(Amy Zegart, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, wrote the following essay for The Atlantic.)

Today The Washington Post dropped the bombshell that President Trump had revealed classified information about the Islamic State to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak when the three of them met at the White House last week. You know a story is big when it gets as many concurrent visitors as the story about the infamous Access Hollywood video. There was no hiding near bushes in the dark this time to walk back the damage. Deputy National-Security Advisor Dina Powell declared the story “false,” and the administration also called out the big guns, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster dutifully rushing into the breach to discuss the breach, using oh-so-carefully worded statements about how the president did not reveal “sources or methods” or any “military operations” that were not already known publicly.

So just how bad is the damage? On a scale of 1 to 10—and I’m just ball parking here—it’s about a billion. The story, which has since been confirmed by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, Buzzfeed, and CNN, notes that the president could have jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. Not America’s source. Somebody else’s. Presumably from an allied intelligence service who now knows that the American president cannot be trusted with sensitive information.

The type of information Trump cavalierly shared fell under a classification known as “code word,” according to the Post. There are three basic levels of classified information. Confidential information is defined as anything that could reasonably be expected to “cause damage” to American national security if shared without authorization. Secret information is one step up, considered to have the potential to cause “serious damage” if revealed. Top Secret information is a higher classification level still, comprising anything that could reasonably be expected to cause “exceptionally grave damage” to U.S. national security if revealed.

Code word is beyond Top Secret. It limits access to classified information to a much narrower pool of people to provide an extra layer of security. Many secrets are super-secrets—Harry Truman, as vice president, didn’t know about the Manhattan project. He learned of it only after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died and Truman was sworn in as president. Code word classification is so far off the scale, even fake spies rarely refer to it in the movies. Technically, the president can "declassify" anything he wants, so he did not violate any laws. But as Lawfare notes, if the president tweeted out the nuclear codes, he also wouldn't violate the law—but he would rightly be considered unfit for office.

Did Trump reveal intelligence crown jewels or just boast about the fact that he liked diamonds? According to the Post he revealed information about a purported ISIS plot involving laptops. It’s likely, however, that Tillerson, McMaster, the Postand the Times are ALL correct: The president did not reveal sources or methods or military operations. But that doesn’t matter much if he gave away information that will enable the Russians to identify the source or the methods. It looks like he did, since according to the Post’s account he talked about the content of a specific plot, the potential harm, and the location of the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the allied state’s intelligence service detected it. It was almost everything except the GPS coordinates. The denials by Tillerson and McMaster are a classic case of intelligence super-parsing—saying things that are technically and narrowly true but may not be accurate at all. No spin can hide the fact that the breach was deadly serious and reckless in the extreme.

Then there’s the impact on America’s unnamed ally, whom the Post reported was already nervous about sharing such sensitive intelligence with the United States. It is difficult to penetrate the Islamic State, and there is a major risk that this breach will close down a vital source. It’s an even bigger deal in the big picture, potentially jeopardizing intelligence cooperation with other U.S. allies around the world. Trump already raised intelligence eyebrows when he turned his Mar-a-Lago dining area into an impromptu Situation Room after the North Koreans decided to launch a ballistic missile. The president and his aides used the lights on cell phones to illuminate field reports, in full view of resort dinner guests snapping photos. If you’re known as someone who cannot keep a secret, the world’s secret-keepers are not going to tell you much.

“Can you believe the world we live in today?” President Trump said, according to one official in the two Sergeis meeting. “Isn’t it crazy?”

Yes, Mr. President. It’s crazy.

Fellows will arrive at Stanford in July to begin the three-week academic training program taught by Stanford faculty, policymakers and thought-leaders in the technology sector.

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Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law is proud to announce the 2017 class of Draper Hills Summer Fellows, which is composed of 28 leaders – selected from among hundreds of applications – advancing democratic development in some of the most challenging corners of the world.

In Bahrain, Burma, Rwanda and Sudan our fellows are working on peace-building initiatives to create more tolerant and inclusive societies. Judges and lawyers are holding government and criminals accountable and reforming the rule of law in Argentina, Guatemala and the Philippines. Gender rights activists are creating new tools and programs to protect the safety and freedom of women and girls in India, Kuwait and Papua New Guinea.

In Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Serbia and Ukraine, our fellows are serving inside the government as members of Parliament and senior civil servants to advance reform and new policy agendas. Business leaders in Jordan and India launched initiatives to support more inclusive economic growth and social development.

CDDRL is excited to launch another powerful network of leaders determined to advance change in their communities. They will emerge with new tools, frameworks and connections to enhance their work and deepen their impact on democratic reform.

The 2017 class will mark the 13th cohort of the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program and the fellows will join the Omidyar Network Leadership Forum, an alumni community of over 300 alumni in 75 countries worldwide.

When one thinks of the casualties of war, it is easy to imagine severed limbs, bullet holes, shrapnel, perhaps even sarin gas or Agent Orange. But in a recent Daedalus essay, Paul Wise argues that the most damaging health impacts of war are often indirect. Losing access to food supplies, medication and electricity can kill more people than battle itself. In this video by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Wise, a professor of pediatrics and Stanford Health Policy core faculty member, explains how fatal the indirect costs of war can be.

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While the United States has no peers in conventional military power, it is especially vulnerable – as a free and democratic society – to cyber misinformation campaigns, a Stanford scholar says.

Herbert Lin, a senior research scholar for cyberpolicy and security at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), is the co-author of a new draft working paper that spells out the perilous risks facing democratic, wired-up countries around the world.

America’s adversaries are seeking “asymmetric” methods for social disruption, rather than direct military conflict, Lin said.

“Cyber warfare is one asymmetric counter to Western (and especially U.S.) military advantages that depend on the use of cyberspace,” wrote Lin and his co-author Jackie Kerr, a research fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

This new type of cyber aggression is aimed at winning – and confusing – hearts and minds, the very control centers of human existence, Lin said.

As a result, “information/influence warfare and manipulation,” or IIWAM as Lin describes it, poses profound implications for Western democracies, even though much of it may not be illegal under international law. This approach is based on the deliberate use of information by one party on an adversary to confuse, mislead, and ultimately to influence the choices and decisions that the adversary makes.

A recent example in point would be the 2016 Russian hacking of the U.S. presidential election and the surge of so-called “fake news.”

Lin points out that while misinformation campaigns are not new, the technology to spread it far and wide globally is. He noted that the patron saint of distorting reality for war-like purposes is Sun Tzu, who wrote that, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

While traditional cyber attacks typically hit hard targets like computer systems, cyber “influence” campaigns are conducted over longer periods of time and rely on soft power – propaganda, persuasion, culture, social forces, confusion and deception, Lin said. 

Words and images

How does it work? Lin explains:

“Victory is achieved by A when A succeeds changing B’s political goals so that they are aligned with those of A.  But such alignment is not the result of B’s 'capitulation' or B’s loss of the ability to resist – on the contrary, B (the losing side) is openly willing.”  That is, such victory shares the focus on subverting the opponent’s will, though not on destroying his military forces.

The ammunition in these cyberspace battles are “words and images,” the kind that persuade, inform, mislead, and deceive so that the adversary cannot respond militarily. In the example of a “fake news” story, they often take place below legal thresholds of “use of force” or “armed attack,” and at least in an international legal sense, do not trigger a military response.

The target is the “adversary’s perceptions,” which reside in the “cognitive dimension of the information environment.” In other words, such cyber warfare focuses on “damaging knowledge, truth, and confidence, rather than physical or digital artifacts,” according to Lin. It is the “brain-space.”

Additionally, IIWAM injects fear, anger, anxiety, uncertainty, and doubt into the adversary’s decision making processes, he added.  Success is defined as altering such perceptions so the target makes choices favoring the aggressor.

“Sowing chaos and confusion is thus essentially operational preparation of the information battlefield – shaping actions that make the information environment more favorable for actual operations should they become necessary,” the researchers wrote.

These cyber manipulations often prey upon cognitive and emotional biases present in the psychological and mental makeup of human beings, Lin said. 

For example, media channels such as Fox News play to “confirmation bias” for individuals with a right-of-center orientation, and similarly for MSNBC for those with a left-of-center, orientation, he wrote. Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.

Countering misinformation

“Naming and shaming” is probably ineffective against many nation states conducting cyber disinformation campaigns, Lin said. And the idea that a government like the U.S. can quickly respond to misinformation created in the private sphere is unlikely to be effective as well.

