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.

Follow CISAC at @StanfordCISAC and  www.facebook.com/StanfordCISAC

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

When governments and scholars work together on data security, society benefits from better safeguards and protections, a U.S. intelligence expert said Wednesday.

The difficulty is keeping up with technology and societal trends, Admiral Bobby R. Inman said at the Center for International Security and Cooperation's annual Drell Lecture for 2017. His talk was titled, “The Challenges of Providing Data Security.”

Inman, whose U.S. Navy career spanned 31 years, served as the director of the National Security Agency, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and held other influential positions in the U.S. intelligence community. After retiring from the Navy, Inman worked on start-ups in the private sector, in higher education, and as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. He is currently the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy at the University of Texas, Austin.

'9/11 changed everything'

During his talk, Inman recounted the early days of cryptography and the dialogue between government officials like himself and scholars at universities such as Stanford and UC Berkeley. Cryptography or cryptology is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties typically known as adversaries.

Inman was a key driver behind establishing the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 1978. The purpose of the “FISA” court was to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Today, technology has overwhelmed many issues regarding how the government tracks the communications of foreign entities, Inman said. And events have ushered in a different orientation on what type of information and from whom is sought by U.S. intelligence. “9/11 changed everything,” he added.

After 9/11, U.S. intelligence began to focus on foreign individuals in addition to the traditional foreign state actors, Inman said. He pointed out the value of such data collection, as penetrating small groups with human agents is extraordinarily difficult and dangerous.

“The only way you’re likely to get a lead on them (terrorists or narcotic traffickers) is through their communications,” he said.

The Internet, especially social media, has exploded in usage and made data security efforts even more complex, Inman said. “A vastly different world.” As a result, serious privacy, commercial usages and intellectual property issues need to be resolved more than ever. He noted that the rule of law is important to follow when the governmnt or other entities collect and examine communications data.

Inman is particularly worried about how “basic issues of ethics and morality” have eroded in society, which results in people scheming to sell private data for profit that puts others at risk. Another issue involves how to prevent terrorist groups from preying upon mentally weak people and recruiting them over the Internet.

A key reason Inman was invited to be the Drell speaker this year was his connection to Martin Hellman and Whitfield Diffie, two pioneering cryptographers from CISAC who drew Inman’s attention in the mid-1970s when they wrote a groundbreaking paper in their field of study. The three later established long-running friendships that produced strong cryptography frameworks.

Inman said, “We were privileged to start the dialogue. That’s where you begin to solve problems,” as fears and misperceptions can be resolved through discussions and openness. “I think what we need is a repeat of pulling together people” from academia and government to deal with today’s security threats. “We need to assess where we are.”

His concern is who would convene such a dialogue. “We’re in a pretty bumpy time, nationally,” said Inman, who urges a neutral party to be such a convener. On broader security fronts, Inman said he is most apprehensive about a possible nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India.

Legacy of Drell

The event included a tribute to Sidney Drell, who passed away last December at the age of 90. Drell co-founded CISAC, and jointly directed it from 1983 to 1989. The Drell Lecture, which is named after him, is an annual public event sponsored by CISAC. By tradition, the lecturer addresses a current and critical national or international security issue that has important scientific or technical dimensions.

In her opening remarks, Amy Zegart, co-director of CISAC, described Drell as a “true giant in the field of theoretical physics” who devoted his life’s work to reducing the threat of nuclear catastrophe. One trademarks of the Drell lecture was that its namesake had the opportunity to ask the first question of the speaker. “He had a unique way of asking penetrating questions" with gentle decency and fairness, she added.

CISAC’s William Perry, also on hand to discuss Drell’s legacy, said, “Sid Drell was truly a man for all seasons” who excelled in various fields of academic and policy. Perry first met Drell 55 years ago when he was beginning his own career in nuclear arms control. “Sid’s deep interest in arms control led to him teaming up with John Lewis” to launch CISAC, he noted.

“He was an extraordinary man,” Perry said, “and we shall never see his like again.”

