Stanford University

The Soviet Economic Decline and the Cold War

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Abstract: It is often said that economists in general, and CIA analysts in particular, failed to understand until very late in the game just how serious the USSR's economic problems were.  That failure, it was widely claimed, was the root cause of a more general failure on the part of the U.S. policy community to understand what was going on in the Soviet Union during the later Cold War period.  It turns out, however, that the Soviet economic problem was understood from the mid-1960s on;  in intellectual terms, the analysis was quite impressive.  The Soviets themselves, moreover, understood the problem in much the same way as Western economists did.   All this provides us with a key--perhaps the key--to understanding great power politics during the latter part of the Cold War.

 

About the Speaker: Marc Trachtenberg is Professor of Political Science at the University of California - Los Angeles. He studies national security strategy, diplomatic history, and international relations. He has been Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, and the SSRC/MacArthur Foundation. His award-winning book, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton University Press, 1999), explores the profound impact of nuclear weapons on the conduct of international relations during the Cold War, making extensive use of newly opened documentary archives in Europe and the United States. History and Strategy (Princeton University Press, 1991) studies seminal events like the onset of World War I and the Cuban Missile Crisis to shed light on the role of force in international affairs. Professor Trachtenberg teaches courses on the history of international relations, international security, and historical research methods. 

 


The Soviet Economic Decline and Great Power Politics
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Assessing Soviet Economic Performance during the Cold War: A Failure of Intelligence?
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Marc Trachtenberg Professor of Political Science Speaker University of California - Los Angeles
Seminars

Is the sky falling or is everything going swimmingly well? Probably neither - Observations and recommendations about uncertainties from a risk analyst's perspective

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Abstract: When evaluating or reporting a risk, there is a tendency to ignore or underestimate uncertainties and to take catastrophist or exceedingly optimistic positions. Media amplification can spread fears that exceed the actual risks and group interests can obscure real ones. Further, in retrospect, a common excuse for inaction is to call a bad surprise a “black swan” that could not have been anticipated when there was ample information to the contrary. From a risk analyst perspective, I will discuss the logic of quantifying uncertainty rather than using classic adjectives and adverbs (“likely”, “unlikely”, “pretty certain”, etc.). I will present some basic, elementary properties and observations, for example, more information does not mean less uncertainty, taking the most likely hypothesis and presenting it as certain is logically wrong, so is letting the last screaming headline obscure the value of prior information. For each, I will present and discuss some examples.  

About the Speaker: Dr. M. Elisabeth Paté-Cornell is the Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor of Engineering, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and Chair (Emerita) of Management Science and Engineering. She is a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and joined CISAC as an affiliated faculty member in September 2011. 

She is a world leader in engineering risk analysis and management and more generally, the use of Bayesian probability to process incomplete information. Her research and that of her Engineering Risk Research Group at Stanford have focused on the inclusion of technical and management factors in probabilistic risk analysis models with applications to the NASA shuttle tiles, offshore oil platforms and medical systems. Since 2001, she has combined risk analysis and game analysis to assess intelligence information and risks of terrorist attacks.

She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the French Academie des Technologies and of several boards including Aerospace, Draper Laboratory and InQtel. Dr. Paté-Cornell was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from December 2001 to 2008. She holds and Engineering degree (Applied Math/CS) from the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (France), an MS in Operations Research and a PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems, both from Stanford University.

