Suraya Omar first became intrigued by nuclear technology as a Stanford undergrad and CISAC honors student. Today she’s helping build nuclear engines for the U.S. Navy.

Omar’s fascination began in the popular MS&E course, Technology and National Security, taught by CISAC’s Siegfried Hecker and William J. Perry, the former head of the Los Alamos National Lab and U.S. secretary of state, respectively.

“I loved the class,” said Omar, who graduated with a BS in materials science and engineering in 2012 and a MS&E master’s degree in 2013. “The nuclear-related topics were interesting because it's a powerful technology and interesting from an engineering standpoint – but crazy complex from a safety and security perspective.”

Omar serves in the U.S. Navy as an engineer in the Naval Reactors Headquarters (NR) in Washington, D.C. The NR provides program management and technical expertise to the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, which builds nuclear propulsion plants for aircraft carriers and submarines. The NR oversees everything from their design to installment and operation.

Building nuclear engines, more than most things, requires stringent attention to minute details. That’s where Omar comes in.

“When the engineer responsible for an item receives a request for approval, they send that to all the sections that have a stake in that decision,” Omar said. “So my workday involves reading a lot of incoming proposals and background material, then asking questions, such as: `Is the recommended material appropriate for the application? Are there corrosion or structural concerns?’ and then discussing with other engineers and making recommendations.”

Omar says this also entails a lot of contact with the national nuclear laboratories to discuss upcoming and ongoing test programs “or get a more detailed technical perspective.”

The Naval Reactors Headquarters is one of the more prestigious components of the U.S. Navy, due to its polished reputation for implementing efficient management practices and maintaining a rigorous technical culture. Congress and presidential administrations often tap NR staffers for consultation and higher office; their skills and training also make NR engineers highly sought after by private enterprise.

Omar credits CISAC with inspiring her to follow a career in nuclear engineering. The prestigious honors program has taken Stanford seniors from more than 21 different majors and programs since its inception in 2000. More than 150 students have graduated from the yearlong program, which launches in Washington, D.C. with a two-week policy brainstorming college, and culminates with a thesis that deals with a major international security issue.

Suraya Omar during the CISAC Honors Graduation ceremony in June 2012.

Omar, who was advised by Hecker, wrote her thesis about “Critical Concerns: Evaluating the safety of North Korea’s new light water reactor.”

“Besides solidifying my interest in nuclear applications, participating in the CISAC thesis program helped me quickly recognize areas I don’t completely understand when doing research, and taught me how to be scrupulous in pursuing those questions thoroughly,” she said.

While she was completing her MS degree at Stanford, she joined the Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate Program and interviewed with NR in Washington, D.C. just after graduation. Today she holds the rank of Ensign (O-1), a junior commissioned officer in the United States Navy.

Omar is committed to Naval Reactors Headquarters until 2019 and enjoys being part of the community.

“Since so many big and small decisions come through NR, we deal with a lot of minutiae,” she said. “But it’s always encouraging to remember that our decisions have a direct impact on the fleet, and that it’s the diligent attention to detail that has ensured safe naval nuclear operations since the beginning of the program,” she said.

Nonetheless, she has her eye to the future.

“I may stay on after 2019, but I'm also interested in pursuing something in strategic diplomacy or nuclear security and safety on a more global level,” she said.

Joshua Alvarez was a CISAC Honors Student for the 2011-2012 academic year.

American deterrence, though traditionally centered on the nuclear triad, is becoming ever more integrated and dependent on other technologies in space and the cyber world, Admiral Cecil D. Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told a Stanford audience.

Haney, appointed to lead USSTRATCOM by President Barack Obama last year, made a daylong visit to Stanford on Tuesday, holding seminars and private meetings with faculty, scholars and students at the Hoover Institution and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. His seminar at CISAC focused on strategic deterrence in the 21st century.

Admiral Haney has made it USSTRATCOM’s goal, in accordance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the 2010 START Treaty, to reduce America’s nuclear weapons stockpile. But he sees a world where maintaining a deterrent is still necessary.

