On July 7, the William J. Perry Project issued the following statement from CISAC's William J. Perry regarding the adoption of the UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, which was approved by the UN on the same day: 

"The new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is an important step towards delegitimizing nuclear war as an acceptable risk of modern civilization. Though the treaty will not have the power to eliminate existing nuclear weapons, it provides a vision of a safer world, one that will require great purpose, persistence, and patience to make a reality. Nuclear catastrophe is one of the greatest existential threats facing society today, and we must dream in equal measure in order to imagine a world without these terrible weapons."

The UN treaty places a strong moral imperative against possessing nuclear weapons and gives a voice to some 130 non-nuclear weapons states who are equally affected by the existential risk of nuclear weapons. There is no one solution to this global threat, and there is much more work to be done beyond this treaty to reduce this risk. I call on nuclear-armed states to step up their participation in the fight against the nuclear threat by securing the eight remaining ratifications to enact the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, extending the New START agreement, continuing the critical work of the Nuclear Security Summits, and avoiding the unnecessary risk posed by introducing destabilizing new nuclear weapons. My hope is that this treaty will mark a sea change towards global support for the abolition of nuclear weapons. This global threat requires unified global action."

Read more about the treaty here.

William J. Perry, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense, recently joined other nuclear and diplomatic experts in writing a letter to President Trump urging diplomatic talks with North Korea; wrote a Politico op-ed on how to make a deal with North Korea; and delivered the 2017 Barnett-Oksenberg Lecture on issues between China and the United States. Perry is the director of the Preventive Defense Project at CISAC.

The CISAC Fellowship Program is training and educating the next generation of thought leaders and policy makers in international security.

Our fellows spend the academic year engaged in research and writing, and participate in seminars and collaborate with faculty and researchers. Every summer, many complete their fellowships and move on to new career endeavors. For the 2016-17 academic year, CISAC hosted 21 fellows (the center has 399 former fellows).

Some of our fellows, in their own words, explain what they will be doing next:

Andreas Lutsch

Having spent two years as a nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at CISAC, I return to my home institution, the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Germany. As a historian of late modern history, I do so in great gratitude for an excellent and abundantly rich scholarly experience at Stanford. Once I am back in Germany, I will publish my first book early next year, the manuscript of which I finalized at CISAC. I will also proceed to publish the manuscript of my second book, which I wrote entirely at Stanford. And I will move towards the pursuit of the so-called “habilitation,” which is required (in Germany) to qualify for a position as a full professor in my home country. 

It is not easy to put into a few words how much my CISAC experience has helped me with making progress at a crucial juncture of my career. CISAC fellowships offered me a transformative opportunity to make my research more rigorous, to think more creatively and more carefully, to appreciate interdisciplinary approaches in addressing complex problems, to improve my teaching abilities, and to establish relationships with leading scholars and specialists, which I hope will be long-lasting ties to communities at CISAC, Stanford, and the U.S.

Anna Péczeli

I have a tenured position at my institute in Hungary so I will move home in August and get back to teaching and research.

My CISAC experience was amazing, from the beginning I felt that I was part of a community here. I got much useful feedback on my research, and I really feel that my work improved in quality and I became a better researcher. I learned a lot about how to present my ideas so that it would be relevant for policy makers, and my fellowship opened new doors for me. I am grateful for this opportunity, and I am certain that I will continue to be an active member of the CISAC community wherever I go.

Eric Min

During the 2017-2018 academic year, I will remain at CISAC. As a social sciences postdoctoral fellow, I will study how international actors and third parties utilize diplomacy to manage and resolve interstate conflicts. This builds upon my broader research agenda, which uses new quantitative data and statistical methods to analyze the strategic logic of negotiations during war. 

Given that I came from a predominantly social science background, my year at CISAC was invaluable in helping me to understand the policymaking world and how my research could more effectively communicate the technicalities of my research to a broader informed yet general audience. I also learned about what kinds of pressing questions concern policymakers, which I will use to shape my future work. I look forward to meeting another group of diverse and knowledgeable individuals next year. 

Jennifer L. Erickson

This fall, I will return to my regular life at Boston College, where I am an associate professor of political science and international studies. In the upcoming academic year, I will continue to work on the research I worked on at CISAC on new weapons and the laws and norms of war and the nuclear weapons portion of my project in particular. I will also teach two sections of the Introduction to International Studies for BC undergraduates and the Field Seminar in International Politics for BC graduate students. In the fall, I also look forward to being affiliated with the Security Studies Program at MIT. 

