Abstract: Among the key knowledge-claims that frame modern nuclear discourse is an oft-repeated assertion that the 1986 Chernobyl disaster caused (or will cause) “no more than 4000 deaths”. This number — attributed to the 2006 report of the ‘Chernobyl Forum,’ a group helmed by the IAEA — is implicit, to some degree, in almost all policy discussions of radiological hazards: shaping understandings of everything from Fukushima to putative ‘dirty-bombs’. At the same time, however, it is ambiguous and contested on a scale that few other scientific pronouncements can match. The models from which it is derived contain a spectrum of complex assumptions and judgments, small variations in which allow for radically divergent, but equally ‘scientific,’ interpretations of the same data. Many of these interpretations hinge are inherently political in nature, in the sense that they involve questions with no inherently correct answers. This talk will look closely at the Chernobyl Forum’s finding, and its relationship to the data and research from which it is derived. By highlighting some of the choices implicit in the 4000 deaths assertion, the talk will articulate some of the politics it embodies: illuminating both the nature of the figure itself, and the IAEA’s wider relationship to nuclear risk discourse.

About the Speaker: John Downer received his PhD in 2007, from Cornell University’s Department of Science and Technology Studies. On graduating he worked at the London School of Economics’ ESRC Centre For Analysis of Risk and Regulation, and then Stanford University where he lectured for the Science, Technology and Society program and worked at CISAC as a Zuckerman- and then Stanton- Fellow. On returning to the UK in late 2012 he joined the faculty at the University of Bristol’s department of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS), where he is affiliated with the Global Insecurities Centre. His publications look at a range of questions relating to technology regulation, risk management, and the structural causes (and consequences) of disaster in complex, safety-critical systems. Primarily using case studies from the civil aviation and nuclear spheres, and drawing heavily on the STS literature, they explore issues pertaining to the limits of knowledge and expertise: the inherent ambiguities of formal assessments and the policy implications that arise from understanding those ambiguities.

Abstract: The Army is in a period of Transition and Transformation, where the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan are supposed to be over or winding down, in theory enabling the force to rebalance and refocus our efforts.  Though we have been here before with many post-war and conflict periods, the Army and DoD are in actuality presented with possibly the most complex set of challenges and threats to the Army’s mission and to national security as a whole this nation has experienced.  While the Budget Control Act is currently preventing any strategic planning for operations, training, personnel forecasting and management, and R&D/Acquisition investment, all key factors for input into any strategy, the myriad threats to national security and in global competition are on the rise.  Resources and focus are down; threats and competition are going up.  China’s rapid development and matching need for resources, such as those in Africa and the South China Seas; a reemerging Russia, bent on disrupting NATO efforts to expand while simultaneously persisting in efforts to expand their reach in the Arctic and the Middle East and disrupt U.S. interests where it can in the “Grey Zone” of conflict; an unstable and possibly nuclear weapons-capable North Korea; an Iran that will be nuclear-armed and looking to maintain Shia hegemony in the Middle East and defeat U.S. interests in the region; and existing and emerging transnational terrorist organizations and states, such as Daesh/ISIL; innovative and widely-available technologies in cyberwarfare, unmanned aerial systems, dynamic shifts in regional and global demographics, information and liberation technology, and even the U.S. national debt round out a list of our current and future national security challenges.

SECDEF Ash Carter has articulated that the DoD is looking for a Third Offset Strategy to keep our unique hedge of capabilities against many, if not all of these threats and conditions.  Unfortunately, neither the First nor Second Offset were devised as such and only came into their being once key technologies and applications were developed against a much smaller list of threats and capabilities than we face now.

The key question is then, how does the Army, with these challenges, limitations, and threats, create opportunities now that assist a Third Offset Strategy?  Or at least, how are we going to fight and win our nations’ wars in the near and far-term?

About the Speaker: COL J.B. Vowell has served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army for over 25 years.  He has had a variety of postings, including Europe, the Pacific, Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan.  He was a combat leader in both the Surge in Iraq, 2006-2007 and the Surge in Afghanistan, 2010-2011.  He currently serves as Army Chief of Staff GEN Mark Milley’s Senior Fellow to Brookings Institution, where he works to assist in the development of policy and strategy with research towards Land Warfare, 2030-2050 and the Human Domain of Battle.