Drell was a fan of classical music, especially the St. Lawrence String Quartet, a chamber music group whose music was piped in to the Bechtel Conference Room before the event began.

Follow CISAC at @StanfordCISAC and  www.facebook.com/StanfordCISAC

MEDIA CONTACTS

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

Stanford University has expressed its views on the recent executive order on immigration, and is offering resources for students who could be affected. News accounts indicate that as many as 17,000 students across the country fall into this category. On Jan. 27, President Trump signed an executive order restricting travel to the United States of people from seven largely Muslim countries -- Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Amy Zegart, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, said CISAC's "mission is generating knowledge to build a safer world. We bring scholars, ideas from everywhere. And always will."

Looking ahead, Stanford is planning campus events and initiatives on this issue. Some information already to note: 

• Stanford launched a new website on immigration issues for students and scholars. This includes centralized campus information about international travel guidance and other information. Stanford will continue to add content to this site.

• A letter to the campus community from Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, provost John Etchemendy, and incoming provost Persis Drell affirming the university's support for international students. "As events unfold, the university intends to continue vigorously advocating before Congress, the Executive Branch, and beyond for policies consistent with its commitment to members of our community who are international, undocumented and those who are impacted by the recent executive order."

Syria's civil war has taken a devastating toll on children.

Stanford freshman Emma Abdullah puts a young human face on that tragedy with her book, The Blue Box, which details the plights of Syrian children during the country’s six-year civil war. Published in 2014, the work is a collection of short stories and poems, and all proceeds go to charity. Abdullah estimates she’s raised $80,000 for the cause. Abdullah, who was raised in Kuwait, has relatives and friends from her father’s side of the family in Syria who have died or gone missing.

As many as 470,000 people and 10,000 children have been killed in the war, according to published accounts and the United Nations.

“My goal is to raise awareness about what these children are going through,” said Abdullah, who spoke at a recent staff meeting at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. “It’s important for me to bring this situation to light.”

She’s found receptive minds among her fellow classmates, though many of them were not aware of the scope of horror in Syria. “Other students have been good, and people are willing to listen once you talk to them about it. It’s been very positive at Stanford, and there is a lot to do on campus.”

Her 86-page book includes a child who writes stories about people in Syria. “She feeds the box with her thoughts; she puts in everything she has. She doesn't know it but her box becomes powerful. It takes up every word, every smile and every heartbeat and slowly, quietly, it grows. It grows into something so much bigger and more profound than she is. She’s just a child. She’s just a child who promised she’d save another but who doesn't know how. But one day, she looks at her box and she understands,” writes Abdullah, who will major in political science.

'It's a sad picture'

The Syrian civil war began in March 2011; the politics involved were not understandable to Abdullah. Would things return to normal? They did not, and have not since. She soon began losing friends – she estimates at least 20 people -- as thousands of children were tortured and killed.  She wanted to do something and make a difference, and not just be a bystander staying silent. So Abdullah began expressing her thoughts and feelings in story form.

Regarding the book’s front cover, Abdullah recalled that when she told the child who drew it how beautiful it was, the child replied, “Don’t lie, it’s a sad picture.” Despite the bright colors, one sees children in that drawing crying and a military airplane flying overhead dropping bombs. And, one of the girls pictured, Nour, is lost forever, likely dead, noted Abdullah. 

Image

In one story, “Call of the Jasmine,” a little boy named Karim writes an early letter to Santa Claus, worried that he may not be alive come December. “I know where I live is not very pretty and I know there’s not much in it for you, but mama says we’re beautiful where it counts.”

In another account, a child is given an injection of lethal poison. “Everything subsequently goes dark but I close my eyes anyway. The darkness will protect me.”

Some quotes from the book include, “When you write something down, it stays forever. It's like a little part of you that you're giving to the universe.” Abdullah also writes, “We live in a world where some people have already lost the game before having begun.”