 

Is the sky falling? Or is everything going swimmingly well? Probably neither
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Encina Hall (2nd Floor)

Elisabeth Paté-Cornell

475 Via Ortega Room 336
Huang Engineering Building
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 723-3823
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Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor of Engineering
Professor of Management Science and Engineering
CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member
Chair (Emerita) of Management Science and Engineering
FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy
mep.png PhD

Dr. M. Elisabeth Paté-Cornell was born in Dakar, Senegal. Her academic degrees are in mathematics and physics (BS, Marseilles, France, 1968), applied mathematics and computer science (MS and Engineer Degree, Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, 1970; 1971), operations research (MS, Stanford, 1972), and engineering-economic systems (Stanford, PhD, 1978). She was an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at MIT (1978 to 1981). In 1981, she joined the Stanford Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, where she became Professor (1991), then Chair (1997). In 1999, she was named the Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor in the Stanford School of Engineering. She oversaw from 1999, the merger of two Stanford departments to form a new department of Management Science and Engineering, which she chaired from January 2000 to June 2011. She is a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She joined CISAC as an affiliated faculty member in September 2011.

She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1995, to its Council (2001-2007), and to the French Académie des Technologies (2003). She was a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (2001-2004; 2006-2008). Her current memberships include the Boards of Trustees of the Aerospace Corp. (2004-), of InQtel (2006-) and of Draper Corporation (2009-). She is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Naval Postgraduate School, which she chaired from 2004 to 2006.

She is a world leader in engineering risk analysis and management and more generally, the use of Bayesian probability to process incomplete information. Her research and that of her Engineering Risk Research Group at Stanford have focused on the inclusion of technical and management factors in probabilistic risk analysis models with applications to the NASA shuttle tiles, offshore oil platforms and medical systems. Since 2001, she has combined risk analysis and game analysis to assess intelligence information and risks of terrorist attacks.

She is past president (1995)/fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, and fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. She has been a consultant to many industrial firms and government organizations. She has authored or co-authored more than a hundred papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. She has received several best-paper awards from professional organizations and peer-reviewed journals.

See profile here.

Elisabeth Paté-Cornell Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor of Engineering; Professor of Management Science and Engineering; CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member; Chair (Emerita) of Management Science and Engineering; FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy Speaker Stanford University
Seminars

Radioactive waste disposal in European clay formations: science, safety and society

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About the Topic: Large scientific and technological advances in many European countries and the establishment of the European technology platform IGD-TP have increased our understanding of how to construct, exploit, and close a future geological repository and how to reduce uncertainties in demonstrating its long term safety.  Essentially all major safety analyses have demonstrated that the risk of disposal will be of little consequence. Particularly durable confinement is assured in clay formations as is foreseen for disposal in France, Switzerland and Belgium, but strong confinement can also be realized in more water permeable granite formation by very effective engineered barrier system like those foreseen in Sweden and Finland. Still, there is not yet an operating geologic repository for highly radioactive waste worldwide. The first geological European repositories are expected to accept spent fuel, high-level waste in 2025. Yet there remains substantial public concern.  

Professor Grambow will lay out the current state of the art safety case, focusing mainly on the scientific programs, the ongoing planning of repository construction and the public debate in France, a country with one of the largest nuclear energy programs worldwide.  

About the Speaker: Bernd Grambow is a Professor of excellence at the Ecole des Mines de Nantes, France. He graduated at the Frei Universität Berlin, worked for one year at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Washington State), followed by research positions in Hahn Meitner Institute Berlin and Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. He currently holds the Chair on nuclear waste disposal in Nantes and is head of the Subatech laboratory on high energy nuclear physics and radiochemistry, a mixed research unit between the CNRS-IN2P3, the Ecole des Mines of Nantes and the University of Nantes. Coordinator of various European projects and former director of the national CNRS-academic/industrial research network NEEDS “nuclear: environment, energy, waste, society”, his areas of scientific expertise are radiochemistry, nuclear waste disposal science, geochemical modeling, radionuclide migration in the environment, chemical thermodynamics, and dynamics of solid/liquid interfaces. He has published 143 peer-reviewed research papers. In 2008 he received the Grand Prix Ivan Pechès of the French Academie of Science and in 2014 he became Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques. 

