Stanford University

Security

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. 

Has the Russia-Ukraine war blown up the global nuclear order?

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Lauren Sukin
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The Russian nuclear saber-rattling that has accompanied the invasion of Ukraine represents a level of nuclear risk unprecedented since the end of the Cold War. One wonders how global nuclear politics will adapt to these changing circumstances. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war poses major challenges for several core international institutions and issues, from the upcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference to President Biden’s proposed arms control efforts with Russia and China. Read more at thebulletin.org

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Nuclear Chess Image credit: Thomas Gaulkin, from thebulletin.org
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The Russian nuclear saber-rattling that has accompanied the invasion of Ukraine represents a level of nuclear risk unprecedented since the end of the Cold War.

What if Russia Uses Nuclear Weapon in Ukraine?

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The 12th main directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense operates a dozen central storage facilities for nuclear weapons. Known as “Object S” sites and scattered across the Russian Federation, they contain thousands of nuclear warheads and hydrogen bombs with a wide variety of explosive yields. For the past three months, President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have been ominously threatening to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine. Read more at The Atlantic.

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Russia and Nuclear Weapons Paul Spella, accessed through theatlantic.com
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A look at the grim scenarios—and the U.S. playbook for each

U.S.-Russia relations, one year after Geneva

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Steven Pifer
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The June 16, 2021 meeting in Geneva between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a positive impulse to a bilateral U.S.-Russia relationship that was plumbing post-Cold War depths. Both sides made modest progress in the following months, only to be wholly derailed by Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine. It will be a long time before the U.S.-Russia relationship can approach anything that resembles “normal.”

Early on in the Biden presidency in 2021, administration officials made clear their readiness to push back against Russian overreach, including with the use of additional sanctions. At the same time, they noted the value of guardrails to keep in check the adversarial aspects of the relationship. Less than one week after Biden took office, he and Putin agreed to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to 2026.

Read the rest at brookings.edu.

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U.S Russia Relations Putin and Biden From Brookings.edu
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The June 16, 2021 meeting in Geneva between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a positive impulse to a bilateral U.S.-Russia relationship that was plumbing post-Cold War depths. Both sides made modest progress in the following months, only to be wholly derailed by Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine. It will be a long time before the U.S.-Russia relationship can approach anything that resembles “normal.”

FSI’s Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies Brings Or Rabinowitz to the Center for International Security and Cooperation

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The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that Or Rabinowitz will come to Stanford for the 2022-23 academic year as part of the institute’s new Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies. Dr. Rabinowitz is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

During her time at Stanford as a visiting fellow in Israel Studies, Dr. Rabinowitz will teach a one quarter long undergraduate course on “Israel: National Security and Nuclear Policy.” She will also organize and run an international workshop on “Deterrence and Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East” in the spring or summer quarters of 2023, and engage with Stanford pre- and postdoctoral fellows and FSI faculty.

Dr. Rabinowitz’s appointment will be based at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“Or Rabinowitz is one of Israel’s finest scholars writing about nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and national security policy,” said Scott Sagan, co-director of CISAC.  “Stanford is really fortunate to be able to bring her to campus for a year under this program.”

Or Rabinowitz is one of Israel’s finest scholars writing about nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and national security policy. Stanford is really fortunate to be able to bring her to campus for a year under this program.
Scott Sagan
Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Dr. Rabinowitz’s current research lies at the intersection of nuclear and intelligence studies, with a focus on Israel’s nuclear program and the role of science and technology in its national security doctrine. Her book, “Bargaining on Nuclear Tests: Washington and its Cold War Deals” was published in April 2014 by Oxford University Press, and she has since published articles in International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, The International History Review and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others.

She holds a PhD degree from the War Studies Department of King’s College London, an MA degree in Security Studies and an LLB degree in Law, both from Tel-Aviv University. She is currently conducting a study on intelligence collaboration between allies in the realm of counter-proliferation operations, funded by the Israel Science Foundation.

“I am honored to be joining Stanford this coming academic year, and to share my knowledge about Israel with Stanford’s undergraduates,” said Dr. Rabinowitz. “CISAC is a global leader when it comes to producing new knowledge and insight about the challenges of nuclear proliferation, and being chosen as an Israel Studies Fellow is a true privilege.”