CISAC has been a tremendous source of academic support for my research. Not only has it given me time and resources to do research and write, but it has also introduced me to new colleagues, who have generously provided insights and expertise that have improved that research. It also made it possible for me to attend events like a conference on New Dilemmas in Ethics, Technology, and War at the Air Force Academy in April 2017, the Military Immersion Map Exercise at RAND in May 2017, and the UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons in June 2017.

These experiences, as well as all of the opportunities to attend events and meet people at CISAC itself, will continue to shape how I think about my research and teaching and have helped me build new professional networks for the long term.

Cameron Tracy

In the next academic year, I will be a postdoc in Stanford’s Department of Geological Sciences. There, I will continue my work on the role of geologic disposal (burial) of weapons plutonium in the global arms control and disarmament regimes. I will also conduct scientific research on the manner in which nuclear materials change in response to their environments. For example, I am currently starting a project in which I attempt to determine the conditions in which uranium-bearing materials have been stored by studying the oxidation and hydration of their surfaces. This could help to determine the provenance of smuggled uranium that has been interdicted by law enforcement or security authorities. 

My fellowship at CISAC has allowed me to translate my scientific skills to the policy realm, and to greatly expand the impact of my work. I have long been interested in science policy, but lacked the resources, connections, and experience necessary to effectively analyze critical issues and to communicate the results to both scholarly and governmental audiences. Through interactions with CISAC’s resident policy experts, I learned about the role that technical analysis can play in the policymaking process.

While my transition to policy-relevant work is ongoing, my efforts have already yielded some impact on international policy, with an Australian Royal Commission report citing my work on quantifying the long-term risks associated with the burial of nuclear materials. I expect that the valuable experience and mentorship I received over the course of my CISAC fellowship will continue to inform and enhance my work at the interface of nuclear science and policy.

Jooeun Kim

I will become the Jill Hopper Memorial Fellow at Georgetown University and will be teaching a course, the History and Politics of Nuclear Proliferation, in spring 2018. From August this year, I will be a visiting scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. CISAC provided me with amazing resources. I loved my intellectually stimulating meetings with my mentor Scott Sagan and other amazing scholars who opened their office doors to me. CISAC is an ‘intellectual candy store.’ I am grateful to everyone there for creating such a special environment.

Andrea Gilli

Starting July 1, I will be a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs where I will keep working on my research about technology and international security.

The CISAC experience helped my career in three main ways. First, CISAC is a fantastic academic environment where young researchers can deal with leading scholars in a plurality of fields: the constant interactions between different views and expertise represent a unique source of intellectual growth that has helped me develop new ideas and identify new questions in my field.

Second, CISAC's activities and professional growth initiatives help fellows gain the skills and acquire the knowledge to succeed not only as an academic but also, more broadly, as public intellectual. CISAC has helped me improve my understanding of policy dynamics as well as my capacity to present to non-experts the findings of my research. Third, CISAC's "be-good" motto combined with its strong mentorship provides fellows with a perfect working environment.

Eva C. Uribe

This fall, I will be starting my position as a systems research analyst at Sandia National Lab. For my research here at CISAC, I have taken a broad, holistic look at the proliferation impact of the thorium fuel cycle. Therefore, CISAC has given me valuable experience in thinking through difficult problems using a systematic, top-down approach, which is a skill that I will take with me to my next position.

Accepting a postdoctoral fellowship with CISAC was an unconventional career move for me, personally. I got my doctorate in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2016. Most of my peers in the chemistry department went on to conduct postdoctoral research at another university, a national lab, or in industry. A few made the leap into science policy fellowships in Washington, D.C. For me, CISAC provided a happy compromise between these two options. It allowed me the freedom to continue conducting technical research (albeit outside the chemistry lab), while still exploring the policy implications of my research.

My experience at CISAC helped my career progression in two ways. First, through targeted workshops, reading groups, and less formal daily interactions, CISAC provided me with the opportunity to view my research and interests from a different lens, that of the policymaker.  It was interesting to see my fellow fellows, of all academic backgrounds, struggling with how to translate the finer points of their academic research into policy-relevant media. I learned a lot from their experiences and challenges. The second way that CISAC has helped my career progression was through exposure to others who have done this transition successfully. This was achieved through fantastic seminar series, as well as through daily interaction with faculty and fellows here at CISAC. Speaking with people who have worked at high levels in Washington, D.C. made me realize that I would prefer to continue doing policy-relevant academic and technical research in nuclear science, rather than to transition to policy completely.

Fellowship information

Current fellowship opportunities at CISAC include: 

•  Social Sciences or Humanities International Security Fellowship

•  Natural Sciences or Engineering International Security Fellowship

•  Cybersecurity and International Security Fellowship

•  Law and International Security Fellowship

•  Nuclear Security Fellowship

•  William J. Perry Fellowship in International Security

For more information about CISAC fellowships, email cisacfellowship@stanford.edu.