“As we work to continue our nation’s goal of reducing the role of our nation’s nuclear weapons, we find other nations not only modernizing their strategic capabilities but also promoting them,” he said. Russia, Iran, and China attracted particular concern. Haney declined to estimate how much the U.S. can reduce its stockpile without hurting its deterrent posture.

While the nuclear triad is still the foundation of American deterrence, space and cyberspace technology are now fully integrated with nuclear platforms, making cyber and space security indispensable.

“Deterrence is more than just the triad,” said Haney. “We are highly dependent on space capabilities, more so than ever before. Space is fully integrated in our joint military operations as well as in our commercial and civil infrastructure. But space today is contested, congested, and competitive.” 

Haney said there are more than 20,000 softball-sized objects orbiting Earth.

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“Only about 1,000 of those objects are satellites, the rest is debris, increasing threats to our operational satellites as they travel at speeds exceeding 17,000 mph,” he said. The Joint Space Operation Center receives an average of 30 collision alerts per day.

Damage to some of our satellites could have devastating impacts on our economy, communications and infrastructure. Rival nations also pose space security challenges.

According to the U.S. government, China recently tested an anti-satellite missile. This follows a 2007 test when China successfully destroyed one of its satellites, and consequently created a cloud of debris that still poses a threat to international satellites.

“Keeping assured access to the space domain is a full-time job,” Haney said.

Likewise cybersecurity. America’s increasing reliance on cyberspace for both military and civilian purposes has created security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by both state and non-state actors. Haney cited the recent attacks on J.P. Morgan and Sony, Russia and China’s attacks on regional rivals, and non-state terror groups.

“We have benefited enormously from advanced computer capabilities, but it has opened up threat access to our critical infrastructure,“ Haney said. “As we confront terrorist groups we all know that they are not only using cyber for recruiting and messaging – but also to seek weapons of mass destruction.”

In a Q&A session after his talk during the CISAC seminar, a variety of concerns were raised about the USSTRACOM mission, including triad modernization, the ongoing personnel issues that have been in the news, and missile defense.

FSI Senior Fellow Scott Sagan asked about the recent spate of personnel problems at U.S. nuclear silos. Haney said a full review of personnel and procedures, ordered by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, was completed and changes have been enacted.

“We are trying to positively reinforce our workforce and I am getting a lot of positive feedback from operators,” Haney said. “We are having monthly conversations that include operational officers. When I visit sites I don’t just meet with commanders, I have meals with smaller groups of lower-ranking personnel.”

Haney previously served as commander of the Pacific Fleet. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he has personal experience with America’s nuclear deterrent as he served in submarines armed with nuclear ballistic missiles, which, in addition to land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and strategic bombers, make up part of the United States’ nuclear triad.

USSTRATCOM is one of nine unified commands that have control of forces from all four branches of the U.S. military. The command’s well-known responsibility is command and control of America’s nuclear arsenal, a role it inherited from the Cold War-era Strategic Air Command. Since its establishment in 1992, USSTRATCOM has been assigned additional responsibilities, most notably cyberspace and outer space.

You can listen to the audio of his presentation here.

Joshua Alvarez was a CISAC Honors Student during the 2011-2012 academic year.

CISAC's Scott Sagan is the chair of a new project by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, called the New Dilemmas in Ethics, Technology and War.  The project convenes an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners (political scientists, philosophers, ethicists, lawyers, physicians, historians, soldiers, and statesmen) in a series of small workshops to explore the intricate linkage between the advancement of military technology and the moral and ethical considerations of the deployment of such capabilities in war and in postwar settings.

The project will produce a multidisciplinary Dædalus issue that will inform the debate surrounding the acceptable use of modern instruments of war and will provide a useful teaching tool for both universities and military service academies.

You can read more about the project on the AAA&S website here.

President Barack Obama has nominated former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, a visiting scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, as his next secretary of defense.

Carter joined Stanford earlier this academic year as the Payne Distinguished Visitor at FSI and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Carter, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and is well known in academic and technology circles.

 “Ash is rightly regarded as one of our nation’s foremost national security leaders,” Obama said at a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

“As a top member of our Pentagon team for the first five years of my presidency, including his two years as deputy secretary, he was at the table in the Situation Room; he was by my side navigating complex security challenges that we were confronting,” Obama said. “I relied on his expertise, and I relied on his judgment.”

