The heated debate over the line between liberty and national security took center stage as Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and CIA, defended government surveillance programs at Stanford’s launch this week of “The Security Conundrum” speaker series.
If such surveillance methods were further restricted, “that smaller box, in my professional judgment, would make the job of the NSA harder and would probably make you less safe,” Hayden told a packed audience at the event co-sponsored in part by the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).
Hayden admitted to being “prickly” as he discussed privacy concerns over NSA’s collection and storage of phone and email metadata covering billions of calls and messages by American citizens. The surveillance programs, which were exposed last year by leaks from NSA contractor Edward Snowden, were only used after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, given “the totality of the circumstances,” Hayden explained.
Hayden was director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005. He then led the CIA from 2006 to 2009.
The metadata collection “is something we would have never done on Sept. 9 or Sept. 10. But it seemed reasonable after Sept. 11,” he said. “No one is doing this out of prurient interests. No, it was a logical response to the needs of the moment.”
Amy Zegart, CISAC’s co-director and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, led the conversation with the four-star general. She pointed out that a majority of Americans distrusts the NSA and believes the agency is lying.
Hayden stressed that the phone records were similar to billing statements – detailing who made the calls and when. “There is no content. It is not electronic surveillance. Not at all.”
CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart leaders a talk with former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden at the inaugural "Security Conundrum" speakers series on Oct. 8, 2014.
Though he understands why the operation is “theoretically frightening,” in reality, it’s designed to aid in the capture of terrorists within the United States, Hayden said.
“To listen to the content of the calls would violate the laws of the United States. It would violate the laws of physics,” he said. He challenged if anyone could offer “concrete evidence” of harm stemming from the phone data collection.
In defining the right to privacy, Hayden cited his philosophy behind the balancing act between security and liberty.
“Privacy is the line we continually negotiate for ourselves as unique creatures of God and as social animals,” he said. “There are some things that the community has the right to know – and there are other things that they clearly do not have the right to know.”
The debate is over where that line is drawn, between “what is mine” and “what is owed the collective,” he said.
Hayden noted that the phone and email metadata collection programs are only a small part of the larger issues the nation faces as it deals with increasingly adept enemies and the surveillance abilities of other nations.
“I’m just simply saying – who knows more about you? One of the least of your worries is the government,” he said, half-jokingly. He noted that Google knows more about Americans than does the U.S. government, and the Silicon Valley company uses that data for commercial purposes.
Addressing how tech companies are becoming more reluctant to cooperate with government requests for email communication data, Hayden said he didn’t have an answer about how to address the relationship.
There is a call for transparency of what the government is doing, but Hayden said “translucency” might be the better option, so as to not reveal all that the U.S. does for foreign intelligence.
“This is an enterprise that’s based on absolute secrecy,” he said of the NSA.
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“We have to give American people enough information to be at least tolerant, if not supportive, of what the American government is doing.”
But to achieve that, “it’s not transparency,” he said. “We actually have to be translucent … where you have the glass … and you get the broad patterns of movemen
The danger of not being able to target emails, Hayden said, would be that emails become a safe haven for enemies. “If we don’t’ do it, if you’re not going to let us do this stuff … over the long term, it puts your liberty at risk because bad stuff will happen.”
“The Security Conundrum” speaker series looks behind and beyond the headlines, examining the history and implementation of the NSA operations, the legal questions generated by them, the media’s role in revealing them, and the responsibility of Congress to oversee them.
Each guest speaker, in conversation with Stanford scholars, will probe the problems from different vantage points to explain the political, legal and technological contours of the NSA actions, as well as outline ways to preserve the nation’s security without sacrificing our freedoms.
On Nov. 17, journalist Barton Gellman will be the featured speaker. He is known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning reports on the 9/11 attacks and has led the Washington Post's coverage of the NSA. On April 10, Reggie Walton, the former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, will take the stage as the speaker on April 10.
Along with FSI and CISAC, the series is also co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Law School.
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will join Stanford this academic year as a lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Carter, who has a PhD in theoretical physics, served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and is well known in academic and technology circles.
"I am honored to join the remarkable team at Stanford, one of the country's top universities and a key center for technological and business innovation,” Carter said. “The regional context of Silicon Valley was also an important attraction for me: the creative – even unorthodox – approaches to solving challenges are a model for both the private and public sectors. All that combined with a motivated faculty and a dynamic student population made Stanford a great opportunity. And as a scientist, I was always encouraged as a student to use my knowledge for the public good, and I hope to inspire the same thinking in students here.”
