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In Seattle Talk, Former Ambassador to Afghanistan Explains Strategy to Combat Extremism in ‘Fragile States’

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By Hal Benton, Seattle Times staff reporter

Karl Eikenberry is a retired Army officer whose two tours of Afghanistan duty — and later service as ambassador to that nation — left him keenly aware of the limits of U.S. military power.

As a soldier, Eikenberry launched the still-ongoing effort to build an Afghan military force capable of fending off the Taliban. As a diplomat, he was stationed at the Kabul embassy during President Barack Obama’s surge that would eventually push American troop strength in Afghanistan to more than 100,000 service members in an attempt to improve security.

“Americans and the world have rightly been disappointed with the results of our costly military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 21st century. Hugely expensive, protracted … and damaging to our country’s prestige abroad,” Eikenberry said Thursday to a Town Hall audience in Seattle.

Read the full article in The Seattle Times.

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An SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) fighter looks over seized ISIL weapons
An SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) fighter looks over seized ISIL weapons that were found in the last stronghold of the extremist group as they were displayed at an SDF base on March 22, 2019 outside Al Mayadin, Syria.
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Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War

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Militaries around the world are racing to build robotic systems with increasing autonomy. What will happen when a Predator drone has as much autonomy as a Google car? Should machines be given the power to make life and death decisions in war? Paul Scharre, a former Army Ranger and Pentagon official, will talk on his new book, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War. Army of None was named one of Bill Gates’ Top 5 Books of 2018. Scharre will explore the technology behind autonomous weapons and the legal, moral, ethical, and strategic dimensions of this evolving technology. Paul Scharre is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.   

 

Drell Lecture Recording: https://youtu.be/ldvDjU1C4Qs

 

Drell Lecture Transcript: NA

 

Paul's Biography: Paul Scharre is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. He is author of Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War. Mr. Scharre formerly worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he played a leading role in establishing policies on emerging weapons technologies. He led the working group that drafted DOD Directive 3000.09, establishing DOD’s policy on autonomy in weapon systems. He is a former infantryman in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment and completed multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Radha's Biography: Radha Iyengar is the head of Product Policy Research at Facebook and an adjunct economist at the RAND Corporation. Previously, she served in senior staff positions at the White House National Security Council, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy. Over the course of her government service, she was instrumental in executive actions on sexual assault and suicide prevention, budget and policy related to nuclear and energy infrastructure security and resilience, and security assistance and counterterrorism efforts in the the Middle East and North Africa. Her research has covered empirical evaluations of policies aimed at reducing violence including criminal violence, sexual assault, terrorist behavior, and sexual and intimate partner violence. 

 

Jeremy's Biography: Jeremy is a Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on civil wars and political violence; ethnic politics and the political economy of development; and democracy, accountability, and political change. He is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge University Press), which received the William Riker Prize for the best book on political economy. He is also the co-author of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (Russell Sage Foundation), which received the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Annual Review of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Journal of Democracy, World Policy Journal, and the SAIS Review.

 

 

 

 

 

Stanford University CEMEX Auditorium (655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA 94305)

Paul Scharre Senior Fellow and Director, Technology and National Security Program Center for a New American Security
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Drell Lecture

Academic Prize Awarded to Korea Program Deputy Director

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Noa Ronkin
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We are happy to share that FSI’s SK Center Fellow and APARC's Korea Program Deputy Director Yong Suk Lee is the recipient of the 2018 Urban Land Institute United Kingdom Academic Prize for his paper “Entrepreneurship, small business and economic growth in cities.”

The winner of the Urban Land Institute Prize is selected by The Journal of Economic Geography (JoEG) Editors, Oxford University Press, and the Urban Land Institute. The prize is awarded annually to the author(s) of the best JoEG paper published online in the previous calendar year. Papers are evaluated on the basis of their creativity, quality of scholarship, and contribution to advancing understanding of the geographic nature of economic systems and global economic change.

Lee’s paper investigates whether entrepreneurship causes local employment and wage growth, and if so, how large the impact is. Empirical analysis of this question is difficult due to the joint determination of entrepreneurship and economic growth. Lee’s article uses two different sets of variables—the homestead exemption levels in state bankruptcy laws from 1975 and the share of metropolitan statistical area (MSA) overlaying aquifers—to instrument for entrepreneurship and examine urban employment and wage growth between 1993 and 2002. Lee’s research shows that the creation of small businesses indeed causes substantial employment and payroll growth in cities.

