Abstract: This talk examines ideologies of knowledge and expertise in the global governance of nuclear technology through an ethnographic study of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Department of Safeguards. It considers how changes in the way that the IAEA carries out international nuclear safeguards have become the subject of increasing controversy in the last 15 years. This controversy provides fertile ground for understanding the role of knowledge and the functioning of bureaucracy in international governance. I will show that the critiques addressed against the new safeguards system reveal not only political alignments and struggles for power, but also uncover global and regional assumptions about how a technical bureaucracy is supposed to produce knowledge. In closing, I will propose how nuclear safeguards might be adapted to a changing security environment without threatening the IAEA's expert authority or politically discriminating against states.

About the Speaker: Anna M. Weichselbraun is a Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. She received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago in August 2016. Anna's dissertation, based on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork and multi-archival research, investigates how nuclear safeguards inspectors, bureaucrats, and diplomats at the IAEA negotiate the international and institutional boundaries of politics and technology in their working lives. She asks how organizational products such as bureaucratic procedures, technical inspection reports, policy papers, and official diplomatic statements contribute to the logical ordering of technocratic expertise within the IAEA. She is especially interested in how individuals at international organizations communicate across different epistemic paradigms, and how particular types of knowledge become recognized as authoritative and legitimate. In addition to revising her dissertation into a book manuscript, she is also conducting preliminary research on networks of nonproliferation experts and their spheres of influence.

Abstract: In international politics, the division between allies and adversaries appears quite clear. For example, it is conventional wisdom that North Korea is China’s ally and South Korea is the United States’ ally. In proliferation literature, the main catalyst for nuclear proliferation is threats from adversaries, while an ally’s nuclear umbrella mitigates the threat and willingness to proliferate. However, in reality the division between a credible ally and threatening foe is less clear-cut. Contrary to conventional wisdom, security threats alone do not trigger the decision of an ally to develop its indigenous nuclear weapons program. In other words, security could be a necessary condition for wanting the nuclear bomb, but it is not a sufficient condition for starting an indigenous program. Rather, the sense of abandonment or clashes of national interests between two friendly states triggers a state to pursue an indigenous weapons program. Using newly available declassified documents to conduct process tracing, and comparing the decision-making in the cases of China and South Korea, I show that Chinese and South Korean nuclear weapons programs were triggered not by their foes, the U.S and North Korea, respectively, but by their friends, the Soviet Union and the U.S. 

About the Speaker: Jooeun Kim is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Predoctoral fellow at CISAC for 2016-17. She is completing her PhD in international relations at Georgetown University’s Department of Government. She studies credibility, alliance management, and nuclear proliferation within military alliances.

Her dissertation examines the credibility of a patron ally as the source of a protégé ally’s nuclear decisions, through analyzing allies’ behaviors during international crises.

She completed an MA in Government at Georgetown University, an MA in International Affairs at George Washington University, and a BA in Political Science at Waseda University, Japan. She speaks Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.

Outside of her dissertation writing, she is a certified yoga instructor and enjoys sculling on the Potomac River. 

Abstract: This presentation is adapted from two book chapters.  The first one published in 2007 is “Transforming U.S. Intelligence: The Digital Dimension” and the second chapter published in 2009 is “Vaults, Mirrors and Masks: Rediscovering US Counterintelligence - Counterintelligence Too Narrowly Practiced.”  Additionally, material from recent DSB and NSB studies is included:  “Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat” and “A Review of U.S. Navy Cyber Defense Capabilities”.  Communications technologies have transformed the way information is created, stored, processed, viewed, and transmitted. But the same technologies have provided our adversaries with the tools for attacking and exploiting our infrastructure and military systems. The U.S. has long operated under the assumption that our critical systems would be secure if we applied current Information Assurance (IA) practices. The reality is that a sophisticated offense easily outmatches the capability of a defensive organization to protect its critical Information Technology (IT) systems.  This briefing attempts to convey the rationale behind this assertion. The presentation represents my views and is specifically not intended to represent the views of any organization with which I’m affiliated.

About the Speaker: Mr. Gosler is a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.  He is engaged in various DOD and Intelligence Community advisory boards such as the Defense Science Board.

His previous experience includes a 33 year career (1979-2013) at Sandia National Laboratories. His early contributions included red-teaming both cryptographic and nuclear weapon systems.  In 1989, he served as Sandia’s first Visiting Scientist to NSA.  In 1993, he established and directed the Vulnerability Assessments Program. From 1996-2001, he was on a Special Leave of Absence from Sandia.  After returning to Sandia, he became Sandia’s sixth lab Fellow.