As she describes the experience of war on children, “There is no Richter scale to measure pain; it leaves you vulnerable. It's not pain you can get used to, not sorrow that you can tame. It leaves you broken, broken but alive.”

Ultimately, one of her characters said, “Maybe life just wants to be noticed, like a sulking toddler, so it will keep throwing things our way until we finally give it the attention it deserves.”

Disconnected world

Abdullah says literature and art allow us to connect with each other in ways that any other medium would really struggle to match.

“We tend to think of refugees as statistics; death tolls in faraway lands we will never live in. We see children of war and never picture our own for we assume that we will never find ourselves packing up our lives and everything we know only to cross oceans for new homes that do not want us,” she said.

That disconnect is the greatest part of the problem. “We allow ourselves to feel distanced from these events and these people. I wonder how many people stop to think ‘this could be me,’” she said.

Abdullah said that when people read a story or watch a play, they are able to think beyond their own lives and feel what another’s pain is like.

“If stories and theater allow us all to live the harrowing life of a refugee, if only for just an hour, maybe we could all carry a little part of them inside of us and maybe then we’d want to push for change,” she added.

‘Community and unity’

President Trump’s recent travel ban for Muslims from seven different Middle Eastern countries has focused attention on Syrian refugees, Abdullah said. Now, media outlets are interviewing refugees and doing in-depth stories on them. She believes the protests and activism around the country and on campus reflects the desire by many to take a closer look at the victims of the Syrian war.

“We see a greater sense of community and unity, and people who might not have cared about these issues are starting to do so now. People are saying, ‘this is not right’ There is a sense of hope,” she said.

She said that living in constant fear of being hurt by others for what you believe in and in fear of being told you can no longer enter a country like the U.S. is something no one should have to experience.

“Nobody chooses where they are born,” Abdullah said.

“My friends in the Middle East are afraid that all the years they have spent working hard will amount to nothing if their education is interrupted. Those studying in the U.S. wonder whether they will be able to visit their families for the holidays and those in other countries are afraid that maybe the ban will spread to where they are, too.”

Power of writing

Abdullah said she’s always enjoyed writing; she started publishing when she was 13, and has written for student newspapers and magazines in her home country. “I saw that people were being touched, and thought it could have an effect.”

Emma Abdullah

Abdullah went to high school at the New English School in Kuwait. Her book has been adapted as a play by Alison Shan Price. Titled, “The Blue Box: The Memories of Children of War,” it premiered in Kuwait in 2015 and then internationally at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland last year. 

For those seeking to help, Abdullah suggests making donations to the Syrian American Medical Society, which has helped with evacuations and humanitarian relief for children and others caught up in the crisis.

“The most important thing is not to forget them and not to allow anyone else to either. It is too easy to become indifferent, she said.

The Syrian war has dragged on for six years now, Abdullah said, and children continue to suffer and die every day.

“On a very small scale, the best thing you can do is talk about them and make sure your friends do, too. Learn more about the war and the refugee crisis so that you can spread the word,” she said.

People can donate to charities and NGOs that work with refugees, volunteer at charities, or even start their own fundraisers.

“Advocacy is crucial,” Abdullah said. “Protest, email or call your representatives and urge your government to increase their assistance to Syrian refugees, and encourage your friends to do the same.”

Follow CISAC at @StanfordCISAC and www.facebook.com/StanfordCISAC.

MEDIA CONTACTS

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

Today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ “doomsday clock” moved 30 seconds forward to 2 and a half minutes to midnight. The closer the minute hand gets to midnight, the closer the bulletin predicts humankind is to destroying itself. The symbolic clock was created in 1947 when Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer (the father of the U.S. nuclear program) founded the publication.

The following experts from the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies offered these perspectives:

William J. Perry, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense and senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), said: "Last year the Doomsday clock was set at 3 minutes to midnight, the closest it has been to global 'midnight' since the iciest days of the Cold War. This ominous pronouncement reflected my own fears that we were now in greater danger of nuclear catastrophe than we were during the Cold War, with the growing threat of nuclear terrorism, the continued risk of accidents and miscalculation, and the possibility of regional nuclear war and continued nuclear proliferation around the world."