Congratulations to CISAC honors program Class of 2017! On June 16, students in the CISAC Interschool Honors Program in International Studies graduated in a conferral of honors ceremony on the front lawn of Encina Hall. 

We are proud to add our 12 new graduates to our expanding list of graduates from the program since it began in 2001. In total, CISAC has 193 alumni in honors. For the students, their graduation reflects an intellectual adventure that included a two-week honors college program in Washington D.C., tours of government agencies, meetings with influential policy makers, and weekly seminars with CISAC faculty. Honors students are also required to research and complete an original thesis on an important national security issue.

The 2017 program was co-directed by Martha Crenshaw and Chip Blacker. Crenshaw said, "We stress hard work, independent thinking, intellectual honesty, and courtesy and civility.  Our students are critical without being disrespectful, open to new ideas and ways of thinking, and self-made experts in the subjects they have chosen."

In his remarks, Blacker said several features of the CISAC program make it distinctive. "These include the diversity of the disciplines represented by the student's major fields of study, which range this year from political science, history and international relations, on the one hand, to computer science, energy systems engineering, and materials science and engineering, on the other. ..." 

While each project is different, "they all share the unifying and overarching themes of advancing the international security agenda and having value and utility in policy terms," Blacker said. The program, he added, places a "premium on knowledge of the real world, and of the art and science of policymaking in particular, coupled with intensive training in research and writing."

During the conferral ceremony, CISAC honors teaching assistant Shiri Krebs read statements from the students' thesis advisors regarding their final papers. Read below for those comments:

Ken-Ben Chao

A New Journey to the West: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Chinese Foreign Policy

Thesis Advisor: Coit. D. Blacker

"What is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and, to be blunt, why should we care? In essence, this is the question that Ben Chao seeks to answer in this thoughtful, comprehensive and well-written senior thesis. Ben’s answer, like the question, comes in two parts. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, he tells us, is neither an emerging alliance nor a diplomatic “talk shop.” Rather, it has been – and it continues to be – a subtle instrument of Chinese foreign policy that has waxed and waned in importance since its creation in 2001 depending on Beijing’s assessment of the international security environment. In Ben’s judgment, this is reason enough for us to care and for us to pay attention. Ben’s thesis is a superior piece of scholarship that tells us a great deal about something most of us know little about and does so in an informed and wonderfully entertaining way."

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Marina Elmore

When Things Are Not What They Seem: Explaining the Success of Countering Violent Extremism in Los Angeles

Thesis Advisor: Martha Crenshaw

"A policy of countering violent extremism and radicalization, known as “CVE,” was a hallmark of the Obama Administration as it struggled to respond to the threat of “homegrown” jihadist terrorism. But what is CVE? And is it effective? These questions motivated Marina Elmore’s fascinating inquiry into the apparent success of the Los Angeles program, highly praised as a model on the national level. Marina probed deeply into the case to discover that special circumstances predetermined the outcome and that the model was not easily transferable to other cities. For one thing, Los Angeles did not actually face a challenge of violent extremism because it lacked a population susceptible to the appeal of jihadist propaganda. For another, the city had already implemented most of the newly prescribed CVE “best practices,” such as community policing, in efforts to solve earlier social and political problems. Marina’s conclusions are astute, balanced, and fair, and she persuasively demonstrates both how important it is to test commonly held assumptions and how difficult it is to establish standards for policy effectiveness in the counterterrorism field."

Gabbi Fischer

Towards DIUx 2.1 or 3.0? Examining DIUx’s Progress Towards Procurement Innovation

Thesis Advisors: Herb Lin, Dan Boneh

"In 2015, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced the creation of Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx).  Through some great case-based work, Gabbi cuts through the complexity of the traditional acquisition system to observe that DIUX fills two important niches in the defense innovation ecosystem: it facilitates connections between DoD users and the tech community and it exercises non-traditional acquisition authority (called Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs)) to expedite contracting.  But she also cautions that the use of OTA may not be compatible in the long run with the traditional acquisition system, and suggests that future DIUX efforts may have to take advantage of other existing acquisition authorities (which do exist but which are rarely used) to make further progress in improving the coupling between the tech sector and the DoD.  She makes also substantive recommendations that DIUX should take seriously if it wants to survive in the long term."