In 1996, he entered the Senior Intelligence Service at CIA as the Director of the Clandestine Information Technology Office.  This office integrated targeting, analysis, technology development, and technical/human operations.

Additionally, he served as a Naval Reserve Officer from 1975-2003. 

His awards include: Lockheed Martin’s NOVA award, National Intelligence Medal of Achievement, DONOVAN award, Intelligence Medal of Merit, Director of Central Intelligence Director’s award, and the Legion of Merit.

Mr. Gosler earned a BS degree in Physics/Mathematics and a MS degree in Mathematics.

Abstract: This paper develops a theoretical approach to norm resistance and defiance in international affairs. Conventional models of norm dynamics (e.g. Finnemore and Sikkink’s “norm life-cycle”, Keck and Sikkink’s “boomerang model”; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink’s “spiral model”) focus mainly on diffusion and compliance, failing to account for resistance to global norms. I argue that transnational advocacy and pressure can backfire, resulting in further violations, the promotion of counter-norms, and repression of civil society. Drawing from social psychology, sociology, and criminology, the paper presents an alternative model of norm socialization, whereby attempts to “shame” states provoke defiance, or the increase in incidence or commitment to a particular norm offending behavior by a shamed regime, caused by a proud, shameless reaction against the shaming agent. Defiance unfolds through domestic and international logics that incentivize elites to violate international norms for political gain. In the long term, defiance can attach oppositional norms to collective identity, transforming domestic and international normative orders. I apply the theoretical framework to an empirical case study of the sexuality rights norm and its contestation by Uganda, Nigeria, and Russia.

About the speaker: Rochelle Terman is a political scientist (Ph.D., University of California Berkeley, 2016) studying international norms and identity using computational and mixed methods. Her dissertation / book project examines the backlash and unintended consequences of international “naming and shaming” campaigns, especially around women’s rights in the Muslim World. Previous work on the tension between Islamophobia and feminism was recently published in Theory, Culture & Society. She teaches computational social science in a variety of capacities.

Abstract: In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama had a very specific agenda to revise and update the U.S. nuclear posture. However, there were many elements in his program which later disappeared, or which were modified by the time his Nuclear Posture Review came out in April 2010. Over the course of the 18-month review process, the option to implement a no-first use policy and the idea of an unconditional negative security assurance were both examined. A no-first use policy would mean that the U.S. would never use nuclear weapons first, only in response to a nuclear attack by its opponents; an unconditional negative security assurance would mean that the U.S. would not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states. Both of these policies could have significantly reduced the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. posture, and they could have also limited the number of adversaries and contingencies that nuclear weapons need to cover. Although these goals were in line with President Obama’s nuclear agenda, the administration decided to adopt a careful alternative in both cases. My paper investigates why President Obama agreed to these alternatives, and the strategic implications of these policies.

About the Speaker: Dr. Anna Péczeli is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. She is also a research fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Defence Studies (National University of Public Service – Budapest, Hungary), where she is currently on sabbatical leave. Previously she was an assistant lecturer at Corvinus University of Budapest, an adjunct fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, a visiting research fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, and a visiting Fulbright fellow at the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC. Dr. Péczeli earned a Ph.D. degree in International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest, her research focused on the Obama administration’s nuclear strategy – the review of nuclear guidance, and the extent to which the legacies of the Cold War still define U.S. nuclear planning.

Dr. Péczeli is a member of the G7 Berlin Group – International Coalition for CBRN Security Culture; the European Defence and Security Network (sponsored by the European Parliament); the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI); the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium; and chair of the Executive Board of the International Student/Young Pugwash (ISYP) group.

Abstract: We all know that we face cyberrisks everyday, from destructive attacks on our critical infrastructure to the theft of intellectual property. Yet countries and companies are woefully behind in making the investments necessary to secure themselves and withstand potential attacks. How should we move forward? Given the range of cyberthreats facing the United States and its allies and partners we should focus on (1) securing our most important missions and operations and (2) on planning for the certainty of some technological disruption. The talk begins by presenting a series of assumptions about the limits and opportunities for security planners in mitigating risks (cyber and otherwise), and then outlines strategic recommendations for governments and companies to improve their cybersecuity posture. It explores elements of effective cyber strategy; the role of leaders in managing cybersecurity across large organizations; the future of public-private partnerships for collective defense and contingency response; and the dark but necessary nature of resiliency planning. 

About the Speaker: Jonathan Reiber is currently Senior Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. A writer, speaker, and security researcher, Mr. Reiber held a number of senior advisory positions in the Obama Administration within the U.S. Department of Defense. He was also the principal author of the U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Strategy (2015).

