Livestream: This event will not be live-streamed or recorded.

Abstract: When U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously told President Harry Truman that he’d have to “scare the hell out of the American people” to secure support for the coming Cold War, Vandenburg was tapping into a tried and true tradition of strategically cultivating fear to influence attitudes and change behavior. While this tactic has a long history of use, strikingly little has been written on precisely how, why, and when it actually works. In this talk, Professor Kelly M. Greenhill offers just such an explanation. Drawing upon findings from her next book, Fear and Present Danger: Extra-factual Sources of Threat Conception and Proliferation, Greenhill describes how and why cognitive and psychological biases can be triggered and strategically manipulated as means to political and military ends.

Greenhill further explains why actors engaged in this particular kind of cognitive hacking frequently eschew fact-based arguments in favor of “truthier” alternatives, such as rumors, conspiracy theories, propaganda, fiction and so-called fake news, sources she collectively refer to as “extra-factual information” (EFI). She identifies the conditions under which policymakers and the public tend to find EFI-infused threat narratives persuasive, and, drawing upon a wide array of historical examples, show that while information content and delivery platforms have changed, the underlying mechanisms that make this tool such an effective instrument of political influence, and EFI, such a useful handmaiden to it, have not. Greenhill highlights the implications of historical cases for our contemporary, EFI-saturated political environment and what current trends may portend for the future.

Speaker’s Biography: Kelly M. Greenhill (PhD, MIT) is a professor and Director of International Relations at Tufts University and Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Greenhill has published four books, including Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy (winner of ISA’s Best Book of the Year Award); Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict; The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics; and Coercion: The Power to Hurt in International Politics. Outside of academia, Greenhill has consulted for the US government, UN, UNHCR, World Bank and Ford Foundation and worked as an analyst for the U.S. Defense Department. 

This event is cosponsored with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/yMVJu1gmRFk

Abstract: Joshua Busby, University of Texas-Austin, will present the main argument and empirical work from his draft book manuscript. Over the past decade, a rich literature on the connections between climate change and security emerged, much of it quantitative on the links between climate change and violent internal conflict. In this book manuscript, Busby seeks to widen the aperture of security concerns to include major humanitarian emergencies. Through the study of paired cases, he explores why countries that face similar physical exposure to climate hazards experience different outcomes. His argument combines state capacity, the degree of political inclusion, and the role of international assistance to explain differences between countries as well as within countries over time. Countries with low state capacity, high political exclusion, and where assistance is denied or delivered in a one-sided manner are expected to have the worst security outcomes in the wake of exposure to climate hazards. While assistance can sometimes compensate for weak state capacity, improvements in capacity and inclusion can diminish the risks of climate-related emergencies and conflict. In this talk, Busby will compare the experience of Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar to cyclones.

Speaker's Biography:

Joshua Busby is an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security. He has been part of two U.S. Department of Defense-funded research projects on climate and security and his work on the topic has been published in Foreign Affairs, World Development, Climatic Change, Political Geography, International Security, Security Studies, among other publications.

This event is co-sponsored with The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Seminar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vHBvzWHcpw&feature=youtu.be

Abstract: The world’s largest organization is also one of its most mysterious. The Department of Defense (DOD) employs more men and women than Amazon, McDonald’s, FedEx, Target, and General Electric combined. Yet most Americans know little about it beyond its $700 billion budget and iconic five-sided headquarters. Now, the leader who knows the Pentagon best pulls back the curtain on an institution that many regard with a mix of awe and suspicion, revealing not just what it does but why, and why it matters. Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will offer an insider’s account of how America’s military works—and how it should work. It is also a timely reassessment of U.S. foreign policy and national security strategies in a rapidly changing world, and a timeless reflection on the leadership qualities essential to not only run but also reform a dauntingly complex organization. 

