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.
Dr. Anna Péczeli is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She is also an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, and an affiliate at the Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies (ISDS) at the National University of Public Service in Budapest, Hungary.
From 2019 to 2022, Anna was a postdoctoral research fellow at CGSR. Prior to that, she worked at Stanford University: in 2018-2019 she was a visiting postdoctoral research scholar at The Europe Center, and in 2016-2017 she was a Stanton nuclear security fellow at CISAC. In Hungary, she was a senior research fellow at ISDS, an assistant lecturer at Corvinus University of Budapest, and an adjunct fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs. During her PhD studies, she held a visiting research fellowship at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, and a visiting Fulbright fellowship at the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC.
She earned a PhD degree in International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest. Her research focuses on U.S. nuclear posture, in particular the changes and continuities in U.S. nuclear strategy since the end of the Cold War. Her research areas also include the future of arms control and strategic risk reduction in a multi-domain environment, extended nuclear deterrence in Europe, and NATO’s defense policy. Anna is a member of the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues mid-career cadre, the European Defence and Security Network, the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium, and former chair of the Executive Board of the International Student/Young Pugwash group.
Eric Min is Associate Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He is received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was the Zukerman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation for the 2017-2018 academic year. He was a Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar in 2021-22.
Min's primary research interests include the intersection of interstate war and diplomacy; international security and conflict management; and the application of machine learning, text, and statistical methods to study these topics. His work is published in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, and the Journal of Strategic Studies.
His dissertation, entitled “Negotiation in War,” was the recipient of the 2018 Kenneth Waltz Dissertation Prize from APSA’s International Security Section. Min’s book, titled Words of War: Negotiation as a Tool of Conflict, is part of the Studies in Security Affairs series at Cornell University Press.
Eva C. Uribe is the discipline manager of the Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Group for the Molten Chloride Fast Reactor (MCFR) program at TerraPower, LLC. Her team is responsible for development of material control and accounting plans and program descriptions, and physical and cybersecurity to mitigate threats of special nuclear material sabotage, theft, and diversion. Her team is also responsible for international safeguards by design for MCFR technologies to meet TerraPower’s non-proliferation mission.
Eva was previously a principal member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, CA, where she worked as a systems research analyst across interdisciplinary teams to conduct systematic, data driven analyses to inform researchers and policymakers in the national security arena. Eva was a 2016-2017 Stanton Nuclear Security postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, where she investigated fissile material production pathways in the thorium fuel cycle. Eva received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. For her dissertation research, she conducted structural analyses of organically-modified porous silica surfaces for the extraction of aqueous actinides using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In 2011 Eva received a B.S. from Yale University with a double major in chemistry and political science. Her interests in nuclear science, technology, and policy began during her time as a Next Generation Safeguards Initiative intern with the Nonproliferation Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2008 and 2009.
CISAC senior fellow Martha Crenshaw challenges statements from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that “thousands upon thousands of people” are entering the United States, “many of whom have the same thought process” as the Orlando shooter, and his assertions that they are forming “large pockets” of people who want to “slaughter us” in an OpEd for The Washington Post.
In 2013, China’s president, Xi Jinping, launched a massive reclamation and construction campaign on seven reefs in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Beijing insisted that its actions were responsible and in accord with international law, but foreign critics questioned Xi’s real intentions. Recently available internal documents involving China’s leader reveal his views about war, the importance of oceans in protecting and rejuvenating the nation, and the motives underlying his moves in the South China Sea. Central to those motives is China’s rivalry with the United States and the grand strategy needed to determine its outcome. To this end, Xi created five externally oriented and proactive military theater commands, one of which would protect newly built assets in the South China Sea and the sea lanes – sometimes referred to as the Maritime Silk Road – that pass through this sea to Eurasia and beyond. Simultaneously, China’s actions in the Spratlys complicated and worsened the US-China rivalry, and security communities in both countries recognized that these actions could erupt into armed crises – despite decades of engagement to prevent them. A permanent problem-solving mechanism may allow the two countries to move toward a positive shared future.
View from a C-130 transport plane towards Taiping island during a visit by journalists to the island in the Spratlys chain in the South China Sea on March 23, 2016. | SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images
Everyone at CISAC loves the beginning of summer.... and yet, summer brings a tinge of nostalgia because that is also when many of our fellows leave for new adventures. We are proud of their successes and wish them great times ahead. Our lives have been enriched by their presence at CISAC and we will miss them all dearly. We thought that, like us, you would like to know where they are headed.
