Stanford University

Keeping It Professional: Language and Bureaucracy in the Cold War

-

For winter quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

SEMINAR RECORDING

YouTube

                                                                                           

 

About the Event: How do states communicate internally about foreign policy and how does this change over time? Applying concepts from linguistics to a novel corpus of all President’s Daily Briefs from 1961 to 1977, we analyze change over time in the variety of terms used in national security writing (“lexical diversity”). We find a consistently declining level of lexical diversity across presidential administrations and despite variation in exogenous changes in foreign affairs. We argue that this increasingly homogenized language reflects a larger process of bureaucratization in American national security institutions in the 1960s and 1970s. We build on the concept of “organizational sensemaking” and argue that bureaucratization directly and indirectly compresses the terminological range used by individual bureaucrats and homogenizes the language of its outputs. One key payoff is shedding light on what is “lost in translation” when bureaucratic experts communicate with leaders and the foreign policy mistakes and misperceptions that may follow. Our research contributes to work on bureaucracy and perceptions in IR by identifying a subtle shift in the spectrum of terms with which the state interprets the world – a finding that is only tractable by combining computational and linguistic techniques with a large corpus of formerly classified intelligence materials.

 

About the Speaker: Eric Min is Assistant Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was the Zukerman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation for the 2017-2018 academic year. He is a 2020 Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar. His research interests focus on the application of machine learning, text, and statistical methods to the analysis of interstate war, diplomacy, decision-making, and conflict management. His research has been published or is forthcoming in American Political Science Review, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, and Journal of Strategic Studies.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Eric Min

0
ericmin_rsd17_076_0432a.jpg

Eric Min is Associate Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He is received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was the Zukerman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation for the 2017-2018 academic year. He was a Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar in 2021-22.

Min's primary research interests include the intersection of interstate war and diplomacy; international security and conflict management; and the application of machine learning, text, and statistical methods to study these topics. His work is published in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, and the Journal of Strategic Studies.

His dissertation, entitled “Negotiation in War,” was the recipient of the 2018 Kenneth Waltz Dissertation Prize from APSA’s International Security Section. Min’s book, titled Words of War: Negotiation as a Tool of Conflict, is part of the Studies in Security Affairs series at Cornell University Press.

Affiliate
CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Seminars
Research Seminar Series

Responding to Fischerkeller on Initiative Persistence

Authors
Herbert Lin
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

I have struggled to find something with which I disagree in Michael Fischerkeller’s response to my thought experiment adopting the 2018 U.S. Cyber Command (USCC) Command Vision. A couple of such points are addressed below, but for the most part I agree with him. He does make one claim that I find surprising. He writes: 

Read the rest at Lawfare Blog

Hero Image
Herb Lin Rod Searcey
All News button
1
Subtitle

I have struggled to find something with which I disagree in Michael Fischerkeller’s response to my thought experiment adopting the 2018 U.S. Cyber Command (USCC) Command Vision. A couple of such points are addressed below, but for the most part I agree with him. He does make one claim that I find surprising.

Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare

-

For winter quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

SEMINAR RECORDING

YouTube

                                                                                           

 

About the Event: This event is a book talk based on my forthcoming book, Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare. Below is a brief summary of the book.

When Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram were first introduced to the public, their mission was simple: they were designed to help people become more connected to each other. Social media became a thriving digital space by giving its users the freedom to share whatever they wanted with their friends and followers. Unfortunately, these same digital tools are also easy to manipulate. As exemplified by Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, authoritarian states can exploit social media to interfere with democratic governance in open societies. 

Tyrants on Twitter is the first detailed analysis of how Chinese and Russian agents weaponize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to subvert the liberal international order. In addition to examining the 2016 U.S. election, David L. Sloss explores Russia's use of foreign influence operations to threaten democracies in Europe, as well as China's use of social media and other digital tools to meddle in Western democracies and buttress autocratic rulers around the world. 

Sloss calls for cooperation among democratic governments to create a new transnational system for regulating social media to protect Western democracies from information warfare. Drawing on his professional experience as an arms control negotiator, he outlines a novel system of transnational governance that Western democracies can enforce by harmonizing their domestic regulations. And drawing on his academic expertise in constitutional law, he explains why that system—if implemented by legislation in the United States—would be constitutionally defensible, despite likely First Amendment objections. This book is essential reading in a time when disinformation campaigns threaten to undermine democracy.

