Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

Stanford scholars assess North Korea's nuclear test

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North Korea claimed it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb on Jan. 6, according to a broadcast from the nation’s Korean Central Television. Experts at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies offered their analyses to media.

Scholars from the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center (APARC) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) contributed to a Stanford news release. Although the scholars said they are skeptical of North Korea’s claim, they also said the test would have a destabilizing effect on the region.

In a Q&A, Siegfried Hecker answered nine questions, offering perspective on the situation and how the United States should respond. Hecker, a CISAC senior fellow, is a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and has visited North Korea seven times since 2004.

David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, commented on the North Korean nuclear program in an NK News article. He said the timing of the nuclear test, now the nation’s fourth, was likely only marginally influenced by external factors such as Kim Jong-un’s birthday. The primary factor is technical, he said. Straub also spoke with Yonhap News on Feb. 12. In the interview, Straub said "although the United States and the People's Republic of China certainly have differences [in dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue], they pale in comparison to U.S.-Soviet differences." 

Straub also offered, in an extended interview with South Korea's Segye Ilbo newspaper, his thoughts on Pyongyang's motivations for pursuing nuclear weapons. He argued that the appropriate policy response is to continue to increase pressure on the regime. Pressure applied by Washington is meant to convince Pyongyang that nuclear weapons will bring more cost than benefit, while holding open the door to good-faith negotiations to resolve peninsular issues.

Shorenstein APARC Associate Director for Research Daniel Sneider talked with Al Jazeera America and Slate about the developments. He said the nuclear test signified North Korea’s uneasiness and was largely an accommodation of domestic politics.

In early February, South Korea announced temporary closure of Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), a jointly held project with North Korea. In Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Straub argued that South Korea's closure of KIC was a necessary response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test and latest satellite rocket launch. Two articles were published in Korean; the first is available here and the second here.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides field guidance at the newly built National Space Development General Satellite Control and Command Centre in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang, May 3, 2015.
Reuters/KCNA
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Remembering Henry Rowen: Public Servant, Scholar, Leader and Innovator

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Henry S. Rowen, a Stanford economist and professor emeritus of public policy and management, died in Palo Alto on Nov. 12, 2015. He was 90. Rowen, known affectionately as “Harry” to colleagues and friends, led a long, notable career in academia and public service. Having served in three U.S. administrations, he shaped the construction of American policy on a range of issues from entrepreneurship to intelligence. He was the Edward B. Rust Professor of Public Policy and Management, emeritus, at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a senior fellow, emeritus, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a director emeritus of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC).

Over the course of his career, Rowen twice held positions at the RAND Corporation, first as an economist, and later as its president for five years from 1967 to 1972.

In Washington, he held several prominent positions in the Kennedy, Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. From 1981 to 1983, he was the chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), and the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs from 1989 to 1991.

Rowen’s interdisciplinary experiences yielded a deep knowledge of the social and political factors in nations struggling with a sustainable peace, weighing nuclear proliferation issues, and considering new forms of governance.

 

Please join us for a special celebration of Professor Rowen’s life with remarks and memories shared by a distinguished group of Harry’s professional colleagues and personal friends, including:

William Perry, 19th U.S. Secretary of Defense, Director of the Preventive Defense Project,CISAC, Stanford University

Francis Fukuyama, Director, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Senior Fellow FSI, Stanford University

Thomas Fingar, Shorenstein APARC Distinguished Fellow, Stanford University

Alain Enthoven, Professor of Public and Private Management, Emeritus, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

William Miller, Professor of Public and Private Management, Emeritus, Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus, School of Engineering, Senior Fellow Emeritus, FSI, Stanford University

Kenneth Arrow, Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus

Michael Armacost, (moderator) Shorenstein APARC Distinguished Fellow, Stanford University

A reception will follow in the Encina Hall Lobby

Conferences

"The Unmaking of a Continent: Europe on Edge" A Talk by Roger Cohen

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NOTE: Event registration is full. Some seats may be available in case of no shows; please arrive early.

 

For the first time since it started moving toward "ever closer union" more than a half-century ago, Europe finds itself closer to unraveling than to greater integration. The euro, conceived to cement unity and hitch Germany forever to its European partners, has sown disunity by placing economies and cultures as diverse as the Greek and the German within the same currency. Britain is to hold a referendum this year or next on leaving the European Union. Its outcome is uncertain. At Europe's eastern borders, President Putin is doing what he can to undermine the European idea and create havoc in the no-man's lands between the Union and Russia. Ukraine has paid a preposterous price in blood and treasure for seeking a trade accord with Brussels, a perceived offense to Moscow. Refugees from a war the West has fanned through indecision, and from other conflict zones, converge on the continent; Germany alone took in 1.1 million in 2015. Parisians die in a hale of bullets. Brussels shuts down. Everywhere, instability and anxiety favor nationalist movements.