Wyatt Horan

Evaluating the U.S. Foreign Policy Institutions in Permitting a Coercive Russian Energy Policy

Thesis Advisor: Coit D. Blacker

"Following the twin “oil shocks” of the 1970s, the U.S. Government moved effectively to reduce the potential economic and political impact of any future such events by reorienting and reshaping key foreign policy institutions. When, thirty years later, the Russian government under Vladimir Putin began to manipulate Russian deliveries of natural gas to its customers in Europe, the U.S. failed to respond in a focused, deliberate and coordinated way. In this provocative senior thesis, Wyatt asks whether the clumsy American response to Russia’s manipulation of this vital energy resource contributed to Moscow’s alarming behavior. He answers in the affirmative and by so doing forces us to think hard about how seemingly obscure organizational issues impact the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy. Wyatt’s thesis is bold and a little unsettling. It also reads like a detective novel, which is a tribute to the author’s willingness to run risks in search of a good story."

Tori Keller

The Rise and Fall of Secular Politics in Iraq

Thesis Advisor: Lisa Blaydes

"As you know from interacting with Tori over the past year(s), she is a passionate – almost obsessively curious – student of contemporary Iraqi politics. Her drive to understand the case has led her to write a normatively-motivated, policy-relevant thesis on the failure of democratic consolidation in Iraq. Her research suggests that a non-sectarian political future for Iraq was possible; the historical antecedents for such a vision existed. But as a result of a combination of US missteps, Iranian interference and, most importantly, the way these factors manifested into an insecure security environment, secular parties never really had a real chance to succeed even if a plurality of voters supported such an outlook. To write this thesis, Tori invested in her own human capital development in impressive ways. She studied Arabic, learned ArcGIS mapping software, collected original data, and undertook statistical analysis – deploying the skills she had acquired in her four years at Stanford with the goal of answering this research question. In the end, I believe she has the right answer as well. If there was any doubt left in her mind about whether she got it “right,” I feel confident that she would still be puzzling through the research today."

Alexander Lubkin

Plutonium Management and Disposition in the United States: History and Analysis of the Program

Thesis Advisor: Rod Ewing

"Alex’s thesis examines the issues related to the failure of the U.S. program for the disposition of excess plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. Based on his survey of the literature and interviews with key actors in this program, Alex analyzed the U.S. program and has made a number of important observations and conclusions concerning the causes for the failure of the U.S. program. His most significant conclusion is that one of the major causes of failure was that the U.S. program to use irradiated MOX fuel for the disposition of the plutonium was not consistent with U.S. nuclear policy. The U.S. is pursuing an open nuclear fuel cycle, and thus has limited experience with large scale processing of radioactive materials and the fabrication of MOX fuel. Alex was able to identify a number of other issues, such as over reliance on cost and schedule estimates of the different strategies and a failure to utilize advances in materials science for the development of actinide waste forms. I am very impressed with Alex’s dedication to this research project, and his persistence in the review of an often confusing and obscure literature. We have met regularly over the past year. I outline broad areas that he might investigate, but then he took these ideas and developed them according to his on evaluation of a variety of different sources. He also did an exceptional job of synthesizing the information from the interviews into an interesting and informative chapter in his thesis. Alex’s research will be the basis for a publication, but most importantly, he has opened the door to a whole series of policy issues that require more detailed analysis. He has certainly educated me on a number of these issues."

Jian Yang Lum

To Bomb or Stab? The Impact of Ideology and Territorial Control on Rebel Tactics

Thesis Advisors: Joseph Felter, Jeremy Weinstein

“Lumpy” as we know him- explores how rebel groups’ ideology and degree of territorial control affect the type of violence they choose to employ in pursuit of their aims. Using fine grained conflict data and case studies from thirty-six years of insurgency and counterinsurgency in the Philippines, Lumpy finds both quantitative and qualitative evidence in support of the predictive model he develops in his thesis. In sum, rebel groups with weaker ideological commitment and more limited control of the territory they operate in are more likely to initiate indiscriminate attacks such as bombings and employment of improvised explosive devices. More ideologically committed rebels, and those exercising greater territorial control, initiate violence that is comparatively more discriminate such as targeted raids and assassinations. The human toll and economic costs incurred by civil war and insurgency around the world are staggering and continuing to mount. There is an urgent need for policy relevant scholarship that increases our understanding of the local level violence associated with these deadly conflicts and how states can better anticipate and respond to these threats. Lumpy’s thesis makes a significant contribution to these important ends."