What, then, might work? Lin suggests new tactics are needed, as no existing approach seems adequate. For example, Facebook is deploying a new protocol for its users to flag questionable news sites.  Google has banned fake news web sites from using its online advertising service. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook shut down accounts that they determine are promoting terrorist content.  He noted that a recent Facebook letter from CEO Mark Zuckerberg states that, “Our approach will focus less on banning misinformation and more on surfacing additional perspectives and information, including that fact checkers dispute an item's accuracy.”

But such measures are unlikely to stem the “rising tide of misinformation conveyed” through cyber warfare, Lin said, because they mostly require users to do additional mental work.  

Wired world riskier

Today’s Internet-driven Western world offers countless opportunities for cyber influence mischief, Lin wrote.

“Democracy has rested on an underlying foundation of an enlightened, informed populace engaging in rational debate and argument to sort out truth from fiction and half-truth in an attempt to produce the best possible policy and political outcomes,” Lin wrote.

Cyber manipulators have exploited an arguable gap between ideals and reality in democratic systems – “rendered it much more questionable” – through the tremendous reach and speed of misinformation, he said. Many countries cannot deal with the onslaught of such focused efforts. This serves to make the democratic process look weak and unstable in the eyes of its citizens. The same dynamic does not apply equally around the world.

“Cyber weapons pose a greater threat to nations that are more advanced users of information technology than to less-developed nations,” Lin wrote.

He said that less developed or authoritarian countries do not have much Internet infrastructure or that wield control over expression – North Korea is an example.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Herbert Lin, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 497-8600, herbert.s.lin@stanford.edu

Clifton B. Parker, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-0224, cbparker@stanford.edu

Anna Péczeli, a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at CISAC, wrote the following op-ed for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

What does the future hold for the US nuclear posture under President Trump? The last Nuclear Posture Review occurred in April 2009, when a 12-month review process was conducted to translate President Obama’s vision into a comprehensive nuclear strategy for the next five to 10 years. The review addressed several major areas: the role of nuclear forces, policy requirements, and objectives to maintain a safe, reliable, and credible deterrence posture; the relationship between deterrence policy, targeting strategy, and arms control objectives; the role of missile defense and conventional forces in determining the role and size of the nuclear arsenal; the size and composition of delivery capabilities; the nuclear weapons complex; and finally the necessary number of active and inactive nuclear weapons stockpiles to meet the requirements of national and military strategies.

Clearly, changes are afoot. On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued a presidential memorandum that mandated “a new Nuclear Posture Review to ensure that the United States nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21st-century threats and reassure our allies.” 

Looking ahead, the new administration should conduct this review through a broad, inter-agency process, involving the State and Energy departments, and allies as well. This approach offers several valuable benefits by broadening the focus from deterrence to non-proliferation, reassurance, and nuclear security.

The main role of the Nuclear Posture Review, or NPR, is to assess the threat environment, outline nuclear deterrence policy and strategy for the next 5 to 10 years, and align the country’s nuclear forces accordingly. Since the end of the Cold War, each administration has conducted its own NPR, but the process and the scope of the reviews were different in all three cases. 

The first NPR was conducted by the Clinton administration in 1994, and even though important senior positions have still not been appointed by the Trump White House, Trump's mandate suggests that their review might use it as a template for 2017. It was a bottom-up review, initiated by the Department of Defense, mostly focusing on a set of force structure decisions—such as the right size and composition of US nuclear forces, including the size of the reserve or so-called “ hedge” force. That review lasted for 10 months, and the Pentagon was in charge of the entire process, mainly focusing on deterrence requirements. 

In contrast, the 2001 NPR of the Bush administration was mandated by Congress, and it addressed a broader set of issues, including all components of the deterrence mix—nuclear and non-nuclear offensive strike systems, active and passive defenses, and the defense infrastructure. The Defense Department took the lead in this case just as before, but this time the Energy Department and the White House were also engaged in the process. As a result, the Bush NPR’s force structure requirements—how to size and sustain the country’s forces—were driven by four factors: assuring allies, deterring aggressors, dissuading competitors, and defeating enemies. 

