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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. 

Custer makes last stand in Stanford T-shirts and Ray-Bans

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Overlooking the golden prairie beneath the big Montana sky, a young man turned to address his followers, cocking his head and squinting into the sun.  

“For those of you who haven’t already heard of me with great admiration, yeah, I’m the real deal: the greatest, biggest, baddest Indian fighter in the West. But for you, well, you can call me General George Armstrong Custer. I fully believe the battle that we will have here today will be the biggest, best, crowning achievement of my life.” 

Or not. 

One hundred and thirty-six years later, the Battle of Little Bighorn remains one of the most contentious in American history, and Custer’s so-called “last stand” has become the stuff of legend and debate. Did Custer’s oversized ego lead his men to a certain death? Or did cowardly 7th Cavalry comrades abandon him to die? 

Those are among the dozens of questions recently posed and played out by a group of Stanford sophomores along the banks of the Little Bighorn River about an hour outside Billings. Jeffrey Abidor played the first of four Custers as they walked the famous battlefield points: Medicine Tail Coulee, Weir Ridge, Reno’s Retreat and Last Stand Hill, where simple white grave markers still pepper the prairie where Custer, his younger brother Tom, other cavalry comrades and Native American opponents fell. 

“No matter how many times you read about it, you have to be here,” said Abidor, who also played Custer’s Crow scout, Curley. “To see it and to see the land they had to fight on and visualize where they were, what they had to face – that makes all the difference.”

As I led my warriors into battle, I said, `Come on, die with me. It’s a good day to die; cowards to the rear!” -- Jacob Winkelman as Crazy Horse.

 

The Face of Battle class is part of the university’s Sophomore College, designed to take a small group of incoming sophomores and throw them together for three weeks before the academic year begins. They live together and travel together, digging deep into an issue such as the important American battles, U.S. foreign policy, Darwin and the Galapagos or hip hop as a universal language. They get to know their professors well and bond with one another in ways they hope will make them lifelong friends. 

“I think the best part is that we all found people who have similar interests,” said Katie Jarve, who portrayed Native American Bloody Knife and Capt. Thomas Weir on the staff ride in September. “There are people going into public policy and political science and it will be really nice to have that connection with them by taking the same class.”

The Face of Battle focused on Gettysburg and Little Bighorn, as well as the Korengal Valley campaign in Afghanistan. The college was co-taught by CISAC’s senior fellow Scott D. Sagan and senior research scholar Joseph Felter.

The students visited Pentagon officials in Washington before heading out to the battlefields, and then back at Stanford attended seminars on the ethics of war in historical and contemporary conflicts, such as in Afghanistan. 

“The battle of the Little Bighorn is particularly valuable to study for insights into counter-insurgency doctrine, in which combat often takes place in villages rather than on isolated battlefields,” said Sagan, an international security expert whose distant relative, Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett, led the final Confederate charge at Gettysburg. 

“I think the best part is that we all found people who have similar interests,” said Katie Jarve, who portrayed Native American Bloody Knife and Capt. Thomas Weir on the staff ride in September. “There are people going into public policy and political science and it will be really nice to have that connection with them by taking the same class.”

The Face of Battle focused on Gettysburg and Little Bighorn, as well as the Korengal Valley campaign in Afghanistan. The college was co-taught by CISAC’s senior fellow Scott D. Sagan and senior research scholar Joseph Felter.

The students visited Pentagon officials in Washington before heading out to the battlefields, and then back at Stanford attended seminars on the ethics of war in historical and contemporary conflicts, such as in Afghanistan. 

“The battle of the Little Bighorn is particularly valuable to study for insights into counter-insurgency doctrine, in which combat often takes place in villages rather than on isolated battlefields,” said Sagan, an international security expert whose distant relative, Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett, led the final Confederate charge at Gettysburg. 

Sophomore College students from the Face of Battle class gather at the national monument to the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Photo Credit: David Grubbs

The 16 Face of Battle sophomores – some of whom aspire to be CISAC honors students their senior year – were required to investigate the battlefield characters they would portray and be prepared to defend their actions on that day in 1876. The students, wearing Stanford garb and sunglasses, had five minutes to make their characters come to life on the same land where they had once fought for their lives. 

