Stanford University

Rethinking the First World War from the Perspective of International Law

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About the Topic: Re-establishing and strengthening the rule of international law in 
international affairs was a central Allied aim in the First World War. Revisionism in its many 
forms has erased this from our memory, and with it the meaning of the war. Imperial 
Germany’s actions and justifications for its war conduct amounted to proposing an entirely 
different set of international-legal principles from those that other European states recognized 
as public law. This talk examines what those principles were and what implications they had 
for the legal world order.
 
About the Speaker: Isabel V. Hull received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978 and 
has since then been teaching at Cornell University, where she is the John Stambaugh 
Professor of History. A German historian, her work has reached backward to 1600 and 
forward to 1918 and has focused on the history of sexuality, the development of civil society, 
military culture, and imperial politics and governance. She has recently completed a book 
comparing Imperial Germany, Great Britain, and France during World War I and the impact 
of international law on their respective conduct of the war. It will appear in Spring 2014 
under the title, A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law in the First World 
War. Her talk is based on this latest research.

Central Conference Room, Encina Hall (2nd Floor)

Isabel Hull John Stambaugh Professor of History Speaker Cornell University
Seminars
Directors' Seminar Series

In the Eye of the Beholder: How Leaders and Intelligence Organizations Assess Intentions

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Abstract: How do policymakers infer the long-term political intentions of their states' adversaries? A new approach to answering this question, the “selective attention thesis,” posits that individual perceptual biases and organizational interests and practices influence which types of indicators a state's political leaders and its intelligence community regard as credible signals of an adversary's intentions. Policymakers often base their interpretations on their own theories, expectations, and needs, sometimes ignoring costly signals and paying more attention to information that, though less costly, is more vivid (i.e., personalized and emotionally involving). In contrast, intelligence organizations typically prioritize the collection and analysis of data on the adversary's military inventory. Over time, these organizations develop substantial knowledge on these material indicators that they then use to make predictions about an adversary's intentions. An examination of three cases based on 30,000 archival documents and intelligence reports shows strong support for the selective attention thesis and mixed support for two other approaches in international relations theory aimed at understanding how observers are likely to infer adversaries' political intentions: the behavior thesis and the capabilities thesis. The three cases are assessments by President Jimmy Carter and officials in his administration of Soviet intentions during the collapse of détente; assessments by President Ronald Reagan and administration officials of Soviet intentions during the end of the Cold War; and British assessments of Nazi Germany before World War II.

About the Speaker: Professor Keren Yarhi-Milo is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a particular specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Professor Yarhi-Milo’s forthcoming book (Princeton University Press) titled, “Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations,” explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary’s signals of intentions differently. 

CISAC Conference Room

Keren Yarhi-Milo Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs Speaker the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Seminars

Cold War Internationalism: The Case of Labor

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Sandrine Kott has been educated in France (Paris), Germany (Bielefeld and Berlin) and the USA (New York). Since 2004 she is professor of European contemporary history at the University of Geneva. Her principal fields of expertise are the history of social welfare and labor law in France and Germany since the end of the nineteenth century and labor relations in those countries of real socialism, in particular in the German Democratic Republic. Since 2004, she has developed the transnational and global dimensions of each of her fields of expertise in utilizing the archives and resources of international organizations and particularly the International Labor Organization. She has published over 80 articles in French, German and Anglo-Saxon journals and collective volumes, edited 4 volumes and published 6 books.

CISAC Conference Room

Sandrine Kott Professor Speaker University of Geneva
Seminars

An Army Like No Other: The Origins of Military Culture

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Gil-li Vardi joined CISAC as a visiting scholar in December 2011. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2008, and spent two years as a research fellow at the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford, after which she joined Notre Dame university as a J. P. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History.

Her research examines the interplay between organizational culture, doctrine, and operational patterns in military organizations, and focuses on the incentives and dynamics of change in military thought and practice.

Driven by her interest in both the German and Israeli militaries and their organizational cultures, Vardi is currently revising her dissertation, "The Enigma of Wehrmacht Operational Doctrine: The Evolution of Military Thought in Germany, 1919-1941," alongside preparing a book manuscript on the sources of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) early strategic and operational perceptions and preferences.

CISAC Conference Room

Gil-li Vardi

Not in residence

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Lecturer
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Gil-li Vardi joined CISAC as a visiting scholar in December 2011. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2008, and spent two years as a research fellow at the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford, after which she joined Notre Dame university as a J. P. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History.

