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. 

New Century Seminar: Ron Hassner

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Insurgents in Iraq have turned mosques into fortified strongholds, forcing U.S. troops to weigh the costs of desecrating sacred space against the risk of operational failure. U.S. decision-makers are woefully ill-equipped to engage with the religious implications of the war in Iraq. Learn how a nuanced understanding of Islam in its multiple traditions might change the terms of engagement in the conflict in Iraq and elsewhere.

Bechtel Conference Center

Seminars

Energy Transitions: A Curious History

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Talk delivered at dinner during CISAC's conference, "The Security Implications of Increased Global Reliance on Nuclear Power," Wednesday, 19 September 2007, Stanford University.

Introduction: "Since you're dealing with the transition ongoing in the world to nuclear energy, I thought it might be comforting to hear a little about the problems of earlier energy transitions--from wood to coal and from coal to oil as well as natural gas and nuclear power. Energy transitions take time, writes Arnulf Grübler. 'Hardly any innovation diffuses into a vacuum,' he says. 'Along its growth trajectory, an innovation interacts with existing techniques...and changes its technological, economic, and social characteristics....Decades are required for the diffusion of significant innovations, and even longer time spans are needed to develop infrastructures....' The diffusion process is a process of learning, and humans learn slowly."

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Huda Ahmed

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Visiting Scholar (Iraq) 2007-2008

Huda Ahmed is an Iraqi journalist. She had a joint fellowship for the 2007-2008 academic year at CISAC and CDDRL. In 2006-2007 she held the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, sponsored by the International Women's Media Foundation, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

Ahmed's interests include international relations, ethnic politics and peace, democracy and religion of the West versus the East, and human rights reporting. She is interested in exploring current issues in Iraq related to politics, the status of democracy conflicts, violence, and the impact of war on Iraq.

Prior to her studies in the United States, Ahmed was a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers (formerly Knight Ridder Newspapers) in Baghdad. Beginning in July 2004, she assisted in coverage and translation for a wide range of breaking news and feature stories including the bloody siege of Najaf, Iraq's historic elections, and corruption in the new Iraqi security forces.

She was recognized by Knight Ridder's Washington bureau for extraordinary bravery in covering combat during the siege of Najaf in Southern Iraq.

Ahmed served as a reporter and translator for The Washington Post in Baghdad, where she assisted in covering the search for weapons of mass destruction, looting after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, the secret massacre of students during Hussein's reign, and the abuse of women in the Islamic world among other stories.

Her journalism career began in 1992 when she served as a translator for The Daily Baghdad Observer and Al Jumhurriya Daily, in Baghdad. Earlier in her career, she worked as a translator and a high school teacher in U.A.E, Tunisia, and Libya.

Ahmed, along with 5 other Iraqi journalists from McClatchy's Baghdad bureau, received the Courage in Journalism Award for 2007 from the International Women's Media Foundation.

Readiness in the Post-Katrina and Post-9/11 World: An Evaluation of the New National Response Framework

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The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) draft National Response Framework proposes much-needed improvements for disaster preparedness and response. As currently written, however, the framework also ignores--and is likely to subvert--key changes that Congress enacted in Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. Congress had compelling reasons to adopt those changes. The draft framework overlooks the concerns that helped shape the legislation Congress enacted, and would put the nation at risk to some of the same systemic failures that hobbled the Federal response to Katrina.

I will open my testimony by examining the framework's most glaring departure from the reforms Congress enacted in 2006: the proposal that disaster preparedness and response efforts be led by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, rather than by the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management System (FEMA). I will then briefly explain why I believe Congress made the correct decision in assigning that leadership responsibility and authority to the FEMA Administrator, and why the shift proposed by the draft framework would put the emergency management system at such risk. I will conclude by raising some additional issues that the Subcommittee may wish to consider as it reviews the draft framework, especially those involving the uncertainties that continue to surround response to catastrophic events.

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U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management
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Nations, States, and Violence

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Nations, States, and Violence presents a revisionist view of the sources of nationalism, the relationship of the nation to culture, and the implications of nationalism and cultural heterogeneity for the future of the nation-state. It accepts the now-standard view that national identities are not inherited traits but constructed communities in order to serve political ends. But the resulting national identities do not emerge from some metaphorical plebiscite as had been suggested by some; rather they result from efforts by people to coordinate their identities with people who share at least some cultural traits with them. Coordination leads to powerful social and cultural ties that are hard to unravel, and this explains the persistence of national identities.


Understood as the result of coordination dynamics, the implications of national homogeneity and heterogeneity are explored. The book shows that national heterogeneity is not, as it is sometimes accused of being, a source of hatred and violence. Nonetheless, there are advantages to homogeneity for the production of public goods and economic growth. Whatever the positive implications of homogeneity, the book shows that in the current world, classic nation-states are defunct. Heterogeneity is proliferating not only due to migration but also because small groups in many states once thought to be homogeneous are coordinating to demand national recognition. With the prohibitive costs of eliminating cultural heterogeneity, citizens and leaders need to learn how best to manage, or even take advantage of, national diversity within their countries. Management of diversity demands that we understand the coordination aspects of national heterogeneity, a perspective that this book provides.

In addition to providing a powerful theory of coordination and cultural diversity, the book provides a host of engaging vignettes of Somalia, Spain, Estonia, and Nigeria, where the author has conducted original field research. The result is a book where theory is combined with interpretations of current issues on nationalism, economic growth, and ethnic violence.

Reviews

"In this provocative little book, a Stanford political scientist presents an intriguing account of nationalism and its implications for conflict and cooperation."--Foreign Affairs

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Oxford University Press
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David Laitin
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9780199228232

Enhancing Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540

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The threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorist groups is perhaps the gravest threat confronting the international security system. In 2004, the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII, adopted Security Council Resolution 1540 (UNSCR 1540). UNSCR 1540 calls on UN member states to enact legislation and to take effective measures to prevent non-state actors, and terrorist groups in particular, from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. UNSCR 1540 also obligated states to report on measures they have taken to fulfill the substantive requirements of the resolution. In addition, UNSCR 1540 established an ad hoc committee ("the 1540 Committee") to receive states' reports and in turn to report to the Security Council on implementation of the resolution. In 2006, the 1540 Committee's initial two-year mandate was renewed for another two years.

UNSCR 1540, as administered by the 1540 Committee, has largely been effective in encouraging states to provide detailed descriptions of the domestic legal authorities and administrative structures they have in place to address the threat of WMD proliferation. Additional progress can and should be made by the Security Council and the 1540 Committee, however, to ensure that the maximum nonproliferation and security benefits that might be produced by UNSCR 1540 are achieved. Our recommendations address implementation, adaptation, international cooperation and assistance, information sharing and assessment, and organizational implications.

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Policy Briefs
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CISAC
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Allen S. Weiner

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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