This story by Elisabeth Eaves in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists includes an interview with CISAC's Siegfried Hecker on the North Korea situation: 

In July, North Korea tested its longest-range ballistic missiles yet, putting it closer than ever to having a nuclear weapon that could strike the US mainland. But that is not actually our most urgent problem, says Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who has visited North Korea seven times and toured its nuclear facilities. While North Korea is bent on extending its nuclear strike range, it can already hit Japan and South Korea. With US politicians calling for military action against the North, and a general escalation of belligerent rhetoric on both sides, it is entirely possible that we will stumble into a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. In this in-depth interview, Hecker calls on Washington to talk to Pyongyang—not to negotiate or make concessions, but to avert disaster. 

BAS: North Korea tested 24 missiles in 2016 and has tested nearly 20 so far this year. What is distinctive about the two it tested in July?

SH: The missile tests on July 4th and 28th were the first that had intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities. They were intentionally launched at lofted angles, most likely so they wouldn’t overfly Japan. According to the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state news outlet, the most recent Hwasong-14 missile reached an altitude of 3,725 kilometers (2,315 miles) and flew a distance of 998 kilometers (620 miles) for 47 minutes before landing in the water off the Korean peninsula's east coast, close to Japan. If launched on a maximum-range trajectory the missile could travel more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), giving it the ability to reach much of the US mainland. 

BAS: Do these test launches indicate that North Korea has mastered ICBMs?

SH: I think not yet, but these two tests demonstrate substantial progress and most likely mean they will be able to master the technology in the next year or two. The North Koreans have very cleverly combined various missile stages and rocket engines to get this far, but a reliable, accurate ICBM will require more testing. In addition, it is not clear whether they have sufficiently mastered reentry vehicles, which are needed to house the nuclear warhead on an ICBM. Advanced reentry vehicles and mechanisms to defeat missile defense systems may still be five or so years away. However, make no mistake, North Korea is working in all of these directions. 

BAS: Why are intercontinental ballistic missiles—ICBMs—so important, from North Korea’s point of view? 

SH: Pyongyang’s fears of US military intervention have surely grown with the dire warnings coming from US political leaders during the past several months. Pyongyang is determined to develop an effective deterrent to keep the United States out. It apparently views being able to threaten the US mainland with a nuclear counterstrike as the ultimate deterrent. It also likely has a political goal, to get Washington to the table on what Pyongyang would see as a more equal basis. 

BAS: We last spoke in May about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the technical challenges it faces—among them, making a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile, and a weapon that can survive the extreme conditions involved during launch, flight, and re-entry into the atmosphere. Have North Korea’s technical capabilities changed since then?

SH: I think the warhead is still the least developed part of North Korea’s plans for nuclear ICBMs. It must survive such extreme conditions, and it must detonate above the target by design. It can’t accidentally detonate on launch or burn up during reentry. North Korea likely made some of the key measurements required to define those extreme conditions during the two July tests, but I can’t imagine it has learned enough to confidently make a warhead that is small and light enough and sufficiently robust to survive. 

Achieving these goals is very demanding and takes time, particularly because warheads contain materials such as plutonium, highly enriched uranium, high explosives, and the like. These are not your ordinary industrial materials. 

BAS: Does North Korea have sufficient plutonium or highly enriched uranium to serve as fuel for nuclear weapons?

SH: This is one of its greatest limitations. It has very little plutonium and likely not yet a large amount of highly enriched uranium. For plutonium particularly, its small 20-to-40 kilogram inventory must be shared among several purposes: experiments required to understand the world’s most complex element, nuclear tests to certify the weapon’s design, and stock for the arsenal. To put North Korea’s plutonium inventory in perspective, the Soviet Union and United States at one time had inventories in excess of 100,000 kilograms each, and China is believed to have an inventory of roughly 2,000 kilograms. Estimates of North Korea’s highly enriched uranium inventory are highly uncertain, but are likely in the 200 to 450 kilogram range, which, combined with its plutonium inventory, may be sufficient for 20 to 25 nuclear weapons. 

Moreover, North Korea has conducted only five nuclear tests and we do not know if these used plutonium or highly enriched uranium for bomb fuel. During one of my seven visits to North Korea, the scientific director of their nuclear center told me that the first two devices used plutonium. During my last visit in November 2010, I was shown a modern centrifuge facility that had just begun operation. Based on that visit, I believe that North Korea most likely also used plutonium for the February 2013 test, but may have used highly enriched uranium for the two tests in 2016. 

Plutonium is a better bomb fuel, although its temperamental properties make it difficult to use reliably. Nevertheless, it would be preferred for making a weapon small enough to mount on an ICBM. Highly enriched uranium is more forgiving from an engineering point of view, but it is more difficult to miniaturize the warhead. North Korea has much more experience in uranium metallurgy than plutonium metallurgy because natural uranium metal is used to fuel its nuclear reactor. However, their overall experience with both materials in nuclear warheads is very limited.

BAS: In May you said you thought five nuclear tests spaced over ten years has likely allowed North Korea to miniaturize a nuclear warhead. Is that at odds with what you now believe?

SH: No. I was then referring to miniaturizing warheads for shorter-range missiles that could reach all of South Korea and Japan. The shorter range allows for much bigger warhead payloads and poses fewer challenges. Uranium could more easily be used for bomb fuel in such warheads. North Korea had no ICBM rocket experience until the two tests in July. Now we are talking about ICBMs, which have much more stringent warhead requirements. Miniaturizing a warhead sufficiently to fit on an ICBM will take more time and tests. 

BAS: Last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for discussions with North Korea, although the State Department then appeared to walk back the call for unconditional dialogue. You’ve expressed that dialogue is essential. Why now, and what do you think it could accomplish?

SH: There is an urgent reason to talk to Pyongyang now: to avoid a nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula. The greatest North Korean threat we face is not from a nuclear-tipped missile hitting the US mainland, but from Washington stumbling into an inadvertent nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. US Senator Lindsey Graham said last week, “There is a military option: to destroy North Korea’s nuclear program and North Korea itself. He’s not going to allow—President Trump—the ability of this madman [Kim Jong-un] to have a missile that could hit America.” 

I do not think that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a madman. We can’t even call him unpredictable any more—he says he will launch missiles, then he does. The madman rhetoric only flames the panic we see in this country because it makes Kim Jong-un appear undeterrable, and I don’t believe that to be the case. He is not suicidal. Nevertheless, it is possible that in his drive to reach the US mainland to achieve a greater balance with the United States, Kim could miscalculate where the line actually is and trigger a response from Washington that could lead to war. The problem is that we know nothing about Kim Jong-un and the military leaders that control his arsenal. It’s time to talk and find out. 

BAS: Both Senator Graham and former State Department official John Bolton spoke of pursuing a military option against North Korea last week. In May you said war would be a disaster. Why is it still being considered an option?

SH: Talk of war is dangerous and irresponsible. It would have catastrophic consequences for Northeast Asia and the world. Military action could slow the North’s program, but not eliminate it. Threats of war, moreover, only make the North redouble efforts to hold the United States at risk. And they greatly exacerbate the greatest risk of all: an inadvertent war on the Korean peninsula with the potential for hundreds of thousands of deaths, including thousands of American citizens. Unfortunately, some American leaders believe that if there is a war, keeping it on the Korean peninsula will keep us safe. I maintain that a nuclear war anywhere will have catastrophic consequences for America. 

