Okimoto Conference Room
Technology product companies are characterized by rapid product introductions and the need to stay ahead in each product generation. If a company stumbles and loses its lead in one generation of product, it can be fatal. Technical support is as important as unique product features to win and retain customers. Yet this function is often an afterthought for many companies. While developmental engineering and product creation are exciting, providing strong support for such products is critical for a company's success in the market place.
With an overall shortage of engineers in the United States, companies can work with specialized, dual-shore based technical support companies to provide this very critical function to customers on an ongoing basis.
Somshankar Das brings twenty-nine years of experience in public and private management, high technology, and venture capital businesses to his role of president and chief executive officer of e4e. Prior to joining e4e, Som was a general partner with Walden International, where he specialized in semiconductor, software, IT service, and Internet infrastructure markets. While at Walden, he created a portfolio of service companies including Mind Tree Consulting, Techspan, Sierra Atlantic and WebEx. He also established the Walden India Nikko Fund in 1996, the first technology focused VC fund in India. Som currently serves on the boards of directors of two public companies, Aztec and WebEx. He has over twelve years of management experience in the U.S. semiconductor industry, and was actively involved in establishing Malaysia's first commercial silicon wafer foundry, Siltera. Prior to joining Walden, he was director for Worldwide Business Development at VLSI Technology, Inc. and was previously an officer in the Indian Administrative Service in India. Som holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University and an M.S. in physics and mathematics from Calcutta University.
This seminar is part of SPRIE's Fall 2003 series on "High-Tech Regions and the Globalization of Value Chains."
Daniel I. Okimoto Conference Room
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
There are "no good options" for the United States to confront or contain North Korea's nuclear weapons proliferation, according to political science Professor Scott Sagan.
Sagan, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for International Studies, was one of five foreign policy experts who joined a panel discussion Friday titled "It's a Mad, Mad World: Prospects for Security, Diplomacy and Peace on the Korean Peninsula." Presented by the Law School, the event took place in Dinkelspiel Auditorium as part of Reunion Homecoming Weekend.
Panelists Mi-Hyung Kim, Bernard S. Black, Gi-Wook Shin and Scott D. Sagan took turns weighing in on the difficulties of U.S. diplomatic relations with North Korea during a law school-sponsored discussion. Photo: L.A. Cicero
What makes the situation even more vexing is that the objectives of neither North Korea nor the United States are entirely clear, said law Associate Professor Allen Weiner, a former State Department lawyer and diplomat who moderated the panel.
"Is the United States intent on a regime change? Or putting the nuclear genie back in the bottle?" Weiner asked.
"North Korea feels threatened by the United States and believes nuclear weapons are the only way to protect its national sovereignty," said sociology Associate Professor Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Korean Studies Program in the Asia/Pacific Research Center.
The talk came one day after North Korea announced that it is prepared to "physically unveil" its nuclear program. By Sunday, President George W. Bush announced that he would provide written assurances not to attack North Korea if the country takes steps to halt its proliferation and if other Asian leaders signed, too. Bush, who counted North Korea as part of an "axis of evil," stopped short of offering a formal, Senate-approved nonaggression treaty.
Earlier this month, North Korea claimed to have finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to build a half-dozen nuclear bombs. Faced with a collapsed economy and the legacy of 1.5 million deaths from starvation in the late 1990s, the North Korean government, led by Kim Jong Il, has overtly threatened to use its small arsenal as deterrence against U.S. aggression. Although it has been difficult to verify North Korea's capabilities, international experts have asserted that its main nuclear facility in Yongbyon could produce one or two bombs a year.
Tension first heated up last October when North Korea admitted to having abandoned the 1994 Framework Agreement brokered by the Clinton administration to shut down its nuclear reprocessing facilities.
Confirming U.S. intelligence reports that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons capabilities, the former director of the CIA under the Clinton administration, Jim Woolsey, said from the audience that in 1994 the CIA was confident North Korea had enough plutonium to make one or two bombs. Estimating that its current capabilities hover somewhere around six bombs, Woolsey explained North Korea doesn't have good delivery technology. The greater concern, he said, is that it would produce enough plutonium to sell to al-Qaida.
The amount of plutonium it takes to build a bomb is the "size of a grapefruit" -- making it difficult to monitor and stop weapons material shipments, Sagan said.
Believing North Korea is posturing for economic aid and bilateral security guarantees, the United States has sidestepped direct talks and instead joined South Korea, China, Japan and Russia in a round of six-party talks with North Korea last August. Bush's announcement is seen as an effort to jump-start the next round of regional talks that were expected by the end of the year.
The crisis has taken its toll on the longstanding alliance between the United States and South Korea. Panelist Mi-Hyung Kim, a founding member of South Korea's Millennium Democratic Party and general counsel and executive vice president of the Kumho Business Group, the ninth largest Korean conglomerate, said the relationship between the United States and South Korea is the "rockiest" it has ever been because of "Bush's hard-line policy on North Korea" and the fact that wartime control of the South Korean military reverts to U.S. hands. Bilateral talks would further alienate South Korea, which fears that Seoul will become a "sea of fire," she said.
