Stanford University

Assessing Social Support for Suicide Bombing

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Dr. Chiozza investigates the popular basis of support for suicide terrorism carried out against Americans and other Western targets in Iraq. Using survey data from six countries in the Middle East and South Asia, he investigates how demographic factors, such as gender, education, and age, interact with specific predispositions and attitudes, including fear of the United States, anti-Semitism, and personal anomie, to explain who would consider suicide terrorism against American and Western targets in Iraq justifiable. Methodologically, he employs Classification and Regression Tree (CART) models, a novel methodology that allows for a parsimonious identification of interactive and non-linear effects in the data. Dr. Chiozza shows that fear of the U.S. trumps other motivations in the countries that are geographically closer to Iraq.

Giacomo Chiozza (speaker) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a PhD from Duke University and a BA from the Università degli Studi di Milano. Before joining the Berkeley Political Science department, he was a post-doctoral fellow in national security at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. His research interests include the study of foreign perceptions of the United States in the American World Order and the quantitative analysis of conflict processes. He is the author of "A Crisis like No Other? Anti-Americanism at the Time of the Iraq War" (European Journal of International Relations, forthcoming); "Disaggregating Anti-Americanism: An Analysis of Individual Attitudes Towards the United States" (In Keohane and Katzenstein, Anti-Americanisms in World Politics, 2007), as well as of articles on leaders and conflict processes that were published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and the Journal of Peace Research.

Aila Matanock (discussant) is a doctoral student in political science at Stanford.  She received an undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University, while working with the Belfer Center’s Managing the Atom Project and with the Los Alamos National Laboratory.  After graduation, she took a job at the RAND Corporation as a research assistant where she analyzed projects on terrorism and nuclear weapons.  Her current research is on social support for terrorism, the effect of nuclear weapons on conventional conflict, and the reasons for varying levels of shared sovereignty in international agreements.

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Giacomo Chiozza Assistant Professor of Political Science Speaker University of California, Berkeley
Seminars

Everything You Wanted to Know about Writing for <i>International Security</i>

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Steven E. Miller is Director of the International Security Program, Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, International Security and also co-editor of the International Security Program's book series, BCSIA Studies in International Security (which is published by the MIT Press). Previously, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and taught Defense and Arms Control Studies in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Miller is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he has been a member of their Committee on International Security Studies (CISS). He is also co-chair of the U.S. Pugwash Committee, a member of the Council of International Pugwash, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a member of the Scientific Committee of the Landau Network Centro Volta (Italy), and formerly a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).  Miller was born and raised in North Hollywood, California. He did his undergraduate degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is married to Deborah K. Louis. They have two sons: Jonathan (1989) and Nicholas (1997).

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Steven E. Miller Editor-in-Chief Speaker <i>International Security</i>
Seminars

The Indian Nuclear Program: Reflections Based on a Trip to India

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Abstract
We will present our observations from a visit to India’s nuclear facilities and several think tanks during March 2008. We will comment on India’s nuclear research programs, nuclear energy development, and the implications for the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal and for scientific collaboration between our countries. We visited the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research (IGCAR) in Kalpakkam, the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in Trombay, had detailed discussions with the top leadership of the India Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and also visited several institutes in Bangalore and Chennai to discuss nuclear energy and nuclear nonproliferation.

Chaim Braun is a vice president of Altos Management Partners, Inc., and a CISAC science fellow and affiliate. He is a member of the Near-Term Deployment and the Economic Cross-Cut Working Groups of the Department of Energy (DOE) Generation IV Roadmap study. He conducted several nuclear economics-related studies for the DOE Nuclear Energy Office, the Energy Information Administration, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Non-Proliferation Trust International, and others. Braun has worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. Braun has worked on a study of safeguarding the Agreed Framework in North Korea, he was the co-leader of a NATO Study of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Power Plants, led CISAC's Summer Study on Terrorist Threats to Research Reactors, and most recently co-authored an article with former CISAC Co-Director Chris Chyba on nuclear proliferation rings.

Siegfried Hecker is a professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, a senior fellow at FSI, and co-director of CISAC. He is also an emeritus director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hecker's research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapon policy and international security, nuclear security (including nonproliferation and counter terrorism), and cooperative nuclear threat reduction. Over the past 15 years, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. His current interests include the challenges of nuclear India, Pakistan, North Korea, and the nuclear aspirations of Iran. Hecker works closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences and is actively involved with the U.S. National Academies, serving on the National Academy of Engineering Council and its International Programs Committee, as chair of the Committee on Counterterrorism Challenges for Russia and the United States, and as a member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control Nonproliferation Panel.

