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FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling. 

FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world. 

FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.

Space Cadets - The Korean Peninsula's Rocket Competition

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CISAC's Lew Franklin and his coauthor, Nick Hansen, contributed the latter half of a two-part article discussing the Korean peninsula's space programme competition. The beginning of their section of the article is highlighted in the attached document.

(Excerpt) South Korea's space programme has not developed in isolation. As Seoul has moved through guided missile development, satellite production and soon an SLV launch, North Korea has pursued a similar path towards the prestigious goal of the first indigenous Korean satellite launch.

Although more rapid, North Korea's programme has been less successful. Three SLV launches have failed to place a satellite into orbit, despite official claims to the contrary. The most recent launch, of the Unha-2 SLV on 5 April, failed in the third stage and fell into the Pacific Ocean, failing to place the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite into orbit.

Much media attention surrounding these launches has concentrated on the possibility of such technology being used for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The Unha-2, with its relatively large first stage draws suspicion of a long-predicted ICBM, but the absence of a militarized launcher or re-entry vehicle/warhead testing programme suggests that this vehicle and both launch pads are primarily for satellite launches at this time, with the added benefit of dual-use military rocket technology spin-off. Analysis of commercial high-resolution satellite imagery, North Korean-released video of two of its three launches and public announcements on space activities suggests that North Korea is currently focused on SLV and satellite development; Pyongyang remains eager to pursue a space programme for the nationalistic, commercial and military benefits, probably including military space.

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Jane's Intelligence Review
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Trajectories of Terrorism: Attack Patterns of Foreign Groups That Have Targeted The United States, 1970-2004

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Research Summary
Although researchers began to assemble open-source terrorism event databases in the late 1960s, until recently most of these databases excluded domestic attacks. This exclusion is particularly misleading for the United States because, although the United States is often perceived to be the central target of transnational terrorism, the domestic attacks of foreign groups targeting the United States are often ignored. We began this article with 53 foreign terrorist groups that have been identified by U.S. State Department and other government sources as posing a special threat to the United States. Using newly available data from the Global Terrorism Database composed of both domestic and transnational terrorist attacks, we examined 16,916 attacks attributed to these groups between 1970 and 2004. We found that just 3% of attacks by these designated anti-U.S. groups were actually directed at the United States. Moreover, 99% of attacks targeting the United States did not occur on U.S. soil but were aimed at U.S. targets in other countries (e.g., embassies or multilateral corporations). We also found that more than 90% of the non-U.S. attacks were domestic (i.e., nationals from one country attacking targets of the same nationality in the same country). We used group-based trajectory analysis to examine the different developmental trajectories of U.S. target and non-U.S. target terrorist strikes and concluded that four trajectories best capture attack patterns for both. These trajectories outline three terrorist waves-which occurred in the 1970s, 1980s, and the early 21st century-as well as a trajectory that does not exhibit wave-like characteristics but instead is characterized by irregular and infrequent attacks.

Policy Implications
Our results underscore the importance of proximity for terrorist targeting. Terrorists, like ordinary criminals, are likely to choose targets close to their operational base. However, when attacks occur further from the terrorists' home bases, they are more deadly. Approximately half of the terrorist organizations studied here exhibited wave-like boom and bust attack trajectories. Given that most attacks by groups identified as threats by the U.S. government are in fact aimed at non-U.S. domestic targets, the United States should pursue efforts to strengthen the capacity of local governments to combat terrorism and to communicate to them our understanding that groups that are anti-United States are also a threat to local governments. In framing counterterrorism policies, the United States should put threats into perspective by acknowledging that we are the exception and local governments are the rule. Terrorism is not just about us.

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Criminology & Public Policy
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Martha Crenshaw

CISAC announces members of 2009-10 Honors Program

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CISAC is pleased to announce that 14 seniors have been selected to participate in its Undergraduate Honors Program in International Security Studies. 

The program provides an opportunity for eligible students focusing on international security subjects in any field to earn an honors certificate.