After two years at Stanford, Erin Baggott and fiancé Brett Carter, who joined a terrific panel on field research in late March, are headed off to the warmer shores of Southern California. They will join the Trojans' ranks and both will be assistant professors at the University of Southern California's School of International Relations. Topping the list of what Erin will miss are the people, as she found CISAC "full of welcoming, collegial, sunny folks. It was a pleasure to get to know you all." Her parting advice to new fellows is to get to know everyone and to enjoy the area.
John will call Fort Benning, GA, home but, as Deputy Commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment, he will spend most of the next year in Afghanistan. In that context, it makes sense that one of the moments he will miss most are coffee breaks with friends at Coupa! John valued the freedom to choose his courses "and the opportunity to meet so many brilliant people." He is grateful for the chance to work in the classroom with Scott Sagan, Joe Felter, and Karl Eikenberry and feels future military fellows should take advantage of similar teaching opportunities. In addition, he wrote, "Get started on your research early. By the time classes start you're already getting close to your first deadline on the USAWC strategy paper."
Kate will continue her research at Harvard's Belfer Center next year. Other than the policy workshop, where she enjoyed both the substance and the brownies, she will miss GLOW, the Global Local Workshop. GLOW, a reading group created by this year's fellows to discuss international security issues nestled at the intersection of global and local politics - terrorism, counter-terrorism, state terror, war crimes, insurgency, counter-insurgency. If Kate has any regrets, it is that she still hasn't made it up Hoover Tower.
Now completing his second year as a CISAC fellow, Edward values the interdisciplinary nature of CISAC, which has afforded him "the opportunity to branch out to write and think about new fields." He admits that the people are what he will miss the most about his time here but wishes he had spent more time in the Hoover Archives. Incoming fellows must maximize the resources that are made available to them: "Make the most of it while you can." Edward is moving to Los Angeles and will be a Associate Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation.
Morgan is traveling east to become a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His two regrets are not spending more time both in the Hoover Archives and exploring the Bay Area. In typically exuberant Morgan fashion, his parting words of advice to incoming fellows are this: "Take advantage of Stanford's academic resources, be pro-active in reaching out to faculty inside and outside of CISAC, and enjoy the amazing weather!" Morgan's gratitude goes to the people who make up CISAC: "Everyone is so incredibly helpful, fun, and intelligent. Everyone supports each other personally and professionally, and I could not have asked for a better work environment to complete my dissertation research." Morgan, a GLOW member, will defend his dissertation on "Persuading Power: Insurgent Diplomacy and the International Politics of Rebellion" at the University of Chicago on July 13.
Andreas will spend the summer working at RAND in Washington, D.C. He is finishing his second year at CISAC and has relished his time on the Farm, in particular "the incredibly community and opportunity that CISAC and Stanford offered. I got to know many great people and experts within and outside of my field of research. I loved this experience and it shaped how I think about national/international security!" Based on his experience, members of the new cohort should strive to "find a good balance between your work and the seminars and all the other events that are offered at Stanford."
Marshall is leaving CISAC after two years but can still be found on campus where he will be finishing his dissertation in the Department of Management Science & Engineering. He's enjoyed the science seminars in particular but recommends that new fellows "get off campus and enjoy California!" Though Marshall did not take his own advice often enough and regrets that he did not have more time to ski in Tahoe, he has enjoyed working with other excellent researchers.
Next up for Scott is USSTRATCOM in Omaha. Scott has enjoyed his time in the civilian world and will miss "discussing the problems I work on with people from other worldviews." He recommends that new fellows "consider how the Senior Military Fellows can help you with your research."
Terry is moving across the country to the Sunshine State to join the faculty ranks as Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Florida International University. A dedicated member of the GLOW workshop, he is deeply appreciative of "the other fellows, faculty, and staff that I got to collaborate with." He will miss CISAC's collaborative atmosphere and regrets that there was not enough time for a fellows' camping trip. As parting advice, he says: "Get out and get in touch with anyone of interest right away, so that you can take full advantage of your short time here at Stanford."
The University of Pittsburgh is welcoming William as a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. Although he wishes he had spent more time driving around the area, in particular Napa, Santa Cruz, and Monterey, William reminds new fellows that "the job market comes first. Spend all of your energy on that in the fall. Everything else can come later." Another stalwart GLOW member, he will miss having all the fellows in one place, working with them, and splitting the famous Rush Hour brownies.