BAS: Can you tell us more about what you think dialogue should look like? How do you convince skeptics who think there should be no negotiating with such a belligerent power?

SH: The crisis on the Korean peninsula is so urgent that President Trump should send a small team of senior military and diplomatic leaders to talk to Pyongyang. They must try to come to a common understanding that a nuclear war will inflict unacceptable damage to both sides, so must not be fought, and that a conventional conflict would pose a high risk of escalating to a nuclear war, so must likewise not be fought. 

This sort of dialogue might resemble the one between US President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Geneva in 1955, which US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev re-affirmed at a Geneva summit in 1985. They agreed that a nuclear war cannot be won, so a nuclear war must not be fought.

The United States and Soviet Union deterred each other through mutually assured destruction. A similar state is achievable with regard to North Korea. Joint US-South Korean conventional forces combined with overwhelming US nuclear forces can assure the North’s destruction. Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal combined with its conventional artillery and chemical weapons can inflict unacceptable damage to South Korea, Japan, and regional US assets. Although the tradeoff is asymmetric—that is, assured annihilation versus unacceptable damage—I believe it will deter both sides from military aggression. 

BAS: So are you recommending negotiations?

SH: No, the time is not yet ripe for renewed negotiations. Talking is not a reward or a concession to Pyongyang and should not be construed as signaling acceptance of a nuclear-armed North Korea. Talking is a necessary step to re-establishing critical links of communication to avoid a nuclear catastrophe. We must first come to the basic understanding that a nuclear conflict must be avoided. The need to communicate is sufficiently urgent that talks must start without preconditions. 

BAS: What else could talks accomplish?

SH: They would provide an opportunity to impress upon Pyongyang that ensuring the safety and security of nuclear weapons is an awesome responsibility. These two issues are becoming more challenging as Pyongyang strives to make its nuclear arsenal more combat-ready. A nuclear-weapon accident in the North would be disastrous, as would a struggle to control the North’s nuclear weapons in the case of attempted regime change from within or without. 

The talks should also cover the need for mechanisms to avoid misunderstanding, miscalculation, or misinterpretation of actions that could lead to conflict and potential escalation to the nuclear level. In simplest terms, Washington should convey that it is deterred from attacking the North, but not from defending the United States or its allies. It should reiterate that any attack on South Korea or Japan, be it with conventional, chemical, or nuclear weapons, will bring a devastating retaliatory response upon North Korea.

The US delegation could also reinforce Secretary of State Tillerson’s message, that the United States is not aiming to threaten or replace the North Korea regime and is prepared to assure the security it seeks. 

Also, the talks should underline to Pyongyang that any export of nuclear technologies or weapons know-how is unacceptable, and that Pyongyang should not imagine such exports or transfers can be hidden. 

Finally, talks should emphasize that these are talks, not negotiations. The exchange may lay the foundation for a return to diplomatic dialogue on denuclearization and normalization, particularly if Washington listens as well as talks. But that is not what this initial contact should be.

BAS: But won’t any talks be construed as Washington having blinked first and recognized North Korea as a nuclear-armed state?

SH: Washington can acknowledge that Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons—which is the reality—while also reiterating that it will not accept Pyongyang as a nuclear weapon state. Washington can make clear that it intends to pursue the eventual denuclearization and normalization of the Korean peninsula—goals that North Korea publicly signed on to in 1992, 2000, and 2005. Letting today’s state of affairs persist because we are overly concerned about “blinking” will only make a bad situation more dangerous. 

BAS: The US president has been very critical of China for not doing more to prevent North Korea’s missile and nuclear testing. Is it realistic to think China can control the North’s actions in this way? What do you think the proper role of China is here?

SH: The Obama administration pressured China and it didn’t work. The Trump administration similarly had its hopes pinned on China to pressure Pyongyang, and it won’t work either. We need to understand China’s national interest: It does not want to see Pyongyang armed with nuclear weapons, but it is not willing to bring the regime to its knees to stop it. Quite frankly, Beijing views Washington’s belligerence toward North Korea as the main driver of Pyongyang’s accelerating nuclear weapon program. 

Nevertheless, on Saturday, the two July ICBM launches prompted China to back the most stringent UN Security Council sanctions to date. Chinese state media followed with a statement that said North Korea had to be punished for its missile tests—although on Monday it said the United States must reign in its "moral arrogance over North Korea.”

BAS: What do you fear could happen in the near future if we stay on the current track? Basically, what about this whole situation most keeps you up at night? 

SH: That North Korea continues to make its nuclear arsenal more combat-ready and threatening to the US mainland, and that Washington declares this behavior a red line. And that the provocative rhetoric on both sides fuels more misunderstandings and miscalculations, which trigger a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.

In this podcast with the Carnegie Council, CISAC's Scott Sagan says that major changes must be made if U.S. nuclear war plans are to conform to the principles of just war doctrine and the law of armed conflict. He proposes a new doctrine: "the nuclear necessity principle." In sum, the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons against any target that could be reliably destroyed by conventional means.

In 2016, Sagan co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post on this topic: "It is time to turn nuclear common sense into national policy. A declaration that the United States would never use nuclear weapons when conventional weapons could destroy the target could reduce the number of nuclear weapons we need for legitimate deterrence purposes. Placing conventional weapons at the center of debates about the future of deterrence would also help focus the policy discussion on plausible scenarios with realistic plans for the use of U.S. military power. And it would more faithfully honor the just-war principles of distinction, necessity and proportionality, by placing them at the heart of our deterrence and security policies, where our highest ideals belong."

Published in the journal Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, this new article by Siegfried Hecker and Paul C. White below is based on content in Hecker's 2016 book, Doomed to Cooperate: How American and Russian Scientists Joined Forces to Avert Some of the Greatest Post-Cold War Nuclear Dangers:

“Nuclear weapons stink when taken apart,” a Russian nuclear weapons engineer told his audience. The year was 2000, and he spoke to a group of Russian and American experts who were attending a workshop in Sarov, the Russian Los Alamos, on how to safely dismantle nuclear weapons. The engineer was right: Nuclear weapons being disassembled smell like rotten eggs or a high-school chemistry lab gone bad. They can contain high explosives, organic substances, uranium, plutonium, and many other materials. Over the years, these materials interact, outgas, corrode, and are subject to irradiation, producing a foul smell. Hardly anyone outside the room would have had any reason to be aware of this, so the engineer’s words inspired knowing nods, and acted like a wink or a secret handshake: The Russian and American nuclear scientists in the room shared a common bond.

It was a strange phenomenon. Until just 10 years previously, the experts’ respective governments had been adversaries. But Russian and American nuclear scientists shared ties that no one else in the world could appreciate. Working far apart, they and their forebears had ushered into existence the world’s most destructive weapon, the atom bomb. They had worked to improve it, manage it, and make sure it was reliable. Now, they were trying to keep nuclear weapons safe from accidents and secure against theft and sabotage as the two superpowers downsized their arsenals. The scientists and engineers knew something that few others understood: That the most dangerous time in a typical nuclear weapon’s life cycle is not when it is being created, transported, or readied for launch. Rather, it is when it is being taken apart. Corrosion, changes in the sensitivity of chemical high explosives, outgassing of various compounds, radiation damage, and dimensional changes all challenge the skills of weapons engineers and scientists. The experts in the room might once have been one another’s opponents in some sense, but many on each side had intimate knowledge of weapons disassembly—who else could better understand what their counterparts were going through? 