He added, "Today the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that we have moved closer to global catastrophe, for the first time setting the clock 30 seconds ahead to 2 and a half minutes to midnight, approaching a time not seen since the United States and Soviet Russia first developed the H-bomb. We must heed this dire warning as a call to action. There are concrete steps that we can take to reduce the risk of nuclear annihilation, but we must start today."

Siegfried Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and senior fellow at CISAC, said, "The bulletin’s keepers of the clock made the correct call to move the clock 30 seconds closer to midnight. The disregard for fact-based analysis of issues such as global climate change during the recent presidential campaign is truly alarming. However, my immediate concerns focus on the world having become a more dangerous nuclear place."

He said, "Developments in North Korea top the list: 2016 was a very bad year as Pyongyang greatly expanded its nuclear complex to increase the size of its arsenal to perhaps as many as 20 to 25 weapons, conducted two more nuclear tests to enhance the sophistication of its weapons, and launched two dozen missile tests. All of this while Washington cut all communications with a regime about which we know so little, while continuing the failed policies of sanctions and leaning on China to solve the problem."

"Confrontation," Hecker said, "has replaced cooperation between Russia and the United States. For the first time since the end of the Cold War the specter of a nuclear arms race was raised in 2016. President Putin put the finishing touches on suspending or terminating most of the cooperative nuclear threat reduction programs with the United States. Nuclear safety and security concerns appear to have taken a back seat to nuclear saber rattling and cyber attacks."

He noted, "Tensions between China and the United States have increased substantially over Beijing’s more muscular role in international affairs, particularly with its actions in the South China Sea. Moreover, tensions over Taiwan prompted by President Trump’s comments about the One-China policy renew the possibility of conflict."

"South Asia has inched closer to potential nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan. India’s expanding economy and its concerns about Chinese military expansion has prompted it to strengthening its nuclear arsenal by moving toward a full triad – land, air and sea-based nuclear weapons. Pakistan, its much smaller and weaker neighbor, feels increasingly threatened by India’s expanding military. It has moved to what is called a posture of full-spectrum nuclear deterrence, which includes very dangerous tactical battlefield nuclear weapons that lower the nuclear threshold," Hecker said.

"Preventing and responding to potential acts of nuclear terrorism require close international cooperation. Unfortunately, all signs point in the opposite direction at a time when the atrocities perpetrated by terrorists are increasing. Greatest among these pullbacks was President Putin’s decision not to participate in the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, DC. With President Obama’s tenure having ended, this very effective collaborative international effort is now in limbo," he said.

MEDIA CONTACTS

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

Chaney Kourouniotis, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Relations: (6650) 724-9842, chaney.kourouniotis@stanford.edu

Space is more important than ever for the security of the United States, but it’s almost like the Wild West in terms of behavior, a top general said today.

Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, spoke Jan. 24 at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His talk was titled, “U.S. Strategic Command Perspectives on Deterrence and Assurance.”

Hyten said, “Space is fundamental to every single military operation that occurs on the planet today.” He added that “there is no such thing as a war in space,” because it would affect all realms of human existence, due to the satellite systems. Hyten advocates “strategic deterrence” and “norms of behavior” across space as well as land, water and cyberspace.

Otherwise, rivals like China and Russia will only threaten U.S. interests in space and wreak havoc for humanity below, he said. Most of contemporary life depends on systems connected to space.

Hyten also addressed other topics, including recent proposals by some to upgrade the country’s missile defense systems.

“You just don’t snap your fingers and build a state-of-the-art anything overnight,” Hyten said, adding that he has not yet spoken to Trump administration officials about the issue. “We need a powerful military,” but a severe budget crunch makes “reasonable solutions” more likely than expensive and unrealistic ones.