Carrboro, NC, will be Magda's new home when she joins the Sociology and Anthropology Department at North Carolina State University as a Teaching Scholar this fall. She will miss her "amazing colleagues and friends, and the interdisciplinary research opportunities Stanford has to offer." Magda has thrived in her two years at CISAC "meeting and working with accomplished and inspiring scholars." To those following in her footsteps, Magda advises, "Get to know your cohort and make connection with scholars across campus."
Nina Silove is heading back home to Australia. She will be Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Ivanka was one of six winners of a call for proposals on new technologies and the future of deterrence. She currently manages and serves as the lead researcher of a Carnegie-sponsored project "Understanding How Missile Defense Will Affect Nuclear Deterrence and Stability in the New Strategic Environment."
Abstract: Supercomputing impacts everybody, everywhere, every day. The simulation capabilities have allowed advanced medicine, energy, aviation and manufacturing. Supercomputers allow us to explore fields such as global climate change, as well as tackle problems for which experiments are impractical, hazardous or prohibitively expensive. The Department of Energy is a leader in supercomputers as part of their national security mission. With the demise of underground testing, supercomputers are a key resource used to ensure the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile. This talk will explore the buildup to our current petaflop systems and the challenges to obtaining exascale systems in the future.
About the speaker: As Acting Associate Director for Computation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Trish Damkroger leads the 1,000-employee workforce behind the Laboratory’s high performance computing efforts. The Computation team develops and deploys an integrated computing environment for petascale analytics and simulations such as understanding global climate warming, clean energy creation, biodefense, and nonproliferation. LLNL’s computing ecosystem includes high performance computers, scientific visualization facilities, high performance storage systems, network connectivity, multiresolution data analysis, mathematical models, scalable numerical algorithms, computer applications, and necessary services to enable LLNL mission goals and scientific discovery through simulation.
Trish Damkroger
Acting Associate Director for Computation
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Abstract: Nuclear war and climate change present the two most serious threats to global security since World War II. This talk shows that nuclear weapons research and climate science were historically connected in deep, sometimes intimate ways. Each developed its own knowledge infrastructure, including people, technical systems, and organizations, with surprising parallels and frequent exchanges across the classified/civilian divide. From the 1940s on, nuclear weapons research and climate science both relied heavily on computer models, used related physics and numerical methods, and shared human as well as technical resources. Radiocarbon from nuclear weapons tests contributed to understanding of the global carbon cycle, while fallout monitoring networks produced critical knowledge about the stratosphere. In the 1980s, the potential for “nuclear winter” — a war-induced climatic catastrophe — became a major political issue, but the groundwork for this concern had been laid long before.
This interplay not only continued, but became even more significant after the Cold War’s end, when the weapons labs’ expertise, equipment, and observing systems were partially repurposed. Several US national laboratories now play essential roles in climate and Earth system science. Among these roles are the Program on Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, based at Livermore and responsible for the important Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), a major unifying force in climate modeling for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments. The cyberinfrastructure underlying CMIP and similar projects must address mounting challenges related to data access controls, software support, and the security of huge data collections, while their institutional and human bases depend on ongoing national support. Crafting effective climate policy, I argue, will require understanding and rethinking the dynamics of these knowledge infrastructures for the present, rapidly evolving context.
About the Speaker: Paul Edwards is a Professor in the School of Information (SI) and the Dept. of History at the University of Michigan. SI is an interdisciplinary professional school focused on bringing people, information, and technology together in more valuable ways.
His research explores the history, politics, and cultural aspects of computers, information infrastructures, and global climate science. His current research focuses on knowledge infrastructures for the Anthropocene.
Dr. Edwards is co-editor (with Geoffrey C. Bowker) of the Infrastructures book series (MIT Press), and he serves on the editorial boards of Big Data & Society: Critical Interdisciplinary Inquiries and Information & Culture: A Journal of History. His most recent book is A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010).
Paul Edwards
Professor of Information and History
University of Michigan
It’s a quintessential Silicon Valley scene. A group of tech-savvy Stanford students are delivering a passionate pitch about a product they hope is going to change the world, while a room full of venture capitalists, angel investors and entrepreneurs peppers them with questions.
But there’s a twist. This Stanford classroom is also packed with decorated military veterans and active duty officers. And a group of analysts from the U.S. intelligence community is monitoring the proceedings live via an iPad propped up on a nearby desk.