“Walking this terrain and recounting the many individual decisions and actions the led to Custer's famous defeat – on the very ground they occurred – provides unique context for the students,” said Felter, a counterinsurgency specialist and recently retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer who had combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

“The challenges faced by the members of General Custer's 7th Cavalry are in many ways similar to those faced by modern counterinsurgency forces, including those in Afghanistan today,” he said. “The difference between overwhelming success and utter defeat in this type of conflict can turn on seemingly small and trivial decisions and actions, not only by senior leaders but down to the very lowest levels of command.” 

In 1876, Lakota Chief Sitting Bull had called thousands of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne off their reservations to a large encampment on the banks of the Little Bighorn. He had hoped to create an alliance to deal with the white gold miners encroaching on the Black Hills, which had been given to the Sioux by the U.S. government. 

I’m the real deal: the greatest, biggest, baddest Indian fighter in the West. But for you, well, you can call me General George Armstrong Custer. I fully believe the battle that we will have here today will be the biggest, best, crowning achievement of my life.” -- Jeffrey Abidor as Custer

President Ulysses S. Grant had sent Custer and the 7th Cavalry out West to force Native Americans back onto their reservations. Grant despised Custer, as the Civil War hero had testified against his administration about alleged corruption in the Indian affairs office. 

“Our tribe, the Lakota, were at the very height of power,” said Uttara Sivaram, playing Lakota war chief Crazy Horse. “We interacted with the white man rarely; they fought among themselves. They seem to naturally assume that we were weak and this put them at a fatal disadvantage. As long as these men would continue to think this way, my strategy and timing would always catch them off guard – which would lead them to their greatest defeat against the Indians at the Battle of Little Bighorn.” 

On June 25, 1876, Custer and his battalion of some 260 men charged against Sitting Bull’s encampment along the river. 

Jacob Winkelman, another student playing Crazy Horse, spoke about the warrior’s confidence and patience going into battle. He fastened a hawk feather in his hair and prepared his Winchester carbine and war clubs. He raised his hands to the sun and called on the Lakota’s great spirit, Wakan Tanka, to protect him in battle. 

“My own patience in the face of attack allowed me to outmaneuver General Custer, whose rash decisions led to the demise of him and his followers,” Winkelman’s Crazy Horse said. “I told my soldiers: Do your best and let us kill them all off today, that they may not trouble us anymore. As I led my warriors into battle, I said, `Come on, die with me. It’s a good day to die; cowards to the rear!” 

Custer had been ordered to wait for reinforcements at the mouth of the Little Bighorn. But when he saw the size of the Native American encampment, he immediately planned an attack from three sides. What he didn’t know was that Sitting Bull had already forced the 7th’s Capt. Frederick Benteen and Maj. Marcus Reno into retreat. Custer and his men were eventually surrounded, outmanned and killed. 

Face of Battle students walking the trails through the national Little Bighorn battlefield. 
Photo Credit: David Grubbs

The defeat led to national debate about whether Custer had died a tragic military hero or an arrogant hothead. Reno – who hated Custer and survived the battle – demanded a military court of inquiry to clear his name of allegations of dereliction of duties and Benteen fought charges that he neglected Custer’s plea for more ammunition packs. 

“Not two years after joining Custer’s 7th, I saw what made him truly despicable,” said Allen Xu said, playing Benteen. “But as they say – karma turned out to be a harsher mistress than Libby Custer.” 

Chase Basich, who portrayed Reno and Crazy Horse, said it was chilling to walk the trails the soldiers took, to see the rocks they hid behind and where they finally fell. 

“By thoroughly researching our assigned persons, we became intimate with them,” Basich said. “It really drove home one of the main focuses of the class: looking through battle from the eyes of individuals, to see that battle was not something simply to be viewed from the point of view of generals and policy makers, and was not colored dots moving around a map. The battle was a collection of individuals making their own choices and decisions, each exerting their own influence on the outcome of the battle. 

Reed Jobs, a junior who was a course assistant, played the final Custer by posthumously defending his decisions of that day. 