Dr. Rabinowitz’s many awards and honors include being named an Israeli Chevening Scholar by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and receiving The Scouloudi Award from the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. In 2018 she also won the Professor Ya’acov Barsimantov Best Article Award from the Israeli Association for International Studies.

The Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies was launched in September 2021 with the generous support of Stanford alumni and donors. The search committee included senior fellows from throughout the institute. In addition to bringing to Dr. Rabinowitz to Stanford, the committee selected Dr. Amichai Magen, a scholar of law, government and international relations, as the inaugural Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies. Dr. Magen will also arrive at Stanford in the 2022-2023 academic year.

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CISAC Honors Class 2022
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Congratulations to Our CISAC Honors Graduates

On Friday, June 10th, 2022, we celebrated the accomplishments of the students in the Honors Program in International Security Studies.
Congratulations to Our CISAC Honors Graduates
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Dr. Or Rabinowitz of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, whose research explores how nuclear technology interacts with decision-making, strategy, and diplomacy, will come to Stanford in the 2022-2023 academic year as a visiting fellow in Israel Studies.

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Biden Says We’ve Got Taiwan’s Back. But Do We?

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Oriana Skylar Mastro
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This opinion piece first appeared in the New York Times.

President Biden’s recent trip to Asia nearly went off without a hitch — until Taiwan came up. Mr. Biden was asked whether the United States would respond “militarily” if China sought to retake the self-ruled island by force.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s the commitment we made.”

It was one of the most explicit U.S. defense guarantees for Taiwan in decades, appearing to depart from a longtime policy of “strategic ambiguity.” But it’s far from certain that the United States could hold off China.

I have been involved in dozens of war games and tabletop exercises to see how a conflict would turn out. Simply put, the United States is outgunned. At the very least, a confrontation with China would be an enormous drain on the U.S. military without any assured outcome that America could repel all of China’s forces. Mr. Biden’s comments may be aimed at deterring a Chinese attack, and hopefully they will.

After a decades-long military modernization, China has the world’s largest navy and the United States could throw far fewer ships into a Taiwan conflict. China’s missile force is also thought to be capable of targeting ships at sea to neutralize the main U.S. tool of power projection, aircraft carriers. The United States has the most advanced fighter jets in the world but access to just two U.S. air bases within unrefueled combat radius of the Taiwan Strait, both in Japan, compared with China’s 39 air bases within 500 miles of Taipei.

If China’s leaders decide they need to recover Taiwan and are convinced that the United States would respond, they may see no other option but a pre-emptive strike on U.S. forces in the region. Chinese missiles could take out key American bases in Japan, and U.S. aircraft carriers could face Chinese “carrier killer” missiles. In this scenario, superior U.S. training and experience would matter little.

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The need to project power across vast distances also makes U.S. forces vulnerable to China’s electronic and cyberwarfare capability. China could disrupt networks like the United States Transportation Command, which moves American assets around and is considered vulnerable to cyberattacks. China may also have the ability to damage satellites and disrupt communications, navigation, targeting, intelligence-gathering, or command and control. Operating from home turf, China could use more-secure systems like fiber-optic cables for its own networks.

Under a best-case battle scenario for the United States, China would attack only Taiwan and refrain from hitting American forces to avoid drawing in U.S. military might. This would allow the United States time to bring its forces into the region, move others to safety and pick where and when it engages with China.

If the United States did ever intervene, it would need regional allies to provide runways, ports and supply depots. But those partners may be eager to stay out of the crossfire.

I’m not the only one who’s worried. A 2018 congressionally mandated assessment warned that America could face a “decisive military defeat” in a war over Taiwan, citing China’s increasingly advanced capabilities and myriad U.S. logistical difficulties. Several top former U.S. defense officials have reached similar conclusions.


Mr. Biden’s remarks were made in the context of Ukraine, and America’s failure to prevent that war may be driving his thinking on Taiwan. Mr. Biden may be calculating that Russia’s setbacks in Ukraine will give China pause and that guaranteed U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan would cost Beijing too much, even if it took the island.