An urgent problem

The story of how the United States and Russia worked together to address weapons safety had begun years before, and represents a remarkable tale of once-mortal-adversaries cooperating on matters that took them right to the edges of their respective countries’ most sensitive nuclear secrets.

It started with the disastrous Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in April 1986. After briefly denying it had occurred, Moscow reached out to the international nuclear community for help mitigating the tragic consequences. Washington assisted quickly and effectively. Years later, Russian nuclear weapon scientists told their American counterparts (including the authors of this column) that the Chernobyl accident had happened because the Soviet Union was isolated. That is, Russian nuclear reactor designers, engineers, and operators had not had the opportunity to learn from their international peers. The weapon scientists assured us that the safety of nuclear bombs had always been much more rigorous. Yet the memory of the Chernobyl tragedy, and the enormous increase in the number of weapons being moved and disassembled, made Russian nuclear scientists keen to discuss concerns and safety practices with American counterparts.

The end of the Cold War all but eliminated immediate fears of a nuclear war. In an ironic twist of fate, though, it dramatically increased the risk of nuclear accidents and the potential for theft or diversion of nuclear weapons and materials. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia had to transport unprecedented numbers of weapons from former Soviet republics to Russia for dismantlement. No one was as sharply aware of the risks as Russia’s nuclear weapons personnel.

In the wake of the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives launched by George H.W. Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev in September and October of 1991, which promised transparency and dialogue on safe warhead transportation and storage, the Russians gave voice to their concerns. In Washington in November 1991, Viktor N. Mikhailov, later Russia’s minister of atomic energy, specifically requested help with weapon safety and security, as well as help storing the huge excess of fissile material that would result from the accelerated dismantlement of his country’s nuclear stockpile. The US Congress responded to these requests promptly by way of the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction legislation.

The scope and timing of the Nunn-Lugar efforts matched the urgency of Russian requests. To deal with security concerns related to the surge in warhead transportation, the United States cooperated to develop accident-resistant transportation containers. It provided armored Kevlar blankets to shield warheads and warhead containers from terrorist bullets, and smart rail cars that enabled secure monitoring of warhead shipments. Washington also helped meet the new storage requirements (resulting from increased dismantlement rates) by providing containers and technical and financial support for the construction of a state-of-the-art fissile material storage facility at the Mayak site in Russia.

These Nunn-Lugar-sponsored efforts, managed by the US Defense Department and supported by the US national nuclear labs, were a good beginning, but the Russian nuclear weapons experts wanted to do more to mitigate the dangers. The extraordinary number of nuclear weapons returning from the field and waiting to be disassembled included some past their certified lifetime. During one of the first meetings of Russian and American nuclear experts at Los Alamos in December 1992, Rady I. Ilkaev, the deputy scientific director of the Russian national nuclear lab VNIIEF, proposed direct, unclassified consultations on nuclear weapon safety.

The Russians not only sought bilateral technical cooperation, but also believed that Russian-American teamwork would demonstrate an unparalleled level of transparency about nuclear safety, which would help reassure their own citizens and a worried world that remembered the Chernobyl tragedy all too well.

Ilkaev and his Russian colleagues took advantage of the lab-to-lab scientific collaborations that blossomed during the early 1990s to explore much closer cooperation on safety—an approach that resonated strongly with their US lab counterparts. Yet no government agreements were in place to allow such cooperation. So two tracks were pursued in parallel: The governments prepared for formal negotiations, while simultaneously allowing the labs to exchange sensitive but unclassified nuclear-weapon safety and security concerns and practices. This sharing took the form of symposia called the Security Technology Exchanges. 

Four such symposia were held between October 1993 and March 1994, two in each country, at which American and Russian scientists, engineers, and government officials compared experiences on a range of topics. Subjects included analyzing nuclear risk; mitigating risks posed by hazardous materials; understanding the response of engineered systems to abnormal environments; and communicating the content of technical documents. 

One of the most important topics discussed in these symposia and later exchanges was human reliability. The economic and political crisis resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union severely strained one of the foundations of nuclear weapon safety: people. One of the authors of this piece (Paul C. White) recalls that at a July 1993 planning meeting in Ekaterinburg, his Russian counterpart asked, “What do you do when you can no longer count on people to do what they’re supposed to do—to obey the rules?” Although the Russians’ confidence in the loyalty and patriotism of their nuclear workers remained high, they expressed concern that the fraying of the decades-old system of authority could give rise to insider threats.

A mutual strategic interest

These symposia opened doors, established a foundation for building trust, and nurtured professional and personal friendships that endure to this day. They also helped pave the way for government negotiations on the Weapons Safety and Security Exchange agreement, or WSSX, which the US energy secretary and Russian minister of atomic energy signed in December 1994. It entered into force in June 1995. 

In a March 1996 directive, US President Bill Clinton stated that cooperation on weapons safety and security was necessary to facilitate other US policy objectives, such as getting Russia to agree and comply with a true zero-yield Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Clinton authorized lab-to-lab collaboration between the three Russian and three US nuclear weapons labs, with the goal of sustaining the scientific competence of those responsible for the two countries’ respective nuclear stockpiles. His statement was remarkable for declaring that maintaining the expertise of Russian nuclear weapons scientists—America’s Cold War adversaries—was now a US strategic interest.

Although WSSX was an agreement between governments, the nuclear labs provided the driving energy and remained the centers of engagement for all related activities. Over the life of the agreement, which was renewed for five years in 2000, the two sides organized dozens of technical interactions, including symposia, joint studies, workshops, and exchanges of technical papers. The participants completed more than 100 collaborative projects on far-reaching and mutually beneficial topics. Among them were projects on accident response, responding to wildfires near nuclear facilities, and safety during warhead dismantlement. When Americans shared their experience of using a well-known industrial solvent—DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide—instead of mechanical methods to remove high explosives that had bonded to metal weapon parts, a Russian participant stood up and declared, “you have just given us a gift!” Such “gifts” were exchanged reciprocally to improve warhead disassembly on both sides.

The discussions on responding to wildfires would also prove mutually beneficial. It wasn’t just technical staff from Los Alamos and Sarov who got to participate in exchange visits. So, too, did the fire departments of the two cities. In May 2000, Los Alamos experienced a devastating fire that burned more than 400 residences and 30 percent of the lab’s real estate, and threatened facilities that housed high explosives, plutonium, and tritium. In 2010, Sarov had to battle a peat fire at the boundary of its nuclear complex. Los Alamos experienced another serious wildfire in 2011. 

The WSSX exchanges allowed experts to learn new ways of looking at similar problems, unquestionably benefiting each country’s handling of the safety and security of its nuclear weaponry. In the book Doomed to Cooperate, one Russian nuclear safety expert said the exchanges led his country to adopt new federal regulations on nuclear weapons safety and emergency response. 

Sadly, the WSSX agreement was not extended in 2005. The end of this remarkable period of cooperation came at the hands of governments, not scientists. Washington imposed more legal and bureaucratic strictures on joint projects, and veered away from prioritizing nuclear safety to promote an agenda of arms control and transparency. Moscow became increasingly resistant to the presence of US technical personnel at its nuclear facilities. During the last three years, as relations between the US and Russian governments have seriously deteriorated, virtually all nuclear cooperation has ended.