Elizabeth Margolin

Should I Retweet or Should I Go? Pro-ISIS Twitter Communities and American Decapitation Strategy

Thesis Advisors: Martha Crenshaw, Justin Grimmer

"There are many studies of the U.S. Government’s use of military force in “decapitation” strikes against terrorist leaders, particularly the effects of these strikes on levels of violence and degree of organizational cohesion. Researchers have also analyzed the relationship between social media and terrorism generally. But the specific question of the social media reactions of jihadist sympathizers to decapitation strikes directed against Islamic State leaders was neglected until the idea occurred to Eli Margolin, who took it up as the subject of her honors thesis. This difficult, demanding, and often frustrating research project required Eli to master new cutting-edge analytical methodologies and struggle to acquire elusive data from the archived Twitter accounts of now banned users, obstacles that she overcame with impressive ability, determination, and sophistication. After extensive and thoughtful consideration of three carefully selected cases, she found that Twitter followers of jihadist causes react quite differently to the deaths of different types of terrorist leaders. Her intellectual ambition and tenacity produced a thesis that is excellent in terms of conceptualization, analytical rigor, and empirical foundation."

Lauren Newby

From Zero to Sixty: Explaining the Proliferation of Shi’a Militias in Iraq after 2003

Thesis Advisor: Martha Crenshaw

"Why has there been a sharp increase in the number of Shia militias in Iraq, a troubling development that may jeopardize Iraqi progress toward stability and democracy? Lauren Newby could not find a good answer in her review of the theoretical literature, so she proposed an original one of her own. Most scholars attribute the proliferation of violent non-state actors to the fragmentation of existing groups through splintering and splitting, whereas Lauren shows that in Iraq the increase is due to the emergence of new groups. Researchers typically focus on groups directly opposing the state, whereas the Iraqi militias side with the incumbent government. Most studies are limited to groups operating in a single bounded conflict zone, whereas the politics of Iraq and Syria are linked. Lauren concludes that the Syrian civil war has been a major impetus for the formation of Shia militias in Iraq and that most are established by Iraqi political parties. Her thesis is exemplary in making a clear and convincing claim, contrasting it to alternative explanations, and providing new supporting evidence from primary sources."

AnhViet Nguyen

Territorial Disputes in Court: Power, Compliance, and Defiance

Thesis Advisor: Kenneth Schultz

"In the wake of the arbitration ruling over the China-Philippines dispute in the South China Sea, AnhViet wanted to understand what the prospects were for this ruling to help resolve the conflict. To do so, he placed this case in the context of other territorial disputes that have involved great powers or states who were significantly more powerful than their adversaries. This led to the central research questions: why and under what conditions do great powers comply with adverse court rulings over territorial issues? The thesis draws nicely on the existing literature to articulate several hypotheses and then tests these hypotheses using a variety of methods. Case studies of the US-Mexico dispute over the Chamizal tract and the Nigeria-Cameroon dispute over the Bakassi Penninsula show that great powers who initially reject adverse court decisions might later find these rulings to be a convenient basis for settlement. He also makes a very important and sophisticated point that great power compliance with court rulings may reflect their ability to keep high salience issues off the agenda. The conclusion is mildly optimistic about the prospects for (eventual) compliance while remaining appropriately clear-eyed about the limits of international law in this context. Overall, AnhViet does an admirable job blending theoretical material, historical case studies, and large n data to develop his argument. Moreover, his application of these lessons to the contemporary case of the South China Sea dispute is nuanced and compelling. In short, AnhViet’s thesis represents an excellent example of how academic research can be made relevant to current policy issues."

Thu-An Pham

On Treaties and Taboos: U.S. Responses to International Norms in the NPT and Genocide Convention (1945-1999)

Thesis Advisor: David Holloway

"Thu-An Pham has written an outstanding thesis on the role of norms in international relations. The United States has not tried strenuously to enforce the Genocide Convention of 1948, which calls for the prevention and punishment of genocide. It has, however, actively sought to enforce the nonproliferation norm expressed in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968. What explains the difference? On the basis of a subtle theoretical analysis and detailed empirical research, Thu-An offers three answers. First, the Nonproliferation Treaty is better supported than the Genocide Convention by institutions that monitor and enforce compliance. Second, the United States has regarded the norm of nuclear nonproliferation as more important for its national security than the ban on genocide. And third, the nonproliferation norm supports the current international order, which is based on the primacy of states in international relations. The Genocide Convention, by contrast, threatens to weaken the foundations of that order by challenging the primacy of states. Thu-An’s thesis suggests that there are limits on the role that international norms can play in a system of states. This is a wonderful thesis on a crucial issue in international security."

