Carol Atkinson (speaker) retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Air Force in 2005. While in the military she served in a wide variety of management and operational positions in the fields of intelligence, targeting, and combat assessment. During the Cold War she flew on the Strategic Air Command's nuclear airborne command post as a target analyst. During Operation Desert Storm (1991) she worked on the intelligence staff in Riyadh, and, subsequently, on the contingency planning staff in Dhahran/Khobar, Saudi Arabia. While in the military, she taught at the Air Force Academy and the Air Force's Command and Staff College.

Atkinson holds a PhD in international relations from Duke University, an MA in geography from Indiana University, and a BS from the United States Air Force Academy (5th class with women). She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. Atkinson's primary research focuses on U.S. military-to-military contacts as channels of international norm diffusion. She is also working on a project examining the influence of educational exchange programs on democratization and a project on the social construction of the biological warfare threat in the United States.

Jessica Weeks (respondent) is a doctoral candidate in the Stanford Department of Political Science. Her research interests include foreign policy decision-making in non-democratic regimes, the settlement of military crises, and the effects of foreign military interventions on target states. She will be a pre-doctoral fellow at CISAC during 2007-2008. Jessica received her BA in political science from The Ohio State University, and an MA in international history and politics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Charles Perrow (speaker) is an emeritus professor of sociology at Yale University and a visiting scholar at CISAC. An organizational theorist, his latest research is presented in The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters (Princeton, spring 2007). Among his award-winning research is Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of American Capitalism (Princeton, 2002), winner of the Max Weber award for best book on organizations from the American Sociological Association in 2003. His recent articles include "Organizational or Executive Failures?" and "Inside the Nuclear Plant's Executive Office," both published in Contemporary Sociology. Perrow currently serves on a National Academy of Science panel on the possibilities of certifying software. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, all in sociology.

Peter G. Neumann (respondent) has been in SRI's Computer Science Lab since September 1971. He is concerned with computer systems and networks, trustworthiness/dependability, high assurance, security, reliability, survivability, safety, and many risks-related issues such as voting-system integrity, crypto policy, social implications, and human needs including privacy. He moderates the Association for Computing Machinery's Risks Forum, edits Communications of the ACM's monthly Inside Risks column, chairs the ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, and chairs the National Committee for Voting Integrity. He is a Fellow of the ACM, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is also an SRI Fellow. He received the National Computer System Security Award in 2002 and the ACM SIGSAC (Special Interest Group on Security, Audit, and Control) Outstanding Contributions Award in 2005. He is a member of the U.S. Government Accountability Office Executive Council on Information Management and Technology, and the California Office of Privacy Protection advisory council. He has doctorates from Harvard and Darmstadt.

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. 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.

The success of the 6-party negotiations has changed the dynamic of the situation in the Korean peninsula. How do we assess the status of the talks? What are the prospects for U.S.-DPRK relations? And what is the trend in inter-Korean relations?

The ROK-US alliance is undergoing rapid change, symbolized by the decision to change the combined command structure in 2012 and the redeployment of U.S. troops. Both countries are heading toward important president elections and coping with strategic challenges in the world. How should we think about the role of the alliance as we look toward the future?

What are the long-term trends in Northeast Asia? How will the rise of China as an economic power and the economic recovery of Japan impact the region? What is the role of Korea in the strategic architecture of Northeast Asia? How does the region fit into U.S. strategic priorities?

In this second forum, current developments in North Korea, the future of the alliance, and strategic vision for Northeast Asia will be discussed.