Nuclear safety has become more challenging as the designers and engineers who developed the weapons in today’s arsenals retire, and the experience of nuclear testing fades into distant memory. The older generation has passed on as much experience as possible to the younger engineers—particularly the idea that ensuring nuclear safety is a never-ending job. The WSSX projects demonstrated that cooperation has great safety benefits, and can be accomplished without jeopardizing either side’s nuclear secrets. The scientists and engineers on both sides are prepared to resume cooperation. The bonds they forged endure, reflecting a unique like-mindedness, a sort of simpatico professional relationship (or sympatiya in Russian) that helped make scientific engagement such a success and the world a safer place.

CISAC senior fellow Scott Sagan co-authored the following article with Benjamin A. Valentino, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College. They write that it's time to educate the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons after the United Nations recently voted to permanently ban nuclear weapons. The essay was published July 16 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

On July 7, almost 72 years after the first atomic bomb was detonated in the New Mexico desert, 122 nations voted at the United Nations headquarters in New York to permanently ban nuclear weapons under international law. None of the nine states that possess nuclear weapons even attended the negotiations. The Netherlands was the sole NATO member to participate, and it cast the sole no vote. The ban treaty will be open for signatures from all UN member states beginning in September and will officially enter into force after 50 states have accepted it.

With not a single nuclear weapons state signing up as a member, even the treaty’s strongest proponents acknowledge that it is a largely an aspirational document designed to promote disarmament by delegitimizing nuclear weapons. “Weapons that are outlawed are increasingly seen as illegitimate, losing their political status and, along with it, the resources for their production, modernization, and retention” the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has claimed. The treaty does not really “outlaw” or make nuclear weapons “illegal” under international law, however, because any state that is not a member of the treaty is not bound by its terms. Indeed, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement following the vote: “We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it. Therefore, there will be no change in the legal obligations on our countries with respect to nuclear weapons. For example, we would not accept any claim that this treaty reflects or in any way contributes to the development of customary international law.”

The treaty, however, does stand as a symbol of missed opportunities. The energy, organization, and genuine passion that eventually resulted in the ban treaty were assets that might have been used to address dangerous realities about nuclear weapons that are too often ignored: the human costs of clean-up of waste sites and production facilities and the potential for nuclear winter or other environmental effects. These issues were front and center agenda items for the “humanitarian impact” movement that spawned the treaty and in the movement’s early meetings, but these critical concerns were sidelined as the push for a nuclear ban gathered steam. All that remains of these original objectives is a short section in the treaty (Article 6) requiring parties to the convention to remediate any environmental contamination caused by the use, production, or testing of nuclear weapons and to assist people who may have suffered harm from them. But since the nuclear weapons states have not signed the treaty, they are not under pressure to address these problems.

Since nuclear weapons will be with us for many years to come, it is critical that we work now to minimize the risks they pose to humanity. Proponents of the ban treaty were right to criticize the nuclear weapons states for sometimes failing to live up to their pledge under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” But that progress has been slow because states still rely on nuclear weapons for deterrence and because it has been difficult for states to imagine a way that global nuclear disarmament could be verified and enforced. The ban treaty does nothing to address these disarmament dilemmas.

International concerns about reducing the risks of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons or to minimizing the past and future environmental impact of nuclear weapons infrastructure ought to be relatively easy to address. No country, after all, wants to suffer a nuclear accident (particularly since it would most likely occur on its own soil), or to leave their weapons vulnerable to theft or unauthorized use. Nor does any state wish to see its natural environment spoiled or the health of its citizens undermined, either by its own nuclear material or by contamination from a nuclear-armed neighbor.

There are good reasons to believe that these kinds of concerns represent the most pressing threats presented by nuclear weapons today. The United States and the Soviet Union came dangerously close to catastrophic nuclear accidents on multiple occasions during the Cold War. Although the safety of US nuclear weapons has improved in many respects, reports of serious mismanagement and lax security at nuclear sites continue. The United States spends between $5 billion and $6 billion a year on environmental restoration and waste management related to its nuclear weapons program and has paid out over $15 billion in compensation to nuclear weapons workers and “downwinders” exposed to radiation from early atmospheric tests. The total costs of the cleanup in the United States are estimated to eventually reach $347 billion—much more than the costs of producing the weapons in the first place.

All of these problems, unfortunately, are far worse in most other nuclear weapons states, where weapons safety technology, security procedures, and environmental protections lag far behind American standards. Cooperative efforts to address these problems are something that all states, both with and without nuclear weapons, should have been able to agree upon. The decision to use the momentum generated by concern for these humanitarian impacts to push instead for a divisive and ultimately ineffective ban, therefore, was a missed opening to make meaningful progress to reducing these hidden risks posed by nuclear weapons.

Proponents of the ban treaty nevertheless argue that by cementing the prohibition on nuclear weapons in international law they will intensify the stigma against nuclear weapons, discouraging new states from building them and eventually pressuring existing nuclear powers to disarm. “By stigmatizing nuclear weapons—declaring them unacceptable and immoral for all—the international community can start demanding and pressuring the nuclear-armed states and their military alliances to deliver what they’ve actually promised: a world free of nuclear weapons,” Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of ICAN, has written.

We see several serious problems with this approach.

First, the ethical and legal foundation for the treaty’s stigmatization of nuclear weapons is fundamentally flawed. The treaty explicitly notes that “any use of nuclear weapons would be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict” since the use of such weapons would invariably violate the Geneva Convention’s “rule of distinction, the prohibition against indiscriminate attacks, the rules on proportionality and precautions in attack, the prohibition on the use of weapons of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, and the rules for the protection of the natural environment.” In fact, it is conceivable that nuclear weapons could be used in a manner consistent with international law and these principles of just war doctrine. For example it is possible that, in 2001, the use of a low yield nuclear weapon against the remote, deeply buried Al Qaeda caves in Tora Bora might have met the legal criteria of necessity and proportionality. If Al Qaeda had been preparing a WMD there, as some suspected, the legal case might have been even stronger. In our opinion, using nuclear weapons in that situation would have been exceptionally imprudent—ending the 70-year old tradition of the non-use of nuclear weapons would have set a precedent that could encourage others to use nuclear weapons in less discriminating ways— but it probably would not have been illegal. Although the list of scenarios in which the use of nuclear weapons might be legal and ethical is not long, a complete ban on the possession of nuclear weapons is simply not supported by reference to existing international law.

Second, the ban is likely counterproductive when it comes to increasing compliance with existing laws of war. The United States had already been moving in recent years to help bring its nuclear doctrine in line with international law. The official US Nuclear Employment Guidance rules now state explicitly that “the United States will not intentionally target civilian populations or civilian objects” with nuclear weapons and that “all plans must be consistent with the fundamental principles of the Law of Armed Conflict” including the “principles of distinction and proportionality.” A debate (see here and here) has begun in the United States about how best to ensure that the US armed forces properly implement this guidance. The humanitarian impact movement could have focused on pressuring other states to adopt similar restrictions in targeting policies, but if possession itself is outlawed, discussions regarding the ethics and legality of nuclear use doctrine are no longer possible.