Jack Weller

Counting the Czars: Extra-Bureaucratic Appointees in American Foreign Policy

Thesis Advisor: Amy Zegart

"White House czars are frequently discussed in the press, but most people don’t really know what they are and very few scholars have studied them. Yet the use of czars has serious implications for the presidency—signaling when the regular bureaucracy cannot get the job done. Jack Weller’s thesis provides a novel and important contribution to the study of the American presidency. He compiles an original dataset of every foreign policy czar created during the past 100 years and examines alternative explanations for why some presidents used czars more than others. He finds something surprising: czar creation is NOT driven by the individual management style of the president. Instead, it is driven by the external threat environment. Presidents facing simultaneous wars – as FDR did in World War II and George W. Bush did after 9/11 – are more likely to create czars than others. Jack’s thesis is beautifully written and masterfully argued, earning him the honor of being Stanford’s czar of czars."

While the United States has no peers in conventional military power, it is especially vulnerable – as a free and democratic society – to cyber misinformation campaigns, a Stanford scholar says.

Herbert Lin, a senior research scholar for cyberpolicy and security at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), is the co-author of a new draft working paper that spells out the perilous risks facing democratic, wired-up countries around the world.

America’s adversaries are seeking “asymmetric” methods for social disruption, rather than direct military conflict, Lin said.

“Cyber warfare is one asymmetric counter to Western (and especially U.S.) military advantages that depend on the use of cyberspace,” wrote Lin and his co-author Jackie Kerr, a research fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

This new type of cyber aggression is aimed at winning – and confusing – hearts and minds, the very control centers of human existence, Lin said.

As a result, “information/influence warfare and manipulation,” or IIWAM as Lin describes it, poses profound implications for Western democracies, even though much of it may not be illegal under international law. This approach is based on the deliberate use of information by one party on an adversary to confuse, mislead, and ultimately to influence the choices and decisions that the adversary makes.

A recent example in point would be the 2016 Russian hacking of the U.S. presidential election and the surge of so-called “fake news.”

Lin points out that while misinformation campaigns are not new, the technology to spread it far and wide globally is. He noted that the patron saint of distorting reality for war-like purposes is Sun Tzu, who wrote that, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

While traditional cyber attacks typically hit hard targets like computer systems, cyber “influence” campaigns are conducted over longer periods of time and rely on soft power – propaganda, persuasion, culture, social forces, confusion and deception, Lin said. 

Words and images

How does it work? Lin explains:

“Victory is achieved by A when A succeeds changing B’s political goals so that they are aligned with those of A.  But such alignment is not the result of B’s 'capitulation' or B’s loss of the ability to resist – on the contrary, B (the losing side) is openly willing.”  That is, such victory shares the focus on subverting the opponent’s will, though not on destroying his military forces.

The ammunition in these cyberspace battles are “words and images,” the kind that persuade, inform, mislead, and deceive so that the adversary cannot respond militarily. In the example of a “fake news” story, they often take place below legal thresholds of “use of force” or “armed attack,” and at least in an international legal sense, do not trigger a military response.

The target is the “adversary’s perceptions,” which reside in the “cognitive dimension of the information environment.” In other words, such cyber warfare focuses on “damaging knowledge, truth, and confidence, rather than physical or digital artifacts,” according to Lin. It is the “brain-space.”

Additionally, IIWAM injects fear, anger, anxiety, uncertainty, and doubt into the adversary’s decision making processes, he added.  Success is defined as altering such perceptions so the target makes choices favoring the aggressor.

“Sowing chaos and confusion is thus essentially operational preparation of the information battlefield – shaping actions that make the information environment more favorable for actual operations should they become necessary,” the researchers wrote.

These cyber manipulations often prey upon cognitive and emotional biases present in the psychological and mental makeup of human beings, Lin said. 

For example, media channels such as Fox News play to “confirmation bias” for individuals with a right-of-center orientation, and similarly for MSNBC for those with a left-of-center, orientation, he wrote. Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.

Countering misinformation

“Naming and shaming” is probably ineffective against many nation states conducting cyber disinformation campaigns, Lin said. And the idea that a government like the U.S. can quickly respond to misinformation created in the private sphere is unlikely to be effective as well.

What, then, might work? Lin suggests new tactics are needed, as no existing approach seems adequate. For example, Facebook is deploying a new protocol for its users to flag questionable news sites.  Google has banned fake news web sites from using its online advertising service. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook shut down accounts that they determine are promoting terrorist content.  He noted that a recent Facebook letter from CEO Mark Zuckerberg states that, “Our approach will focus less on banning misinformation and more on surfacing additional perspectives and information, including that fact checkers dispute an item's accuracy.”

But such measures are unlikely to stem the “rising tide of misinformation conveyed” through cyber warfare, Lin said, because they mostly require users to do additional mental work.  

Wired world riskier

Today’s Internet-driven Western world offers countless opportunities for cyber influence mischief, Lin wrote.