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Chaim Braun CISAC Fellow and CISAC Affiliate Speaker

Siegfried S. Hecker

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C220
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-6468 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Research Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
hecker2.jpg PhD

Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor emeritus (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He was co-director of CISAC from 2007-2012. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Hecker served as the fifth Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction, and nuclear security.

Dr. Hecker’s current research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and arms control, nuclear weapons policy, nuclear security, the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy, and plutonium science. At the end of the Cold War, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. In June 2016, the Los Alamos Historical Society published two volumes edited by Dr. Hecker. The works, titled Doomed to Cooperate, document the history of Russian-U.S. laboratory-to-laboratory cooperation since 1992.

Dr. Hecker’s research projects at CISAC focus on cooperation with young and senior nuclear professionals in Russia and China to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism worldwide, to avoid a return to a nuclear arms race, and to promote the safe and secure global expansion of nuclear power. He also continues to assess the technical and political challenges of nuclear North Korea and the nuclear aspirations of Iran.

Dr. Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.

Among his professional distinctions, Dr. Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; fellow of the American Society for Metals; fellow of the American Physical Society, honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His achievements have been recognized with the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, the 2020 Building Bridges Award from the Pacific Century Institute, the 2018 National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies, the 2017 American Nuclear Society Eisenhower Medal, the American Physical Society’s Leo Szilard Prize, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal, the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, among other awards including the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.

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Siegfried S. Hecker Co-Director of CISAC and Professor (Research), Department of Management Science and Engineering; FSI Senior Fellow Speaker
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Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)

The National Plant Diagnostic Network and Agricultural Biosecurity in the U.S.

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The National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN) was created to enhance the capabilities of existing diagnostic laboratories in the nation to detect and report introduced pathogens, pests and weeds of high consequence to plant agriculture and natural ecosystems.  An important goal of the network is to coordinate diagnostic and scientific expertise at land-grant universities, state departments of agriculture, agencies within the USDA (CSREES and APHIS), and other organizations involved in agricultural production and security.  The program, which is administered through the USDA, was established in 2002 through funding created by the Homeland Security Act in response to concerns that agricultural pests and pathogens could be used as agents of bio-terrorism.  Responsibilities of the NPDN include the compilation and establishment of diagnostic protocols for priority agents, the development of a web-based distributed plant pest diagnostic and reporting system for the nation, the provision of up-to-date information on plant pests for the nation, the development of analytical tools to exploit these data, and the recruitment and training of first detectors.  The national network is organized into 5 regions, with regional centers located at the University of California, Davis (Western Region), Kansas State University (Great Plains Region), Michigan State University (North Central Region), the University of Florida (Southern Region), and Cornell University (Northeastern Region).  A parallel network for veterinary medicine, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, also has been established with regional centers located at the same institutions as the NPDN regional centers.  The mission and design of the NPDN, its programs, and progress towards meeting network objectives, will be presented and discussed.

Richard Bostock is a professor and former chair (1999-2005) of the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis.  In 2002, he was appointed as the founding Director of the Western Region of the National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN).  The NPDN is a distributed system comprised of public institutions for the purpose of quickly detecting and identifying high consequence pests and pathogens.  The network links plant health professionals, researchers and diagnostic labs throughout the region, providing a way for them to share information about occurrences of plant diseases and pests that could have an impact on the region's most economically important crops.   This information also is reported to first responders and decision makers. Funding for the network is provided through the United States Department of Agriculture. Dr. Bostock received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology at the University of Kentucky in 1981, and was appointed to the faculty at UC Davis that year.  His research and teaching interests are the biochemistry and molecular biology of plant-microbe interactions and general plant pathology.  He teaches several courses in the department and in the Science and Society program on various aspects of plant pathology, plant-microbe interactions, and issues related to food production. 

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Richard Bostock Professor of Plant Pathology and Director, Western Plant Diagnostic Network Speaker University of California, Davis
Seminars
Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)

Is Mother Nature the Best Bioterrorist?

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As we find ourselves at the start of the "biological century" with a wealth of potential benefits to public health, agriculture, and global economies, it is almost deliberately naive to think that the extraordinary growth in the life sciences might not be exploited for nefarious purposes. A report published in 2006 by an ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Science recognized that the breadth of biological threats is much broader than commonly appreciated and will continue to expand for the foreseeable future. The nature of these threats, and a set of potential approaches with which to mitigate these threats, will be reviewed.