But comparing Ukraine and Taiwan is problematic. Beijing views Taiwan — self-ruled since 1949 — as an integral part of Chinese territory since ancient times, a significantly deeper attachment than Vladimir Putin’s obsession with Ukraine. Reunifying the island with the mainland is one of the Chinese Communist Party’s most cherished goals, and China would see U.S. intervention as a bitter betrayal of the “one China” principle — the idea that China and Taiwan belong together, which Washington has acknowledged since the 1970s.

China’s military is bigger and more formidable than Russia’s, and its economy far larger, more resilient and globally integrated. Rallying support for economic sanctions against Beijing during a conflict — China is the biggest trading partner of many countries — would be more challenging than isolating Russia.

The White House is once again walking back Mr. Biden’s comments, saying official policy has not changed.

If so, then Mr. Biden should stop rocking the boat and focus instead on strengthening America’s position in the Taiwan theater. This doesn’t just mean more weapons for Taiwan and a more robust U.S. military presence in the region, though the former would help the island hold out if China attacked, and both would boost deterrence.

It also means shrewd diplomacy. Mr. Biden needs to stand firm against Chinese intimidation of Taiwan, while working to ease Beijing’s anxieties by demonstrating a stronger U.S. commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue. Mr. Biden should also persuade regional friends to provide more bases for the United States to use. This not only increases U.S. operational flexibility but also heightens deterrence.

Whatever Mr. Biden’s calculations, departing from the “strategic ambiguity” that has helped keep peace for decades misses the point. The main question for President Xi Jinping must be not whether the United States would join in, but whether China could beat the United States in a battle for Taiwan. Twenty years ago, China’s poorly trained army and largely obsolete naval and air forces had no chance. But that was then.

Many will applaud Mr. Biden for standing up for democratic Taiwan in the face of Chinese threats. But he could be putting the island in greater danger, and the United States may not be able to come to the rescue.

Related Research: Deterrence and Defense Across the Taiwan Strait

Explore more of Mastro's research and commentary on how to address the escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
View research page

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Vladamir Putin and Xi Jinping shake hands.
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Beijing Is Used to Learning from Russian Failures

The invasion of Ukraine is offering useful lessons for the PLA.
Beijing Is Used to Learning from Russian Failures
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Honor guards prepare to raise the Taiwan flag in the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall square.
Honor guards prepare to raise the Taiwan flag in the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall square ahead of the Taiwanese presidential election on January 14, 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan.
Ulet Ifansasti/ Getty Images
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Many will applaud Mr. Biden for standing up for democratic Taiwan in the face of Chinese threats. But he could be putting the island in greater danger, and the United States may not be able to come to the rescue.

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A current security imperative: the US role in the Marshall Islands

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Rose Gottemoeller
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Eight years ago, I traveled as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security to the Marshall Islands, a remote place in the central Pacific. I was there to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Castle Bravo, the largest and most catastrophic of the 67 nuclear weapons tests that the United States conducted in the Marshalls during the Cold War. Because of a design error that led to a larger-than-expected blast, radioactive fallout from the test—at Bikini Atoll, which had been evacuated—spread over more than 4,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean and contaminated nearby populated atolls.

Read the rest at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Nuclear weapon test Bravo (yield 15 Mt) on Bikini Atoll
'Castle Bravo' on March 1, 1954 on Bikini Atoll.
Photo credit: United States Department of Energy
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Rose Gottemoeller, former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, remembers the painful history of Castle Bravo—the largest and most catastrophic US nuclear weapons test conducted in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War—and urges the United States to finish the compact extension with the three island nations to contain China’s growing influence in the Pacific.

The Russia-Ukraine War: Would Putin Go Nuclear?

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For spring quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

SEMINAR RECORDING

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About the Event: After more than three months of fighting, Russian military forces have failed to prevail in Ukraine, and a drawn-out war of attrition appears increasingly likely.  Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have made implied nuclear threats.  Would the lack of battlefield success lead the Kremlin to consider use of nuclear weapons?  CISAC scholars Rose Gottemoeller, David Holloway and Scott Sagan will discuss the possibility of Russian nuclear use, what the Kremlin might do, and how the West should react.

About the Speakers:

Rose Gottemoeller is the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Scott Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. He also serves as Chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. Sagan has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Rose Gottemoeller
David Holloway
Scott Sagan
Seminars
European Security Initiative

Russians allegedly storm Ukrainian ISP, blackmail it to switch to Russian networks

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Ukraine’s state communications agency said Friday that Russian forces had invaded a Kherson-based Internet company and disconnected all equipment, threatening to confiscate it if the company did not connect to Russian networks.