These Stanford students aren’t just working on the latest “Uber for X” app. They’re searching for solutions to some of the toughest technological problems facing America’s military and intelligence agencies, as part of a new class called Hacking for Defense.
A student team briefs the class on a wearable sensor they're developing for an elite unit of U.S. Navy SEALs – a product they're pitching as "fitbit for America's divers."
“There’s no problems quite like the kind of problems that the defense establishment faces, so from an engineering standpoint, it has the most powerful ‘cool factor’ of anything in the world,” said Nitish Kulkarni, a senior in mechanical engineering.
Kulkarni’s team is working with an organization within the US Department of Defense to devise a system that will provide virtual assistance to Afghan and Iraqi coalition forces as they defuse deadly improvised explosive devices.
“At Stanford there’s a lot of opportunities for you to build things and go out and learn new stuff, but this was one of the first few opportunities I’ve seen where as a Stanford student and as an engineer, I can go and work on problems that will actually make a difference and save lives,” said Kulkarni.
A 21st century tech ROTC
That’s exactly the kind of “21st century tech ROTC” model of national service that Steve Blank, a consulting associate professor at Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering, said he had in mind when he developed the class.
“The nation is facing a set of national security threats it’s never faced before, and Silicon Valley has not only the technology resources to help, but knows how to move at the speed that these threats are moving at,” said Blank.
MBA student Rachel Moore presents for Team Sentinel, which is working with the U.S. 7th Fleet to find better ways to analyze drone and satellite imagery.
The students’ primary mission will be to produce products that can help keep Americans and our allies safe, at home and abroad, according to Blank.
Former U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Joe Felter, who helped create the class and co-teaches it with Blank, said the American military needs to find new ways to maintain its technological advantage on the battlefield.
“Groups like ISIS, al–Qaeda and other adversaries have access to cutting edge technologies and are aggressively using them to do us harm around the world,” said Felter, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is currently a senior research scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
“The stakes are high – this is literally life and death for our young men and women deployed in harm’s way. We’re in a great position here at Stanford and in Silicon Valley to help make the connections and develop the common language needed to bring innovation into the process, in support of the Department of Defense and other government agencies’ missions.”
Startup guru Steve Blank shares a light moment with a group of students.
The class is an interdisciplinary mix of undergraduate and graduate students, from freshman to fifth year PhD student.
“It’s like a smorgasbord of all these people coming together from different parts and different schools of Stanford, and so I think that’s just a really cool environment to be in,” said Rachel Moore, a first-year MBA student.
Moore’s team includes electrical and mechanical engineering students, and they’re working together to develop a system to enable the Navy’s Pacific Fleet to automatically identify enemy ships using images from drones and satellites.
Tough technological challenges
Months before the course start date, class organizers asked U.S. military and intelligence organizations to identify some of their toughest technological challenges.
Class co-teacher Pete Newell throws his hands up to celebrate a student breakthrough.
U.S. Army Cyber Command wanted to know if emerging data mining, machine learning and data science capabilities could be used to understand, disrupt and counter adversaries' use of social media.
The Navy Special Warfare Group asked students to design wearable sensors for Navy SEALs, so they could monitor their physiological conditions in real-time during underwater missions.
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies were interested in software that could help identify accounts tied to malicious “catfishing” attempts from hackers trying to steal confidential information.
And those were just a few of the 24 problems submitted by 14 government agencies.
Developing Solutions
The class gives eight teams of four students 10 weeks to actively learn about the problem they are addressing from stake holders and end users most familiar with the problem and to iteratively develop possible solutions or a “minimum viable product,” using a modified version of Steve Blank’s “lean launchpad methodology,” which has become a revered how-to guide among the Silicon Valley startup community.
Rachel Olney, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, tries on a military-grade dry suit on a visit to the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Field.
A key tenet of Blank’s methodology is what he calls the “customer discovery process.”
“If you’re not crawling in the dirt with these guys, then you don’t understand their problem,” Blank told the class.
One student team, which was working on real-time biofeedback sensors and geo-location devices for an elite team of Navy SEALS (a project they were initially pitching at “fitbit for America’s divers”), earned a round of applause from the class when they showed a slide featuring photos from a field trip they took to the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Field to find out what it felt like to wear a military-grade dry suit.
