Afghanistan: The Road Ahead
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About the topic: This talk will provide a current affairs assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. It will present the trajectory of the counterinsurgency campaign highlighting the security and governance challenges--including the building up of the Afghan National Security Forces, the economic sustainability of the state and private sector, as well as issues pertaining to minority and women's rights. The talk will also offer a range of likely endgames in light of the 2014 withdrawal.
About the Speaker: Fotini Christia joined the MIT faculty in the fall of 2008. She received her PhD in Public Policy at Harvard University, and has been a recipient of research fellowships from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs among others. Her research interests deal with issues of ethnicity, conflict and cooperation in the Muslim world. Fotini has written opinion pieces on her experiences from Afghanistan, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza and Uzbekistan for Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. She graduated magna cum laude with a joint BA in Economics-Operations Research from Columbia College and a Masters in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
CISAC Conference Room
Fotini Christia
Assistant Professor of Political Science, MIT
Speaker
Seminars
In the Name of Freedom: Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Former President of Latvia
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Professor Ausma Cimdina is a prominent Latvian literary scholar and critic specializing in Latvian, Baltic, and East European literary relationships as well as Feminist Studies and Theory of Literature. Her talk will focus on Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the former president of Latvia and scholar of psychology and Latvian folklore. Professor Cimdina's talk will discuss Vike-Freiberga's political biography, her role in international relations, and her contributions to Baltic Studies.
Sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, the Europe Center, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center
Encina Hall West, Room 208
Ausma Cimdina
Professor
Speaker
University of Latvia, Riga
Seminars
Nuclear Reactor Technology Transfers: A Review of Experiences in the Republic of Korea and China
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There are currently 60 nuclear reactors under construction worldwide with nearly half of these projects being built in China. There is no doubt that East Asia is emerging as a leader in the international nuclear community where China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) are playing major roles as a result of their aggressive new plant build programs. Both China and South Korea present very interesting case studies where the former is rapidly building up domestic expertise in nuclear construction while the latter has gone one step further in capitalizing successfully on a nuclear export business. Both countries have relied heavily on external commercial support in building up this expertise. In the case of South Korea, the “Koreanization” of nuclear power took place in the 1980’s and 1990’s, first with a large number of Western builds and ultimately a complete indigenization of pressurized water reactor technology through a technology transfer with Combustion Engineering. The Chinese domestic nuclear program has been largely influenced by Western vendors as well; however, there has been significantly less emphasis on exporting the technology up to now as they master the imported technologies for their domestic program. The recent AP1000 technology transfer between Westinghouse Electric Company and China has opened up unique transnational learning opportunities between the United States and China where the lessons learned building the first AP1000 plants in China will be shared with the two U.S. utilities now embarking on new plant construction at the Vogtle and V.C. Summer sites, in Georgia and South Carolina, respectively. This talk will review both the historical experiences of exporting nuclear technology to the ROK and China, as well as the progress being made by these countries in absorbing the technology. Further, the AP1000 passive plant technology will be summarized as an example of the general trend for future designs in response to the reactor accidents at Fukushima Dai-ichi in March 2011. Finally, the advanced construction techniques being used to build AP1000 plants in both the U.S. and China will be highlighted along with their benefits in delivering new plants on schedule.
About the speaker: Dr Matzie is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Westinghouse Electric Company and was responsible for all Westinghouse research and development undertakings and advanced nuclear plant development. He is also on the Board of PBMR Pty Ltd. and Chairman of the Board Technical Committee. In that role, he assures proper oversight of the design, safety, licensing, research and development, and quality aspects of the PBMR enterprise.
Previously, Dr Matzie was responsible for the development, licensing, detailed engineering, project management, and component manufacturing of new Westinghouse light water reactors and was also the Executive in charge of Westinghouse replacement steam generator projects and dry spent-fuel-canister fabrication projects. He became a Senior Vice President in 2000, when Westinghouse purchased the nuclear businesses of ABB. His career has been devoted primarily to the development of advanced nuclear systems and advanced fuel cycles, and he is the author of more than 120 technical papers and reports on these subjects.