Purchase Book

 

About the Speaker: David L. Sloss is the John A. and Elizabeth H. Sutro Professor of Law at Santa Clara University. He is the author of The Death of Treaty Supremacy: An Invisible Constitutional Change (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016) and Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare (Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming 2022). He is the co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011) and sole editor of The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement: A Comparative Study (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009). He has also published several dozen book chapters and law review articles. His book on the death of treaty supremacy and his edited volume on international law in the U.S. Supreme Court both won prestigious book awards from the American Society of International Law. Professor Sloss is a member of the American Law Institute and a Counsellor to the American Society of International Law. His scholarship is informed by extensive government experience. Before entering academia, he spent nine years in the federal government, where he worked on U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations and nuclear proliferation issues.

This event is virtual only. This event will not be held in person.

David Sloss Professor of Law Santa Clara University
Seminars
Research Seminar Series

Reassessing China’s Capabilities and Goals for Strategic Competition

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Taiwan. Hypersonic missiles. The South China Sea. In the last few months, China’s activities have grabbed headlines and fueled speculation about its intentions. But how much of this action is posturing, and how much should U.S. policymakers and strategists take seriously?

To help explain what’s going on with our biggest competitor, FSI Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro, a specialist on China’s military and an active member of the United States Air Force Reserves, joins Michael McFaul on World Class to debunk some of the myths that persist about China’s capabilities and reframe how the U.S. needs to think about strategic competition with Beijing. Listen to their full episode and read highlights from the conversation below.

Click here for a transcript of “We Need To Rethink Our Assumptions about China’s Strategic Goals”

Where China Was in the 1990s


Twenty years ago, the Chinese-Taiwan invasion plan was to take a couple of fishing vessels and paddle their way across the strait. In the 1990s, China had very limited, and often no ability to fly over water, or at night, or in weather, and their ships had no defenses.

For many, many years we knew that China was willing to fight if Taiwan declared independence. Fighting a war in any country that is big and resolved is problematic. But it was never the case that the United States was going to lose that war; it was always a matter of, “How many days?” How many days is it going to take us to win?

Where China Is Now


In the intervening years, China's military has changed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Now they have the largest navy in the world, and those ships are some of the most advanced surface ships that can be comparable to those of the United States. Same with their fighters; they have fifth generation airplanes and the largest airforce in the region. They’ve put all these capabilities online, and at the same time, they [have also] started developing capabilities to reach out and touch the United States with.

They developed the capability to hit moving ships at sea, which is something the United States doesn’t have the capability to do. They have a huge cruise and ballistic missile program that basically can take out a U.S. base like Kadena  in the region in a matter of hours, should they ever be willing to make a direct hit on the U.S.

This doesn't mean that China is more powerful than the United States; China still can’t project power outside the Indo-Pacific region, and even there it’s mostly through space, cyber, and nuclear weapons. But most of the contingencies we're talking about are really close to China, so it doesn’t really matter that they can’t project power. So, on the conventional side, I’m very concerned.

Why Taiwan Matters


The whole goal of the Communist Party, since its founding in 1949, has been to resolve this Taiwan issue.

Now they have the ships, the aircraft, and they’ve reorganized their whole military so that they can do joint operations, so that the navy and the air force can do an invasion of Taiwan. And a lot of those efforts came to a successful conclusion at the end of 2020. And that's why people like myself, not because of  the capabilities, but because when I was in Beijing and talked to the Chinese military and government officials, they said, “We could do this now, and maybe we should think about it.”

We know from behavioral economics that countries and people are much more willing to take risks to not lose something that they think is theirs, versus when they are trying to get something which they don't think is theirs. In the Chinese mindset, Taiwan, the South China Sea, East China Sea, etc. is already theirs, and the United States is trying to take it from them. That makes the situation even more problematic. 

What the United States Should Do


The Biden administration is doing a lot of political maneuvering to show that the United States is willing to defend Taiwan. And I think it’s just upsetting Beijing, because they think we’re changing the political status quo. It also does nothing to enhance our deterrence, because it doesn't signal anything about our capability to defend Taiwan.

