Abstract: Recent tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the South China Sea have raised concerns that provocative actions, such as the use of insulting rhetoric or military force, might trigger unwanted escalation and embroil the United States in a costly war. The international relations literature, however, is ill equipped to explain these escalatory dangers of provocation. There is no theory of crisis escalation that explains the escalatory mechanisms of provocation and there is no clear conception of what it means to provoke. This paper develops a novel theory of provocation that explains how provocative rhetoric and military actions can distinctively lead to unwanted crisis escalation and conflict. This escalatory logic of provocation can potentially explain a host of important crisis-related behavior other than explosive outcomes, such as how a relatively minor issue becomes salient and intractable to resolve, and how a state that was once willing to concede a stake in dispute stands firm to risk war. To further clarify the distinctive dangers of this logic of provocation, the paper contrasts three alternative logics of unwanted escalation that are referred to as an “accidental escalation logic,” a “security dilemma logic,” and a “crisis bargaining logic.” The overlooked importance of the logic of provocation is then demonstrated in a case study of the Sino-India War of 1962 which uses original language sources. The conclusion draws implications for coercive diplomacy.

Speaker Bio: Hyun-Binn Cho is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. His research interests are in crisis escalation, coercive diplomacy, and security in the Asia-Pacific, with a focus on China and the Korean peninsula. Binn received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018. Previously, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University, and a visiting doctoral student at the School of International Studies at Peking University. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese, fluent in Korean, and holds an M.A. in Political Science from Columbia University, an M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and a B.Sc. in Government and Economics from the London School of Economics. 

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*Event co-hosted with the Middle Eastern Initiative

Speaker Bio: Wendy R. Sherman is Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.  In January 2019, Ambassador Sherman will join Harvard Kennedy School as a professor of the practice in public leadership and director of the School’s Center for Public Leadership.  She serves on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the Atlantic Council, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group.  Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama.  Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was Vice Chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, Counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright and Special Advisor to President Clinton and Policy Coordinator on North Korea, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher.   Early in her career, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S Senate and served as Director of EMILY’S list.  She served on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, was Chair of the Board of Directors of Oxfam America and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism.  Ambassador Sherman is the author of Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence published by PublicAffairs, September 2018.

Abstract: During the international negotiations that resulted in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Ambassador Wendy R. Sherman led the team of American diplomats representing the United States. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the agreement is formerly know, was not perfect, but it did offer the best possible assurance that Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon. But in May of this year, President Trump made the decision to pull out of the deal—a move that will go down as one of the worst foreign policy blunders in U.S. history, according to Ambassador Sherman. Here, the Ambassador will discuss how the Iran nuclear deal came to be—and why we will all miss it.

Abstract: Many believe that President Donald J. Trump lacks a coherent worldview informing his foreign policy decisions. Critics of the Trump administration's foreign policy point to the president's erratic behavior, early-morning tweets, and bluster as proof of underlying incoherence in Trump's approach to the world. But this sells Trump short. Whether one approves of Trump's foreign policy or not, it is not driven by pure instinct. Rather, it is rooted in deeply held views about the world, including an obsession with the security of the homeland, beliefs about the threats posed by terrorism, immigration, and unfair trade, and a conviction that the alliances and international institutions that the United States helped construct after World War II are fundamentally rigged against American interests. Trump has subscribed to many of these ideas for three decades.

The paper discusses the concept of grand strategy, outlines the core ideas defining Trump's worldview and situates them within longstanding traditions in American foreign policy. It then assesses how Trump’s grand strategic beliefs have shaped his foreign policy as president. 

Speaker bio: Colin H. Kahl is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the inaugural Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor, by courtesy, in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. He is also a Strategic Consultant to the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

From October 2014 to January 2017, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In that position, he served as a senior advisor to President Obama and Vice President Biden on all matters related to U.S. foreign policy and national security affairs, and represented the Office of the Vice President as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. From February 2009 to December 2011, Dr. Kahl was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon. In this capacity, he served as the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and six other countries in the Levant and Persian Gulf region. In June 2011, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service by Secretary Robert Gates. 

From 2007 to 2017 (when not serving in the U.S. government), Dr. Kahl was an assistant and associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From 2007 to 2009 and 2012 to 2014, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonpartisan Washington, DC-based think tank. From 2000 to 2007, he was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. In 2005-2006, Dr. Kahl took leave from the University of Minnesota to serve as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked on issues related to counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and responses to failed states. In 1997-1998, he was a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

Current research projects include a book analyzing American grand strategy in the Middle East in the post-9/11 era. A second research project focuses on the implications of emerging technologies on strategic stability.

He has published numerous articles on international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for CNAS.