 

 

 

Radioactive waste disposal in European clay formations: science, safety and society
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Nuclear waste disposal: I. Laboratory simulation of repository properties
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Geological disposal of nuclear waste: II. From laboratory data to the safety analysis – Addressing societal concerns
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Encina Hall (2nd Floor)

Bernd Grambow Professor at Ecole des Mines de Nantes, France, Chair on Nuclear Waste Management and Director of SUBATECH laboratory Speaker

Rodney C. Ewing

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E203
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-8641
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1946-2024
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security
Professor of Geological Sciences
rodewingheadshot2014.jpg MS, PhD

      Rod Ewing was the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and Co-Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University. He was also the Edward H. Kraus Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, where he had faculty appointments in the Departments of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences and Materials Science & Engineering.  He was a Regents' Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico, where he was a member of the faculty from 1974 to 1997. Ewing received a B.S. degree in geology from Texas Christian University (1968, summa cum laude) and M.S. (l972) and Ph.D. (l974, with distinction) degrees from Stanford University where he held an NSF Fellowship.    His graduate studies focused on an esoteric group of minerals, metamict Nb-Ta-Ti oxides, which are unusual because they have become amorphous due to radiation damage caused by the presence of radioactive elements. Over the past thirty years, the early study of these unusual minerals has blossomed into a broadly-based research program on radiation effects in complex ceramic materials.  In 2001, the work on radiation-resistant ceramics was recognized by the DOE, Office of Science – Decades of Discovery as one of the top 101 innovations during the previous 25 years. This has led to the development of techniques to predict the long-term behavior of materials, such as those used in radioactive waste disposal.

      He was the author or co-author of over 750 research publications and the editor or co-editor of 18 monographs, proceedings volumes or special issues of journals. He had published widely in mineralogy, geochemistry, materials science, nuclear materials, physics and chemistry in over 100 different ISI journals. He was granted a patent for the development of a highly durable material for the immobilization of excess weapons plutonium.  He was a Founding Editor of the magazine, Elements, which is now supported by 17 earth science societies. He was a Principal Editor for Nano LIFE, an interdisciplinary journal focused on collaboration between physical and medical scientists. In 2014, he was named a Founding Executive Editor of Geochemical Perspective Letters and appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of Applied Physics Reviews.

      Ewing had received the Hawley Medal of the Mineralogical Association of Canada in 1997 and 2002, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 2006, the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2006, a Honorary Doctorate from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in 2007, the Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 2015, Ian Campbell Medal of the American Geoscience Institute, 2015, the Medal of Excellence in Mineralogical Sciences from the International Mineralogical Association in 2015, the Distinguished Public Service Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 2019, and was a foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He was also a fellow of the Geological Society of America, Mineralogical Society of America, Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, American Geophysical Union, Geochemical Society, American Ceramic Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Materials Research Society. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering in 2017.

      He was president of the Mineralogical Society of America (2002) and the International Union of Materials Research Societies (1997-1998). He was the President of the American Geoscience Institute (2018). Ewing had served on the Board of Directors of the Geochemical Society, the Board of Governors of the Gemological Institute of America and the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

      He was co-editor of and a contributing author of Radioactive Waste Forms for the Future (North-Holland Physics, Amsterdam, 1988) and Uncertainty Underground – Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste (MIT Press, 2006).  Professor Ewing had served on thirteen National Research Council committees and board for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that have reviewed issues related to nuclear waste and nuclear weapons. In 2012, he was appointed by President Obama to serve as the Chair of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which is responsible for ongoing and integrated technical review of DOE activities related to transporting, packaging, storing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste; he stepped down from the Board in 2017.

https://profiles.stanford.edu/rodney-ewing

Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Senior Fellow at FSI; Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security Chair Stanford University
Seminars

