Abstract

Few presidential initiatives have attracted more public ridicule from scientists and engineers than ‘Star Wars’, Ronald Reagan’s 1983 proposal to build a missile defense system that would render the Soviet nuclear arsenal ‘impotent and obsolete’. Scientists found multiple ways of critiquing what Reagan’s vision became: not a working weapons system, but a dramatically escalated research and development program known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which stalled arms-control negotiations near the end of the Cold War. This paper examines how scientists crossed discursive boundaries between science and politics as they staged a social movement against SDI: a nationwide boycott of Star Wars research funds. It argues that scientists made discursive choices that furthered their immediate challenge to practices of military-academic research, while still shaping emergent identities in line with existing institutions. Significantly, this account cannot be simply incorporated into existing traditions of research in lay-expert communication. Whereas these traditions suggest that communicative practices either enable or constrain actors, this account shows they simultaneously did both. It advances the notion of ‘discursive choices’ as a concept that may help mediate between structure and agency in studies of public communication with technical experts. This account suggests that an examination of discursive choices may contribute to understanding how expertise is maintained and reconfigured within a particular political culture.

This book presents a comparative study of Colombian drug-smuggling enterprises, terrorist networks (including al Qaeda), and the law enforcement agencies that seek to dismantle them. Drawing on a wealth of research materials, including interviews with former drug traffickers and other hard-to-reach informants, Michael Kenney explores how drug traffickers, terrorists, and government officials gather, analyze, and apply knowledge and experience.

The analysis reveals that the resilience of the Colombian drug trade and Islamist extremism in wars on drugs and terrorism stems partly from the ability of illicit enterprises to change their activities in response to practical experience and technical information, store this knowledge in practices and procedures, and select and retain routines that produce satisfactory results. Traffickers and terrorists "learn," building skills, improving practices, and becoming increasingly difficult for state authorities to eliminate.

The book concludes by exploring theoretical and policy implications, suggesting that success in wars on drugs and terrorism depends less on fighting illicit networks with government intelligence and more on conquering competency traps--traps that compel policymakers to exploit militarized enforcement strategies repeatedly without questioning whether these programs are capable of producing the intended results.

The author is an assistant professor of political science and public policy at Penn State Harrisburg. He worked on this book as a CISAC fellow in 2004-2005.

We have learned little from the cataclysms of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to catastrophe, America is living on borrowed time--and squandering it.

The truth is, acts of terror cannot always be prevented, and nature continues to show its fury in frighteningly unpredictable ways. Resiliency, argues Flynn, must now become our national motto. With chilling frankness and clarity, Flynn paints an all-too-real scenario of the threats we face within our own borders. A terrorist attack on a tanker carrying liquefied natural gas into Boston Harbor could kill thousands and leave millions more of New Englanders without power or heat. The destruction of a ship with a cargo of oil in Long Beach, California, could bring the West Coast economy to its knees and endanger the surrounding population. But even these alarmingly plausible terrorist scenarios pale in comparison to the potential destruction wrought by a major earthquake or hurricane.

Our growing exposure to man-made and natural perils is largely rooted in our own negligence, as we take for granted the infrastructure handed down to us by earlier generations. Once the envy of the world, this infrastructure is now crumbling. After decades of neglect, our public health system leaves us at the mercy of microbes that could kill millions in the next flu pandemic. Flash flooding could wipe out a fifty-year-old dam north of Phoenix, placing thousands of homes and lives at risk. The next San Francisco earthquake could destroy century-old levees, contaminating the freshwater supply that most of California relies on for survival.

It doesn't have to be this way. The Edge of Disaster tells us what we can do about it, as individuals and as a society. We can--and, Flynn argues, we must--construct a more resilient nation. With the wounds of recent national tragedies still unhealed, the time to act is now. By tackling head-on, eyes open the perils that lie before us, we can remain true to our most important and endearing national trait: our sense of optimism about the future and our conviction that we can change it for the better for ourselves--and our children.

Testimony before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on "Five- and Ten-Year Homeland Security Goals." In the afternoon session on 30 January 2007, the subcommittee heard from Brian Michael Jenkins, of RAND Corporation; Paul Stockton, of CISAC at Stanford University; James Carafano, of the Heritage Foundation; and Randall Yim, former director of the Homeland Security Institute.

Congress and the Administration have made great progress in securing the Nation since 9/11. Major challenges remain, however, both for responding to the flaws revealed by Hurricane Katrina and--at least as important--anticipating and preparing for the threats to come. We cannot meet those challenges by following the path we are on today.

Four changes will get us on a better path. First, we need to rethink the meaning of homeland security and the priorities within it. Second, we need to recast the division of labor in homeland security, and go much further to capitalize on the advantages that states and localities have over the federal government in securing the Nation. Third, we should build deeper integration within the Department of Homeland Security--through means I will propose today that would produce benefits far beyond the Department. Finally, we need to consider more comprehensive ways to bring risk-based analysis to bear on homeland security decisions, and thereby gain the greatest possible impact from the resources you invest in this constrained fiscal environment.

Testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 27, 2007, on the situation in Iraq and the Bush administration's strategy. The full committee heard testimony from William Perry, co-director of the Preventive Defense Project at CISAC and former secretary of defense; Ambassador Dennis B. Ross, counselor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, former director for policy planning in the Department of State, and former special Middle East coordinator; and General John M. Keane (retired, U.S. Army), former Army vice chief of staff.

It has become clear to the American public that we need a new way forward in Iraq. In December 2006, the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan group formed by the Congress, concluded nine months of study and proposed a new way forward. The ISG proposal recognized that the key actions needed in Iraq must be taken by the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army, and provided the incentives for those actions. The ISG proposal also recognized that the U.S. needed to begin the redeployment of its overstretched ground forces in order to meet its security responsibilities outside of Iraq.

Perhaps, most importantly, the recommendations of the bipartisan ISG provided an opportunity for the nation to come together on Iraq. Last week, President Bush announced what he called a 'New Way Forward' in Iraq that does not follow the ISG ecommendations. He has instead chosen a course of action that I believe is not likely to succeed because it is tactical, not strategic; because it does not entail real conditionality for the Iraqi government; and because it will only deepen the divide in the country. So in my testimony today I will explain the differences in the two approaches, and why I believe that the ISG proposals better serve the interests of the United States.