His previous research analyzed the causes and consequences of violent civil and ethnic conflict in developing countries, focusing particular attention on the demographic and natural resource dimensions of these conflicts. His book on the subject, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World, was published by Princeton University Press in 2006, and related articles and chapters have appeared in International Security, the Journal of International Affairs, and various edited volumes.

Dr. Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

NOTE: Seminar room changed to Oksenberg Conference Room

Encina Hall, 3rd floor 

This is an APARC-CISAC joint event.

With all eyes on the upcoming Inter-Korean Summit and the planned Kim-Trump Summit, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of how the North’s nuclear program evolved and the effects of diplomacy and other governmental actions had on its development.

About the speakers:

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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 the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) from 2007-2012. From 1986 to 1997, he served as the fifth Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction, and nuclear security.

Hecker’s current research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapons policy, nuclear security, and the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy. Over the past 25 years, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials.

Hecker’s research projects at CISAC focus on reducing the risks of nuclear terrorism worldwide and the challenges of nuclear India, North Korea, Pakistan, and the nuclear aspirations of Iran. 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.

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Robert L. Carlin is a Visiting Scholar at CISAC with a forty-plus year history of working on North Korea issues. From both in and out of government, he has been following North Korea since 1974 and has made numerous trips there.

Carlin served as senior policy advisor at the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) from 2002-2006, leading numerous delegations to the North for talks and observing developments in-country during the long trips that entailed.

From 1989-2002, Carlin was chief of the Northeast Asia Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State. During much of that period, he also served as Senior Policy Advisor to the Special Ambassador for talks with North Korea, and took part in all phases of US-DPRK negotiations from 1992-2000. From 1971-1989, Carlin was an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he received the Exceptional Analyst Award from the Director of Central Intelligence. 

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Abstract: Must we, should we, possess a Doomsday Machine?  For over half a century there have been two of these in the world: the U.S. and the Russian strategic nuclear systems, tightly coupled together with their respective warning systems, each poised to escalate armed conflict with the other or to preemptively launch a first strike based on strategic or tactical warning that may be a false alarm such as has occurred repeatedly.  Environmental scientists in the last decade have strongly confirmed what was first warned in 1983, that each of these alert systems, aimed as they are at hundreds of targets in or near cities, constitutes a Doomsday Machine.  Firestorms in the burning cities would loft hundreds of millions of tons of smoke and black soot into the global stratosphere--where it would not rain out and would remain for more than a decade--blocking 70% of sunlight, creating ice age conditions on earth and killing all harvest worldwide, starving nearly humans to death.  Neither the Defense Department nor the National Academy of Sciences has ever studied the actual effects, including smoke and resulting famine, to be expected from the existing plans of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for general nuclear war.  Such a study would almost surely show that China's "minimum deterrence" and no-first-use policy is dramatically less dangerous to the future of humanity, on the way to the more distant goal of universal abolition of nuclear weapons. 

Speaker bio: Daniel Ellsberg is the author of three books: The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017), Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers(2002) Risk, Ambiguity and Decision (2001) and Papers on the War (1971). Ellsberg first specialized in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making in the 1950s. As a high-level defense analyst,Ellsberg participated in developing operational guidance for U.S. nuclear war planning during the Kennedy administration. Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has been a lecturer, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful U.S. interventions abroad and the urgent need for patriotic whistleblowing. In December 2006, Ellsberg was awarded the 2006 Right Livelihood Award, in Stockholm, Sweden, “. . .  for putting peace and truth first, at considerable personal risk, and dedicating his life to inspiring others to follow his example.” He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1962.

Abstract: International cooperation has long been founded on the idea that securing a common factual understanding of things in the world is a prerequisite for deciding how to act in concert. However, in recent decades the very possibility of such agreement on the facts has come under attack both empirically, through persistent technical controversies around issues such as climate change and crop biotechnology, and theoretically, from demonstrations that facts and norms are co-produced to build alternate, coexisting worlds. The divergent self-understandings of these worlds, in which epistemic and normative order are interdependent, cannot be bridged by simply insisting on a singular “reality” that must be accepted by all.

In this talk, I use the longue durée case of international biotech regulation to suggest a different basis for long-term cooperation. Using epistemic subsidiarity rather than harmonization as the basis for making progress, I suggest how biotechnology risks might be handled in three regimes of subsidiarity: coexistence, cosmopolitanism, and constitutionalism. The advantages and limits of each regime will be exemplified and reflected upon.