On the upgrade front, Hyten said he favors a long-range strike missile system to replace existing cruise missiles; a better air-to-air missile for the Air Force; and an improved missile defense ground base interceptor.

‘Critically dependent’

From satellites to global-positioning systems (GPS), space has transformed human life – and the military – in the 21st century, Hyten said. In terms of defining "space," the U.S. designates people who travel above an altitude of 50 miles as astronauts.

As the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, Hyten oversees the control of U.S. strategic forces, providing options for the president and secretary of defense. In particular, this command is charged with space operations (such as military satellites), information operations (such as information warfare), missile defense, global command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, global strike and strategic deterrence (the U.S. nuclear arsenal), and combating weapons of mass destruction.

Hyten explained that every drone, fighter jet, bomber, ship and soldier is “critically dependent” on space to conduct their own operations. All cell phones use space, and the GPS command systems overall are managed at Strategic Command, he said.

“No soldier has to worry about what’s over the next hill,” he said, describing GPS capabilities, which have fundamentally transformed humanity’s way of life.

Space needs to be available for exploration, he said.

“I watch what goes on in space, and I worry about us destroying that environment for future generations.” He said that too many drifting objects and debris exist – about 22,000 right now. A recent Chinese satellite interception created a couple thousand more debris objects that now circle about the Earth at various altitudes and pose the risk of striking satellites.

“We track every object in space” now, Hyten said, urging “international norms of behavior in space.”

He added, “We have to deter bad behavior on space. We have to deter war in space. It’s bad for everybody. We could trash that forever.”

But now rivals like China and Russia are building weapons to deploy in the lower levels of space. “How do we prevent this? It’s bigger than a space problem,” he said.

Deterring conflict in the cyber, nuclear and space realms is the strategic deterrence goal of the 21st century, Hyten said.

“The best way to prevent war is to be prepared for war,” he said.

Hyten believes the U.S. needs a fundamentally different debate about deterrence. And it all starts with nuclear weapons.

“In my deepest heart, I wish I didn’t have to worry about nuclear weapons,” he said. Hyten described his job as “pretty sobering, it’s not easy.”

But he also noted the mass violence of the world prior to 1945 when the first atomic bomb was used. Roughly 80 million people died from 1939 to 1945 during World War II. Consider that in the 10-plus years of the Vietnam War, 58,000 Americans were killed. That’s equivalent to two days of deaths in WWII, he said.

In a world without nuclear weapons, a rise in conventional warfare would produce great numbers of mass casualties, Hyten said. About war, he said, “Once you see it up close, no human will ever want to experience it.”

Though America has “crazy enemies” right now, in many ways the world is more safe than during WWII, Hyten said. The irony is that nuclear weapons deterrence has kept us from the type of mass killings known in events like WWII. But the U.S. must know how to use its nuclear deterrence effectively.

Looking ahead, Hyten said the U.S. needs to think about space as a potential war environment. An attack in space might not mean a response in space, but on the Earth.

Hyten describes space as the domain that people look up at it and still dream about. “I love to look at the stars,” but said he wants to make sure he’s not looking up at junk orbiting in the atmosphere.

‘Space geek’

Hyten has served in the Air Force for 35 years. He originally wanted to be an astronaut, but his eyesight was too bad. He got a waiver, and graduated Harvard in 1981 with an engineering degree on a ROTC scholarship. He entered the Air Force thinking he would only do four years. But then he had a close-up view of what a young Air Force officer could find in the last frontier of space as satellites and military space science were booming.

“God, I love space,” he said.

In introducing Hyten, Amy Zegart, co-director of CISAC, described him as a person of unwavering dedication and profound insights who understands the gravity of situations. “A self-described space geek,” she said.

Hyten lauded CISAC for its research and educational work on national security, and said he enjoyed being around people willing to test out new ideas and discuss potential solutions for vexing problems.

Earlier in the day on campus, Hyten met with William J. Perry, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense and senior fellow at CISAC; George Shultz, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; and Condoleezza Rice, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Hoover Institution.

