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.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
CISAC Conference Room
CISAC Central Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall
CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.
In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.
In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.
In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.
His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).
CISAC Central Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall
In deploying NMD, the challenge facing the US is to devise a package of incentives that will secure Russian agreement to amend the ABM Treaty. The most promising would involve US concessions in a future START III Treaty to accommodate Moscow's interests. In particular, the US could allow Russia to deploy multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) on mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which are far less destabilising to the nuclear balance than many arms-control advocates assume. In addition, before making a deployment decision, the US should give greater attention to several 'boost-phase' NMD concepts which could produce a more effective defence with fewer negative consequences for relations between the major powers.
How should the United States deal with so-called rogue states that threaten to use chemical or biological weapons against the U.S. homeland or its troops abroad? Scott Sagan of Stanford University examines Washington's "calculated ambiguity doctrine," which holds that the United States does not rule out the use of nuclear weapons in response to a chemical or biological weapons attack. Sagan argues that the risks associated with this doctrine outweigh the benefits. He warns that although the ambiguity doctrine might decrease the likelihood of a chemical or biological attack, it also raises the probability that Washington would feel compelled to use nuclear weapons to respond to such an attack. Sagan concludes that the United States should renounce the nuclear option and instead recommit itself to meeting a chemical or biological attack with overwhelming conventional force.