At FSI, Carter will be the Payne Distinguished Visitor and will be responsible for delivering several lectures. He will also deliver the annual Drell Lecture, which is sponsored by FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).
"Ash will bring to Stanford incomparable experience handling some of the most complex security issues facing the United States and the world,” said FSI Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. “We are fortunate to have him at FSI, and know that he will make great contributions to the Institute's research and teaching missions."
"It is a true honor to have Secretary Carter join the Hoover Institution as a distinguished visiting fellow,” said Hoover Director John Raisian. “An expert on a broad range of foreign policy and defense matters, Ash brings a unique and worldly perspective, one that is in keeping with our mission statement of promoting ideas that define a free society. My colleagues and I look forward to having him join the fellowship."
Carter stepped down from his post at the Pentagon late last year after serving two years as the Deputy Secretary of Defense. As the agency’s second-ranking civilian, he oversaw a $600 billion budget and 2.4 million uniformed and civilian personnel. From 2009 to 2011 Carter was the Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.
“Ash Carter is an extraordinary scholar statesman who thinks deeply, probes broadly, and transforms the organizations he leads,” said Amy Zegart, CISAC’s co-director. “We are thrilled to have him join the CISAC community.”
Carter joined the Defense Department from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was a professor and chair of the International Relations, Science, and Security faculty.
Carter’s connection with the technology business dates to his previous position as a senior partner at Global Technology Partners, where he advised major investment firms on technology and defense. He is currently working with several companies in Silicon Valley.
Carter earned his bachelor’s degrees in physics and in medieval history from Yale in 1976, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford in 1979.
He was a physics instructor at Oxford, a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University and M.I.T., and an experimental research associate at Brookhaven and Fermilab National Laboratories. From 1993 to 1996, Carter served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, responsible for policy regarding the former Soviet states, strategic affairs, and nuclear weapons policy.
Carter recently joined the Markle Foundation to help lead the "Economic Future Initiative" to develop groundbreaking ideas for empowering Americans in today’s networked economic landscape.
A new Stanford speaker series, "The Security Conundrum," explores how America can strike the right balance between security and liberty in a dangerous world. Nationally prominent speakers will engage in candid conversations on thought-provoking topics and issues.
In an age of terrorism and technology, fundamental questions have arisen about how a democratic society like the United States can find the right balance between security and liberty.
That's the puzzle behind a new Stanford speaker series, "The Security Conundrum," which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 8 with Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA.
The event, "Inside the NSA," is free and open to the public. It will be held at the CEMEX Auditorium, 641 Knight Way on the Stanford campus.
As part of the speaker series during the academic year, other nationally prominent experts will visit Stanford, where they will dive deep into conversations with campus experts.
On Nov. 17, journalist Barton Gellman will be the featured speaker. He is known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning reports on the 9/11 attacks and has led the Washington Post's coverage of the NSA. On April 10, Reggie Walton, the former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, will take the stage as the speaker. Also, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has agreed to participate, though the date for her appearance has not yet been scheduled.
Hayden on the rise of NSA surveillance
In conversation with Stanford scholar Amy Zegart, Hayden will provide an insider's account about the origins and development of the NSA programs. After the 9/11 attacks, at the request of the White House, Hayden intensified and expanded NSA wiretapping operations of various communications between Americans and terrorist suspects abroad in hopes of detecting and preventing another terrorist attack.
Hayden was the first principal deputy director of national intelligence (2005-2006) and director of the National Security Agency (1999-2005). He is a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general and is now a principal of the Chertoff Group.
Zegart, co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, said, "There is no better place to engage in this kind of multifaceted, open inquiry than a university."
She noted that there is "no better university" to explore such an issue than Stanford – with its home in Silicon Valley and faculty involved in national security issues. She described the institution as a "trusted convener on issues of national importance."
Zegart said that after the NSA's widespread efforts at mass surveillance were revealed last year, she and CISAC Consulting Professor Philip Taubman envisioned a campus conversation examining the relationship between secrecy, security and liberty in the digital age.
"These are thorny and complex questions with wide-ranging and often strongly held views," she added.
"The Security Conundrum" is co-sponsored by Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government and Stanford Law School.