“I regret that I could not have testified against that drunken lollard Marcus Reno,” Jobs said as Custer. “For it was his retreat which was out of cowardice, not out of strategy, which cost us valuable time. But it was Benteen who I would have liked to seen hanged for cowardice that day. I knew that even as we were being shot at and the bullets were raining down on us, as we stood trying to hold our position in futility, that I was still – and Tom was still – more man than Benteen could ever be. 

“Soon I felt a bullet lodge deep in my left shoulder, near my heart,” he continued. “I knew I had only a few moments before I perished here on this hill. Had we had more time, had Benteen shown up, I believe we would have … finally ended this Indian scourge on our great nation.” 

Though the Native Americans won the battle, the deaths of Custer and his men reinforced the U.S. government efforts to subdue the indigenous tribes. Within five years, nearly all the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations. 

Face of Battle course assistant Reed Jobs acts out the role of General Custer with the Little Bighorn national monument reflected in his sunglasses.
Photo Credit: David Grubbs

 

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Transportation SNAFU Administration

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Foreign Policy blogger and CISAC Faculty Member Amy Zegart explains the good, the bad, and the ugly of aviation security. She notes that the increased use of bomb-sniffing dogs and LAX's ARMOR program, which uses an algorithm to conduct random times and locations for searches, are two examples of positive developments in the TSA's airline security measures. 

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The Historical Dimensions of South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program

A three-day conference in Pretoria, South Africa, to discuss the historical dimensions of South Africa's nuclear weapons program. CISAC was strongly represented at the event. Hosted by Monash University, Australia. 

The conference presentation, "The Vela Event of 1979 (Or The Israeli Nuclear Test of 1979)" by CISAC Affiliate Leonard Weiss, is available for download below. 

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David Holloway

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E214
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-1737 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
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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.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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Leonard Weiss

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Leonard Weiss is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.

For a comprehensive list of Dr. Weiss's publications, click here.

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Frank Pabian

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Frank Pabian is a globally recognized expert in the fields of nuclear nonproliferation and satellite imagery intelligence analysis with one half century of professional experience, beginning with the CIA’s Office of Imagery Analysis, followed by employment at US and European National Nuclear Laboratories. During the period from 1996-98, Frank was a Nuclear Chief Inspector for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during ground inspections in Iraq, focusing primarily on equipment/materials “Hide Sites” and “Capable Sites” potentially associated with weapons of mass destruction development and/or production. His Iraq Action Team’s efforts helped garner support for the IAEA and its Director General to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Frank is recipient of the US Intelligence Community’s highest  award for contractors, the Gold Seal Medallion, for “sustained superior performance” for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty verification support to the IAEA during South Africa’s denuclearization, and for associated discoveries derived from original analysis of all-source information. He was also named a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow in 2013, having served as the senior geospatial open-source information analyst in both the Global Security Directorate and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division to help solve key intelligence questions in a geospatial context until retirement in May 2017. During 2014-2016, served as a Senior Fellow Researcher during USG authorized overseas service at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy; and is continuing as an Affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation where, previously, Frank was a Research Fellow during the 2011-2012 academic year.
 

Although now fully retired, Frank remains a consultant to the CISAC IMINT Team and continues to lecture on new developments for Open Source Geospatial Intelligence.  Frank is a “Certified Mapping Scientist, Remote Sensing” with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASP&RS) and an American Mensan.

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How to Engage Iran: Abe Sofaer in conversation with Allen Weiner on Diplomacy and the Iranian Nuclear Crisis

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About the Speakers: Abraham Sofaer was appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution in 1994. Sofaer's work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security. His most recent books are The Best Defense?: Legitimacy and Preventive Force and Taking On Iran: Strength, Diplomacy and the Iranian Threat. From 1985 to 1990, he served as a legal adviser to the US Department of State. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest state department award given to a non–civil servant.

Allen Weiner is senior lecturer in law and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. For more than a decade, he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. Weiner is the author of "The Torture Memos and Accountability" in the American Society of International Law Insight and co-author of International Law. Other publications include "Law, Just War, and the International Fight Against Terrorism: Is It War?" in Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory.

