Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

Reykjavik Revisited: Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

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Twenty-one years ago, at the October 1986 Reykjavik Summit, President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev entered into an unprecedented dialogue regarding their desire to eliminate their countries' nuclear weapons; in 2006 a conference at the Hoover Institution attempted to rekindle the vision of that historic meeting; now, in the fall of 2007, this policy brief published collaboratively by the World Security Institute and Lawyers Alliance for World Security seeks to reinforce the goals of those who seek a world without nuclear weapons.

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World Security Institute and Lawyers Alliance for World Security
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CISAC's Lewis and Hecker visit North Korea, confirm shutdown of nuclear facilities

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John W. Lewis and Siegfried S. Hecker, researchers with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, visited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Aug. 7 to 11, 2007, where they met with North Korean officials and specialists to discuss a number of topics, including the nuclear program, health, and education.

Lewis, the emeritus William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics at Stanford and a founder and former co-director of CISAC, led a small group of scholars on the trip. This was his 15th visit to the DPRK since 1986.

"The purpose of the visit," Lewis said, "was to support and deepen the process of normalizing U.S.-DPRK relations at this promising time in the diplomatic process." He added that the response to the group's proposals for cooperation was "extremely positive."

Hecker, CISAC co-director and a research professor in the management science and engineering department in Stanford's School of Engineering, said his role on the trip "was to increase transparency of the technical aspects of North Korea's nuclear program and to help inform the diplomatic process." This was Hecker's fourth visit to the DPRK.

The team visited the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. "We were able to confirm that the nuclear facilities were shut down," Hecker said. "The reactor is not running, no fuel is being made, and no plutonium is being reprocessed. We saw the seals and the monitoring devices installed by members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose specialists were there the same week."

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Martha Crenshaw

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emerita
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science, Emerita
crenshaw_martha.jpg PhD

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

 

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

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CISAC awards 14 honors certificates in international security studies

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CISAC awarded honors certificates in international security studies to 14 undergraduates who completed theses on policy issues ranging from speeding up the detection of a bioterror attack to improving the World Bank's effectiveness at post-conflict resolution.

Among the 2006-2007 participants in CISAC's Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies were award winners Brian Burton, who received a Firestone Medal for his thesis, "Counterinsurgency Principles and U.S. Military Effectiveness in Iraq," and Sherri Hansen, who received the William J. Perry Award for her thesis, "Explaining the Use of Child Soldiers." The Firestone Medal recognizes the top 10 percent of undergraduate theses at Stanford each year, and the Perry recognizes excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies.

CISAC honors students "can make the world a more peaceful place in several ways," FSI senior fellow Stephen Stedman told students and guests at the honors ceremony. "They can graduate and find jobs of power and influence [and] they can identify real world problems and solve them."

This year's class, which included several double-majors, represented nine major fields of study: biology, history, human biology, international relations, mathematics, management science and engineering, physics, political science, Russia-Eurasian studies. Some students headed to business or policy positions, while others looked forward to advanced studies in law, medicine, biophysics, security studies, or other fields.

"I hope that this is the beginning, not the end, of your contributions to policy-relevant research," CISAC senior research scholar Paul Stockton, who co-directed the program with Stedman, told the students. He added, "In every potential career you have expressed a desire to pursue, from medicine to the financial sector and beyond, we need your perspectives and research contributions, to deal with emerging threats to global security."

Many students expressed interest in realizing that hope. Burton said his aspiration is to attain "a high-level cabinet or National Security Council position to cap a long career of public service in foreign policy."

Katherine Schlosser, a biology major who is headed to Case Western Reserve University for joint MD-master's in public health program, said she hopes to "keep conducting innovative research and to eventually rejoin the international security studies community in some capacity."

The 2007 honors recipients, their majors, thesis titles, advisers, and destinations, if known, are as follows:

Brian Burton, political science
"Counterinsurgency Principles and U.S. Military Effectiveness in Iraq"
Firestone Medal Winner
Adviser: David Holloway
Destination: Georgetown University, to pursue a master's degree in security studies

Martine Cicconi, political science
"Weighing the Costs of Aggression and Restraint: Explaining Variations in India's Response to Terrorism"
Adviser: Scott Sagan
Destination: Stanford University Law School

Will Frankenstein, mathematics
"Chinese Energy Security and International Security: A Case Study Analysis"
Adviser: Michael May
Destination: The Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Va., for a summer internship

Kunal Gullapalli, management science & engineering
"Understanding Water Rationality: A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Cooperation and Conflict Over Scarce Water"
Adviser: Peter Kitanidis
Destination: Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley in Los Angeles

Sherri Hansen, political science
"Explaining the Use of Child Soldiers"
William J. Perry Award Winner
Adviser: Jeremy Weinstein
Destination: Oxford University in England, to pursue master's degree in development studies

