Media: please reach out to cisacevents@stanford.edu

About the Event 

Estimates of fatalities in a nuclear war range from none to Earth’s population. We can confidently state if there is never a nuclear explosion, there will be no fatalities. But what is the most probable loss? Fatalities from explosions in populated areas could be in the hundreds of millions, exceeding those from fallout radiation by a factor of ten. However, fatalities from environmental changes and the breakdown of society, which together may collapse global agriculture, could exceed those from blast by another factor of ten, approaching the population of the planet. Fatalities from blast, burns and prompt radiation are relatively easy to compute, but those from environmental changes are difficult to predict. We know that physically similar, but more extreme, environmental insults occurred 66 million years ago due to an asteroid impact and caused the extinction of about 75% of the known species. Toon will go through the chain of complex issues that need to be addressed to compute the environmental changes, their uncertainties and their impacts on humans: likely targets; fuel loads; fire ignition; smoke production, composition, lofting and rainout; climate response to stratospheric smoke; and agricultural responses to climate changes. A recent U.S. National Academy of Science panel recommended that multiple agencies fund research to reduce the uncertainties. For example, new satellite based global measurements of building types and volumes can provide improved fuel loads. Measurements of smoke from burning buildings, now non-existent, could determine smoke composition. New aircraft data on smoke from wildfires could inform lofting. However, no federal agency has developed a research program, just as they have avoided doing for the past 40 years. Thousands of scientific papers have been written about the extinction of the dinosaurs, but tens about our possible fate from a nuclear conflict. NASA is searching for asteroids that might hit us and planning how to stop them. But nuclear stockpiles are increasing, more countries seek nuclear weapons, and new and more terrifying weapons are being built.

About the Speaker

Brian Toon studies radiative transfer, aerosol and cloud physics, and parallels between Earth and planets. He led NASA airborne missions studying volcanic clouds, ozone holes, and cloud-climate impacts. Toon published about 400 refereed scientific papers, and co-authored Earth in Flames. He received the American Physical Society's Leo Szilard Award for work on nuclear winter and was recognized by the UN Environmental Program for contributions to the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC reports. Additionally, he won the American Geophysical Union’s Roger Revelle Medal, the American Meteorological Society’s Carl-Gustaf Rossby Medal, and the 2022 Future of Life Award for reducing the risk of nuclear war.

Please join us for refreshments in the Oksenberg Conference Center following the conclusion of the lecture from 5:00 - 6:00 PM.  All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Mikhail Fishman is one of Russia’s leading political journalists. Active since the late 1990s, he has chronicled Russia’s dramatic political life. He served as editor-in-chief of Russian Newsweek and The Moscow Times, as well as hosting the Friday night news round-up at independent news network TV Rain. In 2017, Fishman and Vera Krichevskaya released The Man Who Was Too Free, a documentary feature on Boris Nemtsov. It was the highest-grossing documentary in Russia in at least a decade and laid the groundwork for this book, which was an instant bestseller on Russian publication in 2022. Fishman faced increasing intimidation and suppression from the state; when Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he left for Amsterdam, where he now lives in exile with his family.

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Economic competition between the United States and China has been a defining issue of the twenty-first century. But after years of rapid growth, China's economy has faltered. How did its long-term economic outlook change so quickly? And can Beijing change course and preserve China's political ambition for global economic primacy?

Join Logan Wright, author of Broken China: How the Economic Miracle Shattered and What it Means for the World, for a book talk exploring these questions and more co-hosted by the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions and the Hoover History Lab. More details to come as the event date nears.

About the Speaker
 

Logan Wright is a Partner at Rhodium Group and leads the firm’s China Markets Research work.  He is also a Senior Associate of the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Previously, Logan was head of China research for Medley Global Advisors and a China analyst with Stone & McCarthy Research Associates, both in Beijing.

Logan’s research focuses on China’s financial system and credit conditions in shaping outcomes within China’s economy, as well as the policies of China’s central bank. He is the author of the forthcoming book Broken China: How the Economic Miracle Shattered and What it Means for the World, as well as three reports on China’s financial system and the country’s longer-term economic trajectory: Credit and Credibility (2018), The China Economic Risk Matrix (2020), and Grasping Shadows (2023).

Logan holds a Ph.D. from the George Washington University, where his dissertation concerned the political factors shaping the reform of China’s exchange rate regime. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Security Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is based in Washington, DC, after living and working in Beijing and Hong Kong for over two decades.

Questions? Contact SCCEI at sccei-info@stanford.edu
 

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science. Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His newest book, In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir, will be published in fall 2026.