The Obama administration’s 2010 NPR was also mandated by Congress, but the Defense Department was specifically tasked to conduct an inter-agency review. Besides the unprecedented level of such cooperation, a bipartisan Congressional commission also laid out a number of recommendations for the review process, many of which became part of the final text of the Obama review. Officials from State, Energy, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved, as well as US allies who were regularly briefed during the different stages of the review. 

In the final phase of the 2010 NPR, the White House leadership made the decisions on the actual content of the nuclear posture. While the Clinton and the Bush reviews were largely conducted behind the scenes and only short briefing materials were published on the outcome, the Obama administration released an unprecedentedly long report on its nuclear posture review. 

These cases offer two models for a review process: It can be conducted by a small group of people in the most highly classified manner, or it can be a larger, relatively transparent inter-agency process. In the former approach, the final decisions are typically presented to the secretary of defense, the president, Congress, and allies. The problem is that this tends to be a one-sided approach, putting the main focus on deterrence and modernizations. 

Though it is effective and fast, the implementation of a Nuclear Posture Review requires all stakeholders to be on board with the new strategy. One of the most painful lessons of the Bush review was that because the White House and Defense failed to explain their new approach to the public, the military, and Congress, there was effectively a loss of leadership—which made procurement extremely difficult and caused major problems in the implementation of their strategy. 

On the other hand, involving all stakeholders and providing a balanced approach to nuclear strategy would support the goals of not just deterrence, but those of reassurance, non-proliferation, and nuclear security as well. Due to the involvement of the State Department, the 2010 NPR, for example, emphasized a number of policies which supported non-proliferation objectives and strengthened US negotiating positions at global arms control forums. One of these policies was the “negative security assurance,” which stated that the United States would not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations. 

The other policy that was advocated by senior State Department officials was the so called sole-purpose posture—which means that nuclear weapons only serve to deter or respond to a nuclear attack, and they no longer play a role in non-nuclear scenarios. Although the sole purpose posture was eventually dropped and it was set only as a long-term objective, the Obama administration still reduced the role of nuclear weapons with the new negative security assurance, and it signaled its intent to continue this process with the promise of sole purpose. These steps supported US leadership at the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and they contributed to the adoption of a consensual final document at the conference. 

This broader scope strengthens inter-agency cooperation, and ensures that all the departments that are affected by the NPR are on board with the strategy, which eases the implementation of the decisions. Besides, it also strengthens alliance relations by regular consultations. The Trump administration’s mandate did not include a specific timeline or format; consequently it will be mainly the responsibility of Defense Secretary James Mattis to decide on the framework. Though the presidential memorandum did not require an inter-agency process, it would be wise to conduct one.

Compared to 2010, the security environment has dramatically deteriorated: renewed tensions between NATO and Russia since the annexation of Crimea, China’s building of military bases in what had previously been international waters, significant military modernization efforts by both these states, and North Korea’s increasingly bellicose nuclear threats. All of these developments have created a serious deterrence and security challenge for the United States and its allies. Only a broader approach can address all relevant threats and create the necessary internal consensus for the funding and creation of a modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored nuclear arsenal.

"What is behind democracy’s seeming decline? What is fuelling the widespread appeal of authoritarianism? Is liberal democracy simply a politics of prosperity, but ill-suited for times of crisis and parsimony? By privileging individual choice and minimizing civic virtue, is liberal democracy simply a victim of its own ‘success’?" For ABCRadio, Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at CDDRL/FSI discusses the dangers of authoritarianism. Listen here. 

Pandemics are a growing health concern in the United States and abroad. But as global health specialists are ramping up efforts to prevent them, funding may be slipping away.

President Trump's proposed budget would eliminate the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center, a key player in the fight against diseases worldwide.

According to a USA Today column by Michele Barry, Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health and a Stanford Health Policy affiliate, and David Yach, a former cabinet director at the World Health Organization, Fogarty's global health research benefits the United States along with other countries. The center has produced insights into Alzheimer's research, is looking into the genetics of obesity and diabetes, and has started developing early warning systems for pandemics.

But its most important accomplishment, according to Barry and Yach, is training scientists in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries. These experts have emerged as leaders in their own countries and around the world.

Their contributions have not only improved health but have influenced the World Health Organization and leading global health donors.

Said Barry and Yach, "To eliminate the Fogarty Center now would undermine progress, erode trust in America’s leadership in global health, and increase the risk of a devastating and preventable epidemic in the U.S. Keeping Fogarty would preserve health, both of Americans and populations all over the world."