General Hyten was nominated for reassignment to head the U.S. Strategic Command on Sept. 8, 2016. He commanded Air Force Space Command from 2014 to 2016.

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MEDIA CONTACTS

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

Why is terrorism such a vexing problem for policy makers to solve?

The details – and not sloganeering – are important in grappling with the terrorist threat against the U.S. and West, a Stanford scholar suggests. One reason is that the study of terrorism is often confused and contentious, and the study of counterterrorism can be even more frustrating, says Martha Crenshaw, a Stanford terrorism expert and senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“The conceptual and empirical requirements of defining, classifying, explaining, and responding to terrorist attacks are more complex than is usually acknowledged by politicians and academics, which complicates the task of crafting effective counterterrorism policy,” wrote Crenshaw in a new book, Countering Terrorism, with her co-author Gary LaFree, a criminal justice professor at the University of Maryland.

The researchers examined about 157,000 terrorist attacks that have occurred around the world since 1970. These are catalogued in the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland. Crenshaw founded the Mapping Militant Organizations project at Stanford to identify militant organizations globally and trace how they arise, their root causes and their connections. Understanding the nature of terrorism, the diverse groups and ever-changing aspect of how they adapt is a key theme in her research.

Crenshaw said the stakes in fighting terrorism today are especially high since the consequences of missteps and miscalculations can be catastrophic. While research in what is now known as terrorism studies has made significant strides, more progress is needed on the analytical and academic fronts.

“Terrorist attacks are rare, yet they encourage immediate and far-reaching responses that are not easily rolled back. Most attempts actually fail or are foiled, so that examining only successful terrorist attacks gives an incomplete picture,” the scholars wrote.

Obstacles and hindrances

After 9/11, the U.S. reshaped its policies and institutions to deal with terrorism. Fifteen years later, Crenshaw and LaFree analyzed the lessons learned from 9/11 and how governments responded. Both authors are participating in a Jan. 25 panel discussion at Stanford on the subject of their book. Crenshaw and Lafree suggest three key principles emerge from their research. Countries like the U.S. should prepare for change, disruption, and surprise from terrorist groups.

Second, countries should resist the temptation to magnify the image of the destructive power of terrorism as well as the vulnerability of its targets. Finally, the U.S. needs to accept limits to its ability to totally manage and control the jihadist threat. As Crenshaw and LaFree noted, “Even superpowers cannot completely control their environments. Terrorist threats are constantly evolving, never static.”

A realistic understanding of the actual extent of terrorist capacity to harm national security interests is the best approach, she said. “Governments, especially the American government, should avoid both overreacting and promising or threatening overreaction, which means entertaining modest expectations about what can be accomplished in an extremely complex and uncertain threat environment that requires constant adaptation and adjustment,” they wrote.

Counterterrorism policy should be reasonable, practical, and balanced – in a word, sensible, Crenshaw said.

“There is no perfect solution,” she and LaFree said.

The top priority of the U.S. government is to prevent attacks on American soil, she said. While this is a clear goal, no one in political leadership can guarantee the public absolute security. “If the goal is set as the complete absence of terrorist attacks, then policymakers become so anxious that a terrorist will slip through the preventive security net that they risk panic or overreaction. Fear of being blamed in the aftermath of an attack starts to take precedence over all other considerations,” they wrote.

Policy paradoxes

Crenshaw and Lafree’s research revealed some policy paradoxes. One involved counterterrorism: policymakers tend to set overly ambitious policies to eradicate terrorism completely, rather than risk being called “reactive” rather than “proactive.” But Crenshaw said such goals lack clarity and realism, and can lead to unwise and unattainable objectives. For example, in the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government believed that overthrowing authoritarian regimes in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen in favor of “democratic change” would serve as the antidote to terrorism.

However, the change did not take place, and the U.S. has since had to intervene militarily to restore or establish security and stability for weak and embattled allies facing terrorism. One aim for American policy should be greater precision about the strategic goals of military action abroad and that connection to security at home, said Crenshaw and LaFree.