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

About the event: Since the mid-2010s, scholars and analysts have declared the emergence of a dangerous ‘new’ or ‘third’ nuclear age. Beyond academia, the concept of the new nuclear age is proving influential with policymakers in a range of countries. The new nuclear age is understood to be characterized by technological change, nuclear multipolarity, eroding constraints on the behavior and competition of nuclear-armed states, and the likely emergence of new nuclear powers. That said, it remains unclear how we should understand the new nuclear age in broader terms: how new is it and does it require new theoretical frameworks to understand? Bell subjects the concept of the new nuclear age to scrutiny. He connects the discussion of the new nuclear age to ongoing but mostly separate debates about nuclear history and the ‘Theory of the Nuclear Revolution’ (TNR). The increasing body of literature challenging TNR reveals a more competitive, complex, and dangerous nuclear past than our prior understandings, but in doing so, it draws attention to continuities between the past and the emerging nuclear age. Bell then examines the empirical features thought to define the new nuclear age and show that many have historical precedent and do not require novel theoretical frameworks to understand. The new nuclear age may, therefore, be somewhat less new, though perhaps no less dangerous, than it appears.

About the speaker: Mark Bell is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His book, Nuclear Reactions: How Nuclear-Armed States Behave, won the ISA Foreign Policy Analysis Section's best book award. Other work has been published in International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Strategic Studies, and Texas National Security Review. Policy-oriented work has been published in Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, and The Washington Quarterly. He holds a Ph.D from MIT, a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.A. from St Anne’s College, Oxford University.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

Join Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies for the S.T. Lee Lecture featuring Jeff Flake. Jeff Flake served as a United States senator from Arizona from 2013 to 2019. A Republican, Flake previously served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013. From 2022 to 2024 he served as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. 

The fireside chat discussion, moderated by Kathryn Stoner, the Mosbacher Director at FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, will focus on the current U.S. political climate, opportunities for bi-partisanship, the state of democracy worldwide, and the U.S. global leadership role.

The discussion will be followed by audience Q&A. 

This event is open to the public.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Ambassador Jeff Flake recently served as the United States Ambassador to The Republic of Türkiye. Prior to his ambassadorial service, Ambassador Flake represented Arizona in the United States Senate from 2013 to 2019. He also represented Arizona in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.

Before entering Congress, Ambassador Flake served as Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, and he directed the Foundation for Democracy in Namibia during that nation’s transition to independence. Ambassador Flake holds a BA degree in International Relations and an MA degree in Political Science from Brigham Young University.

Ambassador Flake has guest lectured at Stanford, Princeton and Yale, and he was a Resident Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Ambassador Flake delivered the 2018 commencement address at Harvard Law School, and is a frequent guest on the Sunday morning political talk shows.

Ambassador Flake currently serves as the Director of the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Arizona State University, and as Chairman of the Board of World Trade Center Utah. He also serves as a Visiting Fellow at Brigham Young University.

In January of 2025, Ambassador Flake was knighted by the Swedish Government, receiving the “Royal Order of the Polar Star” for his pivotal role in securing Sweden’s accession to NATO while serving as Ambassador to Türkiye.

He is the author of the New York Times best seller Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle. 

Ambassador Flake and his wife, Cheryl, are the parents of five grown children.

The S.T. Lee Lectureship is named for Seng Tee Lee, a business executive and noted philanthropist. Dr. Lee was director of the Lee group of companies in Singapore and of the Lee Foundation.

Dr. Lee endowed the annual lectureship at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in order to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation.

The S.T. Lee Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader in international political, economic, social, and health issues and strategic policy-making concerns. See previous lectures in the series.

Join us for a lecture presenting an experimental model that moves beyond Cold War-era area studies approaches by reconceptualizing Japan as a transnational nexus within Three Worlds theory to critically reexamine Japanese cultural production from 1945-2000.

The Annual John Wang Distinguished Lecture in Asian Studies Series, sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, was established in 2024 for the purposes of raising the profile of Asian studies on Stanford campus and promoting scholarly exchange and intellectual engagement among EALC faculty and students, the Stanford Asian studies community, and the global community of scholars, educators, and practitioners active in the broad intellectual field of Asian studies.

The annual John Wang Distinguished Speaker is chosen collectively by EALC faculty and students.

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Join the Global Affiliates Program at Shorenstein APARC as our 2025-26 cohort of Global Affiliates visiting scholars presents findings from their research. This capstone event marks the culmination of their year-long research projects addressing Asia-Pacific issues related to their work.