Andy Leifer, physics and political science
"International Scientific Engagement for Mitigating Emerging Nuclear Security Threats"
Adviser: Michael May
Destination: Harvard University, to pursue a PhD in biophysics

James Madsen, political science
"Filling the Gap: The Rise of Military Contractors in the Modern Military"
Adviser: Coit Blacker
Destination: World travel; then San Francisco to open a bar

Nico Martinez, political science
"Protracted Civil War and Failed Peace Negotiations in Colombia"
Adviser: Stephen Stedman
Destination: Washington, DC, to serve as a staff member for Senator Harry Reid

Seepan V. Parseghian, political science and Russian/Eurasian studies
"The Survival of Unrecognized States in the Hobbesian Jungle"
Advisor: James Fearon

Dave Ryan, international relations
"Security Guarantees in Non-Proliferation Negotiations"
Adviser: Scott Sagan
Destination: Stanford University, to serve as executive director of FACE AIDS

Katherine Schlosser, biology
"Gene Expression Profiling: A New Warning System for Bioterrorism"
Adviser: Dean Wilkening
Destination: Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, to pursue a joint medical degree and master's in public health

Nigar Shaikh, human biology and political science
"No Longer Just the 'Spoils of War': Rape as an Instrument of Military Policy"
Adviser: Mariano-Florentino Cuellar

Christine Su, history and political science
"British Counterterrorism Legislation Since 2000: Parlimentary and Government Evaluations of Enhanced Security"
Adviser: Allen Weiner
Destination: Stanford University, to finish her undergraduate degree; Su completed the honors program as a junior.

Lauren Young, international relations
"Peacebuilding without Politics: The World Bank and Post Conflict Reconstruction"
Adviser: Stephen Stedman
Destination: Stanford University, to finish her undergraduate degree; Young completed the honors program as a junior.

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Transformation of U.S.-India Relations, The

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The United States and India are enjoying increasingly close relations. This represents a transformation of the two countries' past relationship, which was characterized by suspicion and distrust. This change, which began with the end of the Cold War, has resulted from a convergence of structural, domestic, and individual leadership factors.

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Asian Survey
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More Than Words: The Value of U.S. Non-Nuclear-Use Promises

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Last year, for the first time, the United States voted in the U.N. General Assembly against a traditional resolution calling for negotiation of legally binding negative security assurances (NSAs) by nuclear-weapon states. These are promises not to use nuclear weapons against nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states-parties that have promised not to acquire them. In the debate, the U.S. delegation explained that the United States "opposes a treaty on negative security assurances or any other binding instrument on security assurances."

U.S. military officials have long opposed explicit promises not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them. Prior to the current administration, however, the U.S. government had rarely been so clear in stating its opposition. This new position is contrary to U.S. national interests.

U.S. superiority in conventional weapons and the advent of precision-guided munitions means that the United States does not need to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons to achieve its military goals effectively, even against those states that possess chemical or biological weapons. Indeed, the United States needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons only in response to an attack with nuclear weapons. Moreover, the U.S. refusal to endorse NSAs only encourages additional countries, including U.S. enemies, to acquire nuclear weapons.

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Arms Control Today
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Strictly Confidential

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Everyone says an open, transparent government is the hallmark of a healthy democracy. But most reasonable people would agree that there must be limits to how transparent government can be. After all, no one wants sensitive national security secrets to fall into the wrong hands. When information shared in the name of good governance can be exploited by terrorists, many would argue the public's right to know pales in comparison to the public's need for protection.

But are openness and security really opposing values? When government officials curb access to information, they cut themselves off from the brain power and analytical skills of a huge community of scientists, engineers, and security experts who are often far better at identifying threats, weaknesses, and solutions than any government agency.

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Africa's Revolutionary Deficit

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Somalia is once again on the front page--and the news isn't pretty. Since 2003, the country's seaside capital of Mogadishu has served as an arena for a battle of gladiators, pitting U.S.backed warlords against guntoting Islamic revolutionaries. With no capable or legitimate state to counter it, the Union of Islamic Courts emerged victorious last June, only to be felled in December by an enfeebled transitional government, formed in exile and backed by the Ethiopian military. A recent spate of assassinationstyle killings and suicide bombings herald the arrival of a new resistance movement intent on ejecting these foreign forces and the African Union troops now being dispatched to the country. Caught in the midst of this violent morass is Somalia's longsuffering population of 8.5 million, seeking order from whomever can provide it, simply hoping that the bully who comes out on top will care enough to reverse the country's economic collapse.

Somalia may be garnering headlines today, but the country's strife parallels the bloodshed in far too many of Africa's struggling nations.

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Preventing Catastrophic Chemical Attacks

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A terrorist attack on a single 90-ton chlorine tank car could generate a cloud of toxic gas that travels 20 miles. If the attack took place in a city, it could kill 100,000 people within hours. Now multiply that nightmare by another 100,000. That's the approximate number of tank cars filled with toxic gases shipped every year in the United States.

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