The NSA and Silicon Valley
Each talk, Zegart said, will focus on a different issue and include a different expert. The idea is to go beyond the headlines to examine in depth NSA operations, legal issues, the media's role and the responsibility of Congress in overseeing intelligence gathering. Another topic is NSA's uneasy and evolving relationship with Silicon Valley.
The U.S. government's initial efforts in data collection – involving some Silicon Valley companies – were executed without a court order and after being revealed by the New York Times were subsequently placed under judicial review.
Over time, the NSA's efforts grew into the multidimensional programs exposed by Edward Snowden, including the collection and storage of phone and email metadata covering billions of calls and messages between American citizens.
Zegart said, "We designed 'The Security Conundrum' to be a speaker series rather than a one-off event so that each session could provide a deeper dive into one perspective at a time. I hope that each speaker in the series gets people talking and thinking about perspectives they might not have considered before."
In an age of terrorism, where should a democratic society draw the line on government surveillance? Edward Snowden’s explosive disclosures about the National Security Agency’s intelligence-collection operations have ignited an intense debate about the appropriate balance between security and liberty in America. In a special series this year, nationally prominent experts will explore the critical issues raised by the NSA’s activities, including their impact on our security, privacy, and civil liberties. This timely series will address one of the most challenging questions the nation faces today as it tries to strike the right balance between safety and liberty. The Security Conundrum will look behind and beyond the headlines, examining the history and implementation of the NSA operations, the legal questions generated by them, the media’s role in revealing them, and the responsibility of Congress to oversee them. It will also address the NSA’s uneasy and evolving relationship with Silicon Valley. Each session in the series is designed to explore these issues from a different vantage point. The guest speakers, in conversation with Stanford scholars, will probe the problems, explain the political, legal, and technological contours of the NSA actions, and outline ways to preserve the nation’s security without sacrificing our freedoms.
Inside the Newsroom: The Media and Edward Snowden: An Evening with Barton Gellman
When Edward Snowden decided in 2013 that the time had come to reveal the deepest secrets of the National Security Agency, one of the first journalists he approached was Barton Gellman of The Washington Post. Snowden gave Gellman a code name: BRASSBANNER. The name he chose for himself was VERAX, “truth teller” in Latin. So began one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of modern American journalism. In the ensuing months, Gellman received dozens of top-secret documents from Snowden, traveled to Moscow to meet him, and wrestled with tough questions about what, and what not, to publish. The Washington Post shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the nation’s highest journalism honor, for Gellman’s reporting about the Snowden materials and the NSA.
In a conversation with Philip Taubman, Gellman will recount his dealings with Snowden and describe how he and his editors weighed how to handle the Snowden materials. Few questions are more difficult for American journalists than determining how far a free press can venture in disclosing national security secrets without imperiling the nation’s security.
Barton Gellman Journalist Barton Gellman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist. In 2002, he was a member of the Washington Post team that received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its coverage of the 9/11 attacks. Gellman is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and a visiting professional specialist and author-in-residence at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is the author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.
Philip Taubman Consulting Professor, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford; Former Moscow and Washington Bureau Chief, The New York Times Philip Taubman served as a reporter and editor at The New York Times for nearly thirty years, specializing in national security coverage. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America’s Space Espionage, and The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb.
The Security Conundrum is co-sponsored by Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Law School.
CEMEX Auditorium
Knight Management Center
641 Knight Way, Stanford University
Bart Gellman
Senior Fellow
Speaker
The Century Foundation
Philip Taubman is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. He served as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief, among other posts. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003), The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012), In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (2023), as well as co-author (with his brother, William Taubman) of McNamara at War: A New History (2025).
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Philip Taubman
Consulting Professor, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford; Former Moscow and Washington Bureau Chief, The New York Times
Speaker
CISAC
In an age of terrorism, where should a democratic society draw the line on government surveillance? Edward Snowden’s explosive disclosures about the National Security Agency’s intelligence-collection operations have ignited an intense debate about the appropriate balance between security and liberty in America. In a special series this year, nationally prominent experts will explore the critical issues raised by the NSA’s activities, including their impact on our security, privacy, and civil liberties. This timely series will address one of the most challenging questions the nation faces today as it tries to strike the right balance between safety and liberty.
