Stanford University

Homeland Security

Foreign Adversary Threats to Democratic Institutions: Are Courts Next?

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

Abstract: Russia’s interference in our election was part of an ongoing campaign to undermine democracy and its institutions. America’s justice system is already under fire from Russian propaganda. What else should we anticipate and what should we be doing about it?

Speaker bio: Suzanne E. Spaulding is senior adviser to the homeland security program and international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) where she leads the Project on Countering Adversary Attacks on America’s Justice System. This effort is focused on assessing and countering Russian activities that can undermine public faith and confidence in the justice system as an essential pillar of democracy. She is also on the boards of Harvard’s Defending Digital Democracy Project and George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, and is a member of the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group. Ms. Spaulding was the Under Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security responsible for cybersecurity and infrastructure protection. She also served in the General Counsel’s office at CIA and as chief counsel for both Senate and House intelligence committees. She has been a lawyer and consultant in private practice, including Security Counsel for the Business Roundtable, and chaired the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. 

Suzanne Spaulding Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; former Under Secretary, DHS Center for Strategic and International Studies; DHS (former)
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Directors' Seminar Series
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Colin H. Kahl

Encina Hall 
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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Colin Kahl is director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow. He is also the faculty director of CISAC’s Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, and a professor of political science (by courtesy).

From April 2021-July 2023, Dr. Kahl served as the under secretary of defense for policy at the U.S. Department of Defense. In that role, he was the principal adviser to the secretary of defense for all matters related to national security and defense policy and represented the department as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. He oversaw the writing of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which focused the Pentagon’s efforts on the “pacing challenge” posed by the PRC, and he led the department’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and numerous other international crises. He also led several other major defense diplomacy initiatives, including an unprecedented strengthening of the NATO alliance; the negotiation of the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom; historic defense force posture enhancements in Australia, Japan, and the Philippines; and deepening defense and strategic ties with India. In June 2023, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III awarded Dr. Kahl the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian award presented by the secretary of defense.

During the Obama Administration, Dr. Kahl served as deputy assistant to President Obama and national security advisor to Vice President Biden from October 2014 to January 2017. He also served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from February 2009 to December 2011, for which he received the Outstanding Public Service Medal in July 2011.

Dr. Kahl is the co-author (along with Thomas Wright) of Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2021) and the author of States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). He has also published numerous article on U.S. national security and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kahl previously taught at Georgetown University and the University of Minnesota, and he has held fellowship positions at Harvard University, the Council on Foreign Relations, CNAS, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and International Engagement.

He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

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Rethinking National Security

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Abstract: In 1945, our homeland was inviolate. Since then, we have invested trillions of dollars to improve our national security, yet we now can be destroyed in under an hour. In mathematics, such an absurd result from otherwise logical reasoning proves that at least one assumption must be in error. This talk therefore examines a number of assumptions that form the foundation of our thinking about national security, starting with the very concept itself: In the nuclear age, is national security separable from global security?

Speaker bio: Martin Hellman is best known for his invention, joint with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle, of public key cryptography, the technology that enables secure Internet transactions. He has been a key player in the computer privacy debate, won three “outstanding professor” awards from minority student organizations, and pioneered a risk-informed framework for nuclear deterrence. His current work “Rethinking National Security” critically examines the assumptions that form the foundation of our national security. Hellman’s many honors include election to the National Academy of Engineering and receiving (jointly with Diffie) the million dollar ACM Turing Award, the top prize in computer science.

 
 

Martin Hellman

Not in residence

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CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member
Professor (Emeritus) of Electrical Engineering
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Martin E. Hellman is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford, a recipient (joint with Whit Diffie) of the million dollar ACM Turing Award, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and an inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He became a CISAC affiliated faculty member in October 2012.

Hellman is best known for his invention, with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle, of public key cryptography. In addition to many other uses, this technology forms the basis for secure transactions and cybersecurity on the Internet. He also has been a long-time contributor to the computer privacy debate, starting with the issue of DES key size in 1975 and continuing with service (1994-96) on the National Research Council's Committee to Study National Cryptographic Policy, whose main recommendations were implemented soon afterward.