Carter, if confirmed as the nation’s 25th defense secretary, will succeed Chuck Hagel, who announced his resignation on Nov. 24.

“I accept the offer because of the deep respect and admiration that Stephanie and I have for the men and women in uniform," Carter said, referring to his wife, Stephanie Carter. “If confirmed for this job, I pledge to you my most candid, strategic advice.”

Carter stepped down from his post at the Pentagon late last year after serving two years as the deputy secretary of defense. As the agency’s second-ranking civilian, he oversaw a $600 billion budget and 2.4 million uniformed and civilian personnel. From 2009 to 2011 Carter was the undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

As the Defense Department’s chief weapons buyer, he was widely credited with dumping outdated weapons systems and orchestrating a plan to cut $500 billion in defense spending over the next decade. He also helped to push through speedy production of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle – known as the MRAP – which is believed to have saved thousands of American soldiers in Afghanistan.

“President Obama has made an excellent choice in nominating Ash Carter as his next Secretary of Defense,” said FSI Senior Fellow Michael McFaul, who worked with Carter for several years in the Obama administration while McFaul was Washington's ambassador to Moscow. “There is no one in the country more qualified for that position than Ash.”

Carter is the Payne Distinguished Visitor at FSI, responsible for delivering several lectures, including the annual Drell Lecture sponsored by FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

“We congratulate Ash on his critical new assignment,” said FSI Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. “The Institute has benefited enormously from his experience as a scholar and public servant, his accessibility, and his engagement at Stanford. We're grateful for his contributions to our research and teaching on international security and other global challenges.”

Though he has no uniformed military service, Carter is an expert at strategic military affairs and nuclear weapons policy. He earned his bachelor’s degrees in physics and in medieval history from Yale in 1976, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford in 1979.

“Ash Carter is a superb choice,” said CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart, who is also a senior fellow at Hoover. “His extraordinary talent, energy, and integrity are evident in everything he does. Though we will miss having him at CISAC, we take great comfort in knowing that Stanford's loss is the nation's gain. Ash will serve with honor and distinction.”

Carter joined the Defense Department from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was a professor and chair of the International Relations, Science, and Security faculty.

Carter’s connection with the technology business dates to his previous position as a senior partner at Global Technology Partners, where he advised major investment firms on technology and defense. He is currently working with several companies in Silicon Valley.

He was a physics instructor at Oxford, a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University and M.I.T., and an experimental research associate at Brookhaven and Fermilab National Laboratories. From 1993 to 1996, Carter served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, responsible for policy regarding the former Soviet states, strategic affairs, and nuclear weapons policy.

Carter recently joined the Markle Foundation to help lead the "Economic Future Initiative" to develop groundbreaking ideas for empowering Americans in today’s networked economic landscape.

“Ash Carter is an excellent choice to lead the Department of Defense,” said John Raisian, director of the Hoover Institution. “While we will miss having his scholarly expertise at Hoover, our country is gaining a great mind and true leader.”

In war zones, private contractors can outnumber U.S. troops. But who controls them? NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with CISAC senior research scholar and Ret. U.S. Army Col. Joseph Felter, and journalist Pratap Chatterjee about current safeguards. Four military contractors with the firm Blackwater were convicted for killing 17 Iraqis back in 2007. The verdict on Oct. 22, 2014, has again put military contractors in the spotlight and raised questions about where and when the U.S. uses them.

Felter argues that as the U.S. draws down its military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, outsourcing safety will continue, but that the U.S. military should start to integrate the paid security units into its command and control structures and include them in military preparations.

You can listen to the story here, on NPR's website.

Watch the live-streaming of the conference: "Intelligence Reform and Counterterrorism After a Decade: Are We Smarter and Safer?"

FSI's Tom Fingar will be a panelist and the keynote address will be given by James Clapper, director of national intelligence.

The conference is being held at the University of Texas at Austin's and sponsored by the Clements Center.

The panel can be watched live on CISAC's Facebook Page at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16.