Abstract: Derek Chollet will offer his inside assessment of Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy, tackling the prevailing consensus to argue that Obama has profoundly altered the course of American foreign policy for the better and positioned the United States to lead in the future. His recent book The Long Game combines a deep sense of history with new details and compelling insights into how the Obama administration approached the most difficult global challenges. With the unique perspective of having served at the three national-security power centers during the Obama years – the White House, State Department, and Pentagon – Chollet takes readers behind the scenes of the intense struggles over the most consequential issues: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the meltdown of Syria and the rise of ISIS, the Ukraine crisis and a belligerent Russia, the conflict in Libya, the tangle with Iran, the turbulent relationship with Israel, and the rise of new powers like China. An unflinching, fast-paced account of U.S. foreign policy, The Long Game reveals how Obama has defied the Washington establishment to redefine America’s role in the world, offering important lessons for the next president.

About the Speaker: Derek Chollet served in senior positions during the Obama administration at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon, most recently as the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He is currently a counselor and senior advisor at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Institute of War and Peace Studies, and a regular contributor to Defense One and many other publications. His previous books include America Between Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, coauthored with James Goldgeier, and The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, coedited with Samantha Power. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family.

 - This talk is co-sponsored by the Program in International Relations at Stanford University -

Abstract: Debates about how the United States’ should behave rarely address the central problem. Global challenges – from violent extremism to migration, inequality, climate change, epidemics, and economic or technological disruptions – unfold alongside governments that are increasingly ill fit to meet them. Global connections have generated concerns on scales that do not match the scale of the nation state. Analysts at the National Intelligence Council understand this and claim that the key to global power in the future will be the ability to marry national power and technological advantage with the ability to connect across a broad array of stakeholders. Arguments about engagement and retrenchment focus American strategy only on traditional relationships with other states. The growing body on new or networked governance forms rarely link their claims to a strategy for action. A slate of recent suggestions about how pragmatism might offer useful advice for United States action are built on assumptions that pragmatic action is inherently incremental (and thus of questionable use for meeting global challenges) and that US preferences are clear and fixed (something notably undermined by the fundamentally different visions of “the US” evident in the 2016 presidential campaign). I concur that pragmatism is useful, but it is not purely incremental, nor does it work through fixed preferences. Pragmatic thinkers like William James, John Dewey, and Jane Addams saw the potential for great transformation not simply incremental change. And transformation was possible precisely because they saw preferences as mutable and shaped through social interaction in relation to available means. Building more firmly on these philosophical roots suggests a pragmatic framework that both refocuses analysis of past American success and offers a more productive way to think about the future. 

About the Speaker: Deborah Avant is the Sié Chéou-Kang Chair for International Security and Diplomacy and Director of the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.  Her research (funded by the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation, among others) has focused on civil-military relations, military change, and the politics of controlling violence.  She is author/editor of The New Power Politics: Networks and Transnational Security Governance with Oliver Westerwinter (Oxford University Press, 2016); Who Governs the Globe? with Martha Finnemore and Susan Sell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), The Market for Force: the Consequences of Privatizing Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), and Political Institutions and Military Change: Lessons From Peripheral Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994) , along with articles in such journals as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies, Perspectives on Politics, and Foreign Policy.  Under her leadership the Sié Chéou-Kang Center launched the Private Security Monitor (http://psm.du.edu/), an annotated guide to regulation, data and analyses of global private military and security services, in 2012 and in 2013 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from University of St. Gallen for her research and contribution toward regulating private military and security companies. Professor Avant serves on numerous governing and editorial boards, and is editor in chief of the International Studies Association’s newly launched journal: the Journal of Global Security Studies.  

Abstract: In a world that is increasingly unstable, intelligence services like the American CIA and the United Kingdom's MI6 exist to deliver security. Whether the challenge involves terrorism, cyber-security, or the renewed specter of great power conflict, intelligence agencies mitigate threats and provide decisional advantage to national leaders. But empowered intelligence services require adequate supervision and oversight, which must be about more than the narrow (if still precarious) task of ensuring the legality of covert operations and surveillance activities. 

