As part of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, counterterrorism and mental health experts discussed combating terrorism through deterrence and building strong, interconnected communities in a panel titled "State and Local Terrorism Deterrence Efforts". They also talked about strategies to improve public resilience, information gathering, and public perceptions of terrorism in the decade since September 11, 2001 and responded to questions from the audience. To view or purchase the event video, please visit: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/LocalTerr. 

Abstract: In the lecture I will address the criticism that is current among some soldiers and academic strategists these days that if you try to fight an asymmetric war in accordance with the US rules of engagement or the requirements of just war theory, you will lose the war. I will argue that the good guys can win (not that they will certainly win) without adopting the methods of the bad guys.

One of America’s foremost political thinkers, Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He has played a critical role in the revival of a practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. 

Walzer’s books include Just and Unjust Wars, On Toleration, and Arguing About War. He has served as editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades. Currently, he is working on issues having to do with international justice and the new forms of welfare and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Priya Satia's research interests span modern British cultural and political history, colonialism and imperialism, the experience and practice of war, technology and culture, human rights and humanitarianism, the state and institutions of government, arms trade, political economy of empire, and environmental history.

Satia was raised in Los Gatos, California and educated at Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, Berkeley where she earned her Ph.D. in 2004.  She is currently Assistant Professor of History at Stanford where she teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire.

Satia's latest book Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East has been the recipient of several book prizes including the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize in 2009, and the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize.

Her work can also be found in academic journals such as the American Historical Reviewand Past and Present. Her article, “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control in Iraq and the British Idea of Arabia” won the Article Prize of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies for 2005-2006 and the 2007 Walter D. Love Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies. 

Satia is currently researching the manufacture, trade, and use of small arms in the British empire for her book project, "Guns: The True History of the British Empire."

More information TBA. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

"Beyond Terror: America After bin Laden"

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His history of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, was published to immediate and widespread acclaim, spending eight weeks on The New York Times best seller list and being translated into twenty-five languages. It was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Lionel Gelber Award for nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Award for History, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. The NYU School of Journalism recently honored the book as one of the ten best works of journalism in the previous decade.

Wright will be in conversation with Tobias Wolff (English) and Martha Crenshaw (Center for International Security and Cooperation).

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Sixty-six years ago, a small group of scientists, policy makers and military leaders embarked upon a highly secretive project to build a nuclear bomb. It would change the world forever. Today, the tightly-controlled knowledge and technologies of the Manhattan Project have given way to the open culture of the internet and the Information Age.

The revolution in technology and information dissemination that has transpired since the dawn of the nuclear age has had far-reaching effects on the entire national security apparatus. It has presented dangers, but also opportunities. In the arms control arena, new communication tools allow treaties to be negotiated with greater speed, and computing models help sustain nuclear stockpiles without testing. Verification techniques and technologies are developing in new and innovative directions. However, the traditional tools of arms control policy are limited in how they apply to cyber-weapons and warfare; new ones will be needed.

Identifying the challenges associated with the Information Age, as well as solutions and opportunities, will drive the arms control agenda for the next century.

Drell Lecture Recording: NA

Drell Lecture Transcript: NA

Speaker's Biography: Rose Gottemoeller was sworn in as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, on April 6, 2009. She was the chief negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. Since 2000, she had been with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She most recently was a senior associate in the Carnegie Russia & Eurasia Program in Washington, D.C., where she worked on U.S.–Russian relations and nuclear security and stability. She also served as the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from January 2006 – December 2008.

Formerly Deputy Undersecretary of Energy for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation and before that, Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation and National Security, also at the Department of Energy, she was responsible for all nonproliferation cooperation with Russia and the Newly Independent States. She first joined the Department of Energy in November 1997 as director of the Office of Nonproliferation and National Security.

Prior to her work at the Department of Energy, Ms. Gottemoeller served for 3 years as Deputy Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. From 1993 to 1994, she served on the National Security Council in the White House as director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs, with responsibility for denuclearization in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Previously, she was a social scientist at RAND and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. She has taught on Soviet military policy and Russian security at Georgetown University.

Ms. Gottemoeller received a B.S. from Georgetown University and a M.A. from George Washington University. She is fluent in Russian.