ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Rachel Gillum is a PhD student in Political Science at Stanford University, and joined CISAC as a predoctoral fellow in September of 2013. She is also a fellow at the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS) and is affiliated with Stanford’s Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. Rachel’s research focuses on the Muslim-American community and examines the determinants of a variety of political beliefs and behaviors towards the American government, from full integration and identification with the United States, to support for violent extremism.

Rachel previously served as a graduate associate researcher at the RAND Corporation’s International Policy Center, where she conducted in-depth analysis on terrorist recruitment strategies and presented policy suggestions to U.S. government clients. From 2010-2012, she served as the chief editor and head research assistant under Prof. Martha Crenshaw on the Mapping Militants Project, where she oversaw and helped devise the design of an online tool for the analysis of terrorist networks. Rachel has also worked as a consultant for the Gallup Organization and a research assistant at the Department of Defense’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: How do Muslim-Americans form beliefs about the treatment they expect to receive from US law enforcement? The results of an original, nationally-representative survey of Muslim-Americans suggest two key findings. First, expectations of fairness on the part of Muslim immigrants are shaped, in part, by the level of institutional corruption in their country of origin. Immigrants coming from less corrupt countries hold more optimistic views about expected treatment by US law enforcement. Second, Muslim immigrants who have been naturalized are less trusting in the government than newcomers, and Muslims who were born and raised in the United States are least likely to believe that law enforcement will deal with Muslims fairly. These results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of control variables. Ethnographic evidence drawn from interviews with Muslims-Americans suggests that Muslims update their expectations through interactions and familiarity with American institutions. US-born Muslims expect violations of their rights by the government and are politically concerned about such issues. Foreign-born Muslims, while aware of the controversies regarding US government surveillance and profiling of Muslim communities, tend to be less focused on issues related to citizen rights and more focused on the day-to-day concerns common to immigrants everywhere.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Niccolò Petrelli is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. His research focuses on reassessing the theory and practice of counterinsurgency. Incorporating insights from the contiguous fields of study of "civil wars" and "peacekeeping operations" and employing critical historical analysis of case studies, the research aims to analyze the features, limits and influence of the theory of Counterinsurgency. Before joining CISAC in 2013, Niccolò was a military research fellow at the Military Center for Strategic Studies (Ce.Mi.S.S.) within the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (CASD) in Rome, Italy, and a research assistant at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) in Herzliya. Niccolò received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Roma Tre in 2013. In his dissertation, he examined the impact of strategic culture on the Israeli approach to counterinsurgency.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: In "Counterinsurgency: A Conceptual Reassessment," Niccolò Petrelli will address unresolved issues in the study of counterinsurgency (COIN). The talk will focus on three main questions: How did COIN theory emerge and which are its intellectual sources? To what extent has COIN practice been informed by theory? Is the population-centric COIN paradigm prevalent in scholarly studies and in the contemporary professional discourse historically accurate? In order to answer these questions, the talk will first outline a critical historical analysis of the development of COIN theory, tracing its intellectual roots and fundamental assumptions. Subsequently, it will reassess practice through the qualitative comparative analysis of several case studies of COIN campaigns.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: In his talk, Jack Goldsmith will explain why he is skeptical about significant cybersecurity cooperation among military rivals, especially at the treaty level. He will, however, argue that the Snowden revelations make such cooperation more, not less, likely.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Jack Goldsmith is Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law at Harvard University, where he specializes in national security law, international law, internet law, and presidential power. Goldsmith is the author of five books and numerous articles covering these topics. His recent books include: Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11 (W.W. Norton, 2012); The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration (W.W. Norton, 2007); Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World (Oxford Press, 2006, with Tim Wu); and The Limits of International Law (Oxford Press, 2005, with Eric Posner). Prior to his time at Harvard, Goldsmith was Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel from October 2003 to July 2004 and Special Counsel to the General Counsel to the Department of Defense from September 2002 through June 2003. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Daniel Altman is a Stanton Nuclear Security predoctoral fellow at CISAC for the 2013-2014 academic year. He is a doctoral candidate in the Political Science Department at MIT and a meber of the MIT Security Studies program.

