Abstract: In November 1954, French Algeria erupted in violence.  Confronted with a growing nationalist revolution, French authorities turned to not only to repression, but to a radical program of social reform aimed at capturing Algerian Muslims’ hearts and minds.  Why, beginning in the 1950s, did the French Army come to see its task not only as conventional combat, but also social engineering?  Historians often focus on the violence employed by the French Army during the war, but in so doing, they have missed both the full scope and the novelty of the French state’s strategy of “Pacification.”  Drawing on archival research and oral interviews, I show that French commanders did not simply seek to preserve colonial rule, but to radically remake Algerian society along French lines.  French civil and military leaders sought to discover an alternative model of decolonization –one capable of immunizing Algeria against subversive Cold War threats and guaranteeing its future as part of France.  In the process, they transformed the norms of modern warfare, and laid the foundations of the postcolonial relationships between Europe and the Muslim world.

About the Speaker: Terrence Peterson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC for 2015-2016, where he is working on the development of French and international counterinsurgency theories during the period of decolonization.  He earned a PhD in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015.  Entitled “Counterinsurgent Bodies: Social Welfare and Psychological Warfare in French Algeria, 1956-1962,” his dissertation examines the French Army’s efforts to counter a nationalist revolution by combining population development projects and mass psychology techniques to ‘modernize’ Algerian Muslims and remake them in the image of Frenchmen.  Fulbright grantee to France for the year of 2012-2013, his current research focuses on the intersections between the Cold War, decolonization conflicts, and the development of counterinsurgency doctrines.  In addition to several articles under way, his article “The ‘Jewish Question’ and the ‘Italian Peril’: Vichy, Italy, and the Jews of Tunisia, 1940-1942” appeared in the Journal of Contemporary History in April 2015.

- This event is offered as a joint sponsorship with the Hoover Institution - 

Abstract: Writing on matters relating to the cyber era dominate government and academia alike.  Much of the focus tends to be on either the technical aspects or questions about cyber threats and warfare. Much less attention has been on the advent of the cyber era for the intelligence community. While there can be no doubt that the technological age in which we find ourselves today is new, there is a related question about the extent to which it has changed the work of the intelligence community. This talk argues that to find an answer, it is imperative to consider previous technological revolutions and consider how the intelligence community adapted. Only by doing so is it possible to address the issue of whether intelligence is the cyber era is a revolution or evolution.

About the Speaker: Professor Michael S. Goodman is a Professor in ‘Intelligence and International Affairs’ in the Department of War Studies, King's College London.  He has published widely in the field of intelligence history, including most recently The Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Volume I: From the Approach of the Second World War to the Suez Crisis (Routledge, 2014), which was chosen as one of The Spectator’s books of the year.  He is series editor for ‘Intelligence and Security’ for Hurst/Columbia University Press and is a member of the editorial boards for five journals, including the three main intelligence ones. He is currently on secondment to the Cabinet Office where he is the Official Historian of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Abstract: This book seeks to understand the connection between Pakistan and Islamist militancy. The book argues that, since Pakistan’s founding in 1947, it has used religiously motivated non-state actors as strategic tools to compensate for acute political and material weakness. Over time, this policy has become so important as to constitute a central pillar of Pakistani grand strategy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Pakistan’s militant strategy has not been wholly disastrous. Over the decades, it has achieved important domestic and international successes, helping Pakistan to strengthen its domestic political foundations, confront stronger adversaries, undermine South Asia’s territorial status quo, and shape the strategic environment in Afghanistan. Recently, however, these successes have given way to severe problems, as Pakistan has lost control of its proxies, been forced to make damaging resource tradeoffs, and risked inciting catastrophic war with an increasingly powerful India. These problems undermine regional stability and threaten the survival of the Pakistani state. The weakness that originally made Pakistan’s militant strategy useful has now made support for militancy extremely dangerous. If Pakistan does not abandon its strategy of jihad it may face catastrophe.

About the Speaker: S. Paul Kapur is Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He is also an Affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. Previously, he was on the faculties of the U.S. Naval War College and Claremont McKenna College, and was a visiting professor at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His research and teaching interests include the strategic use of militancy, nuclear weapons proliferation, deterrence, and South Asian and Pacific Ocean regional security. Kapur is author of Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford University Press, 2007) and co-author of India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia (Columbia University Press, 2010). His articles have appeared in leading journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Asian Survey, Washington Quarterly, and in a variety of edited volumes. Kapur manages several strategic engagement projects for the U.S. Department of Defense. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and his B.A. from Amherst College.

Abstract: TBA

About the Speaker: Amy Zegart is co-director of CISAC and Professor of Political Science, by courtesy. She is also the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. 

Before coming to Stanford in 2011, Zegart served as professor of public policy at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and as a fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations. Her research examines the organization of American national security agencies and their effectiveness. She is the author of two award-winning books. Flawed by Design, which chronicles the development of the Central Intelligence Agency, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and National Security Council, won the highest national dissertation award in political science. Spying Blind, which examines why American intelligence agencies failed to adapt to the terrorist threat before 9/11, won the National Academy of Public Administration’s Brownlow Book Award. She has also published in International Security, Political Science Quarterly, and other leading academic journals. She serves on the editorial boards of Terrorism and Political Violence and Intelligence and National Security. Her most recent book is Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community.

Zegart was featured by the National Journal as one of the ten most influential experts in intelligence reform. She served on the Clinton administration's National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign. She has testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, provided training to the Marine Corps, and advised officials on intelligence and homeland security matters. From 2009 to 2011 she served on the National Academies of Science Panel to Improve Intelligence Analysis. Her commentary has been featured on national television and radio shows and in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.

Before her academic career, Zegart spent three years at McKinsey & Company advising Fortune 100 companies about strategy and organizational effectiveness.

A former Fulbright scholar, Zegart received an AB in East Asian studies magna cum laude from Harvard University and an MA and PhD in political science from Stanford University. She served on the FBI Intelligence Analysts Association National Advisory Board and the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counter-terrorism and Community Police Advisory Board. She also served on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Task Force on Nuclear Nonproliferation and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was appointed to the board of directors of Kratos Defense and Security Solutions in September 2014.