"South Korea thinks Bush is a bigger threat than nuclear weapons 35 miles to the north," Kim explained, pointing out that South Korea will bear the brunt of a military conflict. "South Korea wants to avoid war and economic burdens it can't afford," she said.
Part of the problem has been the failure of the United States to explain its policy to the South Korean people. "The United States is bad at selling its policies to publics abroad," Weiner noted. We're used to dealing bilaterally with government officials; public diplomacy is a skill we've had to learn over the past 15 years."
"A PR campaign by the United States is not going to solve this," Kim countered.
"If North Korea collapses, how will South Korea survive?" asked law Professor Bernard Black, a panelist who served as an economic policy adviser to the South Korean government. "South Korea would have to devote 30 percent of its GDP to bring North Korea up to its standard of living and that's not sustainable.
"South Korea has lived under North Korean guns for the last 50 years. North Korea can destroy Seoul at any time. South Koreans are saying, 'What's changed?' The last thing South Korea wants is to provoke North Korea to attack."
China, North Korea's closest ally, may have the most leverage through trade sanctions and has a vested interest in halting regional proliferation, Kim said. "China does not need another nuclear neighbor. ... It has enough problems with India and Pakistan." North Korea's proliferation could lead to a nuclear Japan, South Korea and "its worst fear, a nuclear Taiwan."
Predicting that nothing would come of the next round of talks until after the next U.S. presidential election, Kim said ironically, "North Korea is expecting a regime change in the United States to an administration that is more reasonable."
"North Korea is not a crazy rogue state but a dangerously desperate state," said Sagan. "When you play poker with someone who's cheated in the past, you can expect them to cheat again."
APARC, the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), and the U.S.-Indonesia Society (USINDO) on October 16 released a report from the National Commission on U.S.-Indonesian Relations that assesses the current state of relations between the two countries. APARC Professor Donald K. Emmerson was a key member of this commission. The report was released to the public during a press conference on Capitol Hill. Congressman Jim Leach, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, joined former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Edward Masters and representatives of the three sponsoring organizations in presenting the report. The consensus report concludes that Indonesia is at a critical juncture in its political and economic transition. It argues that the United States should assist Indonesia in this transition by increasing its assistance, with a major focus on education. The report also recommends the creation of a "partnership" to facilitate regular dialogue between the two countries. The National Commission on U.S.-Indonesian Relations is composed of a bipartisan team of distinguished former foreign policy practitioners and prominent Indonesia specialists. The National Commission is planning a series of follow-up briefings for senior government and congressional officials in the coming months.
Tonya L. Putnam (J.D./Ph.D) is a Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Salzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. From 2007 to 2020 she was a member of the Political Science at Columbia University. Tonya’s work engages a variety of topics related to international relations and international law with emphasis on issues related to jurisdiction and jurisdictional overlaps in international regulatory and security matters. She is the author of Courts Without Borders: Law, Politics, and U.S. Extraterritoriality along with several articles in International Organization, International Security, and the Human Rights Review. She is also a member (inactive) of the California State Bar.
North Korea claims to have produced enough plutonium to build half a dozen nuclear bombs. U.S. intelligence indicates North Korea may indeed possess one or two nuclear weapons. The North Korean government has overtly threatened to use their arsenal against the United States. How credible is the threat? Is North Korea becoming the next Iraq? The U.S., China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea are pushing for another six-party talk. Can diplomacy, international aid, and security guarantees curb North Korea's nuclear proliferation? Can we negotiate with a regime devoid of a rule of law? What are our other options?
Panel discussion moderated by Warren Christopher, Professor in the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, Stanford Law School, and including:
A panel discussion featuring:
Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford Law School, Stanford University Campus
Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in the Department of Sociology, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the founding director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) since 2001, all at Stanford University. In May 2024, Shin also launched the Taiwan Program at APARC. He served as director of APARC for two decades (2005-2025). As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, democracy, migration, and international relations.
In Summer 2023, Shin launched the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which is a new research initiative committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges in Asia. Across four research themes– “Talent Flows and Development,” “Nationalism and Racism,” “U.S.-Asia Relations,” and “Democratic Crisis and Reform”–the lab brings scholars and students to produce interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, policy-relevant, and comparative studies and publications. Shin’s latest book, The Four Talent Giants, a comparative study of talent strategies of Japan, Australia, China, and India to be published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2025, is an outcome of SNAPL.
Shin is also the author/editor of twenty-seven books and numerous articles. His books include The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India (2025); Korean Democracy in Crisis: The Threat of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022); The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021); Superficial Korea (2017); Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War (2016); Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015); Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007); and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic and policy journals, including American Journal of Sociology, World Development, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Education, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs.