Finally, there is simply no evidence to suggest that the ban’s approach to stigmatizing nuclear weapons will be an effective path to disarmament. Research on compliance with norms and laws ranging from tax evasion and other illegal behaviors, to excessive drinking, and on to energy conservation shows that one of the strongest predictors of compliance is an individual’s belief about the probability that others in the appropriate reference group will also comply. In the case of the ban, all nuclear weapons states know that the rate of compliance among other nuclear weapons states is zero. Such a ban, therefore, might ultimately do more to undermine the gradual and step-by-step disarmament norm rather than strengthen it.

This highlights another opportunity missed by the ban movement: the opportunity to educate the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Public education is vital to addressing nuclear dangers because proponents of the ban may have overestimated the degree to which an anti-nuclear norm has taken root. Public opinion polls do show high levels of opposition to nuclear use and strong support for the principle of nuclear disarmament, even among nuclear states. For example, a 2008 poll of 21 countries found that majorities (or a plurality in the case of Pakistan) favored an international agreement in which “all countries with nuclear weapons would be required to eliminate them according to a timetable. All other countries would be required not to develop them. All countries … would be monitored to make sure they are following the agreement.” Seventy-seven percent of Americans, 86 percent of French, and 81 percent of Britons favored the agreement. Polls like this, however, almost never provide subjects with specific information about the scenarios in which nuclear weapons might be used or whether and how a disarmament treaty might be enforced. In the United States, where the most extensive polling on nuclear issues has been conducted, a separate poll found that only 25 percent of Americans agreed that “the total elimination of all nuclear weapons is possible,” and in another poll only six percent agreed that “nuclear weapons are morally wrong, and the United States should proceed to eliminate its arsenal whether or not others follow our lead.”

Our own public opinion research shows that significant majorities of the American public are willing to use nuclear weapons first when they are perceived as providing significant advantages over conventional weapons or when they might save large numbers of American soldiers’ lives by eliminating the need for a bloody ground war. We found similar results in a public opinion survey in India in 2015. Support for nuclear use in both countries remained high even when respondents were reminded that nuclear weapons were estimated to kill tens of thousands of civilians or more. These findings suggest that we cannot count on grassroots, mass public campaigns to pressure the governments of nuclear weapons states to disarm. Instead, we need to better educate the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons and how they might undermine rather than guarantee the safety of nations. Ironically, that was exactly what the humanitarian impact movement initially set out to do.

The CISAC Fellowship Program is training and educating the next generation of thought leaders and policy makers in international security.

Our fellows spend the academic year engaged in research and writing, and participate in seminars and collaborate with faculty and researchers. Every summer, many complete their fellowships and move on to new career endeavors. For the 2016-17 academic year, CISAC hosted 21 fellows (the center has 399 former fellows).

Some of our fellows, in their own words, explain what they will be doing next:

Andreas Lutsch

Having spent two years as a nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at CISAC, I return to my home institution, the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Germany. As a historian of late modern history, I do so in great gratitude for an excellent and abundantly rich scholarly experience at Stanford. Once I am back in Germany, I will publish my first book early next year, the manuscript of which I finalized at CISAC. I will also proceed to publish the manuscript of my second book, which I wrote entirely at Stanford. And I will move towards the pursuit of the so-called “habilitation,” which is required (in Germany) to qualify for a position as a full professor in my home country. 

It is not easy to put into a few words how much my CISAC experience has helped me with making progress at a crucial juncture of my career. CISAC fellowships offered me a transformative opportunity to make my research more rigorous, to think more creatively and more carefully, to appreciate interdisciplinary approaches in addressing complex problems, to improve my teaching abilities, and to establish relationships with leading scholars and specialists, which I hope will be long-lasting ties to communities at CISAC, Stanford, and the U.S.

Anna Péczeli

I have a tenured position at my institute in Hungary so I will move home in August and get back to teaching and research.

My CISAC experience was amazing, from the beginning I felt that I was part of a community here. I got much useful feedback on my research, and I really feel that my work improved in quality and I became a better researcher. I learned a lot about how to present my ideas so that it would be relevant for policy makers, and my fellowship opened new doors for me. I am grateful for this opportunity, and I am certain that I will continue to be an active member of the CISAC community wherever I go.

Eric Min

During the 2017-2018 academic year, I will remain at CISAC. As a social sciences postdoctoral fellow, I will study how international actors and third parties utilize diplomacy to manage and resolve interstate conflicts. This builds upon my broader research agenda, which uses new quantitative data and statistical methods to analyze the strategic logic of negotiations during war. 

Given that I came from a predominantly social science background, my year at CISAC was invaluable in helping me to understand the policymaking world and how my research could more effectively communicate the technicalities of my research to a broader informed yet general audience. I also learned about what kinds of pressing questions concern policymakers, which I will use to shape my future work. I look forward to meeting another group of diverse and knowledgeable individuals next year. 

Jennifer L. Erickson

This fall, I will return to my regular life at Boston College, where I am an associate professor of political science and international studies. In the upcoming academic year, I will continue to work on the research I worked on at CISAC on new weapons and the laws and norms of war and the nuclear weapons portion of my project in particular. I will also teach two sections of the Introduction to International Studies for BC undergraduates and the Field Seminar in International Politics for BC graduate students. In the fall, I also look forward to being affiliated with the Security Studies Program at MIT. 

CISAC has been a tremendous source of academic support for my research. Not only has it given me time and resources to do research and write, but it has also introduced me to new colleagues, who have generously provided insights and expertise that have improved that research. It also made it possible for me to attend events like a conference on New Dilemmas in Ethics, Technology, and War at the Air Force Academy in April 2017, the Military Immersion Map Exercise at RAND in May 2017, and the UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons in June 2017.

These experiences, as well as all of the opportunities to attend events and meet people at CISAC itself, will continue to shape how I think about my research and teaching and have helped me build new professional networks for the long term.

Cameron Tracy

In the next academic year, I will be a postdoc in Stanford’s Department of Geological Sciences. There, I will continue my work on the role of geologic disposal (burial) of weapons plutonium in the global arms control and disarmament regimes. I will also conduct scientific research on the manner in which nuclear materials change in response to their environments. For example, I am currently starting a project in which I attempt to determine the conditions in which uranium-bearing materials have been stored by studying the oxidation and hydration of their surfaces. This could help to determine the provenance of smuggled uranium that has been interdicted by law enforcement or security authorities. 

My fellowship at CISAC has allowed me to translate my scientific skills to the policy realm, and to greatly expand the impact of my work. I have long been interested in science policy, but lacked the resources, connections, and experience necessary to effectively analyze critical issues and to communicate the results to both scholarly and governmental audiences. Through interactions with CISAC’s resident policy experts, I learned about the role that technical analysis can play in the policymaking process.

While my transition to policy-relevant work is ongoing, my efforts have already yielded some impact on international policy, with an Australian Royal Commission report citing my work on quantifying the long-term risks associated with the burial of nuclear materials. I expect that the valuable experience and mentorship I received over the course of my CISAC fellowship will continue to inform and enhance my work at the interface of nuclear science and policy.

Jooeun Kim

I will become the Jill Hopper Memorial Fellow at Georgetown University and will be teaching a course, the History and Politics of Nuclear Proliferation, in spring 2018. From August this year, I will be a visiting scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. CISAC provided me with amazing resources. I loved my intellectually stimulating meetings with my mentor Scott Sagan and other amazing scholars who opened their office doors to me. CISAC is an ‘intellectual candy store.’ I am grateful to everyone there for creating such a special environment.

Andrea Gilli

Starting July 1, I will be a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs where I will keep working on my research about technology and international security.

