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.
CISAC Co-Director Tino Cuéllar talks about how borders shape our society and how they impacted a young boy who was born just a few blocks from the U.S. border-- himself.
The Europe Center's 2-day multidisciplinary dialogue on migration -- the subject of great and growing consequence in the contemporary world. Conference participants from a wide range of theoretical, case-study, and comparative approaches will address the phenomenon of population movement and the experience of migration in its various qualities.
The agenda for this conference is below.
Co-sponsored by the University of Vienna, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Bechtel Conference Center
CISAC Faculty Member and former U.S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry tells the story of how he became a nuclear weapons abolitionist. He recounts six personal experiences that led him to turn away from his lifelong career of developing and managing nuclear weapons, and pursue the goal of eliminating them.
On June 6, the National Security Agency acknowledged the existence of a massive public surveillance program, called PRISM. Dan Auerbach, Jonathan Mayer, and Peter Eckersley pose three important questions necessary to understand the scope of the program and have an informed policy debate about security vs. privacy.
Amy Zegart, one of the nation’s leading experts on national security, intelligence and foreign policy, has been appointed the next co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.
Zegart, a CISAC faculty member and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, will take up her new role July 1. She succeeds Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who was named director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, CISAC’s parent organization.
“Amy Zegart is an award-winning scholar, an accomplished professional with public and private sector experience, and a trusted voice on national security and foreign policy,” said Cuéllar. “Her multi-disciplinary scholarship, diverse experiences, and commitment to getting it right will complement the Freeman Spogli Institute's growing focus on governance problems, and will make her a dynamic leader for CISAC as the center continues its vital work on international cooperation and security.”
Zegart, once named one of the 10 most influential experts in intelligence reform by the National Journal, said she intends to continue expanding the center’s focus on emerging security issues, such as cybersecurity, drones and challenges to governance while building on CISAC’s distinguished reputation in nuclear security.
“The international threat environment is changing faster and in more profound ways than anyone could have imagined 10 or 20 years ago,” said Zegart, who is also a professor of political economy (by courtesy) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she co-teaches a course on managing political risk with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“CISAC will continue to be at the forefront of addressing these new challenges with the same secret sauce it’s had since its founding in 1983: world class talent; a commitment to teaching the next generation; and a deep belief that bridging the natural and social sciences is vital to solving the world’s most dangerous problems,” she said.
CISAC, more than any other institution, provided a scholarly environment that was intellectually challenging and personally supportive at the same time. That’s quite a rare cultural combination."
Zegart’s research examines the organization of American national security agencies and their effectiveness. She served on the Clinton administration's National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush. She has testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, provided training to the Marine Corps, and advised officials on intelligence and homeland security matters. From 2009 to 2011 she served on the National Academies of Science Panel to Improve Intelligence Analysis. Her commentary has been featured on national television and radio shows and in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.
Zegart writes regular commentary for Foreign Policy about national security issues. In this excerpt from one of those posts about the privatization of American intelligence and the growing businesses of political risk management, her approach accentuates her ability to bring complex issues to a general audience:
In the old days, the ‘free world’ and ‘Soviet bloc’ were two different universes. Not anymore. Now everything is connected. Sweden’s Ikea has stores in Russia. My CIA alarm clock was made in China. Unrest in Cairo can cause legging shortages in California. And communications happen everywhere. Wifi can be found in Bedouin tents, on the top of Mount Everest, and on buses in rural Rwanda. Kenyan fisherman may lack electricity, but they can check weather conditions and fish market prices on their cell phones. All of this connectedness means that political risks – civil strife, instability, insurgency, coups, weak legal standards, corruption – have more spillover effects. What happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas.
Zegart recalls being fascinated with politics since she was a kid. She spent her childhood tracking election night tallies and writing her congressman. When she was 13, she followed on TV the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s historic visit to the United States in 1979 and was thrilled when he donned a cowboy hat at a Texas rodeo.
“I was enthralled,” Zegart said. “My mother, an antique dealer who can find anyone and anything, tracked down a local Taiwanese graduate student and convinced her to teach me Mandarin after school.”
She would continue studying Chinese at Andover, majored in East Asian Studies at Harvard, and would win a Fulbright Scholarship to travel to China and study the 1989 Chinese democracy movement and Tiananmen Square tragedy. Zegart then earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford and became a full professor of public policy at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs as well as a fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations.
Zegart notes she’s been connected to CISAC for more than two decades. She first showed up at the center’s former Galvez House headquarters during her first quarter as a Stanford graduate student. She kept coming back even after she got her Ph.D.; both of her award-winning books were germinated in presentations she gave to CISAC seminars.
“CISAC, more than any other institution, provided a scholarly environment that was intellectually challenging and personally supportive at the same time,” Zegart said. “That’s quite a rare cultural combination.”
This academic year, she co-taught with Martha Crenshaw the popular CISAC-sponsored class International Security in a Changing World, which culminates in a U.N. Security Council simulation in which students debate a pressing global issue.
CISAC has a tradition of appointing co-directors – one from the social sciences and the other from the natural sciences – to advance the center’s interdisciplinary mission to conduct and promote cutting-edge research to make the world a safer place.
“Amy brings to CISAC a wealth of expertise in international security issues, a deep commitment to scholarship and a sincere desire to strengthen and expand the center’s activities and impact,” said David Relman, CISAC’s other co-director, a Stanford microbiologist and professor of infectious diseases, as well as expert on emerging biological threats. “We share an interest in emerging technologies and the effective international mechanisms that address 21st century challenges and threats.”
