"Restrepo" is a feature-length documentary that chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. The movie focuses on a remote 15-man outpost, "Restrepo," named after a platoon medic who was killed in action. It was considered one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. This is an entirely experiential film: the cameras never leave the valley; there are no interviews with generals or diplomats. The only goal is to make viewers feel as if they have just been through a 90-minute deployment. 

The film was creaetd by Sebastain Junger and Tim Hetherington, both of whom were embedded with battle company of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, in the remote and heavily contested Korengal valley of eastern Afghanistan. Reporting on the war from the soldiers’ perspective, they spent weeks at a time at a remote outpost that saw more combat than almost anywhere else in the entire country. 

Following the screening, Junger will be in conversation with Kristine Samuelson (Art and Art History).

On February 21, Junger is in conversation with Professor Tobias Wolff.

Watch the trailer.

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Sebastian Junger a journalist, author, and filmmaker, in conversation with Tobias Wolff, professor of english at Stanford.

More information TBA. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

"The Fixer:The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi" is a feature-length documentary that follows the relationship between an Afghan interpreter and his client, American journalist Christian Parenti. This intimate portrait of two colleagues shifts dramatically when Ajmal is kidnapped along with an Italian reporter. The situation goes from bad to worse as foreign powers pressure for fast results, the Afghan government bungles its response and the specter of Taliban power looms in the background. What follows is the tragic story of one man forgotten in the crossfire: a brutal allegory of the proud land and perilous misadventure that is Afghanistan.

Following the screening, Ian Olds (the film's Director) will be in conversation with Robert Crews (History, Stanford).

This event is sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES). It is free and open to the public. 

The Fixer / View the trailer

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Priya Satia's research interests span modern British cultural and political history, colonialism and imperialism, the experience and practice of war, technology and culture, human rights and humanitarianism, the state and institutions of government, arms trade, political economy of empire, and environmental history.

Satia was raised in Los Gatos, California and educated at Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, Berkeley where she earned her Ph.D. in 2004.  She is currently Assistant Professor of History at Stanford where she teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire.

Satia's latest book Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East has been the recipient of several book prizes including the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize in 2009, and the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize.

Her work can also be found in academic journals such as the American Historical Reviewand Past and Present. Her article, “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control in Iraq and the British Idea of Arabia” won the Article Prize of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies for 2005-2006 and the 2007 Walter D. Love Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies. 

Satia is currently researching the manufacture, trade, and use of small arms in the British empire for her book project, "Guns: The True History of the British Empire."

More information TBA. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

"Beyond Terror: America After bin Laden"

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His history of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, was published to immediate and widespread acclaim, spending eight weeks on The New York Times best seller list and being translated into twenty-five languages. It was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Lionel Gelber Award for nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Award for History, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. The NYU School of Journalism recently honored the book as one of the ten best works of journalism in the previous decade.

Wright will be in conversation with Tobias Wolff (English) and Martha Crenshaw (Center for International Security and Cooperation).

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Performance of Michael Frayn's 1998 play. Open to the public, requires a ticket purchase. 

More information TBA. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Performance of Michael Frayn's 1998 play. Scott Sagan will introduce the Saturday, December 3 performance.

Open to the public, requires a ticket purchase at:http://www.stanford.edu/dept/drama/1112_events/copenhagen.html. 

• Winner of three 2000 Tony Awards, including Best Play
• Winner of the Drama Desk Award for Best New Play
• Winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle for Best Play

Presented by McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society as part of the Ethics & War Events Series, in collaboration with Stanford Summer Theater and Stanford Drama. Directed by Stanford Summer Theater Artistic Director and Stanford Professor of Drama and Classics, Rush Rehm. Starring Bay Area professionals Julian Lopez-Morillas, Peter Ruocco, and Courtney Walsh. 

In 1941, German physicist Werner Heisenberg visited his Danish counterpart Niels Bohr in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, where they discussed the development of nuclear weapons. What really happened in their encounter? Given the unreliability of memory, the indeterminacy of personal motives, and the uncertainty at the core of things, how can we ever know? Frayn’s Copenhagen asks impossible questions, and – with the nuclear threat still over us – demands that we find the answers.

This production is made possible in part by the Stanford Institute for Creativity in the Arts (SiCa) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

• "The most invigorating and ingenious play of ideas in many a year. An electrifying work of art." -The New York Times
• "Superb. Dynamic." -The New Yorker
• "Gripping. A brilliant play." -London Guardian
• "The word 'tremendous' is often used but seldom deserved. In this case it is. Copenhagen is an intellectual and theatrical tour de force." -London Times

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Screening of "Women, War & Peace" with filmmaker Abigail Disney. Free and open to the public. 

More information TBA. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

The large-scale industrial accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was the culmination of three inter-related factors: external natural hazard assessment and site preparation, the utility’s approach to risk management, and the fundamental reactor design.

The reactor accident was initiated by a magnitude 9 earthquake followed by an even more damaging tsunami. However, it was the inability to remove the decay heat in the reactor core that led to core meltdown and radioactive release.

A review of the timeline of the major Fukushima accident sequences: The plant first experienced a station blackout (i.e. loss of all offsite and onsite power) due to flooding of backup critical emergency cooling equipment. The lack of an ultimate heat sink led to the fuel overheating. Subsequently, the generation of hydrogen through steam oxidation of of the fuel cladding led to chemical explosions causing significant structural damage.

The focus of this talk (presentation slides below) is on the engineering aspects of the reactor accident and the prospects for local environmental recovery. Radionuclide measurements in space and time provide important evidence for the exact evolution of fuel damage leading to partial core melting in multiple units. A review of the spent nuclear fuel pools is given where isotopic water composition and visual inspection images provide important evidence for the condition of the spent nuclear fuel.

While it will be several months to a year before we will be in a position to learn most of the lessons from this tragdy, several conclusions about defensive design, mitigation actions, and emergency response have been drawn by international organizations.

While the public health impact appears to have been low, the economic and nearby environmental consequences are severe, There is no doubt that land restoration will take over a decade and perhaps much longer. A review is given of actions taken by the Japanese government for land recovery in areas such as decontaminating top soil and local farmland as well as highly radioactive water used during ‘feed and bleed’ cooling of the core.

CISAC's Tom Isaacs participated in a discussion on nuclear energy in America for the World Affairs Council Northern California. 

Event Description:

The 8.9 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011 set in motion one of the largest nuclear disasters in almost three decades. It also renewed the debate over the future of nuclear energy in the US and abroad. With 104 nuclear power plants across the country, generating about 20 percent of America's energy, there is no doubt that we are currently dependent on nuclear energy, yet the debate over this highly contentious technology is far from resolved. The three panelists will discuss what this disaster means for the future of US energy. How will the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant shape future energy policies and public opinion, and are there existing renewable technologies capable of fulfilling the world’s energy needs? Will nuclear energy be the fuel of the 21st century, or a relic of the past?

Listen to the talk by clicking the link below.