CISAC is announcing the selection of its 2004-2005 fellows. This group of 21 scholars, selected through a competition, will spend the fellowship year working on their research projects, participating in seminars, and exploring international security issues with resident faculty, research associates, and other fellows.

The incoming fellows come from a broad range of academic and professional backgrounds, and they will be focusing on an equally diverse set of research topics, including chemical and biological weapon detection, the future of nonproliferation regimes, and analysis of homeland security policies.

CISAC sponsors three fellowship programs: Pre/Postdoctoral Fellowships; Science Fellowships; and Organizational Learning for Homeland Security Fellowships. In addition, CISAC sponsors visiting scholars, providing opportunities for concentrated research and study within CISAC's multidisciplinary environment.

View the complete list of 2004-2005 fellows and their respective research topics.

Although keeping score is difficult, the State Department's annual report on international terrorism, released last month, provides the best government data to answer this question. The short answer is "No," but that's not the spin the administration is putting on it.

"You will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight," said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. As evidence, the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report says that worldwide terrorism dropped by 45 percent between 2001 and 2003. The report even boasts that the number of terrorist acts committed last year "represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969."

Yet, a careful review of the report and underlying data supports the opposite conclusion: The number of significant terrorist acts increased from 124 in 2001 to 169 in 2003 -- 36 percent -- even using the State Department's official standards. The data that the report highlights are ill-defined and subject to manipulation -- and give disproportionate weight to the least important terrorist acts. The only verifiable information in the annual reports indicates that the number of terrorist events has risen each year since 2001, and in 2003 reached its highest level in more than 20 years.

To be sure, counting terrorist acts is not as straightforward as counting the number of SARS victims. Specialists have not agreed to any test that would unambiguously qualify an act as one of international terrorism. But in the words of the Congressional Research Service, the State Department's annual report is "the most authoritative unclassified U.S. government document that assesses terrorist attacks."

So how did the report conclude that international terrorism is declining?

It accomplishes this sleight of hand by combining significant and nonsignificant acts of terrorism. Significant acts are clearly defined and each event is listed in an appendix, so readers can verify the data. By contrast, no explanation is given for how nonsignificant acts are identified or whether a consistent process is used over time -- and no list is provided describing each event. The data cannot be verified.

International terrorism is defined in the report as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets" involving citizens or property from multiple countries, "usually intended to influence an audience." An event "is judged significant if it results in loss of life or serious injury to persons" or "major property damage."

A panel determines whether an event meets this definition, but the State Department refused to tell us the members of the panel or the practices used to count nonsignificant terrorist acts.

We do know that the definition leaves much room for discretion. Because "significant events" include such things as destroying an ATM in Greece or throwing a molotov cocktail at a McDonald's in Norway without causing much damage, it is easy to imagine that nonsignificant events are counted with a squishy definition that can be manipulated to alter the trend.

The alleged decline in terrorism in 2003 was entirely a result of a decline in nonsignificant events.

Another curious feature of the latest report is that its catalogue of events does not list a single significant terrorist act occurring after Nov. 11, 2003, despite averaging 16 such acts a month in the rest of the year.

The representation that no terrorist events occurred after Nov. 11 is patently false. The bombings of the HSBC Bank, British Consulate, and Beth Israel and Neve Shalom synagogues in Istanbul by individuals associated with al Qaeda occurred on Nov. 20 and Nov. 15, respectively. Additionally, the report mentions the bombing of the Catholic Relief Services in Nasiriyah, Iraq, on Nov. 12 but somehow omits it from the official list of significant events.

So the record number of 169 significant international terrorist events for 2003 is undoubtedly an understatement. It is impossible to know if these and other terrorist events were left out of the State Department's total of events.

Despite the lack of transparency and the rose-colored graphs, the department's data reveal that administration policies in the past year have not turned the terrorist tide. Of course, it is impossible to know how many terrorist acts would have occurred absent the war on terrorism, but it is unambiguous that the number of significant international terrorist acts is on the rise.

The fact that the number of nonsignificant terrorist acts has headed down -- even if true -- is, well, nonsignificant. What matters for security is the number of significant acts. It is regrettable that one casualty in the war against terrorism has been the accurate reporting of statistics. This seems to be another fight we are losing.

On May 13, the Stanford Faculty Senate authorized the extension of the CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program through August 2010. The action allows CISAC to continue to nominate candidates for Honors through this period.

The program—its full name, the Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies—provides an opportunity for eligible students focusing on international security subjects in any university department to earn Honors in International Security Studies.

Students selected for the Undergraduate Honors Program intern with a security-related organization, attend the program's honors college in Washington, D.C. in September, attend a year-long core seminar on international security research, and produce an honors thesis with policy implications.

For further information on the program, visit the CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program page.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a senior research scholar with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Stanford Institute for International Studies and a senior adviser to CISAC's Preventive Defense Project, has been selected as a 2004 Carnegie Scholar.

The 15 scholars chosen this year by the Carnegie Corporation of New York will each receive up to $100,000 for a period of two years to pursue research. They join 52 others awarded the fellowships since 2000.

"The Carnegie Corporation has a long history of supporting path-breaking work in international security, and I am truly honored to be included in such a distinguished group of scholars," said Sherwood-Randall. "Given the state of the world -- and the fact that there are few foreign and defense policy goals that we can successfully pursue unilaterally -- I intend to use this support to generate new ideas about the leadership of America's key alliances and partnerships."

Sherwood-Randall's research topic is "Transforming Transatlantic Relations: A New Agenda for a New Era." Her study will seek to understand the elements of continuity and change in the global security environment in order to determine whether and how America's most important alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, can remain relevant and effective. She intends to publish the results of her work in a journal-length article as well as produce policy memoranda and briefings for appropriate officials in the U.S. government and relevant international organizations.

