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Airborne Boost-Phase Ballistic Missile Defense

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Boost-phase ballistic missile defense is alluring because rocket boosters are easy to detect and track, they are relatively vulnerable due to the large axial loads on a missile under powered flight, the entire payload (single or multiple warheads and midcourse penetration aids) may be destroyed in a single shot, and countermeasures to defeat boostphase defense are more difficult to devise than for midcourse ballistic missile defenses. Moreover, if intercepted several seconds before booster burnout, the debris will land well short of the target area, although collateral damage to other territory is a serious concern.

On the other hand, boost-phase ballistic missile defense is technically challenging because the intercept timelines are very short (1-3 minutes for theater-range ballistic missiles and 3-5 minutes for intercontinental range missiles) and missile boosters are accelerating targets, thus complicating the design of homing kinetic-kill vehicles (KKVs). This article examines the technical feasibility and nominal capability of one type of boost-phase defense, namely, airborne boost-phase intercept (ABI). Airborne laser systems are not examined here. This article concludes that ABI should be technically achievable within the next decade and that airborne platforms offer some unique advantages, especially for theater ballistic missile defense, that warrant their serious consideration in future U.S. missile defense architectures.

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Whole World on Fire

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Whole World on Fire focuses on a technical riddle wrapped in an organizational mystery: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war?

US bombing in World War II caused massive fire damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but later war plans took account only of damage from the blast; they completely ignored damage from atomic firestorms. Recently a small group of researchers has shown that for modern nuclear weapons the destructiveness and lethality of mass fire often--and predictably--greatly exceeds that of blast effects. This has major implications for defense policy: the US government has underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons, Lynn Eden finds, and built far more warheads, and far more destructive warheads, than it needed for the Pentagon's war-planning purposes.

How could this have happened? The answer lies in how organizations frame the problems they try to solve. In a narrative grounded in organization theory, science and technology studies, and primary historical sources (including declassified documents and interviews), Eden explains how the US Air Force's doctrine of precision bombing led to the development of very good predictions of nuclear blast--a significant achievement--but did not advance organizational knowledge about nuclear fire. Expert communities outside the military reinforced this disparity in organizational capability to predict blast damage but not fire damage. Yet some innovation occurred, and predictions of fire damage were nearly incorporated into nuclear war planning in the early 1990's. The author explains how such a dramatic change almost happened, and why it did not.

Whole World on Fire shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't do well, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences. In a sweeping conclusion, Eden shows the implications of this analysis for understanding such things as the sinking of the Titanic, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the poor fireproofing in the World Trade Center.

This book won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology. It was published in 2005 by Manas Publications in New Delhi, India.

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Ithaca: Cornell University Press
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Lynn Eden

Effectiveness of Nuclear Weapons against Buried Biological Agents

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This report describes the results of some calculations on the effectiveness of penetrating nuclear weapons of yield 1 and 10 kilotons against targets containing biological agents. The effectiveness depends in detail on the construction of the bunkers, on how the bio-agents are stored, on the location of the explosions with respect to the bunkers, the bio-agent containers and the surface of the ground, and on the yield of the explosion and the geology of the explosion site. Completeness of sterilization of the bio-agents is crucial in determining effectiveness. For most likely cases, however, complete sterilization cannot be guaranteed. Better calculations and experiments on specific target types would improve the accuracy of such predictions for those targets, but significant uncertainties regarding actual geology, actual target layouts, and knowledge of the position of the explosion with respect to the target would remain. Aboveground effects of the nuclear explosions, all of which would vent to the surface, are estimated. They include intense local radioactivity and significant fallout, air blast, and seismic effects to kilometers distances. It is likely, however, that casualties from those effects would be less than the casualties that would result from the dispersal of large quantities of bio-agents.

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Michael M. May

The Tet Offensive: New Evidence on Hanoi Strategy Deliberation in 1967

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Lien-Hang T. Nguyen is a doctoral candidate at Yale University and a CISAC social science fellow. She is currently working on her dissertation, entitled "Between the Storms: An International History of the Second Indochina War, 1968-1973," for which she did multiarchival research in Vietnam, the United States, and Europe. She has two upcoming chapters in volumes on the First and Third Indochina Wars, to be published by the presses at Harvard University and the London School of Economics, respectively. She is a member of the American Historical Association, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Association for Asian Studies, and she serves on the executive committee of the Vietnam Studies Group. She received an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Lien-Hang T. Nguyen

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
0820stanford-davidholloway-238-edit.jpg PhD

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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The Use of Force: New Threats, (Perfectly Fine) Old Rules

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Allen S. Weiner

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

(650) 724-5892 (650) 725-2592
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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
rsd25_073_0376a.jpg JD

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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A Different Kind of War Makes a Different Kind of State: Organizing for Homeland Security

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Paul Stockton is Associate Provost at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and is Director of its Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Stockton is the Editor of Homeland Security (forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2005). His research has appeared in Political Science Quarterly, International Security and Strategic Survey. He is Co-Editor of Reconstituting America's Defense: America's New National Security Strategy (1992). Mr. Stockton has also published an Adelphi Paper and has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James Lindsay and Randall Ripley, Eds., U.S. Foreign Policy After the Cold War (1997).

