This event is co-sponsored with the Project on Russian Power and Purpose in the 21st Century

Seminar Recording:   https://youtu.be/5gWmnsTD0MA

About this Event: Russia has deployed cyber operations to interfere in foreign elections, launch disinformation campaigns, and cripple neighboring states—yet the regime has also maintained a thin veneer of deniability and avoided strikes that cross the line into acts of war. How should a targeted nation respond? The international effort to counter Russian cyber operations by imposing sanctions and indictments, in combination with a new defend forward approach, has done little to alter Moscow’s behavior.  Therefore, in his new book on Russian Cyber Operations, Scott Jasper takes a deep dive into the legal and technical maneuvers that are used to avoid consequences, proposing that nations develop robust solutions for resilience to withstand future attacks.

About the Speaker: Scott Jasper, CAPT, USN (ret) is a Lecturer at the National Security Affairs Department and the Institute for Security Government at the Naval Postgraduate School, specializing in defense strategy, hybrid warfare, and cyber policy. Scott has published chapters in various handbooks related to cybersecurity and articles in Strategic Studies Quarterly, the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, United States Cybersecurity Magazine, The National Interest, Small Wars Journal, and The Diplomat. He is the author of Russian Cyber Operations: Coding the Boundaries of Conflict, Strategic Cyber Deterrence: The Active Cyber Defense Option and editor of Conflict and Cooperation in the Global Commons, Security Freedom in the Global Commons, and Transforming Defense Capabilities: New Approaches for International Security. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Reading, U.K. 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/wKXawdBrCEs

About this Event: Are we still in the Nuclear Age? Is this the Age of AI? Are we entering the Age of Synthetic Biology? Technologies such as nuclear power, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology are “epochal,” as in epoch-making: They redefine the world in which we live, introducing new uncertainties and risks, as well as new responsibilities—but for whom? World-changing technologies are inextricably political entities, affecting distribution of power and resources throughout and between societies. However, despite decades of academic and practical experience with the political dimensions of technology, contemporary societies appear to be inadequately prepared to cope skillfully with the new worlds that their scientists and technologists are creating. Why? What lessons can be learned from existing epochal technologies that might help societies understand, evaluate, and direct their technical potentials and trajectories into the future? Within the context of growing concern about national security threats that may emerge from germline genetic engineering, Greene will consider the cultivation of a “culture of responsibility” in synthetic biology labs. Polleri will examine a set of public controversies surrounding the role of nuclear power and the threat of radioactive contamination in a post-Fukushima Japan. Garvey will map out the risk landscape surrounding AI systems and discuss strategic approaches to coping with uncertainty and disagreement in protecting against catastrophic technological risk.

About the Speakers:

Colin Garvey is a Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. He studies the history and political economy of artificial intelligence (AI), among other things, with a comparative focus on Japan. He is currently a PhD Candidate and Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Fellow in the Science and Technology Studies Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). His dissertation “Averting AI Catastrophe, Together: On the Democratic Governance of Epochal Technologies,” challenges utopian/dystopian thinking about AI by explaining how more democratic governance of the technology is not only necessary to avert catastrophe, but also to steer AI R&D more safely, fairly, and wisely. He won Best Early Career Paper at the 2017 meeting of the Society for the History of Technology for “Broken Promises & Empty Threats: The Evolution of AI in America, 1956-1996.” His research article on the history and political economy of Japanese AI, “An Alternative to Neoliberal Modernity: The ‘Threat’ of the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer Systems Project,” will be published in a forthcoming special issue of Pacific Historical Review. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). In addition to an MS in STS from RPI, Colin double-majored in Japanese and Media Studies at Vassar College. Before starting graduate school, Colin spent several years teaching in Japan, where he became a Zen Buddhist monk. Colin is fluent in Japanese and freelances as a translator of Japanese books and scientific articles.

Daniel Greene is a Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC, where he works with Dr. Megan Palmer on strategies for risk governance in biotechnology. He uses computational social science methods to identify factors that influence the decisions of biology labs to engage in potentially risky research. Daniel completed a PhD at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where he worked with Prof. Carol Dweck to develop and test social-psychological interventions to improve student motivation at scale. His dissertation identified and influenced novel psychological constructs for motivating unemployed and underemployed adults to pursue job-skill training. Outside of academia, Daniel worked for five years as a data scientist and product developer at the Project for Education Research That Scales, a nonprofit that develops resources and infrastructure for disseminating best practices from education research. He also holds a BA in Cognitive Science (Honors) from Rutgers University. Daniel's work has been supported by the Open Philanthropy Project, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Gates Foundation, the Stanford Digital Learning Forum, and an Amir Lopatin Fellowship.