Prof. Hellman also has a deep interest in the ethics of technological development. With Prof. Anatoly Gromyko of Moscow, he co-edited Breakthrough: Emerging New Thinking, a book published simultaneously in Russian and English in 1987 during the rapid change in Soviet-American relations (available as a free, 2.6 MB PDF download). In 1986, he and his wife of fifty years published, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet, a book that provides a “unified field theory” for successful relationships by illuminating the connections between nuclear war, conventional war, interpersonal war, and war within our own psyches (available as a free, 1.2 MB PDF download).
 
His current research is devoted to bringing a risk-informed framework to nuclear deterrence and critically examining the assumptions that underlie our national security.

Prof. Hellman was at IBM's Watson Research Center from 1968-69 and an assistant professor of EE at MIT from 1969-71. Returning to Stanford in 1971, he served on the regular faculty until becoming Professor Emeritus in 1996. He has authored over seventy technical papers, six US patents and a number of foreign equivalents.

More information on Professor Hellman is available on his EE Department website. His publications, many  of which can be downloaded in PDF, are on the publications page of that site.
Martin Hellman Professor, Electrical Engineering (emeritus) Stanford University
Seminars

Andrew Grotto

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C428

Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-9866
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Andrew Grotto

Andrew J. Grotto is a research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Grotto’s research interests center on the national security and international economic dimensions of America’s global leadership in information technology innovation, and its growing reliance on this innovation for its economic and social life. He is particularly interested in the allocation of responsibility between the government and the private sector for defending against cyber threats, especially as it pertains to critical infrastructure; cyber-enabled information operations as both a threat to, and a tool of statecraft for, liberal democracies; opportunities and constraints facing offensive cyber operations as a tool of statecraft, especially those relating to norms of sovereignty in a digitally connected world; and governance of global trade in information technologies.

Before coming to Stanford, Grotto was the Senior Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the White House in both the Obama and Trump Administrations. His portfolio spanned a range of cyber policy issues, including defense of the financial services, energy, communications, transportation, health care, electoral infrastructure, and other vital critical infrastructure sectors; cybersecurity risk management policies for federal networks; consumer cybersecurity; and cyber incident response policy and incident management. He also coordinated development and execution of technology policy topics with a nexus to cyber policy, such as encryption, surveillance, privacy, and the national security dimensions of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

At the White House, he played a key role in shaping President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan and driving its implementation. He was also the principal architect of President Trump’s cybersecurity executive order, “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.”

Grotto joined the White House after serving as Senior Advisor for Technology Policy to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, advising Pritzker on all aspects of technology policy, including Internet of Things, net neutrality, privacy, national security reviews of foreign investment in the U.S. technology sector, and international developments affecting the competitiveness of the U.S. technology sector.

Grotto worked on Capitol Hill prior to the Executive Branch, as a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He served as then-Chairman Dianne Feinstein’s lead staff overseeing cyber-related activities of the intelligence community and all aspects of NSA’s mission. He led the negotiation and drafting of the information sharing title of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which later served as the foundation for the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that President Obama signed in 2015. He also served as committee designee first for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and later for Senator Kent Conrad, advising the senators on oversight of the intelligence community, including of covert action programs, and was a contributing author of the “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program.”

Before his time on Capitol Hill, Grotto was a Senior National Security Analyst at the Center for American Progress, where his research and writing focused on U.S. policy towards nuclear weapons - how to prevent their spread, and their role in U.S. national security strategy.

Grotto received his JD from the University of California at Berkeley, his MPA from Harvard University, and his BA from the University of Kentucky.

Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation
Director, Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance
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Reforming national cyber defense

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Abstract: The U.S. government continues to struggle with how best to defend the country from cyber attacks. Reacting out in frustration, Senator John McCain wondered aloud if the United States should consider what lessons can be learned from a new cyber defense organization in the United Kingdom called the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). In this paper, Stuart Russell and Michael Sulmeyer examine the NCSC, its origins, its missions, and its effectiveness. They then consider how certain aspects of the NCSC might map onto the more complicated governance structure around cyber defense in the United States. Despite important differences between the United Kingdom and the United States, they conclude that there is a great deal the United States can adapt from the United Kingdom’s efforts, particularly the NCSC’s ambitious Active Defense agenda. 

Speaker Bio: Dr. Michael Sulmeyer is the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project Director at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Contributing Editor for the national security blog Lawfare. Before Harvard, he served as the Director for Plans and Operations for Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. There, he worked closely with the Joint Staff and Cyber Command on a variety of efforts to counter malicious cyber activity against U.S. and DoD interests. For this work, he received the Secretary Medal for Exceptional Public Service.

Previously, he worked on arms control and the maintenance of strategic stability between the United States, Russia, and China. As a Marshall Scholar, Sulmeyer received his PhD (DPhil) in Politics from Oxford University, and his dissertation, "Money for Nothing: Understanding the Termination of U.S. Major Defense Acquisition Programs," won the Sir Walter Bagehot Prize for best dissertation in government and public administration. He received his B.A. and J.D. from Stanford University and his M.A. in War Studies from King's College London. In the mid-1990s, he was the System Operator (SysOp) of The Summit BBS in Santa Barbara, California.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

616 Serra Street

Stanford, CA 94305

Director, Cyber Security Project Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
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Machine intelligence and national security

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This event is restricted to current Stanford students, faculty, staff and visiting scholars. 
The event is at capacity and RSVPs are now closed. Thank you for your understanding.
 
Abstract: Machines are increasingly helping us with cognitive tasks in addition to physical labor. Like the industrial revolution, this transition in how we use machines will have major impacts on the security of states and the character of armed conflict. How should we think about this transition? What issues should we prepare for? I will parse several broad areas where AI applications may affect elements of national power, and highlight issues we can already see emerging for national security leaders.
 
Speaker Bio: Dr. Matthew Daniels works for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and NASA. His principal areas of focus include U.S. space programs, deep space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Previously he was an engineer at NASA, where he worked on spacecraft designs and special projects for the director of NASA Ames in Mountain View, CA. Matt received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Stanford and a B.A. in physics from Cornell, was a fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and is an adjunct professor at Georgetown.
 

William J. Perry Conference Room

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

616 Serra Street

Stanford, CA 94305

Matthew Daniels

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Dr. Matthew Daniels is a technology and policy leader currently based in New York. He has held technical, leadership, and strategy roles at the White House, NASA, and Department of Defense. His work focuses on space security, exploration, and technology strategy.

At the White House, Matt led initiatives on space and national security, Lunar exploration, US-India space cooperation, and planetary defense. He has also served as Senior Advisor to the Director of Net Assessment, focusing on space and nuclear security; the DOD’s Tech Director for AI, overseeing the DOD’s broad AI R&D portfolio; and a senior technical advisor in the office of the NASA Administrator, focusing on deep space exploration and development. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a fellow of the Explorers Club, and continues to teach on space security and exploration.

Matt started as an engineer at NASA, received his Ph.D. from Stanford, and was a fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is a recipient of Department of Defense medals for Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service. Asteroid 22028 Matthewdaniels, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey, is named for his work on planetary defense. 

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Advisor Department of Defense and NASA
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Bradley L. Boyd

CISAC Stanford University

Encina Hall, E111

 

Stanford, CA 94305

 