“Democracy has rested on an underlying foundation of an enlightened, informed populace engaging in rational debate and argument to sort out truth from fiction and half-truth in an attempt to produce the best possible policy and political outcomes,” Lin wrote.

Cyber manipulators have exploited an arguable gap between ideals and reality in democratic systems – “rendered it much more questionable” – through the tremendous reach and speed of misinformation, he said. Many countries cannot deal with the onslaught of such focused efforts. This serves to make the democratic process look weak and unstable in the eyes of its citizens. The same dynamic does not apply equally around the world.

“Cyber weapons pose a greater threat to nations that are more advanced users of information technology than to less-developed nations,” Lin wrote.

He said that less developed or authoritarian countries do not have much Internet infrastructure or that wield control over expression – North Korea is an example.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Herbert Lin, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 497-8600, herbert.s.lin@stanford.edu

Clifton B. Parker, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-0224, cbparker@stanford.edu

When a state is “shamed” by outsiders for perceived injustices, it often proves counterproductive, resulting in worse behavior and civil rights violations, a Stanford researcher has found.

Rochelle Terman, a political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), recently spoke about how countries criticized by outsiders on issues like human rights typically respond -- and it's contrary to conventional wisdom. Terman has published findings, “The Relational Politics of Shame: Evidence from the Universal Periodic Review,” on this topic in the Review of International Organizations. She discussed her research in the interview below:

What does your research show about state "shaming"?

Shaming is a ubiquitous strategy to promote international human rights. A key contention in the literature on international norms is that transnational advocacy networks can pressure states into adopting international norms by shaming them – condemning violations and urging reform. The idea is that shaming undermines a state’s legitimacy, which then incentivizes elites into complying with international norms.

In contrast, my work shows that shaming can be counterproductive, encouraging leaders in the target state to persist or “double down” on violations. That is because shaming is seen as illegitimate foreign intervention that threatens a state’s sovereignty and independence.  When viewed in this light, leaders are rewarded for standing up to such pressure and defending the nation against perceived domination. Meanwhile, leaders who “give in” have their political legitimacy undermined at home. The result is that violations tend to persist or even exacerbate.

When and where does it work better to directly confront a country’s leadership about such injustices?

At least two factors moderate the effects of international shaming. The first is the degree to which the norm being promoted is shared between the “shamer” and the target. For instance, the West may shame Uganda or Nigeria for violating LGBT rights. But if Uganda and Nigeria do not accept the “LGBT rights” norm, and refuse to accept that homophobia constitutes bad behavior, then shaming will fail. In this case, it is more likely that shaming will be viewed as illegitimate meddling by foreign powers, and will be met with indignation and defiance.

Second, shaming is quintessentially a relational process. Insofar as it is successful, shaming persuades actors to voluntary change their behavior in order to maintain valued social relationships. In the absence of such relationship, shaming will fail. This is especially so when pressure emanates from a current or historical geopolitical adversary. In this later scenario, not only will shaming fail to work, it will likely provoke defensive hostility and defiance, having a counterproductive effect.

Combing these insights, we can say that shaming is most likely to work under two conditions: when the target is a strong ally, and the norm is shared.

What are some well-known cases where "shaming" backfired?

The main example I use in my forthcoming paper is on the infamous “anti-homosexuality bill” in Uganda. When Uganda introduced the legislation in 2009 (which in some versions applied capital punishment to offenders) it provoked harsh condemnation among its foreign allies, especially in the West. Western donor countries even suspended aid in attempt to push Yoweri Musaveni’s government to abandon the bill. According to conventional accounts, the onslaught of foreign shaming, coupled with the threat of aid cuts and other material sanctions, should have worked best in the Uganda case.

And yet what we saw was the opposite. The wave of international attention provoked an outraged and defiant reaction among the Ugandan population, turning the bill into a symbol of national sovereignty and self-determination in the face of abusive Western bullying. This reaction energized Ugandan elites to champion the bill in order to reap the political rewards at home. Indeed, the bill was the first to pass unanimously in the Ugandan legislature since the end of military rule in 1999. Museveni – who by all accounts preferred a more moderate solution to the crisis – was backed into a corner.

A Foreign Policy story quoted Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda as saying, “the mere fact that Obama threatened Museveni publicly is the very reason he chose to go ahead and sign the bill.” And Museveni did so in a particularly defiant fashion, “with the full witness of the international media to demonstrate Uganda’s independence in the face of Western pressure and provocation.”