Students selected intern with a security-related organization, attend the program's honors college in Washington, D.C. in September, participate in a year-long core seminar on international security research, and produce an honors thesis with policy implications.

  • Bertram Ang
    Departments of Economics & Political Science
    Restructuring of the Military Mindset
  • Amir Badat
    Program in International Relations
    Nuclear Disarmament and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
  • Daniel Cassman
    Departments of Political Science & Computer Science
    The Restart of Ended Civil Wars
  • Philippe de Koning
    Program in International Relations
    Minor in Economics
    The Influence of North Korea and China on Japanese Militarization
  • Daniel Leifer
    Department of Biology
    Rapid Mobilization of Health Care Workers in Times of Crisis
  • Ashley Lohmann
    Program in International Relations
    Tactical Change by Middle Eastern Terrorist Organizations, 1970-2004
  • Raffi Mardirosian
    Department of Economics & Public Policy Program
    The Adaptability of Terrorists and Rogue Nations to Financial Methods of Preventing WMD Proliferation and other Breaches of National Security
  • Ben Picozzi
    Department of Philosophy
    Minor in Classical Languages
    Norms and International Security with Respect to the Responsibility to Protect
  • Amir Ravandoust
    Department of Management Science & Engineering
    Minor in International Relations
    Nuclear Arab States: Is Proliferation Inevitable?
  • Sam Stone
    Department of Mathematics & Program in International Relations
    The Use of Energy Exports as a Foreign Policy Tool in the CIS and Eastern Europe
  • Gautam Thapar
    Department of Political Science
    Minor in Economics
    U.S. Aid to Pakistan
  • Son Ca Vu
    Department of Management Science & Engineering
    Minor in Political Science
    The A.Q. Khan Network: A Rogue Business Model
  • Georgia Wells
    Program in Human Biology
    Explaining the Radicalization of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
  • Hao Yan
    Departments of Political Science & Economics
    China's Global Strategy

 

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2009 Current Strategy Forum

This year marks the 60th consecutive Current Strategy Forum at the Naval War College in Newport. The first was held on 9 May 1949 under the title "Round Table Talks," and offered an opportunity for the nation's public servants, scholars, and senior military officers to join the College faculty and students to discuss the future strategy of the United States. Over time this forum has expanded to include a cross section of America's civilian leadership to encourage a wide-ranging debate on national and international security. Each year the Secretary of the Navy hosts the Current Strategy Forum to provide an opportunity for an exchange of views among outstanding scholars and leaders from across industry, government and the military. Today, as the Navy continues to focus on its support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it also must also look beyond the horizon.  The Navy must support our nation's national security objectives even as new challenges and threats emerge to threaten   the global system.  This year's forum will present the perspective of the nation's leading experts on how the Navy can both meet future challenges and identify opportunities to promote a more stable world with the theme:

» "Seizing Strategic Opportunities: Challenging the Paradigm"

Naval War College
Newport, RI

Thomas Fingar

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C-327
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-9149 (650) 723-6530
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Shorenstein APARC Fellow
Affiliated Scholar at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
tom_fingar_vert.jpg PhD

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform (Stanford University Press, 2021), Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011), The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford University Press, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020). His most recent article is, "The Role of Intelligence in Countering Illicit Nuclear-Related Procurement,” in Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, William C. Potter, and Leonard S Spector, eds., Preventing Black Market Trade in Nuclear Technology (Cambridge, 2018)."

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U.S. Must Search for Common Ground in Muslim World

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South Asia scholar Anja Manuel discusses how the United States can improve its image with Muslim communities worldwide, going beyond just "winning hearts and minds." Farah Pandith, the State Department's new Special Representative to Muslim Communities, must navigate difficult policy paths to create a message of peace, stability, and economic opportunity. 