The Security Conundrum will look behind and beyond the headlines, examining the history and implementation of the NSA operations, the legal questions generated by them, the media’s role in revealing them, and the responsibility of Congress to oversee them. It will also address the NSA’s uneasy and evolving relationship with Silicon Valley. Each session in the series is designed to explore these issues from a different vantage point. The guest speakers, in conversation with Stanford scholars, will probe the problems, explain the political, legal, and technological contours of the NSA actions, and outline ways to preserve the nation’s security without sacrificing our freedoms.
Inside the NSA: An Evening with General Michael Hayden
General Michael Hayden was director of the National Security Agency on September 11, 2001. After the attacks, at the request of the White House, he intensified and expanded NSA wiretapping operations of various communications between Americans and terrorist suspects abroad in hopes of detecting and preventing another terrorist attack. These initial efforts were executed without a court order and after being revealed by The New York Times, were subsequently placed under judicial review. Over time, the NSA’s efforts grew into the multidimensional programs exposed by Edward Snowden, including the collection and storage of phone and email metadata covering billions of calls and messages between American citizens.
In conversation with Amy Zegart, General Hayden will provide an insider’s account about the origins and development of the NSA programs. He will also discuss the directives and mechanisms to control them, and the disagreements within the Bush administration about the extent of the wiretapping. He will offer his views on the justification, legal status, scale, and effectiveness of the NSA monitoring.
Michael V. Hayden Former Director of the CIA and the NSA Michael V. Hayden served as Director of the CIA (2006–2009), First Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (2005–2006), and Director of the National Security Agency (1999–2005). He is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and is now a principal of The Chertoff Group.
Amy Zegart Davies Family Senior Fellow and Associate Director, Hoover Institution; Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science; Co-Director, Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation Amy Zegart’s publications include Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 and Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community. She has served on the National Research Council’s panel on improving intelligence analysis.
The Security Conundrum is co-sponsored by Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Law School.
CEMEX Auditorium
Knight Management Center
641 Knight Way, Stanford University
General Michael Hayden
Former Director of the CIA and the NSA
Speaker
CIA, NSA
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E216
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
(650) 725-9754
(650) 723-0089
0
zegart@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
amyzegart-9.jpg
PhD
Dr. Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. The author of five books, she specializes in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies, and national security. At Hoover, she leads the Technology Policy Accelerator and the Oster National Security Affairs Fellows Program. She also is an associate director and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI; a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute; and professor of political science by courtesy, teaching 100 students each year about how emerging technologies are transforming espionage.
Her award-winning research includes the leading academic study of intelligence failures before 9/11: Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton, 2007) and the bestseller Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence (Princeton, 2022), which was nominated by Princeton University Press for the Pulitzer Prize. She also coauthored Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity, with Condoleezza Rice (Twelve, 2018). Her op-eds and essays have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
Zegart has advised senior officials about intelligence and foreign policy for more than two decades. She served on the National Security Council staff and as a presidential campaign foreign policy advisor and has testified before numerous congressional committees. Before her academic career, she spent several years as a McKinsey & Company consultant.
Zegart received an AB in East Asian studies from Harvard and an MA and a PhD in political science from Stanford. She serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, and the American Funds/Capital Group.
Abstract: While non-democratic states often restrict traditional civil liberties such as speech, media, and association, the degree of Internet freedom permitted varies dramatically across states. This paper uses a mixed-method approach to analyze global patterns of Internet policy across hybrid and authoritarian regimes, and to offer a model of key causal factors and processes influencing policy choice – particularly the choice whether to adopt restrictive policies that limit Internet use and content or to permit the development of and access to a vibrant uncensored Internet. Large-N analysis identifies global patterns of Internet restrictions and examines how these patterns appear to be changing as Internet penetration increases. The paper also draws on research from the Russian Federation, tracing changes in domestic Internet policy choices and their relation to political instability and control, examining a critical period of policy change in a regime that had previously stood out for its relatively unrestricted Internet.
About the Speaker: Jaclyn Kerr is a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University. Her research examines the Internet policies adopted by authoritarian and hybrid regimes in their attempts to adapt to the potentially destabilizing influence of growing Internet penetration. She holds a BAS in Mathematics and Slavic Studies, and an MA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University. In 2013-2014, Ms. Kerr was a research fellow at the Center for the Study of New Media and Society at the New Economic School in Moscow, while conducting field research for her dissertation. She has worked as a research assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, has been an IREX EPS Fellow at the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan, a Research Fellow at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, an IREX YLF Fellow in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and has previous professional experience as a software engineer. She joins CISAC as a Cybersecurity Predoctoral Fellow for 2014-2015.