From January 2013 to September 2015, he served as Chief Strategy Officer for Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. As Chief Strategy Officer, he advised the Pentagon leadership and led strategic initiatives across the cyber policy portfolio, to include strategic planning; key international, interagency, and industry partnerships; and strategic communications. In addition to serving as Chief Strategy Officer, he was also the Executive Secretary of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Cyber Deterrence.

Earlier in the Obama Administration, Mr. Reiber served as Special Assistant and Speechwriter to the United States' Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. Ashton B. Carter, and previously as Special Assistant to the United States' Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Dr. James N. Miller. In both positions he focused on strategy, Middle East security, Asia-Pacific security, cyber policy, and public communications.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Reiber was Research Manager at Ergo, a consulting and intelligence firm focusing on emerging markets. At Ergo he coordinated scenario planning exercises and deep-dive geopolitical analysis, advising Fortune 500 companies and other organizations on the political and social affairs of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Earlier in his career he served with the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Sudan, as a policy advisor to the Episcopal Church of the United States, and as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow in South Africa, Italy, India, Turkey and Cyprus, where he studied the role of religion in political and social change.

Mr. Reiber is a graduate of Middlebury College, where he studied Religion, and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he focused his studies on international security and U.S. diplomatic history and served as Editor-in-Chief of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.

At Berkeley Mr. Reiber focuses his writing and research on human resilience, national contingency planning, and cybersecurity in the Asia-Pacific region. He regularly advises companies and governments on cybersecurity, strategy, and geopolitical risk. 

- This talk is co-sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) -

Abstract: Financial markets expose individuals to the broader economy. Does participation in financial markets also lead citizens to re-evaluate the costs of conflict, their views on politics and even their voting decisions? Prior to the 2015 Israeli elections, we randomly assigned financial assets from Israeli and Palestinian companies to likely voters and gave them incentives to actively trade for up to seven weeks. Exposure to financial markets systematically shifted vote choices and increased support for peace initiatives. We delineate the mechanisms for this change and show that financial market exposure led to learning and reevaluation of the economic costs of conflict.

Abstract:   There is a state of high anxiety about this year's election being "hacked" or "rigged". The media began speculating about the possibility when emails were stolen from the Democratic National Committee and, later, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, allegedly by state-sponsored hackers. Additionally, Donald Trump has been predicting that the election will be "rigged", worrying many of his supporters. New voter ID requirements have been imposed in many states in response to allegations of "voter fraud", but voting rights advocates worry that these requirements will disenfranchise many voters. In this talk, I will attempt a rational evaluation of election security risks and propose what we should do to address them.

About the Speaker: David L. Dill is the Donald E. Knuth Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he has been on the faculty for 29 years. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been working on policy issues in voting technology since 2003. He is the founder of VerifiedVoting.org, whose mission is to safeguard elections in the digital age, and continues to serve as a board director in that organization.  He was a principle investigator in the National Science Foundation's "ACCURATE" voting tresearch center center from 2006 to 2011. In 2004, he received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Pioneer Award" for spearheading and nurturing the popular movement for integrity and transparency in modern elections."

Abstract: New defense technologies raise complex questions about states’ abilities to project force, consequences for civilian casualties, and reactions by foreign leaders and publics. Yet many technologies become normalized and legitimated, whereas others are banned. This paper seeks to account for the failure of strong anti-submarine norms to emerge after World War I, in the process legitimizing submarines as a weapon in World War II and beyond. In the First World War, Germany’s submarine commerce warfare was a major point of contention between the great powers, which sought to strategically deploy and manipulate rules and norms of warfare in response to this new technology. However, despite widespread condemnation of Germany’s “barbaric” practices and calls by Great Britain to abolish the weapon entirely, postwar conferences failed to prohibit or effectively regulate submarine warfare. Rather, the submarine has become an accepted defense technology. I argue that Germany demonstrated the utility of submarines as an offensive weapon and the limits of applying existing rules to their use during the war, with consequences for norm creation and cooperation after the war. The paper suggests lessons for current policy debates, as well as insights into the political processes behind the development of norms of war.

About the Speaker: Dr. Jennifer L. Erickson is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. She is also an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Boston College (on sabbatical in 2016-2017). Her current research project deals with new defense technologies and the creation of laws and norms of war, examining cases on World War I, nuclear weapons after World War II, and new weapons in the contemporary era. Her book, Dangerous Trade: Conventional Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation (Columbia UP 2015), explains states’ commitment to and compliance with new humanitarian arms trade norms, articulated in the UN Arms Trade Treaty and related multilateral initiatives. She has additional ongoing research projects dealing with sanctions and arms embargoes.