(650) 736-4703
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Brad Boyd is a U.S. Army infantry officer with 27 years of experience in the Marines and the Army. Most recently, he served as the Joint Readiness Training Center’s Chief of Plans and Exercise Maneuver Control. He also served as the Deputy Commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, an organization of 4,000 paratroopers. Prior to this, Brad was the commander of the U.S. Army’s Global Response Force—responsible for readiness to conduct worldwide combat operations upon 18-hour notification. As a liaison officer, Brad helped develop the British Army’s Expeditionary Warfare Doctrine and Human Terrain Doctrine in 2013 and 2014, while also advising Senior British Army leaders on U.S.–U.K. Alliance issues.  Previously, Brad commanded a company that played a key role in the hunt for Saddam Hussein in 2003, and in 2010, he served as the Chief of Plans for all conventional military operations in Anbar Province, Iraq. Brad has a Master's degree in Military Science from the Army’s Command and General Staff College and a Master of Studies in International Relations from Cambridge. His research interests include political disinformation and deception in the cyber domain.

Senior Military Fellow
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Countering Terrorism

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Fifteen years after September 11, the United States still faces terror threats—both domestic and foreign. After years of wars, ever more intensive and pervasive surveillance, enhanced security measures at major transportation centers, and many attempts to explain who we are fighting and why and how to fight them, the threats continue to multiply.

So, too, do our attempts to understand just what terrorism is and how to counter it.

Two leaders in the field of terrorism studies, Martha Crenshaw and Gary LaFree, provide a critical look at how we have dealt with the terror threat over the years. They make clear why it is so difficult to create policy to counter terrorism. The foes are multiple and often amorphous, the study of the field dogged by disagreement on basic definitional and methodological issues, and the creation of policy hobbled by an exacting standard: the counterterrorist must succeed all the time, the terrorist only once. As Countering Terrorism shows, there are no simple solutions to this threat.

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Martha Crenshaw
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Office of the Director of National Intelligence: From Pariah and Piñata to Managing Partner

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This is a chapter in the second edition of The National Security Enterprise, a book edited by Roger Z. George and Harvey Rishikof that provides practitioners' insights into the operation, missions, and organizational cultures of the principal national security agencies and other institutions that shape the U.S. national security decision-making process. Unlike some textbooks on American foreign policy, it offers analysis from insiders who have worked at the National Security Council, the State and Defense Departments, the intelligence community, and the other critical government entities. The book explains how organizational missions and cultures create the labyrinth in which a coherent national security policy must be fashioned. Understanding and appreciating these organizations and their cultures is essential for formulating and implementing it. Taking into account the changes introduced by the Obama administration, the second edition includes four new or entirely revised chapters (Congress, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury, and USAID) and updates to the text throughout. It covers changes instituted since the first edition was published in 2011, implications of the government campaign to prosecute leaks, and lessons learned from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This up-to-date book will appeal to students of U.S. national security and foreign policy as well as career policymakers.

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Georgetown University Press
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Thomas Fingar

Mark Weatherford

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Mark Weatherford is the Head of Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy at NVIDIA where he leads NVIDIA’s cybersecurity engagement strategy at the intersection of public policy, government regulation, and technology adoption. He serves as a key advisor and strategist, helping the company navigate the evolving cybersecurity landscape while positioning NVIDIA’s technologies as critical enablers of secure, mission-driven outcomes for federal agencies and national security partners.

Mark has held a variety of executive level cybersecurity roles including VP of AI Policy and Standards at Gretel, Chief Strategy Officer at the National Cybersecurity Center, VP & Global Information Security Strategist at Booking Holdings, Principal at The Chertoff Group, VP & Chief Security Officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and Chief Information Security Officer for the state of Colorado.

Mark was also appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008 to serve as California’s first Chief Information Security Officer and in 2011 he was appointed in the Obama Administration as the nation’s first Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Mark is a former U.S. Naval Officer where he served as the Director of Navy Computer Network Defense Operations, Director of the Navy Computer Incident Response Team, and established the U.S. Navy’s first operational red team.

Mark is a Board Director and on the Advisory Board of several technology companies where he has a successful track record in helping startups from founding to acquisition.

Among his many professional awards, he is an inductee into the 2023 Global Cyber Security Hall of Fame, the 2021 International CSO Hall of Fame, the 2018 Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Hall of Fame, and was SC Magazine’s CSO of the Year in 2010.

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