Beyond Emboldenment: The Effects of Nuclear Weapons on State Foreign Policy

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Abstract: What happens to the foreign policies of states when they acquire nuclear weapons? Despite its critical importance, this question has been understudied. This paper offers a new typology of the effects of nuclear weapons on foreign policy, and hypothesizes the circumstances in which these effects might be observed. I distinguish between five conceptually distinct foreign policy behaviors—aggression, expansion, independence,bolstering and steadfastness—-and show theoretically how nuclear acquisition may facilitate each of these behaviors. The typology therefore allows scholars to move beyond simple claims of "nuclear emboldenment," and allows for more nuanced predictions and empirical examinations of the ways in which nuclear weapons affect the foreign policies of current and future nuclear states. I demonstrate the utility of this typology using a "hard" case: the United Kingdom. I show that the acquisition of a deliverable nuclear capability in 1955 significantly affected British foreign policy. Britain did not use its nuclear weapons for aggression or expansion, instead seeking to use its nuclear weapons to maintain its forward conventional posture at lower cost and thus postpone retrenchment. However, Britain did use its nuclear weapons to bolster its junior allies in the Middle East, Far East and Europe, and to exhibit greater independence from the United States and greater steadfastness in responding to challenges to its position-—most dramatically during the 1956 Suez crisis.

About the Speaker: Mark Bell is a PhD candidate in Political Science at MIT and a research fellow with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. His research examines issues relating to the causes and consequences of nuclear proliferation, U.S. and British foreign policy, and international relations theory, and has been funded by organizations including the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Tobin Project. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow, and a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from St. Anne's College, Oxford University.

 


Beyond Emboldenment: The Effects of Nuclear Weapons on State Foreign Policy
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Beyond Emboldenment: The Effects of Nuclear Weapons on State Foreign Policy
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Encina Hall (2nd Floor)

Mark Bell research fellow with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Speaker Harvard University
Seminars

Armageddon Insurance: Cold War Civil Defense in the United States and Soviet Union, 1945-1991

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Abstract: This book project is the first historical study of the postwar Soviet civil defense program, and an innovative comparative account of American and Soviet civil defense. It offers a comparative institutional history of the superpowers’ civil defense drawing on previously unexamined Soviet and American archival sources. It offers findings that challenge common assumptions about the logic driving the two nations’ potentially apocalyptic nuclear flirtation, such as that that a mutual recognition that nuclear war would be suicidal prevented the leaders of the two superpowers from embracing civil defense. In actuality, Moscow and Washington developed their civil defense policies in accordance with domestic political concerns, sometimes in direct contradiction to their declared strategic doctrines or military planning. The strange history of Cold War civil defense shows that the superpowers made their nuclear weapons policies as the result of power struggles between different institutions pursuing their own narrow self-interests, with results that imperiled the survival of civilization itself.

About the Speaker: Edward Geist received his Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina in May 2013. Previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the RAND Corporation in Washington DC, he is a native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His research interests include emergency management in nuclear disasters, Soviet politics and culture, and the history of nuclear power and weapons. His dissertation, a comparative study of Soviet and U.S. civil defense during the Cold War, draws upon previously unexamined archival sources to examine the similarities and differences in how the two superpowers faced the dilemmas of the nuclear age. Edward is also interested in the potential uses of simulation and modelling for historians and is developing a piece using these techniques to explore the potential historical implications of the the U.S. and Soviet Union's use of qualitatively different technical assumptions to model strategic nuclear exchanges. A previous recipient of fellowships from Fulbright-Hays and American Councils to conduct research in Moscow and Kyiv, he has published articles in the Journal of Cold War Studies, Russian Review, and the Bulletin of the History of Medicine.

Encina Hall (2nd Floor)

Edward Geist MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow PhD CISAC
Seminars

Predicting Chinese Foreign Policy: Signals and Outcomes, 1949-2010

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Abstract: This dissertation chapter examines signaling credibility in Chinese foreign policy over 1949-2010.  The analysis is based on two new datasets: all 2,000 diplomatic interactions between the United States and China over 1949-2010 and sentiment trends in all 50,000 People's Daily articles on the United States over 1949-2010.  I find that China's bellicosity toward the United States is a reliable predictor of conflict initiation the following month.  I also find that Chinese foreign policy is responsive to urban unemployment.  I find no evidence that China's signaling credibility is affected by its military capabilities.