Read the full article.

When a state is “shamed” by outsiders for perceived injustices, it often proves counterproductive, resulting in worse behavior and civil rights violations, a Stanford researcher has found.

Rochelle Terman, a political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), recently spoke about how countries criticized by outsiders on issues like human rights typically respond -- and it's contrary to conventional wisdom. Terman has published findings, “The Relational Politics of Shame: Evidence from the Universal Periodic Review,” on this topic in the Review of International Organizations. She discussed her research in the interview below:

What does your research show about state "shaming"?

Shaming is a ubiquitous strategy to promote international human rights. A key contention in the literature on international norms is that transnational advocacy networks can pressure states into adopting international norms by shaming them – condemning violations and urging reform. The idea is that shaming undermines a state’s legitimacy, which then incentivizes elites into complying with international norms.

In contrast, my work shows that shaming can be counterproductive, encouraging leaders in the target state to persist or “double down” on violations. That is because shaming is seen as illegitimate foreign intervention that threatens a state’s sovereignty and independence.  When viewed in this light, leaders are rewarded for standing up to such pressure and defending the nation against perceived domination. Meanwhile, leaders who “give in” have their political legitimacy undermined at home. The result is that violations tend to persist or even exacerbate.

When and where does it work better to directly confront a country’s leadership about such injustices?

At least two factors moderate the effects of international shaming. The first is the degree to which the norm being promoted is shared between the “shamer” and the target. For instance, the West may shame Uganda or Nigeria for violating LGBT rights. But if Uganda and Nigeria do not accept the “LGBT rights” norm, and refuse to accept that homophobia constitutes bad behavior, then shaming will fail. In this case, it is more likely that shaming will be viewed as illegitimate meddling by foreign powers, and will be met with indignation and defiance.

Second, shaming is quintessentially a relational process. Insofar as it is successful, shaming persuades actors to voluntary change their behavior in order to maintain valued social relationships. In the absence of such relationship, shaming will fail. This is especially so when pressure emanates from a current or historical geopolitical adversary. In this later scenario, not only will shaming fail to work, it will likely provoke defensive hostility and defiance, having a counterproductive effect.

Combing these insights, we can say that shaming is most likely to work under two conditions: when the target is a strong ally, and the norm is shared.

What are some well-known cases where "shaming" backfired?

The main example I use in my forthcoming paper is on the infamous “anti-homosexuality bill” in Uganda. When Uganda introduced the legislation in 2009 (which in some versions applied capital punishment to offenders) it provoked harsh condemnation among its foreign allies, especially in the West. Western donor countries even suspended aid in attempt to push Yoweri Musaveni’s government to abandon the bill. According to conventional accounts, the onslaught of foreign shaming, coupled with the threat of aid cuts and other material sanctions, should have worked best in the Uganda case.

And yet what we saw was the opposite. The wave of international attention provoked an outraged and defiant reaction among the Ugandan population, turning the bill into a symbol of national sovereignty and self-determination in the face of abusive Western bullying. This reaction energized Ugandan elites to champion the bill in order to reap the political rewards at home. Indeed, the bill was the first to pass unanimously in the Ugandan legislature since the end of military rule in 1999. Museveni – who by all accounts preferred a more moderate solution to the crisis – was backed into a corner.

A Foreign Policy story quoted Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda as saying, “the mere fact that Obama threatened Museveni publicly is the very reason he chose to go ahead and sign the bill.” And Museveni did so in a particularly defiant fashion, “with the full witness of the international media to demonstrate Uganda’s independence in the face of Western pressure and provocation.”

Uganda anti-homosexuality law was finally quashed by its constitutional court, which ruled the act invalid because it was not passed with the required quorum. By dismissing the law on procedural grounds, Museveni – widely thought to have control over the court – was able to kill the legislation “without appearing to cave in to foreign pressure.” But by that time, defiance had already transformed Uganda’s normative order, entrenching homophobia into its national identity.

Does this 'doubling down' effect vary in domestic or international contexts?

Probably. States with a significant populist contingent, for instance, are especially hostile to international pressure, especially when it emanates from a historical adversary, like a former colonial power. Ironically, democracies may also be more susceptible to defiance, because elites are more beholden to their constituents, and thus are less able to “give in” to foreign pressure without undermining their own political power. 