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Abraham Sofaer George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs, Hoover Institution, Stanford Speaker

Allen S. Weiner

Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Neukom Faculty Office Building, Room N238
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

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Senior Lecturer in Law
Director, Stanford Program in International Law
Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation
CISAC Core Faculty Member
Europe Center Affiliated Faculty
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Allen S. Weiner is senior lecturer in law and director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. He is an international legal scholar with expertise in such wide-ranging fields as international and national security law, the law of war, international conflict resolution, and international criminal law (including transitional justice). His scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and situations of widespread humanitarian atrocities. He also explores the relationship between international and domestic law in the context of asymmetric armed conflicts between the United States and nonstate groups and the response to terrorism. In the realm of international conflict resolution, his highly multidisciplinary work analyzes the barriers to resolving violent political conflicts, with a particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Weiner’s scholarship is deeply informed by experience; for more than a decade he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. In those capacities, he advised government policy-makers, negotiated international agreements, and represented the United States in litigation before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the International Court of Justice. He teaches courses in public international law, international conflict resolution, and international security matters at Stanford Law School.

Weiner is the author of "Constitutions as Peace Treaties: A Cautionary Tale for the Arab Spring” in the Stanford Law Review Online (2011) and co-author (with Barry E. Carter) of International Law (6th ed. 2011). Other publications include “The Torture Memos and Accountability" in the American Society of International Law Insight (2009), "Law, Just War, and the International Fight Against Terrorism: Is It War?", in Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory (Steven P. Lee, ed.) (2007), ”Enhancing Implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540: Report of the Center on International Security and Cooperation” (with Chaim Braun, Michael May & Roger Speed) (September 2007), and "The Use of Force and Contemporary Security Threats: Old Medicine for New Ills?", Stanford Law Review (2006).

Weiner has worked on several Supreme Court amicus briefs concerning national security and international law issues, including cases brought involving "war on terror" detainees.  He has also submitted petitions before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Vietnamese social and political activists detained by their governing for the exercise of free speech rights.

Weiner earned a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

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Allen Weiner Senior Lecturer in Law; Co-Director, Stanford Program in International Law; Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation; CDDRL and CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member; Europe Center Research Affiliate Host
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Windows of Volatility?: Unpacking the Relationship Between Nuclear Proliferation and Time

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Vipin Narang Stanton Nuclear Security Jr. Faculty Fellow Speaker CISAC

Scott D. Sagan

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-2715 (650) 723-0089
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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Scott D. Sagan is Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, and the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He also serves as Co-Chair 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 is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb

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About the Topic: The history of Pakistan's nuclear program is the history of Pakistan.  With unique insider perspective, Brig. Feroz Khan unveils the fascinating interplay that took place and reveals how international opposition to the program only made it an even more significant national issue.   Written by a 30-year professional in the Pakistani Army who played a senior role formulating and advocating Pakistan's security policy on nuclear and conventional arms control, 'Eating Grass' is a seminal study that tells the fascinating story of how and why Pakistan's government, scientists, and military, persevered to develop nuclear weapons capability in the face of international resistance, domestic political upheavals and regional military crises.   

 

About the Speaker: Brig (Ret.) Feroz Hassan Khan is a lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He last served as director of arms control and disarmament affairs, in the Strategic Plans Division of the Joint Services Headquarters in Pakistan. In that position, he was a key contributor in formulating Pakistan’s security policies on nuclear and conventional arms control and strategic stability in South Asia. He produced recommendations for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and represented Pakistan in several multilateral and bilateral arms control negotiations. He is the author of recently published book Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb.

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Feroz Khan Brigadier (Retired), Pakistan Army; Lecturer, Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School Speaker
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North Korea surprises world with successful launch of long-range rocket

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North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket Wednesday, with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) confirming Pyongyang had "deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit." The defiant rocket launch has prompted worldwide consternation: Japan has called for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council; the Obama administration called the launch a "highly provocative act that threatens regional security" and violates U.N. resolutions; and South Korea has raised its security threat level. 

Pyongyang insists it has a right to pursue a peaceful space program and that the rocket was armed with a communications satellite to help in that endeavor. But the U.S. and its allies worry the technology could lead to an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.  

We turn to three experts on North Korea for their views on the launch: David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; Thomas Fingar, an international intelligence expert and the Oksenberg-Rohlen distinguished fellow at FSI; and Nick Hansen, a CISAC affiliate and expert in foreign weapons and imagery intelligence who writes for Jane’s Defense and 38North.org, a website for the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS.

