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A pioneering Japanese-English simultaneous interpreter will entertain and enlighten you with the tales of some delightful events where humor has successfully transcended cultural barriers, or some embarrassing ones when the speakers and/or interpreters fell flat on their face. A product of the U.S. occupation of Japan and American tax-payers money later, Muramatsu has served countless international conferences and encounters by any other name, including the first nine G-7 Summit meetings of heads of state and government. (The first, in 1975, at Rambouillet, was G-6; guess who wasn't invited to the dinner.) Meticulously avoiding divulging any state secret or materials for tabloids, he has written essays, books, and given lectures on fascinating episodes that make us laugh and then think the tricks in breaking linguistic and cultural barriers. Born in Tokyo in 1930; worked first as a clerk-typist and then as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Tokyo 1946 through 1955; trained as one of the first eight Japanese simultaneous interpreters by the U.S. State Department, serving some thirty Japanese productivity study teams that toured the U.S. 1956-1960. Tried a new career as an economic researcher with the U.S.-Japan Economic Council in Washington, DC predecessor to the Japan Economic Institute of America). Went back to professional interpreting by returning to Japan in 1965, relinquishing his green card, and established Simul International, Inc., the first professional organization of, by and for interpreters in Japan. After 33 years as its president, then chairman, and also president of the Simul Academy, semi-retired into an advisory, albeit full-time, status in 1998. His clients include Pres. Reagan, Pres. Kennedy, Sen. Kennedy, Professors Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Peter Drucker,Japanese prime ministers from Tanaka to Nakasone, India's Prime Minister Rajif Gandhi, Britain's Prince Charles, Jeffrey Archer, Arthur C. Clarke, Ralph Nader, Betty Friedan, and Yasser Arafat.

Okimoto Conference Room, Encina Hall, East Wing, Third Floor

Masami Muramatsu Senior Advisor and Former Chairman Speaker Simul International, Inc.
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Inside Burma, the armed forces have established a chokehold on political power unrivalled in the world. The latest incarnation of junta rule emerged in 1988 following the bloody repression of a nationwide pro-democracy movement. Yet despite international revulsion, today's generals have barely been touched by its effects: the suspension of international economic assistance; the imposition of an arms embargo; and bans on new investment in Burma by Western firms. Over four decades of military rule, there have been rumors of in-fighting among officers, and of mutinies and desertions by foot soldiers. Many have concluded from such reports that the regime must inevitably fall. So far, however, such thoughts have been wishful. While elsewhere in Southeast Asia authoritarian regimes have crumbled, in Burma the junta has endured. How have Burma's generals managed to sustain their dominance for so long? Why hasn't the country's democratic opposition been able to wrest power from this regime? And why have international sanctions and prodding so utterly failed to break the stalemate in Rangoon? Mary Callahan is Assistant Professor at the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies. She received her PhD in Government at Cornell University in 1996. Among her many writings are chapters civil-military relations in Burma scheduled to appear in Soldier and State in Asia (Stanford University Press, 2000) and Burma: Strong State/Weak Regime (Crawford House, 2000). Fluent in Burmese, Prof. Callahan also teaches, lectures widely, and serves as a consultant to the United Nations on political conditions in Burma.

Okimoto Conference Room, Encina Hall, East Wing, Third Floor

Mary Callahan Assistant Professor of International Studies Speaker University of Washington
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The United States has a global security strategy, in deeds if seldom clearly in words. The U.S. security strategy is to enlarge the areas of the world that it can control militarily and to weaken all states outside those areas. The strategy does not rely solely on military means, but enlarged military control is the end and military means--armed interventions, alliance extensions, arms sales--usually lead the way. Aside from a 1992 Pentagon trial balloon, which was poorly received though accurate enough as far as it went, and a few other statements, the strategy has been manifested via a series of consistent actions rather than formal statements.

Along with this overall strategy, the United States also has policies regarding nuclear weapons. Some of these policies are stated, some are tacit. The stated policies include de-emphasizing nuclear weapons, discouraging nuclear proliferation, and pursuing nuclear arms reductions, a comprehensive test ban, and other nuclear-arms-control measures. The tacit policy is reliance on deterrent nuclear forces to limit escalation of conventional conflicts and to offset the nuclear forces of other powers.

These two policies, military enlargement and reliance on nuclear stability and arms control, are not compatible. Continued enlargement backed or led by military force will not support de-emphasis of nuclear weapons, let alone nuclear disarmament. It may not support nuclear nonproliferation even among allies, depending on whether the United States is seen to become overextended or overcommitted at home or abroad. Military enlargement weakens support for several of the arms-control measures on the U.S. agenda. Enlargement is also likely to lead to crises that will test the stability of nuclear deterrence more seriously than it has been tested since the early years of the Cold War.

