Asia-Pacific

A current security imperative: the US role in the Marshall Islands

Read more about A current security imperative: the US role in the Marshall Islands

Authors

Rose Gottemoeller

News Type

Commentary

Date

Wed, 05/25/2022 - 12:00

Paragraphs

Eight years ago, I traveled as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security to the Marshall Islands, a remote place in the central Pacific. I was there to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Castle Bravo, the largest and most catastrophic of the 67 nuclear weapons tests that the United States conducted in the Marshalls during the Cold War. Because of a design error that led to a larger-than-expected blast, radioactive fallout from the test—at Bikini Atoll, which had been evacuated—spread over more than 4,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean and contaminated nearby populated atolls.

Read the rest at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Nuclear weapon test Bravo (yield 15 Mt) on Bikini Atoll

'Castle Bravo' on March 1, 1954 on Bikini Atoll.

Photo credit: United States Department of Energy

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Subtitle

Rose Gottemoeller, former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, remembers the painful history of Castle Bravo—the largest and most catastrophic US nuclear weapons test conducted in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War—and urges the United States to finish the compact extension with the three island nations to contain China’s growing influence in the Pacific.

The Russia-Ukraine War: Would Putin Go Nuclear?

Wednesday, June 1, 2022 | 11:00 AM -Wednesday, June 1, 2022 | 12:15 PM

For spring quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

SEMINAR RECORDING

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About the Event: After more than three months of fighting, Russian military forces have failed to prevail in Ukraine, and a drawn-out war of attrition appears increasingly likely. Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have made implied nuclear threats. Would the lack of battlefield success lead the Kremlin to consider use of nuclear weapons? CISAC scholars Rose Gottemoeller, David Holloway and Scott Sagan will discuss the possibility of Russian nuclear use, what the Kremlin might do, and how the West should react.

About the Speakers:

Rose Gottemoeller is the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Scott Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. He also serves as Chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. Sagan has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Rose Gottemoeller

David Holloway

Scott Sagan

Seminars

From Bagram Airfield to Baghdad and Back Again: a U.S. Military Doctor’s Experience in Two Wars

Thursday, May 26, 2022 | 3:30 PM -Thursday, May 26, 2022 | 5:00 PM

SEMINAR RECORDING

YouTube

About the Event: Following 9/11 the U.S. lead the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and ended with our withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. We also removed Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003 and we fought there until the end of 2011. Our military healthcare system was engaged from the very beginning and provided support that enabled the success of our combat operations and saved lives of Coalition Forces, host nation nationals, and enemy combatants. Mortality from combat injuries was reduced from 24% during the Vietnam War to 10% in OEF and OIF. Lessons learned from these conflicts have been translated to the civilian world and are reviewed. The skilled and compassionate care that the US provided to thousands of host nation nationals and our engagement with civilian healthcare in both Afghanistan and Iraq built good will that will, hopefully, be remembered.

About the Speaker: Dr. Dean Winslow, MD is Professor of Medicine with appointments in the Divisions of Hospital Medicine and Infectious Diseases and is a Senior Fellow (courtesy) at CISAC/Freeman Spogli Institute. He has served on the Stanford faculty since 1998 and served from 2003-2008 as Co-Director of Stanford's Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program. He was in private practice in Wilmington, Delaware where he started the state’s first multidisciplinary clinic for HIV patients in 1985. In 1988 he joined the DuPont Company where he worked both as a bench scientist on HIV drug resistance then later designed the clinical trials supporting FDA approval of efavirenz. In 1999 he became Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Visible Genetics Inc. and led the FDA clearance of the TRUGENE HIV-1 drug resistance test. Dr. Winslow joined the staff at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in 2003, where he served as Chief of the Division of AIDS Medicine and later as Chair of the Department of Medicine. In 2015 he was appointed Academic Physician-In-Chief at Stanford/ValleyCare and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford. He was a Resident Fellow in Robinson House 2013-2017 and was visiting faculty at Oxford University in 2017. He was Lead Physician for the US Antarctic Program of the National Science Foundation 2019-2020 based at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. He is a participant on the National Security Task Force of the Hoover Institution. He served as a flight surgeon in the USAF and Air National Guard from 1980-2015 retiring as a colonel. After 9/11 he deployed twice to Afghanistan and 4 times to Iraq supporting combat operations. In 2008 he served as commander of the USAF EMEDS in Baghdad during the surge. He has logged 1150 military flying hours including 431 combat hours/263 combat sorties. He has extensive operational experience in fighter, tactical airlift, and combat rescue missions. His 39 military decorations include the Legion of Merit, 3 Air Medals, 4 Aerial Achievement Medals, and the Air Force Combat Action Medal.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Dean Winslow