In the second of two sessions, each of the five speakers will present their research for approximately 15 minutes, followed by a brief 5-10 minute Q&A session with the audience. 

AGENDA:

The Emergence and Persistence of Exploration in a Defense Organization – A Three-Layer Cyclical Model and Hybrid Leadership

Shinya Takasaka, Japan Air Self Defense Force

As the global security landscape rapidly evolves, emerging technologies–from artificial intelligence and unmanned systems to space and cyber–are reshaping how defense organizations innovate and operate. In this environment, success depends not only on refining existing capabilities, but also on continuously exploring new ones. 

However, defense organizations are structurally oriented toward ensuring mission reliability, minimizing risk, and maintaining institutional stability. As a result, they tend to prioritize the refinement of existing capabilities over the exploration of new ones. Consequently, achieving both exploitation and exploration simultaneously is not straightforward. How, then, can these two be effectively balanced? 

In this talk, Takasaka draws on the ambidexterity theory and real-world case studies, including Silicon Valley’s innovation ecosystem and U.S. defense initiatives such as the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), to examine how exploration can be cultivated and sustained. The discussion will also highlight the critical role of leadership in enabling long-term innovation within defense organizations. 

Electricity Market Design under an Evolving Market Environment

Noriaki Wada, Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan

Electricity markets are undergoing profound changes driven by decarbonization, demand growth, and the need for large-scale reinvestment in aging infrastructure. These shifts have intensified the challenge of maintaining investment incentives while ensuring system reliability. Traditional market designs–such as energy-only markets and capacity markets–address these issues in different ways, yet each exhibits inherent limitations under evolving conditions. 

Wada’s research examines how electricity market design influences investment incentives and system reliability by comparing major market models in the United States. It highlights how structural characteristics of power systems, including price formation constraints and non-storability, create persistent challenges that cannot be fully resolved by a single market mechanism. 

Wada argues that electricity market design should be understood not as a static choice among models, but as a dynamic process of combining multiple institutional tools. Based on this analysis, it draws implications for designing more adaptable and resilient electricity market frameworks. 

Institutional Environments, Technology Governance, and Organizational Adaptation: VMWare in China's Politically Sensitive Digital Economy

Ping (Jane) Jiang, NextG Tech Limited

As geopolitical tensions and regulatory divergence reshape the global technology landscape, multinational firms are increasingly forced to navigate complex and often conflicting institutional environments. Nowhere is this more evident than in sectors like cloud computing and AI, where issues of data sovereignty, national security, and technological control are deeply intertwined with policy and politics.

Jiang’s presentation examines how these pressures influence organizational strategy, focusing on VMware’s operation in China as a case study. Drawing on institutional theory, Jiang explores how regulatory demands, industry expectations, and strategic uncertainty drive key decisions–from local partnerships and governance restructuring to market exit.

By tracing these dynamics, the discussion highlights the growing challenge for global technology firms: balancing integrated business models with fragmented, sovereignty-driven regulatory systems. The findings offer broader insights into how institutional environments are shaping the future of technology governance and global market competition. 

Transformative Education for the Age of AI: Redefining Human Roles and Learning Structures

Takuya Tsunoda, Development Bank of Japan

As artificial intelligence continues to expand the boundaries of what technology can solve, the role of humans is also evolving. Rather than focusing on finding answers, the ability to define meaningful problems and effectively leverage technology is becoming an essential skill in the AI era. 

In this presentation, Tsunoda explores how education must adapt to meet this shift. He examines emerging approaches that prioritize human judgment, creativity, and critical thinking, with particular attention to frameworks such as design thinking and systems thinking. 

By rethinking how we learn, the discussion will consider what it takes to prepare individuals to work alongside increasingly capable technologies–and how education can better equip people to navigate, shape and lead in an AI-driven world. 

Redefining Job Satisfaction Factors for Generation Z and Organizational Talent Retention

Myongjin Bae, Republic of Korea Army

As Generation Z enters the workforce in growing numbers, their expectations around work are reshaping traditional ideas of job satisfaction. Compared to previous generations, they place great emphasis on personal growth, work-life balance, and a sense of purpose, fairness, and alignment within organizations. 

Yet many existing frameworks for measuring job satisfaction have not kept pace with these shifts. This gap can contribute to misunderstandings between generations, ultimately affecting employee engagement, workplace cohesion, and retention. 

In this presentation, Bae examines how job satisfaction can be redefined to better reflect Generation Z’s values. By analyzing generational differences and identifying key sources of workplace tension, the discussion will also explore practical strategies organizations can adopt to foster stronger collaboration and support long-term talent retention.