The CISAC experience helped my career in three main ways. First, CISAC is a fantastic academic environment where young researchers can deal with leading scholars in a plurality of fields: the constant interactions between different views and expertise represent a unique source of intellectual growth that has helped me develop new ideas and identify new questions in my field.

Second, CISAC's activities and professional growth initiatives help fellows gain the skills and acquire the knowledge to succeed not only as an academic but also, more broadly, as public intellectual. CISAC has helped me improve my understanding of policy dynamics as well as my capacity to present to non-experts the findings of my research. Third, CISAC's "be-good" motto combined with its strong mentorship provides fellows with a perfect working environment.

Eva C. Uribe

This fall, I will be starting my position as a systems research analyst at Sandia National Lab. For my research here at CISAC, I have taken a broad, holistic look at the proliferation impact of the thorium fuel cycle. Therefore, CISAC has given me valuable experience in thinking through difficult problems using a systematic, top-down approach, which is a skill that I will take with me to my next position.

Accepting a postdoctoral fellowship with CISAC was an unconventional career move for me, personally. I got my doctorate in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2016. Most of my peers in the chemistry department went on to conduct postdoctoral research at another university, a national lab, or in industry. A few made the leap into science policy fellowships in Washington, D.C. For me, CISAC provided a happy compromise between these two options. It allowed me the freedom to continue conducting technical research (albeit outside the chemistry lab), while still exploring the policy implications of my research.

My experience at CISAC helped my career progression in two ways. First, through targeted workshops, reading groups, and less formal daily interactions, CISAC provided me with the opportunity to view my research and interests from a different lens, that of the policymaker.  It was interesting to see my fellow fellows, of all academic backgrounds, struggling with how to translate the finer points of their academic research into policy-relevant media. I learned a lot from their experiences and challenges. The second way that CISAC has helped my career progression was through exposure to others who have done this transition successfully. This was achieved through fantastic seminar series, as well as through daily interaction with faculty and fellows here at CISAC. Speaking with people who have worked at high levels in Washington, D.C. made me realize that I would prefer to continue doing policy-relevant academic and technical research in nuclear science, rather than to transition to policy completely.

Fellowship information

Current fellowship opportunities at CISAC include: 

•  Social Sciences or Humanities International Security Fellowship

•  Natural Sciences or Engineering International Security Fellowship

•  Cybersecurity and International Security Fellowship

•  Law and International Security Fellowship

•  Nuclear Security Fellowship

•  William J. Perry Fellowship in International Security

For more information about CISAC fellowships, email cisacfellowship@stanford.edu.

Congratulations to CISAC honors program Class of 2017! On June 16, students in the CISAC Interschool Honors Program in International Studies graduated in a conferral of honors ceremony on the front lawn of Encina Hall. 

We are proud to add our 12 new graduates to our expanding list of graduates from the program since it began in 2001. In total, CISAC has 193 alumni in honors. For the students, their graduation reflects an intellectual adventure that included a two-week honors college program in Washington D.C., tours of government agencies, meetings with influential policy makers, and weekly seminars with CISAC faculty. Honors students are also required to research and complete an original thesis on an important national security issue.

The 2017 program was co-directed by Martha Crenshaw and Chip Blacker. Crenshaw said, "We stress hard work, independent thinking, intellectual honesty, and courtesy and civility.  Our students are critical without being disrespectful, open to new ideas and ways of thinking, and self-made experts in the subjects they have chosen."

In his remarks, Blacker said several features of the CISAC program make it distinctive. "These include the diversity of the disciplines represented by the student's major fields of study, which range this year from political science, history and international relations, on the one hand, to computer science, energy systems engineering, and materials science and engineering, on the other. ..." 

While each project is different, "they all share the unifying and overarching themes of advancing the international security agenda and having value and utility in policy terms," Blacker said. The program, he added, places a "premium on knowledge of the real world, and of the art and science of policymaking in particular, coupled with intensive training in research and writing."

During the conferral ceremony, CISAC honors teaching assistant Shiri Krebs read statements from the students' thesis advisors regarding their final papers. Read below for those comments:

Ken-Ben Chao

A New Journey to the West: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Chinese Foreign Policy

Thesis Advisor: Coit. D. Blacker

"What is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and, to be blunt, why should we care? In essence, this is the question that Ben Chao seeks to answer in this thoughtful, comprehensive and well-written senior thesis. Ben’s answer, like the question, comes in two parts. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, he tells us, is neither an emerging alliance nor a diplomatic “talk shop.” Rather, it has been – and it continues to be – a subtle instrument of Chinese foreign policy that has waxed and waned in importance since its creation in 2001 depending on Beijing’s assessment of the international security environment. In Ben’s judgment, this is reason enough for us to care and for us to pay attention. Ben’s thesis is a superior piece of scholarship that tells us a great deal about something most of us know little about and does so in an informed and wonderfully entertaining way."

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Marina Elmore

When Things Are Not What They Seem: Explaining the Success of Countering Violent Extremism in Los Angeles

Thesis Advisor: Martha Crenshaw

"A policy of countering violent extremism and radicalization, known as “CVE,” was a hallmark of the Obama Administration as it struggled to respond to the threat of “homegrown” jihadist terrorism. But what is CVE? And is it effective? These questions motivated Marina Elmore’s fascinating inquiry into the apparent success of the Los Angeles program, highly praised as a model on the national level. Marina probed deeply into the case to discover that special circumstances predetermined the outcome and that the model was not easily transferable to other cities. For one thing, Los Angeles did not actually face a challenge of violent extremism because it lacked a population susceptible to the appeal of jihadist propaganda. For another, the city had already implemented most of the newly prescribed CVE “best practices,” such as community policing, in efforts to solve earlier social and political problems. Marina’s conclusions are astute, balanced, and fair, and she persuasively demonstrates both how important it is to test commonly held assumptions and how difficult it is to establish standards for policy effectiveness in the counterterrorism field."

Gabbi Fischer

Towards DIUx 2.1 or 3.0? Examining DIUx’s Progress Towards Procurement Innovation

Thesis Advisors: Herb Lin, Dan Boneh

"In 2015, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced the creation of Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx).  Through some great case-based work, Gabbi cuts through the complexity of the traditional acquisition system to observe that DIUX fills two important niches in the defense innovation ecosystem: it facilitates connections between DoD users and the tech community and it exercises non-traditional acquisition authority (called Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs)) to expedite contracting.  But she also cautions that the use of OTA may not be compatible in the long run with the traditional acquisition system, and suggests that future DIUX efforts may have to take advantage of other existing acquisition authorities (which do exist but which are rarely used) to make further progress in improving the coupling between the tech sector and the DoD.  She makes also substantive recommendations that DIUX should take seriously if it wants to survive in the long term."

Wyatt Horan

Evaluating the U.S. Foreign Policy Institutions in Permitting a Coercive Russian Energy Policy

Thesis Advisor: Coit D. Blacker

"Following the twin “oil shocks” of the 1970s, the U.S. Government moved effectively to reduce the potential economic and political impact of any future such events by reorienting and reshaping key foreign policy institutions. When, thirty years later, the Russian government under Vladimir Putin began to manipulate Russian deliveries of natural gas to its customers in Europe, the U.S. failed to respond in a focused, deliberate and coordinated way. In this provocative senior thesis, Wyatt asks whether the clumsy American response to Russia’s manipulation of this vital energy resource contributed to Moscow’s alarming behavior. He answers in the affirmative and by so doing forces us to think hard about how seemingly obscure organizational issues impact the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy. Wyatt’s thesis is bold and a little unsettling. It also reads like a detective novel, which is a tribute to the author’s willingness to run risks in search of a good story."