Her research examines the interplay between organizational culture, doctrine, and operational patterns in military organizations, and focuses on the incentives and dynamics of change in military thought and practice.

Driven by her interest in both the German and Israeli militaries and their organizational cultures, Vardi is currently revising her dissertation, "The Enigma of Wehrmacht Operational Doctrine: The Evolution of Military Thought in Germany, 1919-1941," alongside preparing a book manuscript on the sources of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) early strategic and operational perceptions and preferences.

Gil-li Vardi Visiting Scholar, CISAC; Lecturer, Department of History, Stanford; Research Fellow, Hoover Institution Speaker
Joel Beinin Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Stanford Commentator
Seminars

Rethinking the First World War from the Perspective of International Law

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About the Topic: Re-establishing and strengthening the rule of international law in international affairs was a central Allied aim in the First World War. Revisionism in its many forms has erased this from our memory, and with it the meaning of the war. Imperial Germany’s actions and justifications for its war conduct amounted to proposing an entirely different set of international-legal principles from those that other European states recognized as public law. This talk examines what those principles were and what implications they had for the legal world order.

About the Speaker: Isabel V. Hull received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978 and has since then been teaching at Cornell University, where she is the John Stambaugh Professor of History. A German historian, her work has reached backward to 1600 and forward to 1918 and has focused on the history of sexuality, the development of civil society, military culture, and imperial politics and governance. She has recently completed a book comparing Imperial Germany, Great Britain, and France during World War I and the impact of international law on their respective conduct of the war. It will appear in Spring 2014 under the title, A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law in the First World War. Her talk is based on this latest research.

CISAC Conference Room

Isabel Hull John Stambaugh Professor of History, Cornell University Speaker
Seminars

Computer Network Attacks and International Law

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Elaine Korzak joined CISAC in September 2013 as a predoctoral cybersecurity fellow. She is a PhD student in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. Elaine's thesis evaluates how cyber attacks challenge current legal norms and whether the identified challenges ultimately warrant a new legal framework. The analysis focuses on two areas in particular: international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum) and international humanitarian law (jus in bello). During her time at CISAC, Elaine is conducting empirical research examining states' responses to the legal challenges created by cyber attacks. Her analysis focuses on various state positions in key international forums, including the United Nations and the International Telecommunication Union.

Elaine earned a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University of Dresden (Germany) before focusing her research interests at the interface of international law and security studies. She holds both an MA in International Peace and Security from King's College London and an LL.M in Public International Law from the London School of Economics. Her professional experience includes various governmental and non-governmental institutions (both national and international), where she has worked on various disarmament and international security issues. These include, most recently, NATO's Cyber Defence Section as well as the European Commission's Director-General on Information Society and Media.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: With their unique characteristics such as swiftness, its non-kinetic nature and anonymity, computer network attacks fundamentally challenge the current international legal paradigm which is based on a state-centered concept of armed force involving some degree of kinetic energy transfer through blast and fragmentation. It has been argued that a revolution in military affairs has been ushered in by technological advancements that cannot be accommodated within the existing legal framework. Both practitioners and scholars have called for a new regulatory framework to govern computer network attacks. This presentation will give an overview of Elaine's doctoral research project which evaluates these claims by examining if and how computer network attacks challenge key norms of international law on the use of force and international humanitarian law and whether the identified challenges ultimately warrant a new legal framework.   

CISAC Conference Room

Elaine Korzak, PhD, LLM

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Affiliate
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Elaine Korzak is a research scholar at the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab (BRSL) at UC Berkeley where she focuses on international cybersecurity governance. She is also an affiliate at the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) at UC Berkeley and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.

Her research covers international legal, policy, and governance aspects in cybersecurity, including norms and international law governing state conduct in cyberspace, cybersecurity negotiations at the United Nations, and the international regulation of commercial spyware. Her work has appeared in the Oxford Handbook of Cyber Security, the Routledge Handbook of International Cybersecurity, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and RUSI Journal.

Previously, Elaine was a cybersecurity postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University, before leading the Cyber Initiative at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS). She holds a PhD in War Studies and an MA in International Peace and Security from King’s College London, as well as an LL.M. in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

 

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Elaine Korzak Speaker Cybersecurity Predoctoral Fellow, CISAC, and PhD Candidate
Andrew K. Woods Cybersecurity Fellow Speaker CISAC
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