Sherwood-Randall served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia during the first Clinton Administration (1994-1996). She played a key role in creating a cooperative context for denuclearization efforts in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and in establishing security ties with the new states of Central Asia. Prior to her government service, Sherwood-Randall served as co-founder and associate director of the Harvard Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, as chief foreign affairs and defense policy advisor to Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and as a guest scholar in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.

Sherwood-Randall received her B.A. from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, magna cum laude. She received her doctorate in International Relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Chosen in a highly competitive process -- from an initial group of 144 nominees, 54 were invited to provide complete proposals -- the 15 selected Carnegie Scholars will explore issues critical to economic growth and human development. These include the American electoral process; political theory of international law; school reform from an international perspective; a reconsideration of the Iran hostage crisis; the logic of suicide terrorism; local control and federal reform of education; how U.S. transatlantic relations can remain relevant and effective; Hispanic students' achievements in elementary education; justice in education; political obligations in World War I America; the rise of far-right extremist groups and the role masculinity plays in their resurgence; the role of the United States in the 21st century; and the rebirth of democracy in Iraq.

"The annual announcement of the Carnegie Scholars is an opportunity to celebrate original and creative thinking on a wide array of social issues important to the Corporation's strategies," said Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, who inaugurated the Scholars Program in 1999 to support innovative and path-breaking scholarship.

"Criteria for selection were based on stringent academic standards and the relevance of the project to Corporation program priorities," said Neil Grabois, Carnegie Corporation's vice president and director for strategic planning and program coordination, who facilitated the various levels of deliberations. "The program's definition of excellence incorporates demonstrating intellectual risk-taking, framing unusual questions, possessing the capacity to communicate clearly and effectively on complex themes, and advancing scholarship in the Corporation's programs."

The Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. As a grant-making foundation, the Corporation seeks to carry out Carnegie's vision of philanthropy, which he said should aim to do real and permanent good in the world. The Corporation's capital fund, originally donated at a value of about $135 million, had a market value of $1.8 billion on Sept. 30, 2003. The Corporation awards grants totaling approximately $80 million a year in the areas of education, international peace and security, international development and strengthening U.S. democracy.

Beijing tries to read mixed U.S. signals in Korea diplomacy By John W. Lewis

For the past year China has led the quest for a negotiated solution to the Korean nuclear crisis. It facilitated and hosted three-way talks with the United States and North Korea a year ago this week and two sessions of the six-party talks (adding South Korea, Japan and Russia) in August and February. Its officials crisscrossed the globe to explore potential areas of common interest and compromise and this week hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to explore options for the beleaguered Korean Peninsula. Yet, in each of the formal talks, the Chinese have been discouraged by the minimal results. They are now questioning U.S. intentions toward Korea and, in the longer term, toward China.

Beijing considers the unchecked expansion of North Korea's nuclear weapons to be a real possibility, and its reasoning starts with the record of U.S. policies toward nuclear proliferation. That record, the Chinese argue, is mixed and often contradictory. As a result, China worries that Washington might continue to tolerate the program so long as Pyongyang did not cross key red lines, such as the transfer of nuclear materials to terrorists.

Whatever Beijing's past position on nuclear matters, many senior Chinese now regard nuclear weapons on their border to be a direct threat to their national security and suspect Washington of downplaying that danger. For them, it is no great leap to the conclusion that the unfettered growth of the Korean program might embolden others in Asia, including Taiwan, to acquire nuclear weapons despite verbal opposition from Washington. Beijing's leaders can easily imagine how that nightmarish turn of events would undermine the nation's drive toward modernization and end strategic cooperation with the United States.

Despite the fact that all parties at the six-party meeting in February endorsed the dismantling of the North's nuclear weapons program, the Chinese fear that the talks may be dead in the water. Following that meeting, they began to debate other ways to resolve the crisis. They had already reorganized the leadership team responsible for North Korean affairs, and that team had begun acting to prevent the worst case, including offering further inducements to Kim Jong Il this week. Whereas last fall the talk of deepening U.S.-China cooperation on Korea pervaded the news, now, especially after Vice President Dick Cheney's uncompromising stand on Korea and Taiwan last week, the reverse is occurring.

What China can do in these circumstances is quite limited. Its influence on North Korea is largely determined by what the United States does or doesn't do. By refusing to negotiate on a staged process leading to the eventual dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons, Washington has tacitly allowed the North's program to proceed. It has rejected proposals for a temporary freeze, technical talks and any interim steps short of the unconditional and complete ending of the program. The result is virtual paralysis.

Beijing has been able to work with North Korea only when it could find areas of potential compromise between Washington and Pyongyang. It cannot or will not act

alone to exert pressure because this would jeopardize its influence on the North. Contrary to a widely circulated story, Beijing did not cut off energy shipments to North Korea for three days in 2003. Beijing would not take such a counterproductive action when its main influence with the North lies in the kind of quiet diplomacy being practiced this week with Kim Jong Il.

Many in Beijing are beginning to question whether there might be a more promising approach with Pyongyang. Should the Chinese, South Koreans and Russians conclude that making progress toward the common goal of the North's complete nuclear disarmament is out of reach, for example, they reluctantly might translate their joint offer of aid in February into a quid pro quo for a partial agreement, such as a limited freeze, that would allow the situation to stabilize. China could worry that such an independent action could endanger the common front with Washington. At the same time, it could calculate that the United States would be sufficiently pleased with any solution that halted the North Korean nuclear program.

None of these developments may come to pass, of course, but who could have imagined a year ago that Washington would have permitted the situation to deteriorate to the present point?