CISAC Conference Room
Regis Matzie
Chief Technology Officer (Former)
Speaker
Westinghouse Electric Corporation
Seminars
Accomplishments of the Soviet Biological Warfare Program, 1928-1991, and Its Legacy
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The book The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History by Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas is scheduled to be published on May 14, 2012 by Harvard University Press. This book describes and analyzes in detail the Soviet biological warfare (BW) program, from its inception in 1928 to likely termination in 1992. The two most vexing questions that the authors attempt to answer are; in the final analysis, what were the Soviet BW program’s accomplishments? Second, might Soviet accomplishments related to enhancing biological weaponry be made available to future national or terrorist BW programs? This presentation will explain why these questions are difficult to answer but nevertheless will propose answers to them. The authors have a basis for doing so because they have been able to collect and analyze information from primary resources in archives and special collections, as well as in the course of hundreds of hours spent on interviewing scientists who operated the Soviet BW program. During his presentation, Zilinskas will discuss tentative findings that encompass subjects such as whether the application of genetic engineering, which resulted in among other accomplishments the development of multiantibiotic resistant Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, and Yersinia pestis, actually resulted in improved weaponry and whether genetically engineered strains remain in Russian cell culture collections and from there might escape or be made available to those who seek to acquire biological weapons.
About the speaker: Raymond A. Zilinskas, formerly a clinical microbiologist, is the director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is the editor of Biological Warfare: Modern Offense and Defense (Lynne Rienner, 1999) and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense (Wiley, 2005). He received a PhD from the University of Southern California and a BA in Biology from the University of Stockholm.
CISAC Conference Room
Raymond Zilinskas
Director, Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program
Speaker
Monterey Institute for International Studies
Seminars
The Upcoming April Launch of the North Korean Kwangmyongsong-3 Satellite Using the Controversial Unha-3 Rocket
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The U.S.-North Korean “Leap Day” deal of February 29 was thrown into question by the North’s recent announcement of a satellite launch between April 12 and 16 to celebrate the centenary of Kim il Sung’s birth. As the opening of the launch window nears, an intense international brouunfolds with, amazingly, the US, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea on the same page, dead set against a launch; and an isolated North Korea defiantly planning to celebrate the centenary with a satellite launch on or by April 15. In this presentation, the three speakers will provide a brief background of the successes and failures of North Korea’s previous satellite launches (score: 0 for 3 by Western count, 2 for 2 by DPRK count) and what has been learned from these; an expected timeline of activities of the countdown; and a guide and comparison of the new Sohae Western launch complex to the older Tonghae Eastern launch complex.
About the speakers:
Lewis Franklin is a long-time CISAC Affiliate, joining CISAC in 1992 as a Visiting Scholar after retiring as a TRW vice president, and previously vice president and co-founder of ESL, a defense intelligence company. Upon retirement he was awarded the CIA's Gold Medal for career-long contributions to foreign weapons assessment and national technical means capabilities. At CISAC his work focused on technical intelligence related problems, including wmd proliferation, export controls, defense conversion, and especially conversion of retired ICBMs for low-cost space launches.
Nick Hansen is a CISAC Affiliate. He graduated with a BA in Geography from Syracuse University in 1964. His career in national intelligence spans 43 years first as an Army imagery analyst, and then in industry with GTE-EDL, ESL/TRW, Tera Research as a cofounder Vice Pres. and then again at ESL (now TRW/Northrop-Grumman) as a Director. He has also served in an SES position at the Navy's NIOC-Suitland, MD, as an image technology expert associated with Pennsylvania State University. He has been twice nominated for the NRO's Pioneer award for innovative imagery uses and techniques development and is an expert in foreign weapons systems and test ranges.
Allison Puccioni is an expert in remotely-sensed imagery and geospatial intelligence at IHS Janes. She was honored for her innovative intelligence in response to Sept. 11, and has been recognized by the Department of Defense and international armed forces for her outstanding strategic and tactical analysis.
CISAC Conference Room
Lewis Franklin
CISAC Affiliate
Speaker
Nick Hansen
CISAC Affiliate
Speaker
Allison Puccioni
IHS Janes Imagery Analyst
Speaker
Seminars
What's next after third North Korea rocket launch?
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Q&As
Date
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After stirring international media attention and drawing criticism from its neighbors and the United States, North Korea’s controversial launch of a rocket under the guise of installing an “Earth observation” satellite in orbit took place on Apr. 13.
David Straub, associate director of Stanford’s Korean Studies Program, assesses the likely responses of the United States and other concerned countries, and provides historical context for the actions of North Korea’s leadership.
How is the launch going to impact North Korea’s relations with the United States and other countries?
We have already “been there, done that.” This will be the third North Korean test of a long-range rocket in six years. Shortly after the launches in 2006 and 2009, the North Koreans tested their first nuclear devices. The concern is that they will again use the expected international condemnation of their launch as a pretext for conducting another nuclear test.
But sometimes experience changes perspective. The United States and other countries will want to try to respond to the rocket test in a way that complicates any North Korean effort to justify a new nuclear test.
