The collision between the Iridium 33 and the Cosmos 2251 shows space debris is becoming a significant threat to satellites. Concerns of the threat led to the IADC space debris mitigation guidelines. However, there is no way to compel or enforce compliance with the guidelines, and since implementing some guidelines can be expensive, they are
frequently not followed. Moreover, the current legal framework is unable to determine who is liable for losses in an on-orbital collision. A space surveillance data sharing committee is proposed to solve the liability problem. Under the proposed liability rules, satellite operators would be liable for the debris they created. Insurance companies will step in to cover such risk. Therefore, there would be a financial incentive for them to adopt the debris mitigation
guidelines.

About the speaker: Ting Wang is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. His research concerns on space debris problems, and ASAT weapons. Before coming to CISAC in 2011, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University. He received a PhD at the Beihang University in China. His PhD dissertation was titled "Orbital Debris Evolution and Threat to Spacecraft."

He also holds a B.A. in aerospace engineering from Beihang University and has worked at the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering. He was a visiting scholar at the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2003, where he began to be interested in security issues.

The book The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History by Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas is scheduled to be published on May 14, 2012 by Harvard University Press. This book describes and analyzes in detail the Soviet biological warfare (BW) program, from its inception in 1928 to likely termination in 1992. The two most vexing questions that the authors attempt to answer are; in the final analysis, what were the Soviet BW program’s accomplishments? Second, might Soviet accomplishments related to enhancing biological weaponry be made available to future national or terrorist BW programs? This presentation will explain why these questions are difficult to answer but nevertheless will propose answers to them. The authors have a basis for doing so because they have been able to collect and analyze information from primary resources in archives and special collections, as well as in the course of hundreds of hours spent on interviewing scientists who operated the Soviet BW program. During his presentation, Zilinskas will discuss tentative findings that encompass subjects such as whether the application of genetic engineering, which resulted in among other accomplishments the development of multiantibiotic resistant Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, and Yersinia pestis, actually resulted in improved weaponry and whether genetically engineered strains remain in Russian cell culture collections and from there might escape or be made available to those who seek to acquire biological weapons.

About the speaker: Raymond A. Zilinskas, formerly a clinical microbiologist, is the director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is the editor of Biological Warfare: Modern Offense and Defense (Lynne Rienner, 1999) and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense (Wiley, 2005). He received a PhD from the University of Southern California and a BA in Biology from the University of Stockholm.

The U.S.-North Korean “Leap Day” deal of February 29 was thrown into question by the North’s recent announcement of a satellite launch between April 12 and 16 to celebrate the centenary of Kim il Sung’s birth. As the opening of the launch window nears, an intense international brouunfolds with, amazingly, the US, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea on the same page, dead set against a launch; and an isolated North Korea defiantly planning to celebrate the centenary with a satellite launch on or by April 15. In this presentation, the three speakers will provide a brief background of the successes and failures of North Korea’s previous satellite launches (score: 0 for 3 by Western count, 2 for 2 by DPRK count) and what has been learned from these; an expected timeline of activities of the countdown; and a guide and comparison of the new Sohae Western launch complex to the older Tonghae Eastern launch complex.

About the speakers:

Lewis Franklin is a long-time CISAC Affiliate, joining CISAC in 1992 as a Visiting Scholar after retiring as a TRW vice president, and previously vice president and co-founder of ESL, a defense intelligence company. Upon retirement he was awarded the CIA's Gold Medal for career-long contributions to foreign weapons assessment and national technical means capabilities. At CISAC his work focused on technical intelligence related problems, including wmd proliferation, export controls, defense conversion, and especially conversion of retired ICBMs for low-cost space launches.

Nick Hansen is a CISAC Affiliate. He graduated with a BA in Geography from Syracuse University in 1964.  His career in national intelligence spans 43 years first as an Army imagery analyst, and then in industry with GTE-EDL, ESL/TRW, Tera Research as a cofounder Vice Pres. and then again at ESL (now TRW/Northrop-Grumman) as a Director. He has also served in an SES position at the Navy's NIOC-Suitland, MD, as an image technology expert associated with Pennsylvania State University.  He has been twice nominated for the NRO's Pioneer award for innovative imagery uses and techniques development and is an expert in foreign weapons systems and test ranges. 

Allison Puccioni is an expert in remotely-sensed imagery and geospatial intelligence at IHS Janes. She was honored for her innovative intelligence in response to Sept. 11, and has been recognized by the Department of Defense and international armed forces for her outstanding strategic and tactical analysis. 

About the topic: What could queueing theory, the science of customer flows and delays in service systems, possibly offer towards understanding and countering terrorism? In terror queue models, newly hatched terror plots correspond to newly arriving customers, the number of ongoing terror plots corresponds to the queue of customers waiting to receive service, undercover agents or informants correspond to service providers, customer service is initiated when a terror plot is detected, and service is completed when the plot is interdicted. Not all plots are interdicted; successful terror attacks correspond to customers who abandon the queue without receiving service! Building upon these ideas, we will focus our attention upon a simple observation: other things being equal, the number of ongoing terror plots increases with the duration of time from plot initiation until execution or interdiction (whichever comes first), yet no estimate of the probability distribution governing terror plot duration has appeared in the open literature. Starting with a review of US terrorism-related indictments, lower and upper bounds for the initiation date of 30 distinct Jihadi plots were identified in addition to the date of arrest or an attempted/actual terror act. Accounting for the censoring and truncation effects inherent with these data; the estimated mean duration equals 9 months, while 95% of all plots are estimated to fall between 1 and 25 months. These estimates suggest that in the United States, on average approximately three ongoing Jihadi terror plots have been active at any point in time since 9/11/2001.

About the Speaker: Edward H. Kaplan is the William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Management Sciences, Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Engineering at Yale University’s School of Management who is currently on sabbatical as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. The author of more than 125 research articles, Kaplan received both the Lanchester Prize and the Edelman Award, two top honors in the operations research field, among many other awards. An elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies, Kaplan’s current research focuses on the application of operations research to problems in counterterrorism and homeland security. 

Karl Eikenberry is the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Within FSI he is an affiliated faculty member with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and an affiliated researcher with the Europe Center. Before coming to Stanford, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from May 2009 to July 2011, where he led the civilian side of the surge directed by President Obama to reverse Taliban momentum and help set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty.

Prior to his appointment as Chief of Mission in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a 35-year career with the U.S. Army, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant General in 2009.  His operational posts include service in the continental U.S., Hawaii, Korea, Italy, and Afghanistan, where he served as Commander of the American-led Coalition Forces from 2005-2007.

Ambassador Eikenberry also served in various political-military positions, including service as Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels.

His military awards include the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Ranger Tab, Combat and Expert Infantryman badges, and master parachutist wings. He has received numerous civilian awards as well.

Amb. Eikenberry is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, holds master's degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and Stanford University in Political Science, and was a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

He is a trustee of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Council of American Ambassadors. He recently received the George F. Kennan Award for Distinguished Public Service from the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He has published numerous articles on U.S. military training, tactics, and strategy and on Chinese military history and Asia-Pacific security issues.