The miracle of a Europe whole and free is increasingly taken for granted. As miracles go, it's just so 20th-century. America, to a significant degree, has disengaged -- Europe is an old story by now. Is the greatest peace-generating mechanism of recent decades on the verge of coming apart?

 

Roger Cohen has worked for The New York Times for 25 years as a foreign correspondent, foreign editor, and now columnist. Prior to that he worked for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. He is the author of four books. The latest, a family memoir entitled The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family, was published to wide acclaim by Alfred A. Knopf in January, 2015. He has taught at Harvard and Princeton and his work has been recognized with several awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from Britain’s Next Century Foundation and a prize from the Overseas Press Club of New York. Raised in South Africa and England, a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, he is a naturalized American.

Roger Cohen Columnist Speaker The International New York Times
Seminars
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series

The January Taiwan Elections and the Implications for Cross-Strait Relations

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Abstract

Taiwan’s domestic politics, particularly presidential elections, has been the main driver of the island’s relations with China for two decades. The 2016 elections, in which the Democratic Progressive Party, led by Dr. Tsai Ing-wen, won both the presidency and majority control of the Legislative elections, promises to be no exception. Although PRC intentions under President Xi Jinping are far from certain, some change from the state of play under the current Ma Ying-jeou administration seems fairly certain, with implications for U.S. policy.

 

Bio

Richard Bush is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Director of its Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies. He came to Brookings in July 2002 after nineteen years working in the US government, including five years as the Chairman and Managing Director of the American Institute in Taiwan. He is the author of a number of articles on U.S. relations with China and Taiwan, and of At Cross Purposes, a book of essays on the history of America’s relations with Taiwan, published in March 2004 by M. E. Sharpe. In the spring of 2005, Brookings published his study on cross-Strait relations, entitled Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the Taiwan Strait. In 2013, Brookings published his Uncharted Strait: The Future of China-Taiwan Relations.

 

This talk is co-sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

richard bush taiwan talk flyer

 

Richard C. Bush Senior Fellow and Director, Center for East Asian Policy Studies Brookings Institution
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The Russian Intervention in Syria and its Implication on the Syrian Crisis

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Abstract

After five years of political support for the regime of Bashar Al-Asad in its war against the opposition, Russia intervened militarily on his behalf in September 2015 and suddenly later this year Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Syria. While Moscow claims that its intervention was aimed at destroying ISIS and other terrorists groups, but the vast majority of its air strikes seem to target the moderate armed opposition, which has fought ISIS on the ground. This presentation assesses the outcome of Russia’s intervention, arguing that it neither achieved its goal of destroying ISIS nor did it tip the balance favor of Asad. Instead, the intervention had resulted in the killing of Syrian civilians, complicated the conflict in Syria, and constrained the prospects for a political solution by empowering Asad on the ground.

Speaker Bio

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Radwan Ziadeh is a senior analyst at the Arab Center in Washington D.C. He is the founder and director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies in Syria and co-founder and executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C. He is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, and Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) in Washington D.C. Ziadeh was the managing editor of the Transitional Justice Project in the Arab World, and the Head of the Syrian Commission for Transitional Justice, which was established on November 14, 2013 by the Syrian Interim Government. He was also involved in the Syrian political opposition. He was elected in October 2011 as director of the Foreign Relations Office of the Syrian National Council until he resigned from the position in November 2012. He wrote more than twenty books in English and Arabic. His most recent book is Syria's Role in a Changing Middle East: The Syrian-Israeli Peace Talks (I.B.Tauris, 2016). Ziadeh holds a D.D.S in Dentistry from Damascus University, Diploma in international Human Rights Law from College of Law at the American University in Washington D.C, an MA in Democracy and Governance from Georgetown University in Washington D.C, and an MS in Finance from Kogod School of Business at the American University in Washington D.C.

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CISAC Central Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra St
​Stanford, CA 94305

Radwan Ziadeh Arab Center, Washington, DC
Seminars

Big Change, No Change, or Evolutionary Change?: Implications of the New Japanese Security Laws

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Booseung Chang joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2015-16 year.  His research interests span comparative foreign policy and policymaking process.

Currently, he is working on two projects. One deals with application of game-theoretic approaches to the inter-Korean relations. Specifically, he is interested in how the tools of the game theory can contribute to the improvement of the cooperation as well as the security in the Korean peninsula. The topic of the other article will be the change of Japanese foreign policy. The goal of this article is to shed light on the implications of the recent change in Japanese security-related laws and to measure its domestic, regional, and global impact.

His dissertation, which he seeks to build upon, is titled “The Sources of Japanese Conduct: Asymmetric Security Dependence, Role Conceptions, and the Reactive Behavior in response to U.S. Demands.” It is a qualitative comparative case study of how key U.S. allies in Asia – namely Japan and South Korea – and major powers in Europe - the United Kingdom and France - responded to the U.S.-led Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War.