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The Washington Post
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Anja Manuel
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Reforming Counterterrorism: Institutions and Organizational Routines in Britain and France

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This article seeks to explain why two states faced with a similar terrorist threat, perceiving it in a similar way, and drawing the same broad implications for their counterterrorist investigations, have nevertheless put in place significantly different types of organizational
reforms in response to that threat. The study shows that although France and Britain have embraced a common preventive logic in the face of Islamist terrorism, the changes that they have made to the coordination of intelligence, law enforcement, and prosecution in that context have differed because of contrasting organizational routines and interinstitutional conventions in the two states. An analysis of the British and French cases shows that law enforcement can be preventive but that western states are likely to pursue different ways of bringing security agencies and the law together to prevent and prosecute terrorism. The organizational and institutional factors that give rise to such divergent practices have important consequences for the ability of a state to develop a coordinated operational response to terrorism and convict terrorist suspects of crimes in a court of law.

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Security Studies
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CISAC Directors' Seminar featuring Honors Students

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Sarah Catanzaro is a senior undergraduate student at Stanford University majoring in international relations and minoring in Art History. Her interest in international security studies was provoked by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. Living on Long Island in a community that was impacted by this tragedy, she experienced firsthand the acute anxiety and sense of vulnerability induced by terrorism and sought to understand this phenomenon through academic research. As a result, she, like Ms. Esberg worked as a research assistant for Jacob Shapiro, a former postgraduate fellow at CISAC, examining the inefficiencies and vulnerabilities of terrorist groups. Since her junior year, she has served as a research assistant for Professor Martha Crenshaw. Moreover, Sarah interned at the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, where she created a database of released Guantanamo Bay detainees that now serves as a crucial research tool for the executive director of the Center, Karen Greenberg. She is also active in the Stanford community as the President of the Public Health Initiative and former Events Director of Stanford Women in Business. She looks forward to expand her knowledge and professional experiences in the field of international security in the near future.

Jane Esberg is a CISAC Undergraduate Honors Student graduating this June with a B.A. in International Relations. She currently works as a research assistant for acting co-director of CISAC, Professor Lynn Eden, investigating US nuclear war planning. Previously, she has researched for Professor Kenneth A. Schultz, CISAC Homeland Security Fellow Jacob Shapiro, and PhD Candidate Luke Condra. In Summer 2008 Jane received a Stanford in Government Fellowship to work with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, in the Transnational Threats and Political Risks division. She studied abroad at Oxford University, where she completed a tutorial on "the Politics of Terrorism," and in Santiago, Chile, where she was awarded a Stanford Quarterly Research Grant to conduct independent research for use in her thesis. After graduation, she will be traveling as a Haas Center Fellow to the Tambopata region of the Peruvian Amazon to conduct a research and service project on the impact of national policy, urbanization, and immigration on agricultural sustainability.

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Sarah Catanzaro CISAC Honors Student and winner of the William J. Perry Prize Speaker
Jane Esberg CISAC Honors Student and winner of the Firestone Medal Speaker

Michael M. May

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Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
FSI Senior Fellow
CISAC Faculty Member
Not in Residence
michaelmayrsd17_040_0117aa.jpg PhD

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971.

May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the International Institute on Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards.

His current research interests are nuclear weapons policy in the US and in other countries; nuclear terrorism; nuclear and other forms of energy and their impact on the environment, health and safety and security; the use of statistics and mathematical models in the public sphere.

May is continuing work on creating a secure future for civilian nuclear applications. In October 2007, May hosted an international workshop on how the nuclear weapon states can help rebuild the consensus underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Proceedings and a summary report are available online or by email request. May also chaired a technical working group on nuclear forensics. The final report is available online.

In April 2007, May in cooperation with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Professor Ashton Carter of Harvard hosted a workshop on what would have to be done to be ready for a terrorist nuclear detonation. The report is available online at the Preventive Defense Project. A summary, titled, "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City," was published fall 2007 in Washington Quarterly and is available online.

Recent work also includes a study of nuclear postures in several countries (2007 - 2009); an article on nuclear disarmament and one on tactical nuclear weapons; and a report with Kate Marvel for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on possible game changers in the nuclear energy industry.