 

Why is the global community surprised North Korea has successfully launched a rocket and apparently put a satellite into orbit? 

Straub: It shouldn't come as a surprise that North Korea has finally succeeded with its fifth test of a long-range rocket, which it's been trying to do since 1998. North Korea has pursued the development of nuclear weapons and missiles with great determination and intensity over many decades, because its leaders regard these as a panacea for problems actually originating in their own failed economic and political systems. 

Fearful that domestic reform would result in their overthrow, they continue to oppress and isolate their people while using military threats to intimidate other countries. Their aim is to remain in power and eventually prevail over their rival South Korea by forcing the lifting of international sanctions and being accepted as a nuclear weapons state. It is not irrational but it is very unrealistic. Most members of the international community, including the United States, will never accept this. North Korea is thus going ever deeper down a blind alley. 

The rocket technology is dangerously close to long-range missile technology and the United Nations Security Council has issued several resolutions and forbidden North Korea from conducting any further tests. 

 

Was there any significance to the Dec. 10-29 launch window? 

Straub: The media is full of speculation about why North Korea announced this particular window of dates, such as that it means to send a message to the Obama administration or to influence the upcoming South Korean presidential election on December 19.  My own guess is that it is keyed to the first anniversary Kim Jong Il’s death on December 17. 

But in the end, the most important question is why the North Koreans conducted the launch. It is fundamentally because they have a long-standing missile program to which they have devoted a great deal of resources. If the leadership had devoted those resources to taking care of its citizens, it could have bought enough food on the global market to prevent hunger, instead of calling on the international community for assistance.

 

The North Koreans typically pick the spring or summer to test their rockets. Why did it launch now amid constraining winter weather? 

Hansen: The timing is purely political. The reasons they prefer to launch in the spring and summer are, of course, better weather conditions and longer days to work on the pad. But the anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, the presidential elections in South Korea, beating the south to a satellite launch or putting the DPRK back in the international spotlight – these could all have driven the decision. 

North Korea may be following the same script they used for the (failed) April 12 Unha-3 launch. If they continued at the April pace, the rocket should have been completely stacked on the pad on Dec. 7 in order to be checked out on the 8th and 9th and be ready to launch on the 10th, which was the first day of the launch window. This was a tight schedule with little room for technical problems or weather delays. (The North's Korean Central News Agency announced Dec. 10 that the launch window had been extended to the 29th, thus catching many North Korea observers off guard by the earlier launch.) 

Fingar: The timing is indeed outside the normal window of relatively better weather. Possible factors include commemoration of the anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s death; a ploy to capture the attention of new administrations in Washington, Beijing, Seoul, and Japan; and intent to buttress the North’s claim to having a nuclear deterrent by demonstrating that it can launch at any time of the year. There might also have been a simpler explanation, namely that DPRK engineers thought they had found and fixed the problem that caused the previous tests to fail and persuaded Kim Jong Un that there was no technical reason to delay.

 

What are the larger implications of North Korea’s actions and why do these rocket launches provoke such global condemnation? 

Fingar:  Perhaps the primary reason is that North Korea is widely perceived to be dangerous and more than a little bizarre. In other words, it is an easy target and symbolic embodiment of “worst case” fears about what a defiant and “irrational” country might do with its nuclear and missile capabilities. 

The world also sees that North Korea’s attempt to launch a satellite is interpreted, not unreasonably, as defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, which demands that the DPRK not conduct any further nuclear test or launch a ballistic missile. Pyongyang argues that a rocket used for space launches is not a ballistic missile, and therefore is not proscribed by the U.N. resolution. 

Straub: North Korea has been developing medium- and long-range missiles for more than two decades, during which time it has repeatedly attacked South Korea and threatened the United States and other countries. It has also been working on its nuclear program and has already tested two nuclear devices. The fear is that North Korea is trying to miniaturize a nuclear device that could be used as a warhead on a long-range missile. 

In January 2011, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates voiced U.S. concern that North Korea was becoming a direct threat to it, and that Pyongyang could successfully develop intercontinental ballistic missile capability within five years.  