His dissertation, “Red Lines and Faits Accomplis in Interstate Coercion and Crisis,” offers a framework for explaining crisis behavior and outcomes that differs from the conventional wisdom. The traditional way to understand crises is to suppose that policymakers think primarily in the form of the question, “How can we convince the other side that we are willing to fight in order to get them to back down?” This dissertation instead approaches crises as if states ask themselves, “What can we get away with unilaterally taking without starting a war?” The result is a theory of coercive conflict that explains why “vulnerable” red lines with any of four characteristics elicit faits accomplis, result in crisis defeats for the states setting them, and make war more likely. It tests this theory against the conventional wisdom with case studies of the 1948-1949 Berlin Blockade Crisis and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as a quantitative analysis of interstate crises from 1918 to 2007 which makes use of original data on red lines and faits accomplis.

Daniel is working on several additional research projects on topics which include misperception as a cause of war, trade as a cause of peace, and the use of preventive force against nuclear programs.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: “Red Lines and Faits Accomplis in Interstate Coercion and Crisis” offers a framework for explaining crisis behavior and outcomes that differs from the conventional wisdom.  The traditional way to understand crises is to suppose that policymakers think primarily in the form of the question, “How can we convince the other side that we are willing to fight in order to get them to back down?”  This dissertation instead approaches crises as if states ask themselves, “What can we get away with unilaterally taking without starting a war?”  The result is a theory of coercive conflict that explains why “vulnerable” red lines with any of four characteristics elicit faits accomplis, result in crisis defeats for the states setting them, and make war more likely.  This theory is tested against the conventional wisdom with case studies of the 1948-1949 Berlin Blockade Crisis and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as a quantitative analysis of interstate crises from 1918 to 2007 which makes use of original data on red lines and faits accomplis.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Elaine Korzak joined CISAC in September 2013 as a predoctoral cybersecurity fellow. She is a PhD student in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. Elaine's thesis evaluates how cyber attacks challenge current legal norms and whether the identified challenges ultimately warrant a new legal framework. The analysis focuses on two areas in particular: international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum) and international humanitarian law (jus in bello). During her time at CISAC, Elaine is conducting empirical research examining states' responses to the legal challenges created by cyber attacks. Her analysis focuses on various state positions in key international forums, including the United Nations and the International Telecommunication Union.

Elaine earned a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University of Dresden (Germany) before focusing her research interests at the interface of international law and security studies. She holds both an MA in International Peace and Security from King's College London and an LL.M in Public International Law from the London School of Economics. Her professional experience includes various governmental and non-governmental institutions (both national and international), where she has worked on various disarmament and international security issues. These include, most recently, NATO's Cyber Defence Section as well as the European Commission's Director-General on Information Society and Media.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: With their unique characteristics such as swiftness, its non-kinetic nature and anonymity, computer network attacks fundamentally challenge the current international legal paradigm which is based on a state-centered concept of armed force involving some degree of kinetic energy transfer through blast and fragmentation. It has been argued that a revolution in military affairs has been ushered in by technological advancements that cannot be accommodated within the existing legal framework. Both practitioners and scholars have called for a new regulatory framework to govern computer network attacks. This presentation will give an overview of Elaine's doctoral research project which evaluates these claims by examining if and how computer network attacks challenge key norms of international law on the use of force and international humanitarian law and whether the identified challenges ultimately warrant a new legal framework.   

This event is now full. We cannot accept any more RSVP's, but you can e-mail Zhila Emadi (zemadi@stanford.edu), if you would like to be placed on a waitlist.

About the Speaker:

General C. Robert Kehler is the commander of U.S. Strategic Command. He provides the President and Secretary of Defense with a broad range of strategic capabilities and options. He is responsible for the plans and operations for all U.S. forces conducting strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence and Department of Defense space and cyberspace operations.

General Kehler entered the Air Force in 1975 as a distinguished graduate of the Pennsylvania State University Air Force ROTC program. He has commanded at the squadron, group, wing and major command levels, and has a broad range of operational tours in ICBM, space launch, space control, space and missile warning operations.

General Kehler's staff assignments include tours with the Air Staff and Strategic Air Command headquarters. He was also assigned to the Secretary of the Air Force's Office of Legislative Liaison, where he was the point man on Capitol Hill for matters regarding the President's ICBM Modernization Program. As director of the National Security Space Office, General Kehler integrated the activities of a number of space organizations on behalf of the Under Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office. He has also served as deputy director of operations, Air Force Space Command, and as deputy commander, U.S. Strategic Command.