Jackie Kerr is a Professor in the College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) at National Defense University (NDU). She is also a Nonresident Fellow with the Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Program and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies in the School of Foreign Service. Her work focuses on digital and emerging technologies and their current and future impacts on international politics, national security, and democracy. She has conducted research and taught on the digital politics of authoritarian regimes, the role of information technologies in civil society and protest mobilization, cyber domain strategy, global Internet governance, the role of artificial intelligence in national security and foreign policy, and on the role of digital technologies in the politics of Russia, China, and Eurasia. While at NDU, Dr. Kerr previously served as Senior Research Fellow for Defense and Technology Futures at the Center for Strategic Research (2020-2024) and the Center for Emerging Technology and Future Warfare (2024-2025) within the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS). In 2019-2020, she served as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary (STAS), where she advised on digital technology policy, particularly as it pertains to human rights, democracy, and national security. From 2016 to 2019, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she led work on cybersecurity, cyber domain strategy, and information conflict. Dr. Kerr was previously a Science, Technology, and Public Policy Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a Visiting Scholar at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, a Cybersecurity Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and has held research fellowships in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Qatar. She also has prior professional experience as a software engineer with Comcast and Symantec. Dr. Kerr holds a PhD and MA in Government from Georgetown University, and an MA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and BAS in Mathematics and Slavic Languages and Literatures from Stanford University.
Abstract: In 2011 I joined a team of global security analysts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to develop a systematic methodology for “information-driven” safeguards for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This methodology would link the IAEA’s nuclear inspection schedules, within a given state, to a heterogenous body of information about the state. As the lone physicist in the group, I was quickly fashioned as the “quantitative guy”, who would produce quantitative frameworks to make information-driven safeguards “more objective”, and “less political”. But as my quantitative contributions earned the respect of my peers, I became leery of the role they might play in the political shift I saw afoot. If safeguards was to be information-driven, then whose information would “drive” the IAEA?
In this presentation, I tell the story of my experience as the “quant guy” at LLNL in order to explore a broader question: when is it useful to deploy quantitative methods of highly complex phenomena in matters of social consequence? I borrow from a distinction commonly made in the science studies literature - between disciplinary and mechanical objectivity - to argue that quantitative models serve us best when they are used not to “remove bias” or “increase rigor”, but to aid subjective judgement and facilitate communication.
About the Speaker: Chris Lawrence received his PhD in nuclear science at University of Michigan in 2014, and has published in the fields of nuclear detection and solid-state physics. His dissertation introduced novel neutron-spectroscopy techniques for the verification of warhead dismantlement. In 2011 he worked on nuclear safeguards policy issues in the Global Security Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is currently a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at CISAC, where he studies the creation and deployment of knowledge about nuclear programs and treaty compliance.
Encina Hall (2nd floor)
Christopher Lawrence
Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow
Speaker
CISAC
The atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just before 18-year-old William J. Perry landed in Japan during the War of Occupation as a mapping specialist. He saw the devastation left behind by American firebombers on Tokyo and Okinawa.
The young man quickly understood the staggering magnitude of difference in the destruction caused by traditional firepower and these new atomic bombs. He would go on to devote his life to understanding, procuring and then trying to dismantle those weapons.
But that was seven decades back. And many young Americans today believe the threat of nuclear weapons waned alongside the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis.
So as faculty at Stanford and the Center for International Security and Cooperation evolve with the digital age by taking their lessons online, one of the university’s oldest professors is also adapting to online teaching in an effort to reach the youngest audience, urging them to take on the no-nukes mantle that he’s held for many years.
“The issue is so important to me that I tried all sorts of approaches from books and courses and lectures and conferences to try to get my contemporaries and the generations behind me engaged – all with limited success,” says the 86-year-old Perry, a CISAC faculty member and the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) at the center’s parent organization, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
“First – which is a sine qua non – they must become seriously concerned that there is a nuclear danger, which most of these kids don’t understand at all,” said Perry. “Secondly, we want to convince them that there is something they can actually do about it.”
To reach those students, he believes he must go digital. So Perry – who co-teaches with CISAC’s Siegfried Hecker the popular Stanford course, “Technology and National Security” – began to map out a classroom course that would be videotaped and serve as a pilot for an online class that would be free and open to the public.