The international community really cannot remain silent, because United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1874, which was passed in 2009, forbids North Korea from conducting precisely this kind of launch. I anticipate the UNSC will meet to discuss the situation but will not be able to issue a formal resolution. It will probably wind up issuing only a UNSC presidential statement criticizing the launch. China is the main obstacle. It does not approve of North Korea’s activities, but it is more concerned that putting great pressure on North Korea will result in instability.
The United States, South Korea, and Japan will continue to consult and coordinate closely with one another. They may take additional measures to collect intelligence about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. They may also look to bolster their cooperation on missile defense, and take further steps to restrict North Korea’s access to nuclear- and missile-related materials and technology. They may apply additional economic sanctions to show their disapproval of North Korea’s actions.
Do you think the launch is going make it more difficult for North Korea to conduct trade and obtain aid and development assistance?
North Korea’s behavior now is part and parcel of its behavior over the past several decades. For the North Korean regime, the wellbeing of its people is clearly a secondary priority compared to its own survival.
At least since the end of the cold war, North Korea has faced a dilemma: Open up or fail, or open up and fail. In other words, it needs to open up to receive outside investment and technology if it is ever to have a successful economy. If it does not do that, the regime is unsustainable over the long run. But North Korea’s leaders fear that opening to the outside world would bring down their regime because it will expose the country’s weaknesses to its people. In order to get out of this dilemma, they have reached for weapons of mass destruction—particularly nuclear devices and the missiles they hope eventually can carry them. That is why there is no indication the North Korean leadership is prepared to completely give up those programs, at least on any terms that the United States, Japan, or South Korea could accept.
This is a long-term challenge for the United States and its allies. We have to see the situation for what it is, and deal with it accordingly. That means we must never “accept” North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. As long as North Korea maintains these programs, we must make it clear that we will not establish diplomatic relations or ease sanctions. But that also does not mean that we should not continue to hold out to North Korea the possibility of a negotiated settlement, should it really be prepared to completely give up these programs.
What are some of the key things to keep in mind about North Korea’s recent actions and about the country in general?
To understand what North Korea is doing, we have to get back to basics. The fundamental situation stems from the 1945 division of the Korean Peninsula into two separate states. North Korea’s Stalinist-style system developed into a totalitarian dictatorship with a personality cult, and it has been spectacularly unsuccessful, especially compared to its rival state South Korea.
The leaders in North Korea are reasonably well-informed and intelligent people. They saw what happened to the Soviet Union and its satellite states in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and decided it would not happen to them. For them, the lesson was: Do not open up or even receive aid, unless it is completely controlled to minimize outside influences. Most of the North Korean elite believes their regime is the legitimate Korean regime. They also understand that regime collapse could well mean absorption of the North by the South, and the possibility that they could go on trial for crimes against their own people. I anticipate that most of the elite will try very hard to hold the regime together in the coming years, even if it means continuing to pursue nuclear and missile programs and threatening and even attacking South Korea again.
But sooner or later major change is inevitable in such a rigid system. This requires the concerned countries to have a clear-headed analysis of the situation, take a long-term perspective, and consistently implement a principled policy. It is very challenging to do this with so many countries involved. But it can be done. Over the long term, the strengths of democracies far outweigh their weaknesses in dealing with countries like North Korea.
Hero Image
Kim Il Sung leads a cheering crowd in a North Korea propaganda painting, Aug. 2011.
Flickr/Joseph Ferris III
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A Tale of Three H-Bombs: The Thermonuclear Turning-Point of the 1950s
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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
David Holloway
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E214
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
0
David.Holloway@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
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.
Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.
Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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Theodore Postol
Professor of Science, Technology and International Security, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Commentator
Seminars
Getting to Know You: Political Surveillance in the Soviet Union, 1939-1991
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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Amir Weiner
Building 200, Room 336
Stanford, CA 94305-2024
0
weiner@stanford.edu
Associate Professor of History
Amir Weiner's research concerns Soviet history with an emphasis on the interaction between totalitarian politics, ideology, nationality, and society. He is the author of Making Sense of War, Landscaping the Human Garden and numerous articles and edited volumes on the impact of World War II on the Soviet polity, the social history of WWII and Soviet frontier politics. His forthcoming book, The KGB: Ruthless Sword, Imperfect Shield, will be published by Yale University Press in 2021. He is currently working on a collective autobiography of KGB officers titled Coffee with the KGB: Conversations with Soviet Security Officers. Professor Weiner has taught courses on modern Russian history; the Second World War; Totalitarianism; War and Society in Modern Europe; Modern Ukrainian History; and History and Memory.
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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amir_weiner_cv.pdf
David Holloway
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E214
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
0
David.Holloway@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
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.
Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.
Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
CV
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dh_cv_2020.pdf
(156.61 KB)
Hide publication sections
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Seminars