Speaker bio: Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. A pioneer in her field, she has authored more than 120 articles and chapters and is author or editor of more than 15 books, including The Fifth Branch, Science at the Bar, Designs on Nature, and The Ethics of Invention. Her work explores the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and policy of modern democracies. She founded and directs the STS Program at Harvard; previously, she was founding chair of the STS Department at Cornell. She has held distinguished visiting appointments at leading universities in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the US. Jasanoff served on the AAAS Board of Directors and as President of the Society for Social Studies of Science. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ehrenkreuz from the Government of Austria, membership in the Royal Danish Academy, and the Humboldt Foundation’s Reimar-Lüst award. She holds AB, JD, and PhD degrees from Harvard, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Twente and Liège.

Abstract: In November 1998, ‘mujahideen’ warriors climbed the heights above Kargil in Indian held Kashmir, crossed the Line of Control, and occupied Indian military posts. These ‘mujahideens’ were really Pakistani soldiers clad in civilian garb on a secret mission. This was the beginning of the war in Kargil between two nuclear neighbors (India and Pakistan). This study critically evaluates the relationship between ‘learning’ and risk-prone behavior of Pakistan in the midst of technological maturation. Should we be confident and rely on nuclear deterrence and believe that Kargil-like crisis will never happen again? This talk will explain the story of Kargil from a theoretical lens of nuclear learning, demonstrating how difficult it has been for Pakistan to learn appropriate lessons given the firewalls of convictions, cover-ups, and confirmation biases. 

Speaker bio: Sannia Abdullah is a political scientist. Her doctoral thesis is on nuclear learning in South Asia with special reference to India-Pakistan crisis behavior. She is associated with Quaid-i-Azam University in the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies as a permanent faculty member. At CISAC, she is working on her book manuscript focusing on the evolution of Pakistan's nuclear behavior and its deterrence logic. Prior to joining CISAC, she was a visiting research scholar at Cooperative Monitory Center, Sandia National Labs (NM) where her research focuses primarily nonproliferation issues in South Asia. In 2016, she presented her research at Atlantic Council on Pakistan’s pursuit of full spectrum deterrence strategy and posture, conceptual nuances, and implied ramifications and at ISAC-ISSS, Annual Conference, University of Notre Dame. She was invited to deliver lectures at the USAFA on Pakistan’s deterrence stability and maturing force posture. She expressed her academic views at different forums including Pentagon, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Congressional Budget Office and in some Think Tanks in Washington D.C. She had been a Nonproliferation Fellow at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), in Monterey and a SWAMOS alumni of Columbia University (2011). Since 2010, Dr. Abdullah has been part of several Track-II dialogues and had an opportunity to learn decision-making trends through her regular participations in Table Top Exercises exploring escalation control and deterrence stability in South Asia.

Abstract: Clay fired bricks are a primary building material used in the rapidly expanding construction sector across South Asia. These bricks are primarily manufactured by small enterprises using inefficient, highly polluting coal-fired kilns. The black carbon and the greenhouse gases emitted by brick kilns across South Asia is comparable to the global radiative forcing of the entire US passenger car fleet. The pollution generated by these brick kilns also affect human health. In Dhaka, Bangladesh brick kilns contribute 40% of the ambient particulate matter during winter and are estimated to result in 5000 adult deaths each year. In addition, the coercive collection of topsoil as part of clay mining undermines agricultural productivity in settings of high poverty and malnutrition.

This talk will discuss why bricks are manufactured in Bangladesh using an approach that is so damaging to the environment and to public health. It will explore combined technical, financial and political strategies to transform the sector.

Speaker bio:  Prof. Luby studied philosophy and earned a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Creighton University. Prof. Luby earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Rochester-Strong Memorial Hospital. He studied epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Prof. Luby's former positions include leading the Epidemiology Unit of the Community Health Sciences Department at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan for 5 years and working as a Medical Epidemiologist in the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exploring causes and prevention of diarrheal disease in settings where diarrhea is a leading cause of childhood death.  Immediately prior to his current appointment, Prof. Luby served for 8 years at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), where he directed the Centre for Communicable Diseases. Prof. Luby was seconded from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and was the Country Director for CDC in Bangladesh.

During his over 20 years of public health work in low income countries, Prof. Luby frequently encountered political and governance difficulties undermining efforts to improve public health. His work at FSI engages him with a community of scholars who provide ideas and approaches to understand and address these critical barriers.

Abstract: The quotation in the title is taken from the memoirs of Boris Chertok, a leading Soviet missile designer.  In my talk I will examine significant shifts in Soviet thinking about nuclear war and military strategy in the 1960s and 1970s and discuss some of the implications of those shifts for strategic stability in the 1980s.  I will also explore the influence of the McNamara Pentagon on Soviet military strategy and Soviet thinking about deterrence and war-fighting.    

Speaker bio: David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.