About the Speaker: Erin Baggott is a Zukerman predoctoral fellow at CISAC for 2014-2015.  She is completing her PhD in international relations at the Harvard University Department of Government.  She studies Chinese foreign policy with techniques from computational social science and machine learning.  Her dissertation examines the sources of trust, distrust, cooperation, and conflict in US-China relations over 1949-2012, using day-level datasets of actions and perceptions on both sides.

Previously, she completed a MSc in Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford and a BA in Government and Economics at Harvard College.  She speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and has conducted several summers of field research in Beijing.

 


Predication Chapter, Erin Baggott
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Encina Hall (2nd Floor)

Erin Baggott Zukerman Predoctoral Fellow CISAC
Seminars

CISAC Honors Students Prize-Winning Thesis Presentations: Elle Stuart and James Honsa

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CISAC Conference Room

Coit D. Blacker

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street, C137
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-5368 (650) 723-3435
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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Olivier Nomellini Professor Emeritus in International Studies at the School of Humanities and Sciences
coit_blacker_2022.jpg PhD

Coit Blacker is a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Olivier Nomellini Professor Emeritus in International Studies at the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. He served as director of FSI from 2003 to 2012. From 2005 to 2011, he was co-chair of the International Initiative of the Stanford Challenge, and from 2004 to 2007, served as a member of the Development Committee of the university's Board of Trustees.

During the first Clinton administration, Blacker served as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC). At the NSC, he oversaw the implementation of U.S. policy toward Russia and the New Independent States, while also serving as principal staff assistant to the president and the National Security Advisor on matters relating to the former Soviet Union.

Following his government service, Blacker returned to Stanford to resume his research and teaching. From 1998 to 2003, he also co-directed the Aspen Institute's U.S.-Russia Dialogue, which brought together prominent U.S. and Russian specialists on foreign and defense policy for discussion and review of critical issues in the bilateral relationship. He was a study group member of the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission) throughout the commission's tenure.

In 2001, Blacker was the recipient of the Laurence and Naomi Carpenter Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching at Stanford.

Blacker holds an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies for his work on U.S.-Russian relations. He is a graduate of Occidental College (A.B., Political Science) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (M.A., M.A.L.D., and Ph.D).

Blacker's association with Stanford began in 1977, when he was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by the Arms Control and Disarmament Program, the precursor to the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Faculty member at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
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Coit D. Blacker Senior Fellow; Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies, School of Humanities and Sciences; CISAC and CDDRL Faculty Member Moderator

Martha Crenshaw

Not in residence

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emerita
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science, Emerita
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Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow emerita at CISAC and FSI. She taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1974 to 2007.  She has published extensively on the subject of terrorism.  In 2011 Routledge published Explaining Terrorism, a collection of her previously published work.  A book co-authored with Gary LaFree titled Countering Terrorism was published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2017. She recently authored a report for the U.S. Institute of Peace, “Rethinking Transnational Terrorism:  An Integrated Approach”.

 

 She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2005-2006 she was a Guggenheim Fellow. She was a lead investigator with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland from 2005 to 2017.  She is currently affiliated with the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center, also a Center of Excellence for the Department of Homeland Security.  In 2009 the National Science Foundation/Department of Defense Minerva Initiative awarded her a grant for a research project on "mapping terrorist organizations," which is ongoing.  She has served on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences.  In 2015 she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.  She is the recipient of the International Studies Association International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award for 2016. Also in 2016 Ghent University awarded her an honorary doctorate.  She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Security Studies, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, Orbis, and Terrorism and Political Violence.