The Chinese basically assume the United States will intervene. Their big question is, can they still win? We need to show China that they cannot win, and that’s about showing out capabilities in the region. It’s about aggressively negotiating new host arrangements, more access for the U.S. military, and new international institutions and treaties that constrain the ways China leverages power.

I'm a military person, but I'm totally on board with leading with diplomacy. But I don't see those types of efforts coming out of the Biden administration. They seem to want to double down and do the same things, just with more allies and partners.  I'm supportive of it, but I just don't think it's enough.

Read More

An Island that lies inside Taiwan's territory is seen with the Chinese city of Xiamen in the background.
Commentary

The Taiwan Temptation

Why Beijing Might Resort to Force
The Taiwan Temptation
Oriana Skylar Mastro testifies to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on Taiwan deterrence.
News

Oriana Skylar Mastro Testifies on Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan to Congressional Review Commission

China may now be able to prevail in cross-strait contingencies even if the United States intervenes in Taiwan’s defense, Chinese security expert Oriana Skylar Mastro tells the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Changes must be made to U.S. military capabilities, not U.S. policy, she argues.
Oriana Skylar Mastro Testifies on Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan to Congressional Review Commission
Hero Image
Chinese military propaganda depicting the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958.
Chinese military propaganda depicting the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958.
Getty Images
All News button
1
Subtitle

On the World Class podcast, Oriana Skylar Mastro argues that in order to set effective policy toward China, the United States needs to better understand how and why China is projecting power.

Twenty Years of Stabilization and Reconstruction: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan

-

*For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

REGISTRATION

Zoom

(Open to all)

 

Seminar Recording

About the Event: The Afghan government’s collapse in August demonstrated that two decades of donor-driven state-building efforts failed to build a foundation for a stable, democratic, and prosperous Afghanistan. Why did the United States and its allies fail, and what should donors learn for similar state-building efforts in the future, both large and small?

Spanning the U.S. government’s problematic strategies, inappropriate timelines, and poor understanding of the Afghan context, lessons learned reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) have warned for years that the Afghan government was exceptionally fragile and that many of the gains alleged by the U.S. officials were hollow and unsustainable. This CISAC seminar will detail how and why the U.S. government should reform its own institutions to more effectively stabilize conflict-affected environments around the world. 

Download SIGAR’s 20th anniversary report, What We Need to Learn (2021)

Download SIGAR’s report, Stabilization: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan (2018)

 

About the Speaker: David H. Young is a supervisory research analyst at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and a conflict and governance advisor with experience in six conflict/post-conflict environments: Afghanistan, the Sahel, Israel/Palestine, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Northern Ireland. At SIGAR, he was the lead author of three comprehensive lessons learned reports: 1) A study of U.S. efforts to stabilize contested Afghan communities, 2) A review of U.S. efforts to build credible and transparent Afghan electoral institutions, and 3) the agency’s 20th anniversary report, What We Need to Learn. He was a civilian advisor to ISAF in Nuristan and Laghman provinces during the Afghanistan surge and subsequently served as a governance advisor to the World Bank, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Afghanistan's Independent Directorate of Local Governance. His writing and commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, and the Daily Beast, among others.

Virtual Only. This event will not be held in person.

David Young Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
Seminars
Research Seminar Series

Imagining the Unimaginable: War, Weapons, and Procurement Politics

-

For winter quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

SESSION RECORDING

For a recording of this seminar, please contact Dr. Verschuren at sverschu@stanford.edu.

                                                                                           

 

About the Event: Rather than assuming convergence in countries' military capabilities, this seminar examines why and how countries decide to develop different weapon capabilities within similar domains of warfare. To answer these questions, this seminar will explore the role of ideas and institutional bargaining in shaping decisions about military technology. This talk will subsequently apply the theory to the development of missile defense from the 1980s until today.

 

About the Speaker: Sanne Verschuren is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. Her research interests include the development of military technology, shifts in military strategy and tactics, and the role of ideas and norms therein. Her book project examines why and how countries decide to procure different weapon capabilities within similar military domains, particularly the development of missile defense (1980s-today), air power (1920s-1930s), and aircraft carriers (1950s-1960s). At CISAC, Sanne conducts research on the intersection between nuclear and conventional weapons. Sanne received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University in August 2021.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Sanne Verschuren

0
verschuren.jpeg PhD

Sanne Cornelia J. Verschuren is an Assistant Professor of International Security at the Pardee School of Global Studies of Boston University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, the domestic determinants of security policy, and the role of ideas, norms, and institutions in national security decision-making. She focuses on how states fight war, examining why they construct novel weapon technologies, how they envision fielding such technologies, and why they choose to abandon certain technologies and practices.