Dr. Maxime Polleri is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. As an anthropologist of science and technology, his work examines the governance of risk in the aftermath of technological disasters implying environmental contamination. His current research focuses on Japanese public and state responses to the release of radioactive contamination after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. He has published articles and op-ed in Social Studies of Science, American Ethnologist, Anthropology Today, Anthropology Now, Medical Anthropology Quarterly Second Spear, Somatosphere, Bulleting  of the Atomic Scientists, and The Diplomat. 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/BGjRsO0fKds

About this Event: Germany plays a key role in shaping European and Western policy toward Russia.  Berlin is a leading voice within the European Union on Russian issues, and Chancellor Angela Merkel co-chairs with the French president the "Normandy" effort that seeks to broker a setttlement between Ukraine and Russia to the conflict in Donbas.  Emily Haber, the German ambassador to the United States, will join us for a conversation on how Berlin sees the Russian challenge and how the West should respond.

About the Speaker: Emily Margarethe Haber has been German Ambassador to the United States since June 2018. 

Immediately prior to this, Haber, a career foreign service officer, was deployed to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, serving as State Secretary overseeing security and migration at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe. In this capacity, she worked closely with the US administration on topics ranging from the fight against international terrorism to global cyberattacks and cybersecurity. In 2009, she was appointed Political Director and, in 2011, State Secretary at the Foreign Office, the first woman to hold either post. 

Emily Haber is married to Hansjörg Haber. The couple has two sons. 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/YQU4cuywdK8

About this Event: What sort of narrative defines the American experience with nuclear weapons? National security expert Joe Cirincione argues that it is not a triumph, but a tragedy - one ripe with themes the ancient Greeks would have recognized. He will guide us through the paradoxes and pitfalls of U.S. nuclear policy and expose the costs - political, financial, and moral - of our search for an all-too illusory security in the atomic age.

About the Speaker: Joseph Cirincione is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. He is also the host of Press The Button, a weekly podcast from Ploughshares Fund dedicated to nuclear policy and national security. A new episode is available every Tuesday.

Cirincione is the author of the books Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats. He has worked on nuclear weapons policy in Washington for over 35 years and is considered one of the top experts in the field. He served previously as vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress, director for non-proliferation at Carnegie Endowment, and senior associate at Stimson. He worked for nine years as professional staff on the U.S. House of Representatives Committees on Armed Services and Government Operations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the International Security Advisory Board for Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. He also teaches at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service.

Cirincione's commentary has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, CNN, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Financial Times, Kyodo News, Moscow Times, Foreign Policy, The Hill, Daily Beast, and Huffington Post.

This event is co-sponsored with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/cPaeCJiRWuM

About this Event: In 2011, the impact of the Arab Spring and the emergence of YouTube videos evidencing ballot stuffing during Russian parliamentary elections, which nearly led to a revolution in Russia, forced Kremlin strategists to suddenly realize that the Internet had become a major media — and a major power. This was the case not only in Russia, but everywhere on the planet. The Kremlin spent years and billions of dollars [or rubles?] to subdue this power, and  to learn how to make use of it. Was this crusade successful? Is it true that Putin is now capable of influencing elections everywhere in the world? Will he be able to cut Russia off from the global internet? And what are the troll farms trying to achieve? Leonid Volkov, an internet expert and the founder of the Internet Protection Society, the leading Russian digital rights NGO—and, simultaneously, Chief of Staff for Alexey Navalny, the leader of Russian opposition—is known for his optimistic view on these issues. While Putin is far from possessing almighty internet warfare, the situation has complex implications for Russian society and democracy.