“If the contradictions behind the paradox cannot be resolved, policymakers must find a middle ground between the tactical and strategic,” they wrote.

Another problem is measuring progress against terrorism, Crenshaw and LaFree said. Significant skepticism exists about what the metrics mean in regard to drone strikes, bombs dropped, targets struck, arrests made and cases prosecuted, convictions secured, territory seized or regained, plots foiled, websites taken down, Facebook postings and Twitter accounts deleted, and so on.

“Are these measures of success against terrorism or measures of the extent of the government’s efforts? These metrics calculate what government has done, not necessarily the effect of its actions on adversaries’ calculations and capabilities,” the researchers said, adding that government measures may be taken before a specific adversary exists.

Finally, the real agents behind terrorism are extremely difficult to identify, Crenshaw and LaFree said, because there is no standard “terrorist organization,” and groups evolve, mutate and adapt. Meanwhile, governments and researchers often struggle to establish responsibility for specific attacks. 

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MEDIA CONTACTS

Martha Crenshaw, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies: (650) 723-0126, crenshaw@stanford.edu

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

The following essay by CISAC's Amy Zegart -- "Trump vs. the Spies: In defense of the Intelligence Community" -- appeared in The Atlantic on Jan. 6.

Something stunning happened on Capitol Hill yesterday: Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee practically stood shoulder to shoulder with senior officials from the U.S. intelligence community as they declared that America’s spies were right after all: The Russian government sought to interfere in the U.S. presidential election by hacking into election-related email and leaking information. It was a striking bipartisan rebuke to President-elect Donald Trump, who has consistently cast skepticism on allegations of Russian involvement and seemed to disparage the intelligence community. Perhaps in anticipation of that committee hearing, Trump was already backpedaling on Twitter before it started, declaring, “The media lies to make it look like I am against ‘Intelligence’ when in fact I am a big fan!”

Trump’s “never mind” tweet is unlikely to repair the dangerous breach between the incoming president and the intelligence agencies that serve him. Presidents often throw intelligence agencies under the bus when they fail. Never before has a president-elect thrown them under the bus for succeeding. But that’s exactly what Trump has been doing for weeks, in an unrelenting frenzy. Since his election, Trump has spent more time fighting Langley than ISIS. He has called the CIA’s assessment of the Russian government’s role in election hacking “ridiculous” and has insisted, repeatedly, that the culprit could be anyone, including a 400-pound hacker or “somebody sitting in a bed some place.” His transition team has disparaged and discredited the CIA as “the same people who thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction”—even though they aren’t the same people, Russian cyber hacking isn’t the same intelligence target as Iraq WMD, the Iraq failure was 14 years ago, and intelligence agencies have radically overhauled their analytic process since then. The president-elect has also said he won’t bother getting daily intelligence briefings—making him the first president since 9/11 to skip them—because he’s smart. And just a day before Trump declared himself an intelligence fan, The Wall Street Journal reported that his team was cooking up a Nixon-esque scheme to purge the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of suspected politicization in the ranks by trimming and reorganizing both agencies. (The Trump team has denied this report, which was based on the accounts of sources “familiar with the planning,” including at least one close to the transition.)

With fans like this, who needs enemies?

Some skepticism toward intelligence is healthy. And tension between presidents and their intelligence agencies is nothing new. Lyndon Johnson was said to compare the intelligence community to his boyhood cow, Bessie, who would swing her “shit smeared” tail through a bucket of milk as soon as he’d finished milking her. Bill Clinton met so infrequently with his CIA Director, Jim Woolsey, that when a plane crashed on the White House lawn, aides joked that it was Woolsey trying to get a meeting. (Woolsey, incidentally, had been advising the Trump transition team until resigning yesterday, reportedly due to “growing tensions over Trump’s vision for intelligence agencies.”) Nearly all presidents leave office disappointed and disgruntled with their intelligence apparatus, for two reasons: because presidents want crystal balls and even the CIA’s smartest people don’t have them; and because presidents resort to covert operations for the toughest of problems, when all else fails—which is why covert operations usually fail, too. But no president until now has entered office with such a profound, publicly vented distrust of his own intelligence establishment.