Download Lee’s paper >>

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Killing the Chicken to Scare the Monkey: Explaining Coercion by China in the South China Sea

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Despite adverse implications for its image, when it comes to territorial disputes, China has been willing to employ coercion. But Beijing is selective regarding the timing, targets, and tools of coercion. Military coercion is rare and the forms and uses of coercion vary. In the face of what China sees as similar threats by different countries, for example, Beijing tends to tailor its responses, country by country, case by case. Dr. Zhang will focus on Chinese coercive behavior in the South China Sea. She will offer a new theory as to when, why, and how China coerces other states.  Leveraging a wealth of newly available primary documents and hundreds of hours of interviews with Chinese officials, she will trace the decision-making processes that result in coercion’s use or non-use.

Where others may view China as repetitively aggressive, Dr. Zhang sees a cautious bully that does not coerce frequently and has tended, as it has gained strength, to use non-kinetic kinds of coercion. She finds that protecting a reputation for resolve and calculating economic costs are critical elements in China’s decision-making regarding the (dis)advantages of coercing its neighbors. Nor is the intended target country necessarily clear. China often coerces one to deter another – “killing the chicken to scare the monkey.” Implications will also drawn from her research that can help in projecting China’s likely future foreign-policy behavior beyond Southeast Asia and in understanding the roles played by coercion in the strategies of states more generally.

To learn more about, watch a recent interview APARC filmed with Dr. Zhang.

ketian zhang 4x
Ketian Vivian Zhang will be an Assistant Professor of International Security in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University starting in September 2019. Her book project at Stanford and a forthcoming article in International Security are on the subject of her talk. Beyond its topic, another part of her research agenda explores how the globalized economy and its chains of manufacture and supply affect the foreign-policy behaviors of states. Her 2018 PhD in political science is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a proud Badger, having earned her BA in political science and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ketian Zhang 2018-2019 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia
Seminars

Health Policy in Nepal: The Role of Community Health Workers

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This event is co-sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's Asia Health Policy Program and the Center for South Asia

In this colloquium, Dr. Panday will first provide a brief overview of population health in Nepal and the country’s healthcare system. She will then discuss her research on community health, primary healthcare, and improving the health status of women and children in Nepal, focusing on the role of female community health volunteers in maternal health care provision.  Using participatory approaches (such as participatory video methods and policy workshops), the research team connected communities with policymakers, and is building upon that approach—in partnership with the local organisation PHASE Nepal—to improve utilisation of healthcare among marginalised populations in rural Nepal. 

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Sarita Panday is the 2018-19 Developing Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center  (APARC). She is also an honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Politics, the University of Sheffield, UK and earned a PhD in Public Health from the same University. She has combined degrees in Masters in Public Health & Masters in Health Management from Australia; and a Bachelor in Science in Nursing from Nepal. Dr. Panday received in Australian Leadership Award and has ten years of research experience focused on health policy in South Asia, primarily Nepal. 

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Sarita Panday

616 Serra StreetEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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sarita_panday.jpg Ph.D.

Sarita Panday joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as the 2018-19 Developing Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow.  Panday completed her doctorate at the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield, which explores the role of female community health volunteers in maternal health service provision in Nepal. Her research interests include health service delivery, primary healthcare and human resources for health and global health.

During her fellowship at Shorenstein APARC, Panday examined the relationship between payment and performance of community health workers in South Asia. She will also recommend strategies for systems that incentivize workers to contribute to healthcare improvement in resource-poor communities. Panday completed a Masters in Public Health and Health Management from the University of New South Wales and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences. Besides research, she has worked in various parts of Nepal, including in remote conflict-laden areas.
2018-2019 Developing Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow
2018-2019 Developing Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow
Seminars

Global Affiliates Research Presentations (session 5 of 5)

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The format of this presentation is each of the four speakers will have approximately 15 minutes to present their research.  This will be followed by a short period of 5-10 minutes for any questions or comments from the audience.

In this session of the Global Affiliates Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Alex Chen, SanJohn Capital, "A Happy Mind of an Investor"

As an investor, it's almost impossible to keep a peaceful mind and a tranquil heart.  An investor's physical, mental and spiritual states are susceptible to the market's ups=-and-downs, fluctuating with stock prices.  The emotional burden can be so heavy that many investors quit.  The defining quality of a successful investor is their ability to stay uninfluenced by external circumstances — or what is called a beginner's or happy mind.  In his presentation, Chen shares some examples of successful investments made with a new approach.