David Relman, MD, is professor of medicine, and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University. He is also chief, infectious diseases section, at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California. His research is directed towards the characterization of the human indigenous microbial communities, with emphasis on understanding variation in diversity, succession, the effects of disturbance, and the role of these communities in health and disease.  This work brings together approaches from ecology, population biology, environmental microbiology, genomics and clinical medicine.  In addition, his research explores the classification structure of humans and non-human primates with systemic infectious diseases, based on patterns of genome-wide gene transcript abundance in blood and other tissues. The goals of this work are to recognize classes of pathogen and predict clinical outcome at early time points in the disease process, as well as to gain further insights into virulence. Past scientific achievements include the description of a novel approach for identifying previously-unknown pathogens, the identification of a number of new human microbial pathogens, including the agent of Whipple's disease, and some of the most extensive analyses to date of the human indigenous microbial ecosystem. See http://relman.stanford.edu

Among his other activities, Dr. Relman currently serves as Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIH), Chair of the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats (U.S. National Academies of Science), member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, and advises several U.S. Government departments and agencies on matters related to pathogen diversity, the future life sciences landscape, and the nature of present and future biological threats.  He co-chaired a three-year study at the National Academy of Sciences that produced a report entitled, "Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences" (2006). He is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology. Dr. Relman received the Squibb Award of the IDSA in 2001, and was the recipient of both the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, and the Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in 2006.

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David Relman Professor of Medicine and of Microbiology and Immunology Speaker Stanford University
Seminars
Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)

Report of Visit to North Korea to Senate Foreign Relations Committee

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On July 15, 2007, the DPRK shut down and sealed the key nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and allowed IAEA inspectors back to monitor the shut-down. DPRK workers began to disable these facilities under U.S. technical supervision a few months later. The shut-down halts the production of additional bomb fuel (plutonium) and the disablement makes it more difficult to restart plutonium production should the DPRK decide to do so.

Our visit leads me to conclude that the DPRK leadership has made the decision to permanently shut down plutonium production if the United States and the other four parties live up to their Oct. 3, 2007 commitments. If the DPRK decides to break out of the six-party agreement and restart operations, it will have only limited capacity for plutonium production.

This report accompanied a trip report made by Keith Luse, senior staffer to Sen. Richard Lugar, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Siegfried S. Hecker

Resuscitating American Power: Overcoming the Bush-Rice Legacy

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Marcus Mabry is International Business Editor of The New York Times, directing and editing international coverage in the Business Day section of the newspaper and on the front page, as well as managing Business Day’s corps of foreign correspondents and contract contributors. Prior to coming to the Times in July 2007, Mabry spent 19 years at Newsweek, the last five as chief of correspondents, responsible for managing and deploying the magazine’s domestic and international correspondents. He also held positions as a senior editor on the U.S. and international editions; Africa bureau chief; Paris correspondent; Washington correspondent; State Department correspondent; and associate editor in the business section.

Mabry’s latest book is Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power (Modern Times/Rodale, 2007), an intimate examination of the life and career of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Mabry’s first book, published in 1995 when he was 28 years old, is the memoir White Bucks and Black-Eyed Peas: Coming of Age Black in White America (Scribner’s), which recounts his personal journey from poverty and welfare, the son of single mother, to prep school, Stanford, and the largely white world of mainstream media. Both White Bucks and Black-Eyed Peas and Twice as Good were released in paperback in February 2008.
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Marcus Mabry International Business Editor Speaker The New York Times
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Making Nuclear Energy Work

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The search for solutions to two growing crises--human induced climate change and the loss of cheap oil--places nuclear energy front and center. Many see the expansion of nuclear power in the United States as a way to mitigate concerns over energy as well as national and environmental security brought on by the two global problems. Looking at the U.S. nuclear scene's past, present, and future, and focusing on a 21st-century approach to the underlying technical issues, one can see the potential for an expanded nuclear energy future.

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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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The U.S. satellite shootdown: An unnecessary action

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The intercept of the disabled USA-193 spy satellite the United States conducted on February 20 set a new benchmark for military exercises that have no benefits, but come at a tremendous political cost. The intercept topped even the U.S. decision to deploy missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic as an ill-advised maneuver that could only bring scores of suspicion and mistrust--exactly what the deployments inspired in Russia, where missile defense now poisons virtually every other issue in U.S.-Russian relations. In this vein, the intercept, or more aptly, a test of an antisatellite (ASAT) capability, merely fosters further international distrust of U.S. policies and intentions.

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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Online
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Pavel Podvig
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