Mr. Stockton received a B.A. summa cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1976 and a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 1986. Dr. Stockton served from 1986-1989 as Legislative Assistant to US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Dr. Stockton was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship for 1989-1990 by the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University. In August 1990, Dr. Stockton joined the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School. From 1995 until 2000, he served as Director of the NPS Center for Civil-Military Relations. From 2000-2001, Dr. Stockton founded and served as the Acting Dean of the NPS School of International Graduate Studies. He was appointed Associate Provost in 2001.

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Paul Stockton Associate Provost and Director of the Center for Homeland Security Naval Postgraduate School
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The Iranian Nuclear Challenge and its Implications

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Ariel (Eli) Levite is the Principal Deputy Director General of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC). Dr. Levite has extensive experience dealing with issues of nuclear proliferation as both a scholar and practitioner. Before that, Dr. Levite was a visiting fellow at CISAC, where he also served as co-leader of the CISAC Discriminate Force Project. His previous jobs include Deputy National Security Advisor (Defense Policy) and Head of the Bureau of International Security at the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

Dr. Levite has written and published extensively on issues of international security, strategy, and Middle East politics. His two most recent publications include "Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited" in International Security, Winter 2002-03, and, co-authored with Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, "The Case for Discriminate Force" in Survival, Winter 2002-03. He holds a bachelor's degree from Tel-Aviv University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University.

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Ariel Levite Deputy Director General Speaker Israel Atomic Energy Commission
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Enforcing the Peace: There Aren't Enough Canadians

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Kimberly Marten is a tenured associate professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, and also teaches at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

She earned her Ph.D. at Stanford in 1991, and held both pre-doc and post-doc fellowships at CISAC. She has written three books: Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (Columbia Univ. Press, 2004), Weapons, Culture, and Self-Interest: Soviet Defense Managers in the New Russia (Columbia University Press, 1997), and Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton University Press, 1993), which received the Marshall Shulman Prize. Her numerous book chapters and journal articles include a Washington Quarterly piece in Winter 2002-3, "Defending against Anarchy: From War to Peacekeeping in Afghanistan," as well as op-eds in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune.

In May 2004 she was embedded for a week with the Canadian Forces then leading the ISAF peace mission in Kabul. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS). Her current research asks whether warlords and gangs can be changed from potential spoilers to stakeholders in state-building processes.

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Kimberly Marten Associate Professor of Political Science Barnard College
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Tricks of the Trade: Writing for International Security

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Steven Miller is Director of the International Security Program, Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal International Security, and co-editor of the International Security Program's book series, BCSIA Studies in International Security (which is published by the MIT Press). Previously, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and taught Defense and Arms Control Studies in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is co-author of the recent monograph, War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives (2002) and a frequent contributor to Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Miller is editor or co-editor of some two dozen books, including, most recently, Offense, Defense, and War (October 2004), The Russian Military: Power and Policy (September 2004), Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict- Revised Edition (2001), and The Rise of China (2000).

 

Miller is the co-chair of the U.S. Pugwash Committee and a member of the Committee on International Security Studies (CISS) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council of International Pugwash, the Advisory Committee of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and the Scientific Committee of the Landau Network Centro Volta (Italy). He is a former member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Within Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Miller serves on the steering committees of the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe and of the Harvard Ukrainian Project.

Suggested readings for the seminar:

 

(1) Teresa Johnson, "Writing for International Security: A Contributor's Guide." International Security, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall 1991), pp. 171-180.

(2) For a critical view of the journal: Hugh Gusterson, "Missing the End of the Cold War in International Security," in Jutta Weldes, et al., Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), pp. 319-345.

(3) For a survey of the evolution of the journal: Steven Miller, "International Security at 25: From One World to Another," International Security, Vol 26, No. 1 (Summer 2001), pp. 5-39.

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Steven E. Miller Editor in Chief, International Security, and Director, International Security Program Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
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