Trump’s doubts are both understandable and alarming. Understandable because we live in an era where threats are moving faster than bureaucrats, and where hacks, tweets, leaks, and internet “news” (both real and fake) make information available everywhere, all the time, instantly. In this digital age, it is reasonable to ask just what America’s intelligence community still brings to the table.

The answer is a lot. U.S. intelligence agencies have one overriding mission: giving the president decision-making advantage in a dangerous and deceptive world. Intelligence officials risk their lives to recruit foreign assets, they intercept foreign email and cell-phone communications, they build and deploy spy satellites, they track obscure foreign government reports and trends for vital clues about the stability of a regime or the health of a foreign economy. Sure, you can find a Wikipedia page on just about anything these days. Where intelligence agencies add value is by integrating the best open-source information and integrating it with the secret nuggets they gather. All intelligence is information. But not all information is intelligence. Agencies like the CIA or NSA sort through a crushing daily stream of information and marry it with secrets to yield insights that keep Americans safe and advance the country’s national interests.

Do they get it wrong sometimes? Of course. In 1962, just weeks before an American U-2 spy plane discovered unmistakable evidence of Soviet nuclear missile installations in Cuba, the intelligence community completed an assessment that concluded the Soviets would not dare place missiles in Cuba. Today Americans remember the U-2 photos but forget the intelligence failure that preceded them and led the United States to the nuclear brink. The intelligence failures of 9/11 and Iraq WMD are still fresh and searing.

But castigating intelligence officials because they don’t succeed every time is like saying Stephen Curry is a terrible NBA basketball player because he doesn’t make every 3-point shot he takes. Intelligence agencies are paid to pierce the fog of the future as best they can. They tackle the toughest targets—trying to divine the capabilities and intentions of adversaries who hide in caves, send children to be suicide bombers, enrich uranium in secret underground facilities, seek space weapons that could destroy GPS and every digital system people use, and would detonate a nuclear bomb in a New York minute to take out New York City if they ever got one. As one former senior intelligence official told me, if the intelligence community is getting it right 100 percent of the time, then they should be fired because they aren’t asking hard enough questions.

This is serious business, and intelligence agencies take it deadly seriously. They are the silent warriors of America. There’s no holiday in their honor. There’s no big public memorial on the National Mall. There are no Air Force flyovers or standing ovations at football games for them. There are only unmarked stars on the walls at Langley and Fort Meade honoring those at CIA and NSA who died in silent service to their country. Mr. Trump should visit those walls and feel their sacrifice. Better yet, he should honor America’s intelligence professionals by listening to what they have to say—starting with the daily intelligence briefing.

The president cannot afford to delegate intelligence briefings to underlings in today’s threat environment, for three reasons that Mr. Trump should know well from his experience in the business world. First, nothing generates knowledge and results like face-to-face meetings. That’s why CEOs fly around the world to meet in person instead of Skyping. Whether in the boardroom or the Oval Office, good briefings are two-way interactions that build trust and insight. They’re golden moments for a senior intelligence official to converse with the nation’s leader, to better understand what’s on his mind, what he wants to know, what he finds unconvincing, and how the vast assets of the intelligence community can better serve him. Second, good briefings inform—they arm the commander-in-chief with a view of what matters right now and what could matter tomorrow, so that he isn’t surprised. Because in foreign policy, surprises are never the good kind. Third and finally, the daily briefing boosts morale. It says to the men and women of the intelligence community, “you matter.” Nothing signals importance like minutes of the president’s schedule. Given the dangers America confronts, the nation needs the intelligence community now more than ever. The 45th president needs to show that he thinks so, too.

Amy Zegart is the co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. She is the author of three books examining U.S. intelligence challenges, including Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11.