For decades the ability to ascertain whether states are hiding germ weapons programs has been nonexistent because the 1975 bioweapons ban has no inspection measures. Yet, in 1995 a small United Nations inspection corps pulled off a spectacular verification feat in the face of concerted resistance from Iraq's Saddam Hussein and popular skepticism that it was even possible to conduct effective biological inspections. Working from sketchy intelligence, the inspectors busted open Iraq's cover stories and wrested a confession of biowarfare agent production from Baghdad. This compelling story is told through the firsthand accounts of the inspectors who, with a combination of intrepidness, ingenuity, and a couple of lucky breaks, took the lid off Iraq's bioweapons program.

About the speaker: Dr. Amy Smithson is a Senior Fellow at the Washington, D.C. Office of CNS. She chairs the Global Affairs Council on Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons for the World Economic Forum. Before joining CNS, Ms. Smithson worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Henry L. Stimson Center, where in January 1993 she founded the latter's Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project to serve as an information clearinghouse, watchdog, and problem-solver regarding chemical and biological weapons issues. Previously, she worked for Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation and the Center for Naval Analyses. Dr. Smithson received her Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University, an M.A. in international relations from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in political science and Russian from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Please note the different day and time for the seminar.

As the U.S. presidential election campaign moves into full bore, what role will foreign policy play in the national debate and the presidential election? Does foreign policy matter to voters or do international issues take a back seat to domestic concerns?  How does the election affect the conduct of foreign policy?

Here to shed light on the presidential election and U.S. foreign policy are three prominent commentators, with moderator Coit Blacker.

Michael H. Armacost is the Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow at FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, a position he has held since 2002. He is the former president of the Brookings Institution, former under secretary of state for political affairs and former U.S. ambassador to Japan and the Philippines. 

David Brady is deputy director and Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the Bowen and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science and Leadership Values in Stanford's Graduate School of Business, a professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is a specialist on U.S. national elections. 

David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus at Stanford and Faculty Co-Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. Most famously, Professor Kennedy won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book  Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (1999). 

Moderator: Coit D. Blacker is director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and the Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. During the first Clinton administration, Blacker served as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC). 

The physiological factors underlying links between health and socioeconomic position in the Russian population are important to investigate. This population continues to face political and economic challenges, has experienced poor general health and high mortality for decades, and has exhibited widening health disparities. Dr. Dana A. Glei and colleagues used data from a population-based survey of Moscow residents 55 and older to investigate whether physiological dysregulation mediates the link between socioeconomic status and health. She will discuss the the results of their study, which revealed large educational disparities in health outcomes and physiological dysregulation, especially in men.

Dana A. Glei is a senior research investigator at Georgetown University and has worked on the Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (Taiwan) since 2001. From 2002 to 2009, she also served as project coordinator for the Human Mortality Database, a collaborative project involving research teams at the University of California, Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Over the past 18 years, she has published articles on a variety of topics related to health, mortality, marriage and the family, and poverty. Her current research focuses on sex differences in health and mortality, the impact of stressors on subsequent health, and how bioindicators mediate the links between psychosocial factors and health outcomes. She has an MA from the University of Virginia and a PhD from Princeton University.

China’s “rise” has elicited envy, admiration, and fear among its neighbors and more distant countries. Much of what has been written about the modalities and impact of China’s increased activism on the world stage comes close to depicting what has happened (and what presumably will happen in the future) as determined almost entirely by goals, approaches, and instruments conceived in Beijing and implemented as designed by their Chinese authors. Such descriptions and explanations minimize or ignore the other side of the equation, namely, what individuals, corporate actors, and governments in other countries do to attract, shape, exploit, or deflect Chinese involvement. The "China and the World" project will redress the imbalance by examining the actions of China’s partners and ways in which initiatives and reactions from partners have shaped Chinese policy and the outcome of engagements with other countries.

The ultimate objective of this study is to understand and anticipate China’s behavior on the world stage. But China’s objectives, methods, and impacts vary from one region to another, and differences between regions are as interesting and as important as are practices and patterns common to all parts of the globe. Describing and explaining regional differences (as well as differences among countries in the same region) is therefore a useful, if not necessary, prerequisite for examining behavior and interactions at the global level.

North America, to be sure, is arguably the most important partner and shaper of China’s international behavior in the decades since Deng Xiaoping launched the policy of “reform and opening” that has transformed China. The reason for not focusing specifically on the United States in this study is that U.S.-China relations have been studied more extensively than any other Chinese relationship. However, the extent and nature of U.S. relations with countries in all regions make it imperative to consider U.S.-China relations in each region and their role, if any, in shaping China’s relationships with other countries.

The “China and the World” project will focus initially on Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia.  China has a long history and deeply varied relationship with these two regions. At the next stage, the project will examine China’s relationship with South Asia. Additional regions, such as Central Asia, may be added.

The project will begin with a one-and-a-half day workshop on March 19–20, 2012, convened in Beijing at the new Stanford Center at Peking University. It will focus on China’s relationships with Japan, Korea, and Russia in Northeast Asia. The participation of scholars from Southeast Asia and North America will help ensure that the core questions developed at the workshop are broadly applicable to other regions as well.