Abstract: Europe and the United States have sharply divergent regulatory regimes and public perceptions on the benefits and risks of genetically modified foods. I draw on the history and factors behind this divergence, including the concept of regulatory precaution, to highlight how institutional design choices, contingent events and policy entrepreneurs can shape how societies absorb new technologies, with particular application to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation. The story of GMO governance is a precautionary tale for technologists and policy makers about possible governance futures for AI. 

Bio: Andrew J. Grotto is a William J. Perry International Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.

Grotto’s research interests center on the national security and international economic dimensions of America’s global leadership in information technology innovation, and its growing reliance on this innovation for its economic and social life. He is particularly interested in the allocation of responsibility between the government and the privater sector for defending against cyber threats, especially as it pertains to critical infrastructure; cyber-enabled information operations as both a threat to, and a tool of statecraft for, liberal democracies; opportunities and constraints facing offensive cyber operations as a tool of statecraft, especially those relating to norms of sovereignty in a digitally connected world; and governance of global trade in information technologies.

Before coming to Stanford, Grotto was the Senior Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the White House in both the Obama and Trump Administrations. His portfolio spanned a range of cyber policy issues, including defense of the financial services, energy, communications, transportation, health care, electoral infrastructure, and other vital critical infrastructure sectors; cybersecurity risk management policies for federal networks; consumer cybersecurity; and cyber incident response policy and incident management. He also coordinated development and execution of technology policy topics with a nexus to cyber policy, such as encryption, surveillance, privacy, and the national security dimensions of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

At the White House, he played a key role in shaping President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan and driving its implementation. He was also the principal architect of President Trump’s cybersecurity executive order, “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.”

Grotto joined the White House after serving as Senior Advisor for Technology Policy to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, advising Pritzker on all aspects of technology policy, including Internet of Things, net neutrality, privacy, national security reviews of foreign investment in the U.S. technology sector, and international developments affecting the competitiveness of the U.S. technology sector.

Grotto worked on Capitol Hill prior to the Executive Branch, as a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He served as then-Chairman Dianne Feinstein’s lead staff overseeing cyber-related activities of the intelligence community and all aspects of NSA’s mission. He led the negotiation and drafting of the information sharing title of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which later served as the foundation for the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that President Obama signed in 2015. He also served as committee designee first for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and later for Senator Kent Conrad, advising the senators on oversight of the intelligence community, including of covert action programs, and was a contributing author of the “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program.”

Before his time on Capitol Hill, Grotto was a Senior National Security Analyst at the Center for American Progress, where his research and writing focused on U.S. policy towards nuclear weapons - how to prevent their spread, and their role in U.S. national security strategy.

Grotto received his JD from the University of California at Berkeley, his MPA from Harvard University, and his BA from the University of Kentucky.

Abstract: Sagan and Valentino's path-breaking survey of public opinion American attitudes towards the laws of war found Americans are relatively insensitive to international norms and taboos against the use of nuclear weapons and the targeting of civilian populations. We replicated a key question on this study – where respondents were asked if they would support saturation bombing an Iranian city to end a war. We also introduced some variations into the experiment to disaggregate any potential influence of international norms and laws from the effect of historical analogies and interest-based frames embedded in the original experiment. Overall, our quantitative and qualitative findings are more optimistic about Americans' sensitivity to the civilian immunity norm. Nonetheless, our findings suggest much depends on whether legal/ethical considerations, rather than tactical ones alone, are part of any national conversation about war policy.    

Charli's Bio: Charli Carpenter is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her teaching and research interests include the laws of war, protection of civilians, humanitarian disarmament, global advocacy networks, and the role of popular culture in global affairs. She has a particular interest in the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security. She has published three books and numerous journal articles, has served as a consultant for the United Nations, and contributed to Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Carpenter spends her time raising future members of the American electorate, snowboarding, and rambling about international politics and popular culture at Duck of Minerva.  

Alexander's Bio: Alexander H. Montgomery is associate professor of Political Science at Reed College. He has a B.A. in Physics from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in Energy and Resources from UC-Berkeley, and an M.A. in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. He has been a fellow at the Belfer Center, CISAC, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. He has published articles on nuclear proliferation and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict, and is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Networks (2017).

Abstract: Climate change is an existential problem with far-reaching implications for the biosphere and human life.  Political science should be studying human responses to carbonization and potential measures to mitigate its effects.  Such investigations can focus on individuals, firms, or states as the units of analysis. Political science should also take note of emerging technologies for rapid decarbonization, which are likely to generate different political challenges.  It is our responsibility as political scientists to study the potential political barriers to technically feasible decarbonization, and to help devise strategies to overcome them.

Bio: Robert O. Keohane (PhD Harvard 1966) is Professor of Public and International Affairs (Emeritus) in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He has served as Editor of International Organization and as President of the International Studies Association and the American Political Science Association.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences; and he is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He has been a recipient of the Balzan Prize: International Relations: History Theory, 2016; the James Madison Award, American Political Science Association, 2014, for  lifetime achievement; the Centennial Medal, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2012; the Skytte Prize from the Johan Skytte Foundation, Uppsala Sweden, 2005; the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, 1989, and two honorary doctorates.  His publications include Power and Interdependence (with Joseph S. Nye, Jr., originally published in 1977), After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (1984), Designing Social Inquiry (with Gary King and Sidney Verba, 1994), and Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World (2002). His current work focuses on the international and comparative politics of climate change policy. Professor Keohane is married to Nannerl O. Keohane.  They have four children and ten grandchildren.  