Tori Keller

The Rise and Fall of Secular Politics in Iraq

Thesis Advisor: Lisa Blaydes

"As you know from interacting with Tori over the past year(s), she is a passionate – almost obsessively curious – student of contemporary Iraqi politics. Her drive to understand the case has led her to write a normatively-motivated, policy-relevant thesis on the failure of democratic consolidation in Iraq. Her research suggests that a non-sectarian political future for Iraq was possible; the historical antecedents for such a vision existed. But as a result of a combination of US missteps, Iranian interference and, most importantly, the way these factors manifested into an insecure security environment, secular parties never really had a real chance to succeed even if a plurality of voters supported such an outlook. To write this thesis, Tori invested in her own human capital development in impressive ways. She studied Arabic, learned ArcGIS mapping software, collected original data, and undertook statistical analysis – deploying the skills she had acquired in her four years at Stanford with the goal of answering this research question. In the end, I believe she has the right answer as well. If there was any doubt left in her mind about whether she got it “right,” I feel confident that she would still be puzzling through the research today."

Alexander Lubkin

Plutonium Management and Disposition in the United States: History and Analysis of the Program

Thesis Advisor: Rod Ewing

"Alex’s thesis examines the issues related to the failure of the U.S. program for the disposition of excess plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. Based on his survey of the literature and interviews with key actors in this program, Alex analyzed the U.S. program and has made a number of important observations and conclusions concerning the causes for the failure of the U.S. program. His most significant conclusion is that one of the major causes of failure was that the U.S. program to use irradiated MOX fuel for the disposition of the plutonium was not consistent with U.S. nuclear policy. The U.S. is pursuing an open nuclear fuel cycle, and thus has limited experience with large scale processing of radioactive materials and the fabrication of MOX fuel. Alex was able to identify a number of other issues, such as over reliance on cost and schedule estimates of the different strategies and a failure to utilize advances in materials science for the development of actinide waste forms. I am very impressed with Alex’s dedication to this research project, and his persistence in the review of an often confusing and obscure literature. We have met regularly over the past year. I outline broad areas that he might investigate, but then he took these ideas and developed them according to his on evaluation of a variety of different sources. He also did an exceptional job of synthesizing the information from the interviews into an interesting and informative chapter in his thesis. Alex’s research will be the basis for a publication, but most importantly, he has opened the door to a whole series of policy issues that require more detailed analysis. He has certainly educated me on a number of these issues."

Jian Yang Lum

To Bomb or Stab? The Impact of Ideology and Territorial Control on Rebel Tactics

Thesis Advisors: Joseph Felter, Jeremy Weinstein

“Lumpy” as we know him- explores how rebel groups’ ideology and degree of territorial control affect the type of violence they choose to employ in pursuit of their aims. Using fine grained conflict data and case studies from thirty-six years of insurgency and counterinsurgency in the Philippines, Lumpy finds both quantitative and qualitative evidence in support of the predictive model he develops in his thesis. In sum, rebel groups with weaker ideological commitment and more limited control of the territory they operate in are more likely to initiate indiscriminate attacks such as bombings and employment of improvised explosive devices. More ideologically committed rebels, and those exercising greater territorial control, initiate violence that is comparatively more discriminate such as targeted raids and assassinations. The human toll and economic costs incurred by civil war and insurgency around the world are staggering and continuing to mount. There is an urgent need for policy relevant scholarship that increases our understanding of the local level violence associated with these deadly conflicts and how states can better anticipate and respond to these threats. Lumpy’s thesis makes a significant contribution to these important ends."

Elizabeth Margolin

Should I Retweet or Should I Go? Pro-ISIS Twitter Communities and American Decapitation Strategy

Thesis Advisors: Martha Crenshaw, Justin Grimmer

"There are many studies of the U.S. Government’s use of military force in “decapitation” strikes against terrorist leaders, particularly the effects of these strikes on levels of violence and degree of organizational cohesion. Researchers have also analyzed the relationship between social media and terrorism generally. But the specific question of the social media reactions of jihadist sympathizers to decapitation strikes directed against Islamic State leaders was neglected until the idea occurred to Eli Margolin, who took it up as the subject of her honors thesis. This difficult, demanding, and often frustrating research project required Eli to master new cutting-edge analytical methodologies and struggle to acquire elusive data from the archived Twitter accounts of now banned users, obstacles that she overcame with impressive ability, determination, and sophistication. After extensive and thoughtful consideration of three carefully selected cases, she found that Twitter followers of jihadist causes react quite differently to the deaths of different types of terrorist leaders. Her intellectual ambition and tenacity produced a thesis that is excellent in terms of conceptualization, analytical rigor, and empirical foundation."

Lauren Newby

From Zero to Sixty: Explaining the Proliferation of Shi’a Militias in Iraq after 2003

Thesis Advisor: Martha Crenshaw

"Why has there been a sharp increase in the number of Shia militias in Iraq, a troubling development that may jeopardize Iraqi progress toward stability and democracy? Lauren Newby could not find a good answer in her review of the theoretical literature, so she proposed an original one of her own. Most scholars attribute the proliferation of violent non-state actors to the fragmentation of existing groups through splintering and splitting, whereas Lauren shows that in Iraq the increase is due to the emergence of new groups. Researchers typically focus on groups directly opposing the state, whereas the Iraqi militias side with the incumbent government. Most studies are limited to groups operating in a single bounded conflict zone, whereas the politics of Iraq and Syria are linked. Lauren concludes that the Syrian civil war has been a major impetus for the formation of Shia militias in Iraq and that most are established by Iraqi political parties. Her thesis is exemplary in making a clear and convincing claim, contrasting it to alternative explanations, and providing new supporting evidence from primary sources."

AnhViet Nguyen

Territorial Disputes in Court: Power, Compliance, and Defiance

Thesis Advisor: Kenneth Schultz

"In the wake of the arbitration ruling over the China-Philippines dispute in the South China Sea, AnhViet wanted to understand what the prospects were for this ruling to help resolve the conflict. To do so, he placed this case in the context of other territorial disputes that have involved great powers or states who were significantly more powerful than their adversaries. This led to the central research questions: why and under what conditions do great powers comply with adverse court rulings over territorial issues? The thesis draws nicely on the existing literature to articulate several hypotheses and then tests these hypotheses using a variety of methods. Case studies of the US-Mexico dispute over the Chamizal tract and the Nigeria-Cameroon dispute over the Bakassi Penninsula show that great powers who initially reject adverse court decisions might later find these rulings to be a convenient basis for settlement. He also makes a very important and sophisticated point that great power compliance with court rulings may reflect their ability to keep high salience issues off the agenda. The conclusion is mildly optimistic about the prospects for (eventual) compliance while remaining appropriately clear-eyed about the limits of international law in this context. Overall, AnhViet does an admirable job blending theoretical material, historical case studies, and large n data to develop his argument. Moreover, his application of these lessons to the contemporary case of the South China Sea dispute is nuanced and compelling. In short, AnhViet’s thesis represents an excellent example of how academic research can be made relevant to current policy issues."