Seminars

Bridging the Cybersecurity Data Gap with Privacy Protected Data Sharing

Tuesday, May 24, 2022 | 12:00 PM -Tuesday, May 24, 2022 | 1:00 PM

Text on blue background showing speaker headshots for bridging the gap event

Join us on Tuesday, May 24 from 12 PM - 1 PM PT for “Bridging the Cybersecurity Data Gap with Privacy Protected Data Sharing” featuring Taylor Reynolds of MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative, Megan Stifel of the Institute for Security and Technology, and Klara Jordan, Chief Public Policy Officer of the Cyber Peace Institute, in conversation with Kelly Born of the Hewlett Foundation. This weekly seminar series is jointly organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative.

About the Seminar:

Cyber attacks are increasing over time and useful insights into the causes and impact of successful attacks could help all organizations better understand the harm caused by such incidents, and improve their defenses. However, organizations currently have little incentive to report attempted or successful attacks if sharing such sensitive information could invite regulatory scrutiny, create reputational harm for the company, or provide an advantage to their competitors. The result is an environment where attacks happen on a regular basis, but collectively we learn very little from them. Today, neither the public nor policy makers fully understand the impact and risks of cyber-attacks - a gap that needs to be addressed to inform policy making, resiliency measures, and individual empowerment to seek redress. Join Taylor Reynolds of MIT, Klara Jordan of the Cyber Peace Institute, and Megan Stifel of the Institute for Security and Technology, in conversation with Kelly Born of the Hewlett Foundation, to explore the problems posed by underreporting, the promise of new “privacy enhancing technologies” and the real-world challenges of deploying these technologies at scale.

About the Speakers:

Taylor Reynolds is the research director of MIT's Internet Policy Research Initiative (IPRI) which collaborates with policymakers and technologists to improve the trustworthiness and effectiveness of interconnected digital systems like the Internet. Taylor's current research focuses on three areas: cyber security, cyber risk and the future of data. Taylor was previously a senior economist at the OECD and led the organization’s Information Economy Unit covering policy issues such as the role of information and communication technologies in the economy, digital content, the economic impacts of the Internet and green ICTs. His previous work at the OECD concentrated on telecommunication and broadcast markets with a particular focus on broadband.Before joining the OECD, Taylor worked at the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (United States). Taylor has an MBA from MIT and a Ph.D. in Economics from American University in Washington, DC.

Megan Stifel is the Chief Strategy Officer at the Institute for Security and Technology, where she also leads the organization’s cyber-related work. Megan previously served as Global Policy Officer at the Global Cyber Alliance and as the Cybersecurity Policy Director at Public Knowledge. She is a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute. Megan previously served as a Director for International Cyber Policy at the National Security Council. Prior to the NSC, Ms. Stifel served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Director for Cyber Policy in the National Security Division and as counsel in the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. Before law school, Ms. Stifel worked for the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She received a Juris Doctorate from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame.

Klara Jordan is Chief Public Policy Officer of the Cyber Peace Institute. Prior to that, Klara was the Director for Government Affairs and Public Policy for the UK at BlackBerry and the Executive Director for the EU and Africa at the Global Cyber Alliance. She also served as the director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council think tank, and worked in the policy and privacy division of FireEye. Her background also includes work on international law issues at the American Society of International Law and at NATO’s Allied Command Transformation.

Kelly Born (moderator) is the Director of the Cyber Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She leads a ten-year, $130 million grantmaking effort that aims to build a more robust cybersecurity field and improve policymaking. Previously, Kelly was executive director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. Prior to that, she was a Program Officer for the Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, an 8-year, $150 million portfolio focused on improving U.S. democracy. Kelly oversaw Madison’s grantmaking on campaigns and elections, and digital disinformation.

Seminars