Zegart is the author of two award-winning books. Flawed by Design, which chronicles the development of the Central Intelligence Agency, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and National Security Council, won the highest national dissertation award in political science. Spying Blind, which examines why American intelligence agencies failed to adapt to the terrorist threat before 9/11, won the National Academy of Public Administration’s Brownlow Book Award. She has also published in International Security, Political Science Quarterly, and other leading academic journals. She serves on the editorial boards of Terrorism and Political Violence and Intelligence and National Security. Her most recent book is Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community.
Before her academic career, Zegart spent three years at McKinsey & Company advising Fortune 100 companies about strategy and organizational effectiveness.
She serves on the FBI Intelligence Analysts Association National Advisory Board and the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counter-terrorism and Community Police Advisory Board and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Despite hundreds of aboveground nuclear tests, the effects of a ground-level, low-yield nuclear detonation in a modern urban environment remain the subject of scientific debate. In support of the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Office of Health Affairs, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has provided detailed consequence modeling in support community preparedness activities. Details on effects specific to several cities was provided to that community's emergency response personal and managers. Block by block detailed analysis of observable effects, potential casualties, infrastructure effects, and response issues. Additionally, visualization aids for response organizations trying to understand the event was requested and developed at the community's request. These products provide first person points of view and described the dynamic nature of the event as it changes in both time and space and have greatly enhanced Federal, State, and local planning efforts.
Brooke Buddemeier is an associate program leader in the Global Security Directorate of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He supports the Risk and Consequence Management Division in their efforts to evaluate the potential risk and consequence of radiological and nuclear terrorism. Brooke is a council member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) and served on the scientific committees which developed Commentary No. 19 - Key Elements of Preparing Emergency Responders for Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism (2005) and NCRP Report # 165 – Responding to a Radiological or Nuclear Terrorism Incident: A Guide for Decision Makers (2010).
From 2003 through 2007, Brooke was on assignment with the Department of Homeland Security’s as the WMD emergency response and consequence management program manager for Science and Technology’s emergency preparedness and response portfolio. He supported FEMA and the Homeland Security Operations Center as a radiological emergency response subject matter expert. He also facilitated the department’s research, development, test, and evaluation process to improve emergency response through better capabilities, protocols, and standards. Prior to that, he was part of LLNL’s Nuclear Counterterrorism Program and coordinated LLNL’s involvement in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Radiological Assistance Program for California, Nevada, and Hawaii. RAP is a national emergency response resource that assists federal, state and local authorities in the event of a radiological incident. As part of RAP’s outreach efforts, Brooke has provided radiological responder training and instrumentation workshops to police, firefighters, and members of other agencies throughout the nation and abroad. Brooke has also provided operational health physics support for various radiochemistry, plutonium handling, accelerator, and dosimetry operations.
He is Certified Health Physicist who received his Master’s in Radiological Health Physics from San Jose State University and his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
CISAC Conference Room
Stanford's Karl Eikenberry and David Kennedy discuss the implications of America's switch to an all-volunteer force. The consequences go beyond the military itself, impacting Congress, Presidents, and the general public. They conclude that the growing civil-military divide threatens the health of the American democracy.
South Korea’s impressive nuclear power industry has quickly reached world class status on par with leaders like France, Japan and the United States. With this success has brought a familiar array of problems associated with spent nuclear fuel disposition. I present a model of spent fuel production and transportation in South Korea as well as a range of potential options to delay saturation of spent fuel storage pools in the short term. I will also discuss implications for arguments surrounding pyroprocessing as a long term solution to the fuel cycle, especially in the context of the upcoming renewal of the 123 nuclear sharing agreement with the United States.
Rob Forrest is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. His research focuses on the role of particle accelerators in the future nuclear fuel cycle, specifically on the feasibility of Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) in sub-critical reactor designs and the transmutation of nuclear waste. Rob’s interest in policy and nuclear issues began during his fellowship in the 2008 Public Policy and Nuclear Threats program at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego. In 2010, he also participated in the PONI Nuclear Scholars Initiative at CSIS.
Before coming to CISAC in 2011, Rob received his Ph.D. in high-energy physics from the University of California, Davis. Most of his graduate career was spent at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, IL where he preformed a search for signs of a hypothetical theory called Supersymmetry. Before beginning his graduate work, Rob spent two years at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory working with the Klystrons that supply the RF power to the accelerator. In 2001, Rob earned his B.S. in physics from the University of California, San Diego where, throughout his undergraduate career, he worked for the NASA EarthKam project.
CISAC Conference Room
About the Speaker: Omar Dajani is one of the nation's foremost experts on the legal aspects of the conflict in the Middle East. His scholarly work explores the links between international law, legal and political history, and contract and negotiation theory. He also has considerable experience advising governments and development organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere. Professor Dajani joined the McGeorge School of Law in 2004. Previously, he was based in the Palestinian Territories, where he served first as legal advisor to the Palestinian team in peace talks with Israel and, subsequently, as an advisor to United Nations Special Envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. Prior to working in the Middle East, he clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson on the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit and was a litigation associate at the Washington office of Sidley & Austin. He received his Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School in 1997 and a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies, and Middle Eastern and Asian History from Northwestern University.
Abstracts will be posted on Friday, May 31.
Speakers:
Daniel Khalessi
Recipient of The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research
“The Ambiguity of Nuclear Commitments: The Implications of NATO's Nuclear Sharing Arrangements on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty”
Daniel Reynolds
Recipient of The William J. Perry Prize
“More with Less: Prioritizing U.S. Navy Global Presence with Reductions in Defense Spending”
CISAC Conference Room
