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Abstract: Clean energy provides a number of benefits at scales from household to village to city and region. An unrealized and under-appreciated opportunity is to transition conflict regions from external fuel supply chains to local, clean and unpolluting energy. The benefits of this transition include local energy security to shared benefits from sustaining local generation capacity, which we term 'peace through grids'.  

Speaker bio: Daniel M. Kammen is a Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group where he serves as Chair, the Goldman School of Public Policy where he directs the Center for Environmental Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. Kammen is the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL; http://rael.berkeley.edu), and was Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center from 2007 - 2015.

He was appointed by then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in April 2010 as the first energy fellow of the Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) initiative. He began service as the Science Envoy for U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016, but resigned over President Trump’s policies in August 2017. He has served the State of California and US federal government in expert and advisory capacities, including time at the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Department of Energy, the Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy

Dr. Kammen was educated in physics at Cornell (BA 1984) and Harvard (MA 1986; PhD 1988), and held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard. He was an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University before moving to the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Kammen has served as a contributing or coordinating lead author on various reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1999. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Kammen helped found over 10 companies, including Enphase that went public in 2012, Renewable Funding (Renew Financial) a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) implementing company that went public in 2014. Kammen played a central role in developing the successful bid for the $500 million energy biosciences institute funded by BP.

During 2010-2011 Kammen served as the World Bank Group’s first Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. While there, Kammen worked on the Kenya-Ethiopia “green corridor” transmission project, Morocco’s green transformation, the 10-year energy strategy for the World Bank, and on investing in household energy and gender equity. He was appointed to this newly created position in October 2010, in which he provided strategic leadership on policy, technical, and operational fronts. The aim is to enhance the operational impact of the Bank’s renewable energy and energy efficiency activities while expanding the institution’s role as an enabler of global dialogue on moving energy development to a cleaner and more sustainable pathway. Kammen’s work at the World Bank included funding electrified personal and municipal vehicles in China, and the $1.24 billion transmission project linking renewable energy assets in Kenya and Ethiopia.

He has authored or co-authored 12 books, written more than 300 peer-reviewed journal publications, and has testified more than 40 times to U.S. state and federal congressional briefings, and has provided various governments with more than 50 technical reports. For details see http://rael.berkeley.edu/publications. Dr. Kammen also served for many years on the Technical Review Board of the Global Environment Facility. He is the Specialty Chief Editor for Understanding Earth and Its Resources for Frontiers for Young Minds.

Kammen is a frequent contributor to or commentator in international news media, including Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Financial Times. Kammen has appeared on ‘60 Minutes’ (twice), NOVA, Frontline, and hosted the six-part Discovery Channel series Ecopolis. Dr. Kammen is a Permanent Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. In the US, he has served on several National Academy of Sciences boards and panels.

Abstract: In this talk, I present three findings from an in-depth investigation of the US Drone War in Pakistan from 2004 to 2014. First, I use a panel estimation strategy to show a negative statistical association between the drone war period from 2008 onward and insurgent violence in Pakistan. Second, I use a process tracing approach, drawing on data collected through fieldwork in Pakistan including interviews with members of Al-Qaeda and Pakistan Taliban, to show the drone war period from 2008 to 2014 led to dramatic reduction in the targeted organizations’ operational capabilities, folding of and displacement from bases, managerial challenges like desertions, and political breakdown like splintering and feuds. Third, I use interview-based data to show that the popularly held notion of “drone blowback” – that drone strikes energize recruitment of targeted armed groups - doesn’t find empirical support. I explain these findings by introducing a new concept of Legibility and Speed-of-exploitation System, or L&S in short. L&S varies in the degree of legibility of the population where armed groups are based (legibility, in short) and the speed of exploitation of legibility gains (speed, in short). I argue that the period of the US Drone War which attained high levels of L&S (2008 to 2014) was very disruptive for the targeted groups. The theoretical position and empirical findings challenge the wisdom on importance of winning “hearts-and-minds” of civilians in counterterrorism/counterinsurgency. The findings also have important policy implications for how US policymakers are likely to approach the challenge of managing threats by Al-Qaeda and ISIS from weak states.

Speaker bio: Asfandyar Mir is a Social Science Predoctoral fellow at CISAC and a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on effectiveness of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations. His research draws on quantitative and qualitative microdata collected through field work and archival sources. Some of his research is forthcoming in Security Studies. His commentary has been featured in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage. 

Abstract: What is the strategic value of cyber weapons? Even though a growing body of research has addressed the destructive potential of cyber weapons, there remains a large gap in thinking about the strategic utility of these capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to partially fill this gap, by means of assessing under what conditions 'counterforce’ and ‘countervalue’ cyber weapons can be effective. I argue that cyber weapons can provide an ‘extra option’ to leaders. The discussed cases suggest that they can be used both as an important force-multiplier enabler for conventional military assets or as independent capability. Cyber weapons can also be used to achieve a form of psychological ascendancy and can be used effectively with few casualties.

Speaker Bio: Max Smeets is a cybersecurity fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, St. John’s College. Max current book project focuses on the causes underlying cyber proliferation and restraint. The results of this research are valuable for understanding the likely changes in the future prevalence of cyber weapons. It clarifies to what degree this is an ‘inevitable’ development – and if/how it can be stopped.

Max was a College Lecturer in Politics at Keble College, University of Oxford, and Research Affiliate of the Oxford Cyber Studies Programme. He was also a Carnegie Visiting Scholar at Columbia University SIPA and a Doctoral Visiting Scholar at Sciences Po CERI. He holds an undergraduate degree from University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University, and an M.Phil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, Brasenose College.  Max has a diverse professional background, having worked for financial, political, and non-governmental organizations.

Abstract: Why do moderate majorities often fail to coordinate opposition to extremist minorities? This paper offers an explanation for the microfoundations of moderate mobilization in the face of extremist minorities using the case of Islamist extremism in Indonesia. In particular, I show that moderates and extremists face asymmetric costs in the decision to voice their true preferences resulting in a coordination dilemma for moderates, which I call the “Moderates’ Dilemma.” An original survey experiment and observational data of participant behavior during two additional surveys demonstrate that moderates hide anti-violent views for fear of reputation costs and that these effects vary by individuals’ sensitivity to reputation costs and degree of uncertainty of others’ attitudes. These findings suggest that over 16 million Indonesians may be hiding moderate preferences and have significant implications for countering violent extremism policies globally. 

Speaker Bio: Kerry Ann Carter Persen is a Carnegie Predoctoral Fellow at CISAC for the 2017-2018 academic year and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the impact of violent extremism on political behavior in the Islamic World.

- This event is jointly sponsored by the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center -

As tensions rise between the U.S. and North Korea, a panel of Stanford experts will convene in Encina Hall on Tuesday, May 30 to assess the issues involved. Panelists will include:

• Kathleen Stephens, former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea, William J. Perry Fellow in the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). She will talk about the South Korean leadership’s thinking and position on North Korea in the context of its U.S. relationship.
• James Person, director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation, Center for Korean History and Public Policy. He offers a perspective on the North Korean leadership in the current crisis, including a broader historical context, as well as thoughts on the China-North Korea relationship.
• Katharina Zellweger, visiting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. She will discuss the impact of the current crisis on the North Korean people., and how sanctions and changes in Chinese trade are affecting them.
• Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, director of the Korea Program, senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and professor of sociology, will moderate the session.