About the Topic: What do the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs reveal about Americans?  This talk presents ongoing studies of Internet and telephone metadata.  Preliminary results suggest that technical restrictions are far less effective than many observers have assumed. 

If you would like to read about the topic before the seminar, Jonathan’s work on the subject is available at http://bit.ly/1iMdkkM and http://stanford.io/1iMdjNM.

Speaker bio:

Jonathan Mayer is a Ph.D student in Computer Science and a J.D. student in Law at Stanford University. He joined CISAC as a predoctoral cybersecurity fellow in 2012, and continued as a cybersecurity fellow at CISAC for 2013-2014.

His research aims to advance difficult problems in technology policy. His recent work has focused on how to protect consumer privacy while promoting online innovation. In one line of studies, Jonathan has used web measurement to shed light on the information collected about consumers online. Another project aims to develop third-party web services that deliver functionality without tracking users.

Jonathan completed his undergraduate degree at Princeton University in 2009, with a concentration in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. 

Abstract: 

The recent events in Chelyabinsk serve as a reminder that while rare, encounters with near-Earth objects (NEOs) can have significant consequences for humanity. Understanding and mitigating the risks posed by asteroids is important to the scientific and policy-making communities as observation and mitigation missions are considered. Qualitative and quantitative studies have been done to assess such risks, and some reasonable point estimates have been proposed. However, due to the low probability/high consequence nature of asteroid risks, these measures provide limited actionable insights and may even lead to false confidence when interpreted inappropriately. Project Fox aims to provide a probabilistic model that evaluates the collective threat from asteroids events by evaluating the full distributions over consequences. Results of initial modeling efforts show that the catastrophic risks from asteroid impacts are significant, and that the majority of risk for global effects resulting from NEO impacts is attributable to a range of diameters smaller (and more frequent) than previously known. 

Speaker bio:

Jason C. Reinhardt is a national security systems analyst, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Risk Analysis, focusing on nuclear weapons arsenal management. Specifically, he is developing quantitative risk models to examine the trade-offs faced by nuclear armed nations in the process of disarmament. He is also pursuing research aimed at modeling and quantifying the catastrophic risks posed by near earth asteroid encounters. Other research interests include game theoretic applications to risk analysis and management, as well as adversary models. While at CISAC, he hopes to engage subject matter and policy experts to strengthen his modeling and analysis of nuclear weapon arsenal risk.

Prior to beginning his current studies, Jason managed a group of experts at Sandia National Laboratories that focused on technical studies to guide policy and decision makers across government. He joined Sandia National Laboratories in August of 2002, and has worked on a diverse set of projects both as an engineer and as an analyst, including the development of instrumentation for in-situ atmospheric measurement, embedded systems design, borders security analyses, and nuclear counter-terrorism strategy development.

He has worked extensively with the Department of Homeland Security on nuclear matters, and has also worked with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and within the national laboratory enterprise on a diverse array of national security projects. He has participated in the planning and hosting of international conferences and engagements, briefed congressional representatives, and served as a subject-matter expert on the topics of border security and nuclear and radiological defense.

Jason holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Purdue School of Electrical Engineering at Indianapolis, and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Please note that this event is from 3:30-5:00pm. 

About the Topic: This presentation will describe a pilot program being developed by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for the Prevention of Genocide (CPG) that will give policy makers, analysts, advocates, journalists, scholars, students, and the public at large reliable, up-to-date forecasts of the risk of mass atrocities in countries worldwide. The central aim of this program is to enhance efforts to prevent atrocities by giving concerned actors better risk assessments with more lead time. The CPG expects to launch this pilot program in early 2014.

About the Speaker: Jay Ulfelder is an independent consultant and owner of the blog, The Dart-Throwing Chimp. From 2001 until 2011, he served as research director for the Political Instability Task Force, a U.S. government-funded research program that aims to forecast and explain various forms of political change in countries worldwide. Ulfelder's research interests include democratization, political violence, social unrest, state collapse, and forecasting. His publications include Dilemmas of Democratic Consolidation: A Game-Theory Approach and “Democratic Transitions” in The Routledge Handbook of Democratization and co-authored “A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability” in the American Journal of Political Science. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University in 1997 and his B.A. in Comparative Area Studies--USSR and Eastern Europe from Duke University in 1991. 

More information TBA.