Thu-An Pham

On Treaties and Taboos: U.S. Responses to International Norms in the NPT and Genocide Convention (1945-1999)

Thesis Advisor: David Holloway

"Thu-An Pham has written an outstanding thesis on the role of norms in international relations. The United States has not tried strenuously to enforce the Genocide Convention of 1948, which calls for the prevention and punishment of genocide. It has, however, actively sought to enforce the nonproliferation norm expressed in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968. What explains the difference? On the basis of a subtle theoretical analysis and detailed empirical research, Thu-An offers three answers. First, the Nonproliferation Treaty is better supported than the Genocide Convention by institutions that monitor and enforce compliance. Second, the United States has regarded the norm of nuclear nonproliferation as more important for its national security than the ban on genocide. And third, the nonproliferation norm supports the current international order, which is based on the primacy of states in international relations. The Genocide Convention, by contrast, threatens to weaken the foundations of that order by challenging the primacy of states. Thu-An’s thesis suggests that there are limits on the role that international norms can play in a system of states. This is a wonderful thesis on a crucial issue in international security."

Jack Weller

Counting the Czars: Extra-Bureaucratic Appointees in American Foreign Policy

Thesis Advisor: Amy Zegart

"White House czars are frequently discussed in the press, but most people don’t really know what they are and very few scholars have studied them. Yet the use of czars has serious implications for the presidency—signaling when the regular bureaucracy cannot get the job done. Jack Weller’s thesis provides a novel and important contribution to the study of the American presidency. He compiles an original dataset of every foreign policy czar created during the past 100 years and examines alternative explanations for why some presidents used czars more than others. He finds something surprising: czar creation is NOT driven by the individual management style of the president. Instead, it is driven by the external threat environment. Presidents facing simultaneous wars – as FDR did in World War II and George W. Bush did after 9/11 – are more likely to create czars than others. Jack’s thesis is beautifully written and masterfully argued, earning him the honor of being Stanford’s czar of czars."

Siegfried Hecker won a national award this week from the American Association for State and Local History for his book, Doomed to Cooperate. Subtitled "How American and Russian Scientists Joined Forces to Avert Some of the Great Post–Cold War Nuclear Dangers," the work tells the story of nuclear scientists from two former enemy nations who reached across political, geographic and cultural divides to solve the new nuclear threats that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The two-volume set, edited by Hecker, a CISAC senior fellow and Los Alamos National Laboratory director emeritus, describes the lab-to-lab collaboration involving more than 100 scientists and leaders through papers, vignettes, and interviews. The book illustrates the challenges they faced, the friendships resulting from the collaborations, and the team's ultimate success in rendering Russian's nuclear materials and facilities safe for the world.

In a press release, Trina Nelson Thomas, the association's awards chair and director, said, “The Leadership in History Awards is AASLH’s highest distinction and the winners represent the best in the field."  

The American Association for State and Local History's awards program was initiated in 1945 to establish and encourage standards of excellence in the collection, preservation, and interpretation of state and local history throughout the United States. More information is available in this article in the Los Alamos Daily Post.

CISAC's co-director Amy Zegart wrote this essay, "James Comey's 'Shock and Awe' Testimony," for The Atlantic in its June 8 edition and was also quoted in this Stanford News Service article:

Imagine that two years ago, you sequestered a jury of 12 Americans, kept them in a news-free zone, and brought them today to hear former FBI Director James Comey testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Chances are that all of them—no matter what their political beliefs—would be stunned and outraged.

From the perspective of one of these Americans, Comey dropped bombshell after bombshell: The Russians are mucking around in American democratic elections, trying to change how we think, how we act, how we vote—and they will be back. The attorney general cannot be trusted to ensure impartial enforcement of the law. The president fired the FBI director and then lied about why he did it. Yet by the time Comey said these things in an open hearing, all of it was old news. It should have been more shocking than it was, but on some level, Americans were used to it.

Some historical context here is important. Only one FBI Director has ever been fired since J. Edgar Hoover took the job back in 1924: William Sessions, who was sacked by President Bill Clinton in 1993 after the Justice Department's own Office of Professional Responsibility found so many severe ethical lapses, they filled a 161-page report. It included schemes to avoid paying taxes, using government funds to build an expensive home fence that actually reduced the security of the property, using FBI resources for personal purposes, and involving his wife, Alice, in bureau management in “entirely inappropriate” ways. Comey, by contrast, was fired by President Trump for doing his job. Big difference. One was miscarrying justice and abusing power; the other was carrying out justice and speaking truth to power.

Similarly, the only episode in recent history approximating the cloud hanging over the attorney general’s office occurred during the Watergate scandal. That attorney general chose to resign rather than fire White House special prosecutor Archibald Cox and impede an investigation reaching into the White House. This attorney general, by contrast, appears to be implicated in an investigation that reaches into the White House.

Finally, never in American history has a foreign power so deliberately, powerfully, and maliciously tried to distort the cornerstone of American democracy. Comey sent this point home in the hearing, declaring, “There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. … It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community. ... It's not a close call.”

Comey’s testimony delivered a “shock and awe” campaign, FBI-style: calm, cautious, and candid, at once stoic and relatable. It was as though Comey were trying to reach through our television sets and shake the body politic into our collective senses.

And yet, his shock and awe testimony may not shock and awe for long. The biggest story of the day is how unlikely this is to remain the biggest story. In all likelihood, after the Twittersphere dies down, partisans will retreat to their respective corners and business as usual will return to Washington.

Why?

Because of something called the “normalization of deviance:” the more frequently exceptional things happen, the less we think of them as exceptional.  Over time, we become desensitized to events that fall far outside the normal range—often with disastrous consequences. The space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986 despite previous shuttle launches that revealed O-ring seals in the shuttle’s rocket boosters were cracking in cold weather. They shouldn’t have been cracking at all. But NASA “normalized” the poor performance of O-rings as acceptable and okayed the launch, even with record low temperatures forecast for liftoff. Seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space, were killed.

We experience the normalization of deviance in daily life, too. Ever hear a funny noise in your car? The first time, it seems alarming. After living with it for a few days, however, you think it must not be so serious after all. You tell yourself the car seems to be running just fine. You grow accustomed to the noise. After a while you don’t notice it anymore. And maybe the car really is fine. Or maybe the funny noise is an indication that the car is about to experience a catastrophic breakdown (which is what happened to me one night, when I assumed a strange noise in my car was really nothing, until the car broke down on the freeway, at night, in Los Angeles, “without warning.”)

The Trump era has brought the normalization of deviance to politics. In four short months, this administration’s national-security advisor has had to resign in disgrace for lying about his contacts with Russians and now faces possible criminal charges. The attorney general is so tainted by his own Russian-related activities that he has had to recuse himself from the bureau’s investigation of Russian-related activities. And the FBI director, who by law serves a 10-year term precisely to ensure independence from the president, was fired by the president because he was independent. This is bizarro world. Any one of these events would in normal times be enough to bring down a president. And yet senators today were talking about whether President Trump’s exact words to Jim Comey constituted a hope, a wish, an order, a directive, a threat, or as one senator characterized it, simply a “light touch” approach.

Comey was right about one thing: The Russians “are coming after America.” They may not have to. In this era of normalized deviance, we are defeating ourselves.

Read Amy Zegart's comments and those from other Stanford faculty in this Stanford News Service article.