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Torture Memos and Accountability

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On April 16, 2009, the Justice Department released four previously classified memos issued by its Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that provided legal guidance on the permissibility of certain aggressive techniques used during the interrogation of high-ranking al Qaeda suspects. The memos examined these techniques in light of the prohibition against torture under the Convention Against Torture (Torture Convention), the U.S. criminal statute that implements the Torture Convention ("the anti-torture statute"), and the prohibition on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under the Torture Convention. The release of the memos has provoked considerable discussion about possible criminal accountability for government officials who carried out interrogations or who formulated the legal guidance authorizing them. This Insight addresses questions regarding possible criminal liability for the responsible officials and some issues of state responsibility of the United States under international law.

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American Society of International Law "Insight"
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Allen S. Weiner

Jenny Martinez

Room N303 Neukom Building
Stanford School of Law
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

(650) 723-4455
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Provost, Stanford University
Professor of Law
Frederick Emmons Terman Professorship
Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Jenny S. Martinez is the provost at Stanford University, formerly the Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School and the law school’s 14th dean. Professor Martinez is a leading expert on international law and constitutional law, including comparative constitutional law. She is the author of The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2012) and numerous articles in leading academic journals. She teaches courses on constitutional law, civil procedure, international law, and international business transactions. She is a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a faculty affiliate of Stanford’s Center on International Security and Cooperation and Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

An experienced litigator, she has worked on numerous cases involving international law and constitutional law issues. She served as a member of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. She is also a member of the American Law Institute.

Before joining the Stanford faculty in 2003, Professor Martinez clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer (BA ’59) of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; she was also an associate legal officer for Judge Patricia Wald of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where she worked on trials involving genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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"Nuclear Postures and Nuclear Disarmament"

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Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971.

May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards.

His current research interests are in the area of nuclear terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy. A few of his specific projects are listed here:

May was the principal investigator on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) project that CISAC conducted in cooperation with the Naval Postgraduate School centering on organizational learning research for the DHS. The project focused on learning from exercises, following up CISAC's previous work with the DHS on the federal-state-local coordination exercise Topoff-2. With CISAC affiliate Roger Speed, May completed a chapter, "Assessing the United States's Nuclear Posture," in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Confronting Today's Threats, copublished by CISAC and Brookings. An earlier version of the chapter appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

May is continuing work on creating a secure future for civilian nuclear applications. In October 2007, May hosted an international workshop on how the nuclear weapon states can help rebuild the consensus underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Proceedings and a summary report are available online or by email request. May also chaired a technical working group on nuclear forensics. The final report is available online.

In April 2007, May in cooperation with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Professor Ashton Carter of Harvard hosted a workshop on what would have to be done to be ready for a terrorist nuclear detonation. The report is available online at the Preventive Defense Project. A summary, titled, "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City," was published fall 2007 in Washington Quarterly and is available online.

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Michael M. May

0
Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
FSI Senior Fellow
CISAC Faculty Member
Not in Residence
michaelmayrsd17_040_0117aa.jpg PhD

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971.

May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the International Institute on Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards.

His current research interests are nuclear weapons policy in the US and in other countries; nuclear terrorism; nuclear and other forms of energy and their impact on the environment, health and safety and security; the use of statistics and mathematical models in the public sphere.

May is continuing work on creating a secure future for civilian nuclear applications. In October 2007, May hosted an international workshop on how the nuclear weapon states can help rebuild the consensus underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Proceedings and a summary report are available online or by email request. May also chaired a technical working group on nuclear forensics. The final report is available online.

In April 2007, May in cooperation with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Professor Ashton Carter of Harvard hosted a workshop on what would have to be done to be ready for a terrorist nuclear detonation. The report is available online at the Preventive Defense Project. A summary, titled, "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City," was published fall 2007 in Washington Quarterly and is available online.

Recent work also includes a study of nuclear postures in several countries (2007 - 2009); an article on nuclear disarmament and one on tactical nuclear weapons; and a report with Kate Marvel for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on possible game changers in the nuclear energy industry.

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