Rachel Olney, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, said the experience of squeezing into the tight suit and wearing the heavy dive gear gave her a better appreciation for the physical demands that Navy SEALs have to deal with during a mission.
“They’re diving down to like 200 feet for up to six to eight hours…and during that time they can’t eat, they can’t hydrate, they’re physically exerting a lot, because they’re swimming miles and miles and miles at depth and they can’t see and they can’t talk to each other,” Olney said.
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“It’s probably one of the most extreme things that humans do right now.”
Another group came in for some heavy criticism from the teaching team for failing to identify and interview enough end users.
But the next week, they were back in front of the class showing a video from a team member’s visit to an Air Force base in Fresno, where he logged some time inside the 90-pound bomb suit that explosive ordinance disposal units wear in the field.
“You can’t address a customer issue unless and until you really step into the shoes of the customer,” said Gaurav Sharma, who’s a student at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
“That was the exact reason why I went to Fresno and wore the bomb suit, to get into the shoes of the end customer.”
Navigating the defense bureaucracy
Active duty military officers from CISAC’s Senior Military Fellows program and the Hoover Institution’s National Security Affairs Fellows program act as military liaisons for the class and help students navigate the complex defense bureaucracy.
“[The students] have really just jumped in with both feet and immersed themselves in this Department of Defense world that for so many civilians is just very foreign to them,” said U.S. Army Colonel John Cogbill, who has spent the last year as a senior military fellow at CISAC.
“I think they will come away from this experience with a much better appreciation of what we do inside the Department of Defense and Intelligence community, and where there are opportunities for helping us do our jobs better.”
Cogbill said he hoped that some of the inventions from the class, like an autonomous drone designed to improve situational awareness for Special Forces teams, could help the troops on his next combat deployment, where he will serve as the Deputy Commanding Officer of the U.S. Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment.
“It’s not just about making them more lethal, it’s also about how to keep them alive on the battlefield,” said Cogbill.
Students also get support from their project sponsors and personnel at the newly established Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) stationed at Moffett Field.
Tech saves lives on the battlefield
Another key member of the teaching team is Pete Newell, who was awarded the Silver Star Medal (America’s third-highest military combat decoration), for leading a U.S. Army battalion into the Battle of Fallujah, where he survived an ambush and left the protection of his armored vehicle in an attempt to save a mortally wounded officer.
Class co-teacher and Silver Star Medal recipient Pete Newell explains some of the classic reasons why military products fail in the field.
Newell said he saw first-hand the difference that technology can make on the battlefield in his next job, when he served as director of the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, which was tasked with creating technological solutions to the troops fighting in Afghanistan.
“What I realized is that the guys on the front edge of the battlefield who were actually fighting the fight, don’t have time to figure out what the problem is that they have to solve,” Newell said.
“They’re so involved in just surviving day to day, that they really don’t have time to step back from it and see those problems coming, and what they needed was somebody to look over their shoulder and look a little deeper and anticipate their needs.”
One of the first and most urgent problems Newell faced on the job was responding to the sudden spike in IED attacks on dismounted infantry.
The Army was still using metal detector technology from the ‘50s to find mines, but the new breed of IEDs, which were often hidden inside buried milk jugs, were virtually undetectable to the outdated technology.
Former U.S. Army Colonel Pete Newell demystifies some military jargon for the class.
“They could create an improvised explosive device and a pressure plate trigger…by using almost zero metal content,” Newell said. “It was almost impossible to find.”
Newell’s solution was a handheld gradiometer, the kind of technology used to find small wires in your backyard during a construction project, paired with a ground penetrating radar that can see objects underground.
But by the time the new technology reached troops in the field last summer, more than 4,000 had been wounded or killed in IED attacks.
Newell said he hoped the class would help get life-saving technology deployed throughout the military faster.
“I think it’s important to enable this younger generation of technologists to actually connect with some of the national security issues we face and give them an opportunity to take part in making the world a safer place,” Newell said.
Tom Byers, an entrepreneurship professor in Management Science and Engineering and faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, rounds out the teaching team and brings his experience in innovation education and entrepreneurship to the classroom.
Inspiring the next generation
Students said the opportunity to find solutions to consequential problems was their primary inspiration for joining the class.
“When I first came to Stanford, the hype around entrepreneurship was very much around, ‘go out, make an app, do something really fun and cool, and get rich’,” said Darren Hau, a junior in Electrical Engineering.
Students share a laugh during a class break.