Professor Verschuren is in the process of finalizing her first book manuscript, titled "Imagining the Unimaginable: War, Weapons, and Procurement Politics." This book is based on her dissertation, which received APSA’s 2022 Kenneth N. Waltz Outstanding Dissertation Award. In the book, she asks why and how states decide to develop different weapon capabilities within a similar military domain—with the development of missile defenses by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and India as the central case studies. Other research by Professor Verschuren has appeared in Global Studies Quarterly, War on the Rocks, and Inkstick Media, among others.

Before joining Boston University, Professor Verschuren was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Sciences Po’s Center for International Studies, a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a predoctoral research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Affiliate
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Seminars
Governance
Research Seminar Series

The Role Of Intelligence Agencies In Public Attribution Of Offensive Cyber Operations

-

 

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed.
 

                                                                                           

 

About the Event: Cyber operations have been traditionally considered covert actions, with incentives for both attacker and victim to remain silent and conceal the attack. Attribution is often a technically complex process that requires extensive work on the part of intelligence agencies. Although their work usually takes place ‘behind the scenes’, recent cases show intelligence agencies are playing an increasingly visible role in the public attribution processes.

With cyberattacks and intrusions becoming an integral component of both warfare and diplomacy, attribution – and its mechanisms and consequences – also play a growing role. Governments are increasingly required to balance expectations, credibility and transparency of high-stake attribution processes with the need to minimize exposure of their intelligence agencies and technological capabilities.

Combining original data on intelligence agencies’ involvement in public attribution cases and an analysis of the SolarWinds hack and the DNC intrusion as an illustrative case-studies, this research offers a broader understanding of the emerging changes in the role of intelligence agencies in the cyber domain, including its more public components. The implications of this research will serve scholars working on the intersection between cyber operations, intelligence and decision-making, and will also serve practitioners and decision-makers facing the need to decide how to respond after an offensive cyber operation took place.

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Gil Baram is a cybersecurity post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She received her Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University’s School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, and was the recipient of the Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship. Her postdoctoral research at CISAC focuses on national decision-making during cyber conflict.

Previously, Dr. Baram has held fellow positions with the Centre of Excellence for National Security at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and served as the Head of cyber and space research team at the Israeli think tank Yuval Ne'eman workshop for Science, Technology and Security.  

This event is virtual only. This event will not be held in person.

Gil Baram

0
baram.jpeg

Dr. Gil Baram is a senior lecturer (US Associate Professor) at the Political Studies Department, Bar Ilan University. She is a non-resident research scholar at the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC), University of California, Berkeley. She is also a senior adjunct research fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previously, she was a Fulbright Cybersecurity postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.

Dr. Baram’s research explores, among other areas, AI-driven cyber threats, the impact of technology on national security, the role of Intelligence agencies in cyber operations, cyber threats to space systems, cyber diplomacy and norms development, and data-based approaches to cyber conflict research.

Affiliate
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Seminars
Research Seminar Series

Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons

-

For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

REGISTRATION

Zoom

(Open to all)


In Person

(Stanford faculty, visiting scholars, staff, fellows, and students only)

                                                                                           

 

Seminar Recording

About the Event: The technology controlling United States nuclear weapons predates the Internet. Updating the technology for the digital era is necessary, but it comes with the risk that anything digital can be hacked. Moreover, using new systems for both nuclear and non-nuclear operations will lead to levels of nuclear risk hardly imagined before. This book is the first to confront these risks comprehensively.

With Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons, Herbert Lin provides a clear-eyed breakdown of the cyber risks to the U.S. nuclear enterprise. Featuring a series of scenarios that clarify the intersection of cyber and nuclear risk, this book guides readers through a little-understood element of the risk profile that government decision-makers should be anticipating. What might have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis took place in the age of Twitter, with unvetted information swirling around? What if an adversary announced that malware had compromised nuclear systems, clouding the confidence of nuclear decision-makers?

Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons, the first book to consider cyber risks across the entire nuclear enterprise, concludes with crucial advice on how government can manage the tensions between new nuclear capabilities and increasing cyber risk. This is an invaluable handbook for those ready to confront the unique challenges of cyber nuclear risk.

Purchase Book

 

About the Speaker: Since 2014, Herb Lin has been senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  He also served as a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Herbert Lin

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C236
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

650-497-8600
0
Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security, Hoover Institution
HerbertLin.jpg

Dr. Herb Lin is senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  His research interests relate broadly to the impact of emerging technologies on national security, especially in the digital domain (cyber, artificial intelligence, information warfare and operations), and has written extensively on the role of offensive operations in cyberspace as instruments of national policy.  In addition to his positions at Stanford University, he is Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he served from 1990 through 2014 as study director of major projects on public policy and information technology.  From 2016 to 2025, he was a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In 2016, he served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity and in  2021 on the Aspen Commission on Information Disorder.  Prior to his NRC service, he was a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Avocationally, he is a longtime folk and swing dancer and a lousy magician. Apart from his work on cyberspace and cybersecurity, he is published in cognitive science, science education, biophysics, and arms control and defense policy. He also consults on K-12 math and science education.

Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Seminars
Research Seminar Series

Natural Gas in Europe, Nord Stream 2 and Russia

-

*For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

REGISTRATION

Zoom

(Open to all)

 

Seminar Recording

About the Event: Natural gas prices in Europe have spiked in recent weeks. In the meantime, Russia is pressing for early certification of the newly-completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which would increase capacity for moving gas from Russia to Europe. How serious is the gas situation in Europe, and how might Nord Stream 2 affect it? What motivates Moscow's push to get the new pipeline in operation? What policy should the U.S. government pursue on these questions? Ambassador Daniel Fried of the Atlantic Council and Edward Chow of Center for Strategic and International Studies will address these issues on November 17.

 

About the Speakers: In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. As special assistant and NSC senior director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, ambassador to Poland, and assistant secretary of state for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried crafted the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thus advancing the goal of Europe whole, free, and at peace. During those years, the West’s community of democracy and security grew in Europe. Ambassador Fried helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine starting in 2014: as State Department coordinator for sanctions policy, he crafted US sanctions against Russia, the largest US sanctions program to date, and negotiated the imposition of similar sanctions by Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia.   

 

Edward C. Chow is an international energy expert with 45 years of industry experience working in Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America, Europe, Russia, Black Sea and Caspian regions. He negotiated successfully multibillion-dollar oil and gas agreements and specializes in investments in emerging economies. He developed government policy and business strategy while advising governments, international financial institutions, major oil companies, and leading multinational corporations. He worked for more than 20 years at Chevron Corporation in headquarter and overseas assignments. He taught at Georgetown and George Washington universities and served as visiting professor at Ohio University and Fudan University in Shanghai. He is a senior associate in the Center for Strategic and International Studies and affiliate faculty at George Mason University.

Virtual Only. This event will not be held in person.

Daniel Fried ormer US Ambassador to Poland; Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow Atlantic Council
Edward C. Chow Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Seminars
European Security Initiative

China's Hypersonic Weapons Tests Don't Have to be a Sputnick Moment

Authors
Sanne Verschuren
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

This summer, China conducted a series of tests with nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons systems that have clearly gotten the attention of officials across the U.S. government. The tests included a hypersonic glide vehicle — a delivery mechanism that can maneuver through the Earth’s atmosphere towards its target — and also incorporated a fractional orbital bombardment system. Because a fractional orbital bombardment system can deliver its payload by entering into lower orbit and then “dropping” it on the target, it could reach the U.S. homeland via the South Pole, bypassing U.S. early warning systems and missile defenses, which are primarily geared towards the interception of ballistic missiles from the north.

Read the rest at War on the Rocks

Hero Image
Rocket blasting Missile Defense Agency
All News button
1
Subtitle

China conducted a series of tests with nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons systems that have gotten the attention of officials across the U.S. government. The tests included a hypersonic glide vehicle — a delivery mechanism that can maneuver through the Earth’s atmosphere towards its target — and incorporated a fractional orbital bombardment system.

Subscribe to China