Umesh Desai, Reliance Life Sciences, "Production Management and Process Excellence Aspects in Manufacturing of Biopharmaceutical Products"

Achieving excellence, especially in the manufacturing of biopharmaceutical products, is difficult, but not impossible.  Successful use of different process excellence tools such as Lean (different wastes), Kaizen (continuous improvement), and Six Sigma (reduce variation) started in the automobile industry in the 1950s with the Toyota Production System.  Some pharma manufacturers tried to introduce these concepts, but were met with difficulties due to complex production manufacturing processes, maintaining good quality products, and meeting regulatory guidelines.  Implementing and maintaining this operational excellence in pharma industries, and then shifting to the biopharma industry made the task even more challenging.  Today, you can see these concepts in the biopharma industry more, but still not fully.  In his presentation, Desai will share examples of operational excellence and show how it has been modified and applied to the biopharma industry.  He will also share some solutions to improve the production time and efficiency to get the right quality product with affordable cost to the user. 

Akihisa Makino, Japan Patent Office, "Best Strategies for Intellectual Property in the Field of Medical Science"

Intellectual property (IP), such as patents, are exclusive rights and essential to make businesses with technology successful.  All companies, including startups, are required to obtain patents and plan their IP strategy properly by the time their products launch.  In the field of medical science, there are various technical fields such as cellular therapy, vaccine, small molecule organic compounds, and regenerative medicine, each with different IP strategy.  In his research, Makino has studied patent application trends in each of these technical areas as well as differences in patent application categories between small and large companies in Japan and the United States.  Additionally, after investigating patents of successful companies, in this presentation, Makino will propose the best IP strategy in this field based on his research findings.

Keisuke Yamazaki, The Asahi Shimbun, "How to Encourage Internet Users to Utilize the Web with Political Balance"

Every day, we get our news in a variety of ways – browsing the web, through news feeds of social networking services and from news apps.  These systems each have their own algorithms that deliver articles to fit the user's preferences.  Though they are good tools for users to find articles, the diversity of the articles is often lost.  In his research, Yamazaki studied situations of internet bias such as a "filter bubble".  In this presentation, he shares measures he learned to avoid this bias and proposes new methods to distinguish between liberal and conservative news by using machine learning. 

Lizhong Chen

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Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2018-20
SanJohn Capital Limited
alex.jpeg MBA

Lizhong (Alex) Chen is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2018-19 and 2019-20.  Chen brings nearly 20 years of experience in the investment industry including brokerage firms, asset management, fund management and private equity funds.  Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, Chen was the founder of SanJohn Capital Limited in Hong Kong where he continues to manage a long-term portfolio of stocks traded on the Hong Kong, China and U.S. stock markets.  He received his MBA from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

SanJohn Capital

Umesh Desai

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Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2018-19
Reliance Life Sciences
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Umesh Desai is a global affiliate vising scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2018-19.  Desai has over 22 years experience in manufacturing of biopharmaceutical products and has been with Reliance Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd., India since 2007.  Currently, he is designated as Sr. Manager in the production team.  His current responsibilities include manufacturing activities (planning, execution, and manufacturing of biological products); communicating with support groups for the requirements as per the business demand within the organization; document submissions to the quality assurance group; preparation and business of BMR (Batch Manufacturing Record), BPR (Batch Packing Record) of biological products for the domestic and exports market as per the demand; and fulfilling the requirements.  Desai received his degree in chemistry from the D.G. Ruparel College of Arts, Commerce and Science, Mumbai University in 1992.  

Reliance Life Sciences

Akihisa Makino

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Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2018-19
Japan Patent Office
akihisa_makino.jpg MS

Akihisa Makino is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2018-19.  Makino has been working since 2008 for the Japan Patent Office, one of the external agencies of the Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI) of Japan, as a patent examiner, handling applications in the fields of polymer and medical science.  From 2016 to 2018, he was also in charge of the policy planning of supporting the intellectual property in universities and research institutions at the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED).  

Japan Patent Office

Keisuke Yamazaki

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Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2018-19
The Asahi Shimbun Company
keisuke_yamazaki.jpg MS

Keisuke Yamazaki is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2018-19.  Yamazaki has six years of experience as a computer engineer at The Asahi Shimbun, the national leading newspaper company in Japan.  Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, he has engaged in research and development about artificial intelligence and participated in projects related to topics such as "automatic article writer AI".  Additionally, he has four years of experience as a journalist.  Most recently Yamazaki was part of the Science and Medicine Department at The Asahi Shimbun reporting on the aerospace industry of Japan.

 

The Asahi Shimbun
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