“In Hacking for Defense, I think you’re seeing a lot of people bring that same entrepreneurial mindset into a problem statement that seems a lot more impactful.”
Felter said he was humbled that so many students were willing to serve in this way.
“It’s encouraging to find out that students at one of our top universities are very interested and highly motivated to work very hard and use their skills and expertise and talent and focus it on these pressing national security problems,” said Felter.
The teaching team said they planned on expanding their class to other universities across the country in the coming years, to create a kind of open source network for solving unclassified national security problems.
For military officers like Cogbill, who will likely soon be leading U.S. soldiers into combat, that’s welcome news.
“Every time you run a course, that’s eight more problems,” Cogbill said.
“If this scales across 10, 20, 30, 40 more universities, you can imagine how many more problems can be solved, and how many more lives can potentially be saved.”
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Influential startup educator Steve Blank (center) gives advice to Stanford students working on tough national security problems, while retired U.S. Army Colonels and class co-teachers Joe Felter (right) and Pete Newell (left) listen in. | Rod Searcey
Abstract: In 2004, al-Qaeda’s security chief smuggled 42 handwritten pages out of Iran, where he was confined under a loose form of house arrest. The notes written by Sayf al-Adl were each folded into a bundle the size of a cigarette, and they included two seminal documents: a history of ISIS Godfather Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's original engagement with al-Qaeda in 2000, and a high-level plan to re-establish the Caliphate between 2013 and 2016.
Al-Adl’s history has formed the basis of virtually every subsequent retelling of the development of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State. But none other than Osama bin Laden himself has repudiated al-Adl’s history, and newly available al-Qaeda correspondence from the period suggests that intra-jihadi competition drove al-Qaeda’s original engagement with Zarqawi more than strategic or ideological alignment.
Al-Adl’s other document, a seven-stage ‘Master Plan’ that foretold the declaration of the Caliphate in 2014, has proved extraordinarily prescient. It aimed to exploit a geopolitical loophole to al-Qaeda’s basic worldview and finally unify Zarqawi’s movement with al-Qaeda. The strategic vision proved powerful, but the alliance it was built for was not.
About the Speaker: Brian Fishman is a Counterterrorism Research Fellow with the International Security Program at New America, a Washington, DC think tank and a Fellow with the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point, where he previously served as the Director of Research. He currently manages policy at Facebook regarding terrorism and violent extremism. Fishman also served as an assistant professor in West Point’s Department of Social Sciences. Fishman built and led Palantir Technologies’ Disaster Relief and Crisis Response team, which brought some of the world’s most sophisticated technology to humanitarian organizations. Fishman is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was a founding editor of the CTC Sentinel.
Fishman is the author of numerous studies U.S. national security, terrorism and international jihadi groups. He has specialized in the so-called Islamic State and its predecessors since 2005 and taught a dedicated course about the Islamic State of Iraq in 2008. Fishman coauthored seminal investigations of al-Qaeda's foreign fighters in Iraq and Iranian support for Shia militias fighting U.S. troops in Iraq. Fault Lines in Global Jihad: Organizational, Strategic, and Ideological Fissures, a volume Fishman co-edited with Assaf Moghadam, was named one of the top books for understanding terrorist recruitment. He regularly appears in domestic and international media regarding terrorism and national security issues.
Fishman has taught as an adjunct professor in Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. Before joining the CTC, Fishman was the Foreign Affairs/Defense Legislative Assistant for Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. Fishman holds a Masters in International Affairs (MIA) from Columbia University and a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Counterterrorism Research Fellow, International Security Program
New America
A student team briefs the class on a wearable sensor they're developing for an elite unit of U.S. Navy SEALs – a product they're pitching as "fitbit for America's divers."
MBA student Rachel Moore presents for Team Sentinel, which is working with the U.S. 7th Fleet to find better ways to analyze drone and satellite imagery.
Startup guru Steve Blank shares a light moment with a group of students.
Class co-teacher Pete Newell throws his hands up to celebrate a student breakthrough.
Rachel Olney, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, tries on a military-grade dry suit on a visit to the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Field.
“[The students] have really just jumped in with both feet and immersed themselves in this Department of Defense world that for so many civilians is just very foreign to them,” said U.S. Army Colonel 
Class co-teacher and Silver Star Medal recipient Pete Newell explains some of the classic reasons why military products fail in the field.
Former U.S. Army Colonel Pete Newell demystifies some military jargon for the class.
Students share a laugh during a class break.