Speaker's Biography:

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Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/8JDHuY0HMCM

Abstract: The motivation to develop nuclear energy waned in the latter part of the twentieth century. Technologies such as very-high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and fast-neutron liquid-metal reactors had been pursued for the purpose of recycling used nuclear fuel from water-cooled reactors, or for the purpose of supplying high-temperature process heat to the chemical industry or for hydrogen production. While both worthwhile causes, one could argue that the important missing element of all of these advanced nuclear reactor technologies was a business case: how were nuclear power plants to be profitable? With the more widely recognized need for decarbonizing energy production, the new driver for developing nuclear energy became cost. Can nuclear power be economically competitive with natural gas and coal, in order to provide an economic driver for the displacement of fossil fuel? This became the new motivation for nuclear energy development in the twenty-first century, and over the last decade the unthinkable happened: a growing and striving ecosystem of nuclear energy start-up companies. Many of these start-up companies pursue the development of liquid-fuel molten salt reactors, fueled by thorium or uranium fuel. Other start-up companies develop solid-fuel reactors cooled by salt, or even fusion reactors cooled by salt. The common feature of nuclear reactors that utilize molten salt is the operation at high-temperature and atmospheric pressure. The high temperature leads to doubled power efficiencies, compared to conventional water-cooled reactors. The atmospheric pressure leads to a safety case that is arguably easier to demonstrate, and hence that would enable a faster commercialization time.  On the other hand, there remain many technical risks and time-line uncertainties for the development of salt nuclear technologies. There remain also questions of policy, licensing, and compatibility with local industry and local culture, necessary elements for the global development of such nuclear reactors. This talk will explore some of the challenges faced by the global deployment of molten-salt and salt-cooled reactors, and some of the challenges faced by nuclear start-up companies in order to change the innovation cycle for nuclear energy technology from thirty years to a much shorter time frame.

Speaker's Biography:

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Abstract: In 2013, the Obama Administration’s “Nuclear Employment Strategy” guidance announced that all war plans and operations would be “consistent with the fundamental principles of the Law of Armed Conflict” (LOAC). The Trump Administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review repeated this commitment. The literature on nuclear strategy and deterrence in political science however, has either ignored these legal requirements or misunderstood them. The legal literature on nuclear weapons, however, has largely ignored the technical revolution regarding improved accuracy and lower-yield nuclear weapons and the different strategic contexts in which the U.S. might contemplate nuclear use. This paper analyzes how proper application of the Law of Armed Conflict should constrain U.S. nuclear doctrine and war planning and how knowledge of strategic considerations is fundamental to proper legal analysis. We argue that the principle of proportionality can permit “counter-force” targeting— most clearly when such attacks can prevent or significantly reduce the expected damage to U.S. and allied populations with lower foreign collateral damage. We also argue that the legal requirement to take “feasible precautions” to protect non-combatants means the U.S. must use conventional weapons or the lowest yield nuclear weapons possible in any counterforce attack. Finally, we contend that the prohibition against deliberate targeting of civilians has gained the status of customary international law and that the U.S. government should therefore reverse its traditional position and reject the doctrine of “belligerent reprisal” against foreign civilians. This prohibition means that it is illegal for the United States, contrary to what is implied in the 2018 NPR and explicitly maintained by prominent U.S. Air Force lawyers, to either intentionally target civilians in reprisal to a strike against U.S. or allied civilians, or launch attacks against legitimate military targets if the intent to is cause incidental civilian harm.

Speaker's Biography:

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Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Learning from a Disaster: Improving Nuclear Safety and Security after Fukushima (Stanford University Press, 2016) with Edward D. Blandford and co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Armed and Dangerous: When Dictators Get the Bomb” in Foreign Affairs (November/December 2018); “Not Just a War Theory: American Public Opinion on Ethics in Combat” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Studies Quarterly (Fall 2018); The Korean Missile Crisis” in Foreign Affairs (November/December 2017); “Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran: What Americans Really Think About Using Nuclear Weapons and Killing Noncombatants” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Summer 2017); and “Atomic Aversion: Experimental Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons” with Daryl G. Press and Benjamin A. Valentino in the American Political Science Review (February 2013).

In 2018, Sagan received the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.

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Senior Lecturer Weiner is director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law and co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2003, Weiner served as legal counselor to the U.S. Embassy in The Hague and attorney adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State. He was a law clerk to Judge John Steadman of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.