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.
Abstract: How do policymakers infer the long-term political intentions of their states' adversaries? A new approach to answering this question, the “selective attention thesis,” posits that individual perceptual biases and organizational interests and practices influence which types of indicators a state's political leaders and its intelligence community regard as credible signals of an adversary's intentions. Policymakers often base their interpretations on their own theories, expectations, and needs, sometimes ignoring costly signals and paying more attention to information that, though less costly, is more vivid (i.e., personalized and emotionally involving). In contrast, intelligence organizations typically prioritize the collection and analysis of data on the adversary's military inventory. Over time, these organizations develop substantial knowledge on these material indicators that they then use to make predictions about an adversary's intentions. An examination of three cases based on 30,000 archival documents and intelligence reports shows strong support for the selective attention thesis and mixed support for two other approaches in international relations theory aimed at understanding how observers are likely to infer adversaries' political intentions: the behavior thesis and the capabilities thesis. The three cases are assessments by President Jimmy Carter and officials in his administration of Soviet intentions during the collapse of détente; assessments by President Ronald Reagan and administration officials of Soviet intentions during the end of the Cold War; and British assessments of Nazi Germany before World War II.
About the Speaker: Professor Keren Yarhi-Milo is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a particular specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Professor Yarhi-Milo’s forthcoming book (Princeton University Press) titled, “Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations,” explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary’s signals of intentions differently.
CISAC Conference Room
In this research paper published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Stanford Policeical Science Professor and CISAC Senior Fellow, Scott Sagan, and Matthew Bunn, a professor of practice at the Harvard Kennedy School, write that insider threats are perhaps the most serious challenge that nuclear security systems face today.
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About the Topic: America’s longest war draws to an end this year with the conclusion of combat operations in Afghanistan. The still undecided Afghan presidential election potentially marks the first successful democratic transition in that country’s history and the process thus far has been positive. However, the political, security, and economic problems that Afghanistan’s next leader will face are daunting. The level of American support for Afghanistan’s future development hinges on the signing of a Bilateral Security Agreement that permits the U.S. to continue pursuing intelligence and military operations against Al Qaeda and international terrorist organizations in Central and South Asia. Karl Eikenberry, who served both as the U.S. ambassador and the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, will reflect on the American experience in Afghanistan and discuss the difficult challenges still ahead.
About the Speaker: Karl Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and is a Distinguished Fellow with the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from May 2009 until July 2011 and had a 35-year career in the United States Army, retiring with the rank of lieutenant general. His military assignments included postings with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental United States, Hawaii, Korea, Italy, and Afghanistan as the Commander of the American-led Coalition forces from 2005–2007. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, has earned master’s degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and Stanford University in Political Science, was awarded an Interpreter’s Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign Commonwealth Office, and earned an advanced degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University. He is also the recipient of the George F. Kennan Award for Distinguished Public Service and Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal. Ambassador Eikenberry serves as a Trustee for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Asia Foundation, and the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
CISAC Conference Room
This event is co-sponsored by the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN).
Abstract: Who bears the costs associated with the foreign policy decisions of dictators? And to what extent are the burdens of war borne by particular ethnic groups in a multi-ethnic society? Using internal Iraqi government documents amassed in the wake of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq as well as survey data collected shortly after the fall of the regime, I provide evidence for the unequal distribution of war costs associated with the Iran-Iraq War, the First Gulf War as well as the impact of the international sanctions regime, what some have deemed an "invisible" economic war. I find that Shi`a Iraqis were more likely than their Sunni counterparts - and much more likely than Iraqi Kurds - to have been killed, become prisoners of war or to have gone missing in action during the first half of the Iran-Iraq War. Shi`a families were also more likely to have had a brother or father martyred in either the Iran-Iraq War or the First Gulf War while simultaneously being less likely to enjoy a "Friend of the President" designation, which afforded families certain rights and privileges vis-à-vis the regime. At the end of the sanctions period immediately following the fall of the regime, Shi`a Iraqis were also three times more likely to be living in poverty or extreme poverty than Sunnis from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit but only about 20 percent more likely to be poverty stricken when compared to Sunnis from Iraq's far western provinces. These results provide strong evidence for the existence of a hierarchy of burden associated with the foreign policy decisions of the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein.
About the Speaker: Lisa Blaydes is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Professor Blaydes received the 2009 Gabriel Almond Award for best dissertation in the field of comparative politics from the American Political Science Association for this project. Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics. During the 2008-9 and 2009-2010 academic years, Professor Blaydes was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.
CISAC Central Conference Room, 2nd floor
Encina Hall West, Room 408
Stanford, CA 94305-6044
Lisa Blaydes is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is the author of State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Professor Blaydes received the 2009 Gabriel Almond Award for best dissertation in the field of comparative politics from the American Political Science Association for this project. Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics. During the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years, Professor Blaydes was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles, and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.
This event is co-sponsored by the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN)
CISAC Conference Room
CISAC Central Conference Room, 2d floor
Abstract: During the Cold War, doubts over the credibility of the US commitment to defend Western Europe led Great Britain and France to develop their own nuclear capabilities, despite their inclusion under the US "nuclear umbrella". In other instances the US nuclear umbrella appears to have been much more credible. For example, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea did not pursue nuclear weapons, in large part because of their alliances with the US. Why did the US commitment to defend Europe lack sufficient credibility, while its commitment to defend Asia seemed more effective? This paper develops one answer to this puzzle by exploring how the institutional design of nuclear umbrellas may affect its credibility. I posit that nuclear security commitments are more likely to be perceived as credible when they include costly reliability-enhancing provisions, such as greater precision in when alliance obligations apply, issue-linkages, and increased military institutionalization. In the empirical section of the paper, I demonstrate three observable implications of this logic that are consistent with a client state feeling more assured. I show that more precise and institutionalized alliances between a nuclear weapons state and non-nuclear client state are strongly associated with (i) lower defense spending in the client state, (ii) a lower likelihood that a client state will pursue its own nuclear weapon, and (iii) fewer alliance commitments held by the client state. These results have important implications for how policymakers and analysts evaluate the consequences of nuclear policy choices.
About the Speaker: Neil Narang is a Stanton Junior Faculty Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously, he served as the Director of the Public Policy and Nuclear Threats (PPNT) Program at the University of California Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)and as a Nonproliferation Policy Fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
CISAC Central Conference Room, 2nd floor
Neil Narang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Director of Research at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC).
Previously, Narang served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense on a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship. He is currently an advisor to the Director’s Office of Los Alamos National Laboratory, a faculty affiliate at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Narang specializes in international relations, with a focus on issues of international security and conflict management. Specifically, his research explores the role of signaling under uncertainty in situations of bargaining and cooperation, particularly as it applies to two substantive domains: (1) crisis bargaining in both interstate and civil war, and (2) cooperation through nuclear and conventional military alliances. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, among others.
He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from UC San Diego and he holds a B.A. in Molecular Cell Biology and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He has previously been a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Browne Center for International Politics, a nonproliferation policy fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and a junior faculty fellow and visiting professor at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.