That course, “Living at the Nuclear Brink: Yesterday & Today” included lectures by some of the best people working in the field of nuclear nonproliferation today. Among those who will be highlighted in the online course are Perry and Hecker; Joe Martz of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Stanford nuclear historian David Holloway; Stanford political scientist Scott Sagan; and Ploughshares Fund president, Joseph Cirincione.
The Perry Project will produce short-segment videos highlighting key information and stories from the course, packaging them in an online course available in multiple platforms and possibly offered by the university.
Perry used his personal journey as a young soldier during WWII, a mathematician and later a developer of weapons for the U.S. nuclear arsenal as undersecretary of defense for the Carter administration – and then trying to dismantle those weapons as secretary of defense for President Bill Clinton.
“I’m not doing this simply because I want to put a notch on my belt, to say that I’ve done a MOOC,” Perry said. “I’m doing it because I really want to get across to hundreds of thousands of young people.”
Last summer, he launched the Perry Project by inviting a dozen high school and college students to campus for a nuclear weapons boot camp so that they could take back to campus the message that nuclear annihilation is still a real, contemporary possibility.
He asked them: How do I get through to your generation?
“They said, `We don’t get our information by books or even by television, we get it through social media and YouTube, the various social media platforms. And you want to make the message relevant and relatively compact,’” he recalls.
Perry listened. “Living at the Nuclear Brink: Yesterday and Today” is in production now and a short-segment pilot video should be made available in the fall.
And lectures from CISAC's signature course, “International Security in a Changing World” (PS114S) will soon go up on YouTube as lecture modules entitled, “Security Matters.”
“Online learning offers a way to expand CISAC's reach to new audiences, geographies, and generations,” says CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart, who has co-taught the popular course for the past few years with CISAC’s Martha Crenshaw.
“At the same time, the PS114 online modules will give us a living lecture library so that future Stanford students can compare faculty lectures on similar topics across time – learning, for example, how Martha Crenshaw assessed the terrorist threat in 2010 vs. 2015,” Zegart said.
Guest lecturers whose presentations will be included for the YouTube package include:
Jack Snyder of Columbia University: Democratization and Violence
Francis Fukuyama of Stanford: The Changing Nature of Power
Zegart: Understanding Policy Decisions: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Scott Sagan of CISAC: The Nuclear Revolution; and Why Do States Build/Forego Nuclear Weapons?
Abbas Milani, director of Iran Studies at Stanford: Historical Perspective on Iran
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller: the FBI’s Transformation Post 9/11
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry (Ret.) and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan: The War in Afghanistan and the Future of Central Asia
Jane Holl Lute, former deputy secretary of Homeland Security: Emerging Threats in Cybersecurity
Perry: Security Issues in Russia, Yesterday and Today
Brad Roberts: former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy: Ensuring a (Nuclear) Deterrence Strategy that is Effective for 21st Century Challenges
CISAC Co-Director David Relman: Doomsday Viruses
And lectures at CISAC’s Cybersecurity Boot Camp for senior congressional aids will also be videotaped and packaged for YouTube and online consumption later this year.
“We are excited to enter into this phase of experimentation to see what works, what doesn't, and how we can further CISAC's teaching mission both here at Stanford and around the world,” Zegart said.
Allison Puccioni has been an imagery analyst for over 25 years, working within the military, tech, defense, media, and academic communities. After honorably serving in the US Army as an Imagery Analyst from 1991 - 1997, Allison continued the tradecraft within the Defense Industry: augmenting US and NATO operations in the Kosovo airstrike campaign, and as a Senior Analyst and Mission Planner for Naval Special Warfare Group One. After earning her Masters Degree in International Policy, Allison established the commercial satellite imagery analysis capability for the British publication Jane's, publishing Open Source imagery analysis for six years. In 2015, Allison joined Google to assist with the establishment of applications for its commercial small-satellites. Today, Allison is the Principal and Founder of Armillary Services, providing insight on commercial imaging satellites and associated analytics to the governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the commercial sector. Concurrently, Allison manages the multi-sensor imagery analysis team at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.
CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart leaders a talk with former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden at the inaugural "Security Conundrum" speakers series on Oct. 8, 2014.
Cybersecurity fellow Jonathan Mayer to teach online class on surveillance.