Uganda anti-homosexuality law was finally quashed by its constitutional court, which ruled the act invalid because it was not passed with the required quorum. By dismissing the law on procedural grounds, Museveni – widely thought to have control over the court – was able to kill the legislation “without appearing to cave in to foreign pressure.” But by that time, defiance had already transformed Uganda’s normative order, entrenching homophobia into its national identity.

Does this 'doubling down' effect vary in domestic or international contexts?

Probably. States with a significant populist contingent, for instance, are especially hostile to international pressure, especially when it emanates from a historical adversary, like a former colonial power. Ironically, democracies may also be more susceptible to defiance, because elites are more beholden to their constituents, and thus are less able to “give in” to foreign pressure without undermining their own political power. 

The international context matters a great deal as well. States are more likely to resist certain norms if they have allies who feel the same way. For instance, we see significant polarization around LGBT rights at the international level, with most states in Africa and the Muslim world voting against resolutions that push LGBT rights forward. South Africa – originally a pioneer for LGBT rights – has changed its position following criticism from its regional neighbors. 

Does elite reaction drive this response to state "shaming?"

To be quite honest, this is a question I’m still exploring and I don’t have a very clear answer. My hunch at the moment is no. The “defiant” reaction occurs mainly at the level of public audiences, which then incentives elites to violate norms for political gain.  These audiences can be at either the domestic or international level. For instance, if domestic constituents are indignant by foreign shaming, elites are incentivized to “double down,” or at least remain silent, lest they undermine their own political legitimacy.

That said, elites can also strategize and manipulate these expected public reactions for their own political purposes. For instance, if Vladimir Putin knows that the Russian public will grow indignant following Western shaming, he might strategically promote a law that he knows will provoke such a reaction in order to benefit from the ensuing conflict. This is what likely occurred with Russia’s “anti-gay propaganda” law, which (unsurprisingly) provoked harsh condemnation from the West and probably bolstered Putin’s domestic popularity.

Any other important points to highlight?

One important point I’d like to highlight is the long-term effects of defiance. In an effort to resist international pressure, states take action that, in the long term, work to internalize oppositional norms in their national identity. In this way, shaming actually produces deviance, not the other way around.

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MEDIA CONTACTS:

Rochelle Terman, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 721-1378, rterman@stanford.edu,

Clifton B. Parker, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-6488, cbparker@stanford.edu

Whether it’s WikiLeaks and CIA documents or nuclear thieves, the danger from insiders in high-security organizations is escalating in our Internet age.

But many threats from within go unrecognized or misunderstood, according to Stanford professor Scott Sagan, who co-edited a new book Insider Threats with Matthew Bunn, a professor of practice at Harvard University. Their work analyzes the challenges that high-security organizations face in protecting themselves from employees who might betray them. Sagan, a core faculty member in Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Bunn recently participated in an online discussion of the book’s key arguments. They will hold a talk and book signing at 3:30 p.m. on May 16 in the CISAC Central Conference Room.

Sagan and Bunn wrote, “Perhaps the most striking lesson we learned in working with scholars and officials who have dealt with this problem was the sheer scale of the red flags – from explicit statements of support for Osama bin Laden to behavior leading other staff to fear for their lives – that organizations are able to ignore.”

They found that organizations tend to have biases that cause them to downplay insider threats. In particular, organizations with high-security needs face significant risks from trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. 

The researchers highlight "worst practices" from these past mistakes, suggesting lessons and insights that could improve the security situations at many workplaces. Amy Zegart, co-director of CISAC, has a chapter in Insider Threats that provides a detailed account of the organizational dysfunction that allowed Nidal Hasan to carry out his massacre at Fort Hood.

Other chapters include the following topics and authors:

• An analysis of the similar problems that led Bruce Ivins, who probably carried out the anthrax attacks in 2001, to continue to have access to deadly pathogens (by Jessica Stern, then of Harvard and now at Boston University, and Ron Schouten, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School);
• An analysis of the rapid rise and subsequent fall of “green-on-blue” attacks in Afghanistan – that is, Afghan soldiers and police officers attacking Americans there to help them (by Austin Long of Columbia University); and 
• An assessment of how casinos and pharmaceutical plants, with a profit incentive to protect against insiders, cope with the problem (by Bunn and Kathryn Glynn, then of IBM Global Business Services and now at the National Nuclear Security Administration). 

Another chapter examines the potential terrorist use of nuclear insiders, offering new data that shows that jihadist writings and postings contain only a modest emphasis on possible nuclear plots, and essentially no mention of the possibility of using nuclear insiders. However, the authors warn this is no reason for complacency – insiders have been largely responsible for past nuclear theft incidents.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Scott Sagan, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-2715, ssagan@stanford.edu

Clifton B. Parker, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-6488, cbparker@stanford.edu