Coll graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude, from Occidental College in 1980 with a degree in English and history. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum

Taking a contemporary policy-focused approach, this presentation will focus on the changes in Turkey's neighborhood and the concomitant transformation of Turkey's foreign policy since the demise of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the competition for the energy resources in the Caspian region. How and under which conditions can Turkey's transatlantic obligations, EU membership objectives, and regional aspirations can be reconciled?

Ahmet Evin is Professor of Political Science and the founding dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University (Istanbul, Turkey). He received his Ph.D. in Middle East Studies and Cultural History from Columbia University. He has taught at New York University, Harvard University, Hacettepe University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Hamburg, Bilkent University and Sabanci University. His research interests include theories of the State and elites; Turkish political development; and democracy and civil society. Prof. Evin currently works on current foreign policy issues related to the European enlargement, its significance for Turkey and the region as well as its effect on Transatlantic relations. Prof. Evin has initiated, with the European Commission's support, a policy dialogue on the future European architecture, EU's eastward expansion, its Mediterranean policy, and the customs union agreement with Turkey. Among his publications are "Turkish foreign policy: limits of engagement" (New Perspectives on Turkey, 2009), "The Future of Greek-Turkish relations" (Journal of Southeast European & Black Sea Studies, 2005), Towards Accession Negotiations: Turkey's Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges Ahead (2004), Politics in the Third Turkish Republic (1998), State Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (1988), Origins and Development of the Turkish Novel (1984), and Modern Turkish Architecture(1984).

David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into six languages, most recently into Czech in 2008. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Matthias Englert is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. Before joining CISAC in 2009, he was a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science Technology and Security (IANUS) and a PhD student at the department of physics at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. 

His major research interests include nonproliferation, disarmament, arms control, nuclear postures and warheads, fissile material and production technologies, the civil use of nuclear power and its role in future energy scenarios and the possibility of nuclear terrorism.  His research during his stay at CISAC focuses primarily on the technology of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the implications of their use for the nonproliferation regime, and on technical and political measures to manage proliferation risks.

Since the 1990's the US Department of Defense has been pioneering the development of more coherent approaches to improve the coordination of complex technologies, program, policies, and institutions.  Among the most significant and influential of these new approaches is Systems of Systems, which is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on organizing independent stand-alone components into more integrated solutions.

As one of the developers of this concept, Bill will draw on his expertise to review the history of this emerging field, summarize its major scientific and practical features, describe examples of its application in DoD and other arenas, and explore its relevance to a variety of technical and non-technical issues affecting security concerns.

Bill Reckmeyer is Professor of Leadership and Systems at San José State University, Faculty Chair of the International Study Program on Global Citizenship at the Salzburg Global Seminar, and a Visiting Professor at CISAC.  A systems scientist/cybernetician whose work emphasizes collaborative approaches to problematic organizational, national, and global issues, his research and consulting have focused on leading multi-year strategic planning efforts in diverse institutional settings and conducting senior-level policy studies on national strategy for the US Department of Defense.

During the 1990s Bill co-authored several studies on Revitalizing America for OSD's Office of Net Assessment, which originated the ideas for systems of systems approaches to address hyper-complex concerns whose resolution require the integration of independent complex systems.  From 2003-2006 he served as Chief Systems Scientist for the Systems of Systems Center of Excellence, which was established by Congress and funded by DoD to lead national efforts at developing more integrative solutions to interconnected challenges affecting defense acquisition and logistics, national security, homeland security, and international affairs.

Prior to joining Stanford Bill also held posts as a Visiting Professor or a Senior Fellow at Harvard, Southern California, Maryland, Stockholm, St. Gallen, Aveiro, and several other major universities in the United States and Europe.  He currently serves as Strategic Advisor to the California Levees Roundtable and as a Core Faculty member in the CA Agricultural Leadership Program.

A former President of the American Society for Cybernetics in 1983-1985, Bill was a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow in 1988-1992 and a Salzburg Global Fellow on five occasions from 1995-2004.  He earned his PhD in Russian Studies at American University in 1982 and completed several advanced leadership programs at Harvard University from 1990-1995.