Read the rest at CyberScoop

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Dr. Hebert Lin
Dr. Herbert Lin
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Ukraine’s state communications agency said Friday that Russian forces had invaded a Kherson-based Internet company and disconnected all equipment, threatening to confiscate it if the company did not connect to Russian networks.

From Bagram Airfield to Baghdad and Back Again: a U.S. Military Doctor’s Experience in Two Wars

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For spring quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

SEMINAR RECORDING

YouTube

                                                                                           

About the Event: Following 9/11 the U.S. lead the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and ended with our withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.  We also removed Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003 and we fought there until the end of 2011.  Our military healthcare system was engaged from the very beginning and provided support that enabled the success of our combat operations and saved lives of Coalition Forces, host nation nationals, and enemy combatants. Mortality from combat injuries was reduced from 24% during the Vietnam War to 10% in OEF and OIF.  Lessons learned from these conflicts have been translated to the civilian world and are reviewed.  The skilled and compassionate care that the US provided to thousands of host nation nationals and our engagement with civilian healthcare in both Afghanistan and Iraq built good will that will, hopefully, be remembered.

About the Speaker: Dr. Dean Winslow, MD is Professor of Medicine with appointments in the Divisions of Hospital Medicine and Infectious Diseases and is a Senior Fellow (courtesy) at CISAC/Freeman Spogli Institute. He has served on the Stanford faculty since 1998 and served from 2003-2008 as Co-Director of Stanford's Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program. He was in private practice in Wilmington, Delaware where he started the state’s first multidisciplinary clinic for HIV patients in 1985. In 1988 he joined the DuPont Company where he worked both as a bench scientist on HIV drug resistance then later designed the clinical trials supporting FDA approval of efavirenz. In 1999 he became Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Visible Genetics Inc. and led the FDA clearance of the TRUGENE HIV-1 drug resistance test. Dr. Winslow joined the staff at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in 2003, where he served as Chief of the Division of AIDS Medicine and later as Chair of the Department of Medicine. In 2015 he was appointed Academic Physician-In-Chief at Stanford/ValleyCare and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford. He was a Resident Fellow in Robinson House 2013-2017 and was visiting faculty at Oxford University in 2017. He was Lead Physician for the US Antarctic Program of the National Science Foundation 2019-2020 based at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. He is a participant on the National Security Task Force of the Hoover Institution. He served as a flight surgeon in the USAF and Air National Guard from 1980-2015 retiring as a colonel. After 9/11 he deployed twice to Afghanistan and 4 times to Iraq supporting combat operations.  In 2008 he served as commander of the USAF EMEDS in Baghdad during the surge. He has logged 1150 military flying hours including 431 combat hours/263 combat sorties.  He has extensive operational experience in fighter, tactical airlift, and combat rescue missions. His 39 military decorations include the Legion of Merit, 3 Air Medals, 4 Aerial Achievement Medals, and the Air Force Combat Action Medal.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Dean Winslow
Seminars
Directors' Seminar Series

The Russia-Ukraine War: A View from Kyiv

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For spring quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

SEMINAR RECORDING

YouTube

                                                                                  


About the Event: The war that Russia inflicted on Ukraine is now well into its third month, with little sign the Kremlin has given up on its hope of achieving a victory on the battlefield.  Ukraine has impressed the world with the determination and tenacity of its resistance to the Russian invasion.  Vitaliy Sych, a long-time Kyiv-based journalist, will share his perspective on how the Ukrainian government, military and people are holding up in the face of Russia’s aggression.  

About the Speaker: Vitaliy Sych launched his career as a journalist with the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s English-language newspaper in 1997, becoming business editor, then nation editor in 2000.  He later moved to the Korrespondent weekly magazine, helping to build it into one of the most respected media outlets in Ukraine.  He and a large part of the editorial team left Korrespondent in 2013 when a new owner imposed a stifling editorial policy, and they founded NV, a new weekly magazine that quickly earned a reputation for reliable and accurate reporting.  In addition to the magazine, NV now manages a news site and talk radio. 

Virtual 

Vitaliy Sych
Seminars
European Security Initiative
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