About the Speaker: Leonid Volkov is a Russian politician and IT-expert. He oversees regional political operations, IT and electoral campaigns for the leader of Russian opposition Alexey Navalny. Previously Volkov served as campaign manager and chief of staff for Alexei Navalny’s 2013 mayoral campaign for Moscow, as well as for Navalny’s attempt to get registered for the 2018 presidential election. Leonid Volkov is a former deputy of the Yekaterinburg City Duma. He has over 20 years of experience as an IT professional, running and consulting several of Russia’s largest software firms. Since 2016 Leonid is active also as founder and chairman of the Internet Protection Society, a NGO focused on internet freedom and digital rights in Russia.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/Se8UcB6HFNo

About this Event: Based on his recent experience in Kyiv, Ambassador Taylor will evaluate current US policy toward Ukraine and make recommendations for future initiatives.  He will argue that now is the time to re-engage with Ukraine to strengthen US-Ukrainian relations and boost US security.  He will address the two main threats to the Zelenskyy administration — the Kremlin and corrupt oligarchs.

About the Speaker:

Ambassador William B. Taylor served as the Chargé d'Affaires at the US embassy in Kyiv from June 2019 to January 2020. Previously, he served as the executive vice president at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the special coordinator for Middle East Transitions in the U.S. State Department during the Arab Spring.  He served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.

He also served as the U.S. government’s representative to the Mideast Quartet, which facilitated the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, led by Special Envoy James Wolfensohn in Jerusalem. Prior to this assignment, he served in Baghdad as Director, Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (2004-2005), in Kabul as coordinator of USG and international assistance to Afghanistan (2002-2003) and in Washington with the rank of ambassador as coordinator of USG assistance to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1992-2002).

Ambassador Taylor spent five years in Brussels as the Special Deputy Defense Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, William Taft and earlier directed an in-house Defense Department think tank at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.  He served for five years on the staff of Senator Bill Bradley and earlier directed the Department of Energy’s Office of Emergency Preparedness.

In the Army, he fought in Vietnam as a rifle platoon leader and combat company commander in the 101st Airborne Division and flew reconnaissance missions along the West German border with Czechoslovakia in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Open to Stanford affiliates only. 
Stanford identification will be checked at doors. 

This event is co-sponsored with Stanford’s Center for South Asia

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/Wc3mFRw9an8

About the Speaker:

Hina Rabbani Khar is the 26th Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Twice elected Member of Parliament. She is currently serving as Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Pakistan. Hina Rabbani Khar’s term as Foreign Minister is best remembered for the ‘Regional Pivot’ to Pakistan’s foreign policy. As the 26th Foreign Minister of Pakistan, she concentrated on building ties with Pakistan’s immediate neighbours. A major policy shift was taken by starting the journey of normalization of trade relations with India. Similarly, with Afghanistan, Pakistan pursued a policy of reaching out to all political parties, and ethnicities. Pakistan also pursued an active role in an Afghan led and Afghan owned process of reconciliation. In a difficult time of increasing economic sanctions Pakistan pursued to cement ties with Iran. 

Hina Rabbani Khar has also served as Minister of State for Economic Affairs for 4 years and Minister of State for Finance & Economic Affairs for another 2 Years. During these years, she was the lead person in Pakistan’s economic diplomacy, both bilateral and multilateral. 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/liv27EFoFWA

About this Event: The phenomenon of “fake news” has become a highly political issue not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world. In this talk, we focus on the politics of fighting disinformation in post-communist Central Europe, specifically in the Czech Republic. In the Czech public debate, the problem of disinformation started to be treated by many politicians, journalists, and analysts as an existential threat, as they see the spread of “fake news” as a part of Russia-led hybrid warfare waged against the West, aiming at undermining the trust in the current political system and its elites. We explain the emergence and wide-spread popularity of this military narrative around disinformation and suggest that using the language of war in this context is a highly political move, which changes our way of thinking about the problem of disinformation, gives room for repressive solutions rather than civilian ones, and by itself threatens the fundamental values of a democratic society more than paid Russian “trolls”. We argue instead for understanding the problem of disinformation as a part of a broader condition of “information chaos”, characterized by sociotechnical transformations of news production and consumption, occasional malign interference by state- as well as non-state actors, all this taking place in the context of growing inequalities and cultural backlash against traditional elites in Western societies.

About the Speaker:

Dagmar Rychnovská is Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Techno-science and societal transformation group at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna. She holds a PhD in International Relations (Charles University in Prague), an MA in Comparative and International Studies (ETH Zurich and University of Zurich), and an LLM in Law and Politics of International Security (VU University Amsterdam). Her research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, security studies, and science and technology studies. Her current research explores security controversies in research and innovation governance, with a focus on bioweapons, biotechnologies, and biobanks.