Global Intelligence Oversight is a comparative investigation of how democratic countries can govern their intelligence services so that they are effective, but operate within frameworks that are acceptable to their people in an interconnected world. The book demonstrates how the institutions that oversee intelligence agencies participate in the protection of national security while safeguarding civil liberties, balancing among competing national interests, and building public trust in inherently secret activities. It does so by analyzing the role of courts and independent oversight bodies as they operate in countries with robust constitutional frameworks and powerful intelligence services. The book also illuminates a new transnational oversight dynamic that is shaping and constraining security services in new ways. It describes how global technology companies and litigation in transnational forums constitute a new form of oversight whose contours are still undefined. As rapid changes in technology bring the world closer together, these forces will complement their more traditional counterparts in ensuring that intelligence activities remain effective, legitimate, and sustainable. To purchase the book, please click here.

About the Speakers: Samuel J. Rascoff is an expert in national security law, and serves as faculty director of the Center on Law and Security. Named a Carnegie Scholar in 2009, Rascoff came to the Law School from the New York City Police Department, where, as director of intelligence analysis, he created and led a team responsible for assessing the terrorist threat to the city. A graduate of Harvard summa cum laude, Oxford with first class honors, and Yale Law School, Rascoff previously served as a law clerk to US Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and to Judge Pierre N. Leval of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was also a special assistant with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Rascoff’s publications include “Presidential Intelligence” (Harvard Law Review); “Counterterrorism and New Deterrence” (NYU Law Review); “Establishing Official Islam? The Law and Strategy of Counter-Radicalization” (Stanford Law Review); “Domesticating Intelligence” (Southern California Law Review), and “The Law of Homegrown (Counter-) Terrorism” (Texas Law Review).

Zachary K. Goldman is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security and an Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Previously, Zachary served as a Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense, and as a policy advisor in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, where he was the subject matter expert on terrorist financing in the Arabian Peninsula and Iran sanctions. In the private sector, he was a litigator at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.

Zachary is the co-editor of Global Intelligence Oversight: Governing Security in the Twenty-First Century, an edited volume on comparative approaches to intelligence oversight, published by Oxford University Press.  He has testified before Congress and has published on national security strategy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and financial sanctions in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times Chinese, the South China Morning Post, Political Science Quarterly, Cold War History, The Atlantic, The Diplomat, The National Interest, and others.

Zachary is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a member of the Advisory Committee to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He received his JD from New York University School of Law, his Masters in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and his BA from Harvard University.

Abstract: Over the past decade, the proven ability to produce large quantities of natural gas from organic-rich shale formations in North America has shown the potential to change the energy picture in many parts of the world. Over the past five years there have been discoveries of large natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean and off the east coast of Africa.  These enormous resources have the potential to dramatically change the global energy system – for better, or for worse. In this talk I will discuss steps that can be taken to assure that natural gas resources are developed in an optimally efficient and environmentally responsible manner. Responsible development of shale gas resources using horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing has the potential to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, in the near term, significantly reduce air pollution in many cities in the developing world. I will discuss several on-going research projects investigating the wide variety of factors affecting successful gas production from these extremely low permeability formations and procedures for managing the risks of earthquakes triggered by injection of hydraulic fracturing waste water.

About the Speaker: Dr. Mark D. Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Geophysics at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative.  Dr. Zoback conducts research on in situ stress, fault mechanics, and reservoir geomechanics with an emphasis on shale gas, tight gas and tight oil production.  He currently directs the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative and is co-director of the Stanford Center on Induced and Triggered Seismicity. He is the author of a textbook entitled Reservoir Geomechanics published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press and the author/co-author of over 300 technical papers. Dr. Zoback was the founder of GeoMechanics International, a software and consulting company that was acquired by Baker Hughes in 2008. Dr. Zoback has received a number of awards and honors, including the 2006 Emil Wiechert Medal of the German Geophysical Society and the 2008 Walter H. Bucher Medal of the American Geophysical Union.  In 2011, he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and in 2012 elected to Honorary Membership in the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.  He is the 2013 recipient of the Louis Néel Medal of the European Geosciences Union and named an Einstein Chair Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2015 he received the Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award of the AAPG 2016 received the American Geosciences Institute Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Understanding of Geosciences. He served on the National Academy of Engineering committee investigating the Deepwater Horizon accident and the Secretary of Energy’s committee on shale gas development and environmental protection. He also advised a Canadian Council of Academies panel investigating the same topic and served on the National Academy of Sciences Advisory Board on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.