This seminar will provide analysis and implications of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review from the perspectives of three people who spent a significant portion of their careers working on the nuclear deterrent.  First, a brief history of nuclear posture reviews will be presented.  The results from the former reviews will be analyzed and the evolution of the nuclear posture reviews will be elucidated.  Next, a summary of the current security environment and the resulting important elements of the 2018 review will be presented.  The reasoning and rationale for the elements of the nuclear posture will be described.  Finally, a perspective of the implication of the 2018 nuclear posture review to the challenging issue of infrastructure and capabilities at the U.S. national laboratories responsible for the nuclear deterrent will be discussed.   The views of the speakers will differ from each other in some cases, and there will be time for questions from the audience to the panelists.

John R. Harvey Bio

Dr. John R. Harvey is a physicist with over 35 years of experience working nuclear weapons and national security issues, first at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, then at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control and in senior positions in the Departments of Defense (twice) and Energy.  From 2009-2013, he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs under then Undersecretary Ash Carter.  He was Dr. Carter’s “go to” person for the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, as well as for interactions with the Department of Energy on joint oversight of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.  Dr. Harvey also provided oversight to DoD acquisition programs to sustain and modernize nuclear weapons delivery systems and systems for their command and control.  Since retiring from government service in 2013, he consults with the Defense Science Board, Institute for Defense Analysis, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Institute for Public Policy, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Strategic Command’s Strategic Advisory Group Panel on Nuclear Weapons Command and Control.

Charles McMillan Bio

Dr. Charles McMillan served as the tenth Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory from 2011 through 2017. The Laboratory is a principal contributor to the Department of Energy mission of maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. McMillan began his career as an experimental physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1983. As a scientific leader, he helped create the Stockpile Stewardship Program, developing and applying advanced experimental and computational tools to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without additional full-scale nuclear testing. He continues to serve as an adviser to the government, laboratories and industry.

Jill Hruby Bio

Jill Hruby is currently the inaugural Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Her work at NTI focuses on the intersection of technology and nuclear non-proliferation policy.

Hruby served as the Director of Sandia National Laboratories from July 2015 to May 2017. Sandia is a Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) national laboratory with over 12,000 employees and $3B annual revenue.  Sandia’s broad national security missions include nuclear weapons, cyberspace, energy, non-proliferation, biological defense, and space sensors and systems.

Hruby spent 34 years at Sandia in roles with increasing responsibilities.  In 2010, Hruby moved to Sandia’s New Mexico site after 27 years at Sandia’s California location to become vice president of the Energy, Nonproliferation, and High-Consequence Security Division, and leader of Sandia’s International, Homeland, and Nuclear Security Program.  

Abstract: Steve Fetter worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the first three and last two years of the Obama administration.  In the first period he played a role in the debates that defined the administration’s nuclear policy; in the latter period he participated in the final push to make progress on what became known as “the Prague agenda.”  He will discuss the key successes and failures in President Obama’s attempt to revise U.S. nuclear weapon policy and lessons that can be learned for a future administration that seeks to reduce nuclear risks. 

Bio: Steve Fetter is Associate Provost, Dean of the Graduate School, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.  Service in the U.S. government includes five years at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, two years at the Department of Defense, and a year at the State Department.  He has been a visiting fellow at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Livermore and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control.  Fetter holds a Ph.D. in energy and resources from Berkeley and a S.B. in physics from MIT.

A panel discussion on the impact George H.W. Bush had on international security throughout his career.

Panelists:

David Holloway

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History

Martha Crenshaw

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

Siegfried Hecker

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Research Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus

With moderator: 

Colin Kahl
Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

Bio: Dr. Arvind Gupta recently retired as India's Deputy National Security Advisor. In his capacity as Deputy NSA, he also headed India's National Security Council Secretariat from 2014 until 2017. Previously, he was the Director General of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), a thinktank funded by India's Ministry of Defence. Dr. Gupta joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1979 and served at India's diplomatic missions in Moscow, London and Ankara. At the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, he dealt with Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, Russia, Kashmir, and the Central Asian affairs. He is an honorary professor in the Department of Defence and National Security Studies, Panjab University. He has an MSc in Physics from the University of Delhi and a Ph.D. in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is currently the Director of Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), a Delhi-based independent, non-partisan think tank focussing on foreign policy, defense and security-related issues from an Indian perspective. His most recent book How India Manages its National Security was published by Penguin Random House in 2018.

Book Overview: In this authoritative and comprehensive survey of the challenges a changing global security environment poses to India, former deputy national security advisor Arvind Gupta outlines the important aspects of the country's security apparatus and how they interface to confront internal and external conflicts. We have today a turbulent Middle East to the west; a rising and assertive China to the north; Pakistan in the grip of the military and the militants across our border and an increasingly militarizing Indian Ocean region surrounding us. Additionally, climate change, cyber security and the vulnerability of our space assets are major areas of concern. Anything that weakens a nation weakens its security, which makes the issues of food, water, health, economics and governance critically significant. Arvind Gupta draws on his long experience in these areas to argue that instead of tactical remedies, a strategic, coherent, institutional approach is needed to deal with these challenges. Strengthening the National Security Council, for instance, could be one way forward.

How India Manages Its National Security explains with great clarity and thoroughness the concept and operation of India's national security apparatus. This book will be of great interest to practitioners, analysts and laymen alike and offer an important voice in the discussion on how national security challenges should be resolved in the decades to come.