The international context matters a great deal as well. States are more likely to resist certain norms if they have allies who feel the same way. For instance, we see significant polarization around LGBT rights at the international level, with most states in Africa and the Muslim world voting against resolutions that push LGBT rights forward. South Africa – originally a pioneer for LGBT rights – has changed its position following criticism from its regional neighbors. 

Does elite reaction drive this response to state "shaming?"

To be quite honest, this is a question I’m still exploring and I don’t have a very clear answer. My hunch at the moment is no. The “defiant” reaction occurs mainly at the level of public audiences, which then incentives elites to violate norms for political gain.  These audiences can be at either the domestic or international level. For instance, if domestic constituents are indignant by foreign shaming, elites are incentivized to “double down,” or at least remain silent, lest they undermine their own political legitimacy.

That said, elites can also strategize and manipulate these expected public reactions for their own political purposes. For instance, if Vladimir Putin knows that the Russian public will grow indignant following Western shaming, he might strategically promote a law that he knows will provoke such a reaction in order to benefit from the ensuing conflict. This is what likely occurred with Russia’s “anti-gay propaganda” law, which (unsurprisingly) provoked harsh condemnation from the West and probably bolstered Putin’s domestic popularity.

Any other important points to highlight?

One important point I’d like to highlight is the long-term effects of defiance. In an effort to resist international pressure, states take action that, in the long term, work to internalize oppositional norms in their national identity. In this way, shaming actually produces deviance, not the other way around.

Follow CISAC at @StanfordCISAC and  www.facebook.com/StanfordCISAC

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Rochelle Terman, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 721-1378, rterman@stanford.edu,

Clifton B. Parker, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-6488, cbparker@stanford.edu

Whether it’s WikiLeaks and CIA documents or nuclear thieves, the danger from insiders in high-security organizations is escalating in our Internet age.

But many threats from within go unrecognized or misunderstood, according to Stanford professor Scott Sagan, who co-edited a new book Insider Threats with Matthew Bunn, a professor of practice at Harvard University. Their work analyzes the challenges that high-security organizations face in protecting themselves from employees who might betray them. Sagan, a core faculty member in Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Bunn recently participated in an online discussion of the book’s key arguments. They will hold a talk and book signing at 3:30 p.m. on May 16 in the CISAC Central Conference Room.

Sagan and Bunn wrote, “Perhaps the most striking lesson we learned in working with scholars and officials who have dealt with this problem was the sheer scale of the red flags – from explicit statements of support for Osama bin Laden to behavior leading other staff to fear for their lives – that organizations are able to ignore.”

They found that organizations tend to have biases that cause them to downplay insider threats. In particular, organizations with high-security needs face significant risks from trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. 

The researchers highlight "worst practices" from these past mistakes, suggesting lessons and insights that could improve the security situations at many workplaces. Amy Zegart, co-director of CISAC, has a chapter in Insider Threats that provides a detailed account of the organizational dysfunction that allowed Nidal Hasan to carry out his massacre at Fort Hood.

Other chapters include the following topics and authors:

• An analysis of the similar problems that led Bruce Ivins, who probably carried out the anthrax attacks in 2001, to continue to have access to deadly pathogens (by Jessica Stern, then of Harvard and now at Boston University, and Ron Schouten, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School);
• An analysis of the rapid rise and subsequent fall of “green-on-blue” attacks in Afghanistan – that is, Afghan soldiers and police officers attacking Americans there to help them (by Austin Long of Columbia University); and 
• An assessment of how casinos and pharmaceutical plants, with a profit incentive to protect against insiders, cope with the problem (by Bunn and Kathryn Glynn, then of IBM Global Business Services and now at the National Nuclear Security Administration). 

Another chapter examines the potential terrorist use of nuclear insiders, offering new data that shows that jihadist writings and postings contain only a modest emphasis on possible nuclear plots, and essentially no mention of the possibility of using nuclear insiders. However, the authors warn this is no reason for complacency – insiders have been largely responsible for past nuclear theft incidents.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Scott Sagan, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-2715, ssagan@stanford.edu

Clifton B. Parker, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-6488, cbparker@stanford.edu