In this paper I first remind the reader of the main components of the U.S. military enlargement strategy. Next I describe why other states, given the U.S. enlargement strategy, find and will continue to find nuclear weapons useful. These states are not all potential opponents. Third, I explain how the U.S. enlargement strategy undermines nuclear arms control. What is more important, I show why it will inevitably lead to nuclear crises. Last, I discuss the alternative strategy of military restraint and show how it would ensure U.S. influence for a longer time and with greater safety than the present strategy of unilateral U.S. military enlargement.

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American military power underpinned the security structure of the Asia Pacific region during the Cold War. Post-Cold War, its role is still vital to peace and stability in the region. The most overt manifestations of American military might are the Japan–America Security Alliance (JASA) and the Korea–America Security Alliance (KASA). These bilateral alliances, together with a modified Australia–New Zealand–United States (ANZUS) treaty relationship, point to the diversity of security interests and perspectives in the region. Even during the height of the Cold War, the region never quite presented the kind of coherence that would have facilitated the creation of a truly multilateral defense framework of the sort exemplified by NATO. In Southeast Asia, the lack of strategic coherence resulted in a patchwork of defense arrangements between local and extraregional states. Dominated by the United States, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was only nominally regional.

During the Cold War, the United States entered into region-wide alliances to “contain” communism. In the post-Cold War period, uncertainties, rather than clearly definable threats, have marked the Asia Pacific’s strategic landscape. While not disen- gaging from the region, the United States is encouraging greater burden-sharing by its friends and allies located there. In consequence, JASA and KASA are undergoing change even as regional states accept their utility and reassurance value. At the same time, region-wide multilateral confidence-building and cooperative security processes, which involve practically all the states on opposite sides of the old Cold War divide, have emerged. China — the object of Cold War containment policies — is being constructively engaged through these multilateral processes. How the existing alliances, which still have their deterrent functions, can be related to these nascent multilateral processes is the focus of this paper. Because the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the driving force behind the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the only region-wide process seeking a balanced relationship among the external powers in the post-Cold War setting, we explore first the evolving ASEAN perspectives toward KASA and JASA. The paper will then relate the ASEAN-driven frame- work to the security concerns of Northeast Asia.

Published as part of the "America's Alliances with Japan and Korea in a Changing Northeast Asia" Research Project.

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Ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union, and their potential for triggering serious interstate conflicts, pose a major threat to regional and international security in the years ahead. Even as the dissolution of the Soviet Union diminished the threat of nuclear and conventional warfare on which the postwar alliance system rested, the disruptive consequences of the major political, economic and social transformations sweeping the region have created a variety of new threats to regional security.

Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6010

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Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business
Professor of Political Science
Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution
crice_headshot_2026.jpg.jpeg PhD

Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.

From January 2005 to January 2009, Rice served as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first black woman to hold the post. Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001 to January 2005, the first woman to hold the position.

Rice served as Stanford University’s provost from 1993 to 1999, during which time she was the institution’s chief budget and academic officer. As Professor of Political Science, she has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the university’s highest teaching honors.

From February 1989 through March 1991, Rice served on President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council staff. She served as Director, then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs, as well as Special Assistant to the President for National Security. In 1986, while an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice also served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

She has authored and co-authored numerous books, most recently To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth (2019), co-authored with Philip Zelikow. Among her other volumes are three bestsellers, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (2017); No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (2011); and Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (2010). She also wrote Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (2018) with Amy B. Zegart; Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (1995) with Philip Zelikow; edited The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin; and penned The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army; 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiance (1984).

In 1991, Rice co-founded the Center for a New Generation (CNG), an innovative, after-school academic enrichment program for students in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California. In 1996, CNG merged with the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, an affiliate club of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BCGA). CNG has since expanded to local BGCA chapters in Birmingham, Atlanta, and Dallas. Rice remains an active proponent of an extended learning day through after-school programs.

Since 2009, Rice has served as a founding partner at Rice, Hadley, Gates, & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm based in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. The firm works with senior executives of major companies to implement strategic plans and expand in emerging markets. Other partners include former National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, and former diplomat, author, and advisor on emerging markets, Anja Manuel.

In 2022, Rice became a part-owner of the Denver Broncos as a part of the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group. In 2013, Rice was appointed to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, formerly the Bowl Championship Series. She served on the committee until 2017.

Rice currently serves on the boards of C3.ai, an AI software company; and Makena Capital Management, a private endowment firm. In addition, she is Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and a trustee of the Aspen Institute. Previously, Rice served on various boards, including Dropbox; the George W. Bush Institute; the Commonwealth Club; KiOR, Inc.; the Chevron Corporation; the Charles Schwab Corporation; the Transamerica Corporation; the Hewlett-Packard Company; the University of Notre Dame; the Foundation of Excellence in Education; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and the San Francisco Symphony.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Rice earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver; her master’s in the same subject from the University of Notre Dame; and her Ph.D., likewise in political science, from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Rice is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded over fifteen honorary doctorates.

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