Shin is not only the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, but also continues to actively raise funds for Korean/Asian studies at Stanford. He gives frequent lectures and seminars on topics ranging from Korean nationalism and politics to Korea's foreign relations, historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia, and talent strategies. He serves on councils and advisory boards in the United States and South Korea and promotes policy dialogue between the two allies. He regularly writes op-eds and gives interviews to the media in both Korean and English.
Before joining Stanford in 2001, Shin taught at the University of Iowa (1991-94) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1994-2001). After receiving his BA from Yonsei University in Korea, he was awarded his MA and PhD from the University of Washington in 1991.
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a senior fellow based at FSI's Center for International Security and Cooperation, where he previously served as the social science co-director. He also serves as co-chair 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 is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).
Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).
In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.
Octobers and democracy in Thailand are inextricably entwined. On 14 October 1973, thirty years to the day before Dr. Pitsuwan will speak at Stanford, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn, Thailand's strongman prime minister, was driven into exile. Parliamentary democracy flourished for three years until it was violently shut down in October 1976 following Thanom's return. On 12 October 2002 in Bali, extremist Muslims took more than 200 lives and made terrorism an urgent priority for Thailand and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Relevant events in Southeast Asia in October 2003 include three summits--of ASEAN (Bali, 7-8 Oct.), of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (Kuala Lumpur, 16-18 Oct.), and of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (Bangkok, 20-21 Oct.), the latter to include U.S. President George W. Bush. Dr. Pitsuwan will this unusual conjunction of anniversaries and summits to explore some of the ways in which democracy, terrorism, regionalism, and Islamism in Southeast Asia overlap and intersect. About the speaker Surin Pitsuwan served as Thailand's foreign minister from 1997 to 2001. He was the first Muslim to hold that post. He has been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Thailand's House of Representatives since 1986. He has also been a columnist for Thai newspapers and a political science lecturer in Thammasat University. In 1983-84 he was a legislative assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro. He earned a PhD from Harvard University in 1982 after graduating cum laude from the Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California.
Okimoto Conference Room
Recently released Israel state archives indicate that during its formative years the Israeli government actively sought to expand its relations with Asian states based on the belief that ties with countries in Asia would break the political siege erected around it by the Arabs. At that time, the Israeli foreign ministry was of the opinion that good relations with Asia would disprove the Arab claim that Israel was imperialistic, foil the Arab design to cut Israel off from the east completely, and persuade the Arabs that it was time to make peace and come to terms with Israel's existence. After having failed to make inroads into what Israeli decision-makers considered to be key Asian countries at that time (India and the PRC), Israel turned to a newly independent Japan. This talk will highlight Japan's response to Israel's initial advances between 1952-1956, before Japan became dependent on Arab oil, by drawing upon primary sources in Japan and Israel.
Philippines Conference Room
Building 200, Room 23
450 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2024
John de Boer is a postdoctoral fellow in Japanese studies at FSI. Over the course of exploring the main socio-economic and political factors that have influenced Japan's relationship with Israel/Palestine in the twentieth century, Mr. de Boer has opened the door to the possibility of probing a broader time-space framework for thinking about the historical significance of Japan and Israel in their Asian contexts. His research aims to document the profound interconnections that exist between Japanese and Zionist intellectuals, activists and politicians on ideas related to colonialism, progress, cultural identity, democracy and security in order to assess the formative impact that both nations had on Asia's modern historical trajectory.
In addition to this historical approach to understanding transnational exchanges involving Japan, de Boer is also actively engaged in analyzing Japan's recent policy initiatives as they relate to human rights, militarization and armed conflict. Some of his work in this area has been published by the Japanese Institute of Global Communications and is available at http://www.glocom.org/map/alpha/index_ju.html#weekly_review He received a BA in political science from Wilfrid Laurier University (Ontario, Canada), an MA in international relations from the International University of Japan (Niigata, Japan), and a PhD in area studies from Tokyo University.
Building 200, Room 23
450 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2024
John de Boer is a postdoctoral fellow in Japanese studies at FSI. Over the course of exploring the main socio-economic and political factors that have influenced Japan's relationship with Israel/Palestine in the twentieth century, Mr. de Boer has opened the door to the possibility of probing a broader time-space framework for thinking about the historical significance of Japan and Israel in their Asian contexts. His research aims to document the profound interconnections that exist between Japanese and Zionist intellectuals, activists and politicians on ideas related to colonialism, progress, cultural identity, democracy and security in order to assess the formative impact that both nations had on Asia's modern historical trajectory.
In addition to this historical approach to understanding transnational exchanges involving Japan, de Boer is also actively engaged in analyzing Japan's recent policy initiatives as they relate to human rights, militarization and armed conflict. Some of his work in this area has been published by the Japanese Institute of Global Communications and is available at http://www.glocom.org/map/alpha/index_ju.html#weekly_review He received a BA in political science from Wilfrid Laurier University (Ontario, Canada), an MA in international relations from the International University of Japan (Niigata, Japan), and a PhD in area studies from Tokyo University.