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Martha Crenshaw Senior Fellow at FSI; Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) Moderator
Seminars
Directors' Seminar Series

Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Assistance to North Korea: What are the needs today after almost 20 years of aid projects and programs?

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Due to the interest generated by this seminar, we have reached our maximum seating capacity and are not able to accommodate any more guests. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

This event is co-sponsored by The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

About the Topic: Following several visits to North Korea in recent months, the most recent one in April 2014, Kathi Zellweger will focus her remarks on humanitarian aid, rehabilitation projects, and development cooperation in North Korea. The presenter’s findings will be supported by a number of facts and figures about the country and background information about the health sector. The speaker will identify the participants in the area of assistance along with the issues they face when providing aid. The talk will also provide insights into positive examples of projects, what is needed for projects to succeed, and how the type of aid required is changing. Based on nearly 20 years of work experience involving North Korea, Zellweger concludes that isolation and sanctions hinder development potential and that engagement is more likely to be a constructive and peaceful way forward. 

About the Speaker: Kathi Zellweger is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Prior to that she was the Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, in residence at Stanford University from November 2011 to August 2013. Most recently at Stanford she gave a course entitled “An Insight into North Korea Society” for  graduate  and undergraduate students. She is a frequent presenter on the topic of the situation of the North Korean people, to audiences in the U.S. and abroad. Zellweger has also made significant contributions in this field through her participation in workshops, seminars and conferences about humanitarian, as well as security, issues on the Korean peninsula, more specifically  regarding North Korea.  

Zellweger is a senior aid manager with over 30 years of field experience in Hong Kong, China and North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006-2011) as North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The focus of her work was on sustainable agricultural production in order to address food security issues, income generation to improve people’s livelihoods, and capacity development contributing to individual and institutional learning.

Before joining SDC, Zellweger worked from 1978 to 2006 for the Catholic agency Caritas in Hong Kong in a senior post; she played a key role in pioneering Caritas involvement initiatives in China and in North Korea.

Zellweger received the Bishop Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Award in 2005 from a South Korean foundation established to promote social justice, and in 2006 the Dame of St. Gregory the Great from the Vatican for her work in North Korea.

CISAC Conference Room

Visiting Fellow, CISAC, Former Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies, APARC Speaker
Seminars
Directors' Seminar Series

CISAC Seminar: Kathi Zellweger

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Kathi Zellweger Visiting Scholar Speaker CISAC
Seminars

In the Eye of the Beholder: How Leaders and Intelligence Organizations Assess Intentions

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Abstract: How do policymakers infer the long-term political intentions of their states' adversaries? A new approach to answering this question, the “selective attention thesis,” posits that individual perceptual biases and organizational interests and practices influence which types of indicators a state's political leaders and its intelligence community regard as credible signals of an adversary's intentions. Policymakers often base their interpretations on their own theories, expectations, and needs, sometimes ignoring costly signals and paying more attention to information that, though less costly, is more vivid (i.e., personalized and emotionally involving). In contrast, intelligence organizations typically prioritize the collection and analysis of data on the adversary's military inventory. Over time, these organizations develop substantial knowledge on these material indicators that they then use to make predictions about an adversary's intentions. An examination of three cases based on 30,000 archival documents and intelligence reports shows strong support for the selective attention thesis and mixed support for two other approaches in international relations theory aimed at understanding how observers are likely to infer adversaries' political intentions: the behavior thesis and the capabilities thesis. The three cases are assessments by President Jimmy Carter and officials in his administration of Soviet intentions during the collapse of détente; assessments by President Ronald Reagan and administration officials of Soviet intentions during the end of the Cold War; and British assessments of Nazi Germany before World War II.

About the Speaker: Professor Keren Yarhi-Milo is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a particular specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Professor Yarhi-Milo’s forthcoming book (Princeton University Press) titled, “Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations,” explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary’s signals of intentions differently. 

CISAC Conference Room

Keren Yarhi-Milo Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs Speaker the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Seminars
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