Michal Smetana is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University, as well as Research Associate and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, and Coordinator of the newly established Peace Research Center Prague. He holds a PhD in International Relations from Charles University in Prague, and he was previously a Visiting Research Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). His main research interests lie at the intersection of security studies, international relations, and political psychology, with a specific focus on issues related to nuclear weapons in world politics, arms control and disarmament, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, deterrence theory, and norms and deviance in international affairs. His most recent articles have been published in International Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of International Relations and Development, International Relations, Asia Europe Journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, The Nonproliferation Review, and other academic and policy journals. He is the author of Nuclear Deviance: Stigma Politics and the Rules of the Nonproliferation Game (Palgrave Macmillan) and co-editor of Global Nuclear Disarmament: Strategic, Political, and Regional Perspectives (Routledge) and Indirect Coercion: Triangular Strategies and International Conflict (Charles University Press). 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/yIthWPC99bI

About this Event: Since the United States left the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, the Trump administration has pursued a maximum economic pressure campaign toward Iran. The U.S. use of sanctions has gone far beyond what previous administrations have done to try to change Iran's policies, targeting large swathes of the Iranian economy, high-ranking Iranian government officials, and threatening other countries if they do not curtail their own private sector's activities with Iran. The economic consequences of these measures, particularly for Iran's domestic economy, Iran's ability to procure food and medicine from abroad, and for Iran's flagship energy industry, have been profoundly disruptive. The U.S. economic pressure strategy has also had direct impacts on the global shipping and energy industries. To better understand the impacts of the current U.S. strategy toward Iran, Elizabeth Rosenberg will discuss how the Trump administration has used unprecedented economic coercion, and how U.S. partners and adversaries have responded. She will focus on what role sanctions are likely to play going forward and whether they will be used now as a form of deescalation or escalation in U.S.-Iran tensions, which are particularly heightened following the U.S. killing of Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani. 

About the Speaker: Elizabeth Rosenberg is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. In this capacity, she publishes and speaks on the national security and foreign policy implications of the use of sanctions and economic statecraft as well as energy market shifts. Current geographic areas of focus include Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and Venezuela. She has testified before Congress on an array of banking and trade issues, and on energy geopolitics and markets topics. She is widely quoted by leading media outlets in the United States and abroad.

From May 2009 through September 2013, Ms. Rosenberg served as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, to the Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, and then to the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. In these senior roles, she helped to develop and implement financial and energy sanctions. Key initiatives she helped to oversee include the tightening of global sanctions on Iran, the launching of new, comprehensive sanctions against Libya and Syria and modification of Burma sanctions in step with normalization of diplomatic relations. She also helped to formulate anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist and counter-proliferation financing policy and oversee financial regulatory enforcement activities.

Prior to her service in the U.S. government Ms. Rosenberg was an energy policy correspondent at Argus Media in Washington D.C., analyzing U.S and Middle Eastern energy policy, regulation and trading. She spoke and published extensively on OPEC, strategic reserves, energy sanctions and national security policy, oil and natural gas investment and production, and renewable fuels.

Ms. Rosenberg received an MA in Near Eastern Studies from New York University and a BA in Politics and Religion from Oberlin College.

Outside CNAS, Elizabeth Rosenberg is providing exclusive advice on foreign policy and national security as an informal advisor to the Elizabeth Warren campaign.

This event is co-sponsored by the European Security Initiative

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/1rkTwxnf2Fg

About this Event: Russia has employed the semi-state Wagner Group security company in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic, Libya, Mozambique, and Mali (so far). Wagner is tightly connected to Russia's military intelligence organization (the GRU), and partially funded by one of Vladimir Putin's cronies, Evgeny Prigozhin, who also uses it for private duties. So why is Wagner technically illegal (and even unconstitutional) in Russia? Its use is less costly in budgetary and political terms than using the uniformed military, and it provides (limited) plausible deniability for Russian actions. But it is also unclear what Russia wants from impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Using the best available evidence, this presentation explores these mysteries.

About the Speaker: Kimberly Marten is a professor of political science (and the department chair) at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a faculty member of Columbia’s Harriman Institute and Saltzman Institute. She has written four books, including Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States (Cornell, 2012), and Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton, 1993) which received the Marshall Shulman Prize. The Council on Foreign Relations (where she is a member) published her special report, Reducing Tensions between Russia and NATO (2017). She is a frequent media commentator, and appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. She earned her A.B. at Harvard and Ph.D. at Stanford, and was a CISAC post-doc.