In South Korea, the launch is unlikely to have a major impact on the presidential election December 19. Conservative South Koreans regard North Korean behavior as stemming from the nature of its system, while progressives also blame the policies of the United States and conservative South Korean administrations for making North Korea feel insecure. Each side will simply interpret the launch from its longstanding perspective on North Korea.  

In Japan, where concern about North Korea runs deep both because of the nuclear and missile programs and North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens, the launch will likely further strengthen the front-running conservatives in the Lower House election on December 16.

 

How is the international community responding to the launch? 

Straub: The United States has already signaled that it will seek even stronger international sanctions against North Korea. If China is unwilling to agree in the U.N. Security Council, the United States and its allies will pursue increased sanctions on their own. 

China has again been embarrassed by North Korea, but there is no indication that it will change its basic policy of supporting North Korea for fear it might collapse, creating an unpredictable situation on China's border. Even if China agrees to some increased sanctions against North Korea in the UN Security Council, its record of actually enforcing international sanctions is decidedly mixed. In any event, it has dramatically increased its economic support for and engagement with North Korea since that country's first test of a nuclear device in 20006. 

 

Is there anything more that Washington can do to prevent these provocations by the North aside from pushing the Six Party Talks and threats of greater sanctions? 

Fingar:  Probably not. Some argue that Pyongyang’s goal is to use the provocations to persuade the United States to negotiate directly with North Korea, but its conditions for doing so include U.S. acknowledgment – and acceptance – of the North’s self-proclaimed status as a nuclear weapon state. That is not likely to happen. I think the best course for the United States would be to avoid over-reacting and to focus attention on Pyongyang’s defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

 

There is speculation that a third underground nuclear test will follow the rocket launch if it fails to put a satellite into orbit.

 

Hansen: I believe they will test regardless of the successful launch.  I have been following the nuclear test site at Punggye-ri all November. Details from a Nov. 19 image show that part of the dirt road into the complex from the valley is unusable, as three bridges have been washed out. Instead they have upgraded an old road that runs up the west side of the valley and enters the complex just in front of the new south tunnel. Imagery on Nov. 24 revealed some changes. The new road is still being used and there appears to be more vehicle tracks going to the support area. The most significant development is the probable clearing of snow at the entrance to the south tunnel. It also appears that the mine cart tracks are being reinstalled on the spoil pile to carry dirt out from the tunnel, but I can't be sure of that. 

See our interactive timeline on key events in North Korea here at Storify.com 

Hansen Interview with the Australia Broadcasting Corp. 

Hansen's Q&A with Popular Science with Popular Science on Why Launch Doesn't Spell Doom 

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North Koreans dance to celebrate their country's rocket lauch in Pyongyang, in this photo taken by Kyodo December 12, 2012.
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India's Energy [In]Security and Growing Competition from China

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There is considerable optimism that India will continue to grow economically, address the crippling poverty that the majority of the population still faces and become a great nation. Dr. Gupta will first analyze India's energy security by examining the different energy sectors and evaluate to what extent it can meet its energy needs. Dr. Gupta will then analyze the economic, geographical and technology advantage that China holds over India and what India must do to address these challenges.

Dr. Rajan Gupta is a theoretical physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a Laboratory fellow. He currently serves as Program Manager of the High Energy Physics Program an LANL and previously served as Group Leader of Elementary Particles and Field Theory. He obtained his Masters in Physics from Delhi University, India, and earned his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from The California Institute of Technology in 1982. The main thrust of his research is to understand the fundamental theories of elementary particle interactions. Dr. Gupta has also worked extensively on a project related to the mapping of global energy systems. He has published over 125 research papers and is a fellow of the American Physical Society. During 2007 he served as the chair of the LANL energy council, helped create a strategic plan for LANL's investment in energy R&D and advocated for energy security to be made a part of the core LANL mission.

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Rajan Gupta Speaker Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Spooks, Incorporated

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Foreign Policy blogger and CISAC Faculty Member Amy Zegart explains how major private companies are increasingly developing their own intelligence that conduct surveillance and analyze information that places the reputation, personnel or business interests of their company. These units look and act like government intelligence agencies, and are staffed with former CIA, FBI, and military professionals that maintain their government ties. Companies operating globally cannot afford to ignore political events, natural disasters, and other risks. 

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Foreign Policy
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Amy Zegart
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