Chang completed his doctorate in political science from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University in 2014.

Before joining the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, he worked for the South Korean Foreign Service for 15 years between 2000 and 2015. During the service, he mostly worked on Northeast Asian affairs including the North Korean nuclear issue. He spent three years in the embassy in Beijing and two and a half years in the consulate general in Vladivostok.

 

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Philippines Conference RoomEncina Hall, 3rd Floor616 Serra StreetStanford, CA 94305
Booseung Chang, 2015-2016 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Causes and Dynamics of the Syrian Uprising: From Civil Protests to the Implications of the Russian Intervention

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Abstract

After nearly five years since the start of the uprising, Syria finds itself divided and embattled, with no end in sight. More significantly, more than half of the Syrian population is displaced and the death toll surpassed 300,000 by all counts. The Syrian tragedy persists and, more than any other case of mass uprising in the region, continues to be shrouded in political power-plays and contradictions at the local, regional, and international levels. Defined increasingly by an absence of a clear favorable outcome, considering existing parties to the conflict, the logic of the lesser evil reigns supreme. This lecture is an attempt to understand the roots and dynamics of the tragic Syrian uprising, with particular attention to its background and to the recent Russian intervention.

Speaker Bio

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Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program and Associate Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University, and is Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011). Haddad is currently editing a volume on Teaching the Middle East After the Arab Uprisings, a book manuscript on pedagogical and theoretical approaches. His most recent books include two co-edited volumes: Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (Pluto Press, 2012) and Mediating the Arab Uprisings (Tadween Publishing, 2013). Haddad serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal a peer-reviewed research publication and is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the critically acclaimed film series, Arabs and Terrorism, based on extensive field research/interviews. More recently, he directed a film on Arab/Muslim immigrants in Europe, titled The "Other" Threat. Haddad is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and serves on the Editorial Committee of Middle East Report. He is the Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute, an umbrella for five organizations dealing with knowledge production on the Middle East and Founding Editor of Tadween Publishing.

 

This event is co-sponsored by The Markaz: Resource Center at Stanford University.

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CISAC Central Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra St
Stanford, CA 94305

Bassam Haddad Associate Professor George Mason University
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Fifteenth Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum

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The fifteenth session of the Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum, held in Korea on November 17, 2015, convened senior South Korean and American policymakers, scholars and regional experts to discuss North Korea policy and recent developments on the Korean Peninsula. Hosted by the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, the Forum is also supported by the Sejong Institute.

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The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power

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- Please note that this Social Science Seminar is held in a Science Seminar time slot - 

Abstract: Many see China as a rival superpower to the U.S. and imagine the country’s rise to be a threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. Arguing against this zero-sum vision, The China Challenge describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country to contribute to the global order. Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party’s decisions on issues like maritime sovereignty disputes, global financial management, control of the Internet, cliate change, and policies toward Taiwan and Hong Kong. China’s active cooperation is essential to global governance. If China obstructs international efforts to confront nuclear proliferation, civil conflicts, financial instability, and climate change, those efforts will falter, but even if China merely declines to support such efforts, the problems will grow vastly more complicated.  Given U.S.-China policy since the end of the Cold War, a balanced strategic approach that does not block China’s rise, but rather shapes its choices so as to deter regional aggression and encourage China’s active participation in international initiatives would be a benefit to both nations.

 

About the Speaker: Thomas J. Christensen is William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University. From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching focus on China’s foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security. Before arriving at Princeton in 2003, he taught at Cornell University and MIT. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. Professor Christensen has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and as co-editor of the International History and Politics series at Princeton University Press. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the Brookings Institution. In 2002 he was presented with a Distinguished Public Service Award by the United States Department of State.

Thomas J. Christensen Professor of World Politics Speaker Princeton University
Seminars

Keeping The Gloves On? Anti-Torture Norms And British Counterterrorism From the IRA To Al Qaeda

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Abstract: This paper seeks to understand the varying degrees to which security agencies perpetrate or collude in torture in the context of state responses to terrorism. The empirical focus is on two key British counterterrorist campaigns: against Irish republican terrorism in the 1970s, and against Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism since 2001. In the former case, British security agencies carried out coercive interrogations on a wide scale; in the latter, they have generally refrained from such practices, although they have allegedly colluded in torture by foreign intelligence services. Why does the extent of British security agency involvement in torture vary between the two periods? Drawing on IR constructivist theory, the paper stresses how the justification and interpretation of the international anti-torture norm in the UK changed between the 1970s and 2000s, with significant implications for the behavior of security officials. It also assesses that institutions, the law and the likelihood of legal sanction play an important role, but finds less support for explanations based around the magnitude of the terrorist threat. The paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of the conditions under which security agencies may be induced to respect human rights.

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Frank Foley is Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Dr Foley’s research focuses on counterterrorism, human rights, intelligence and police agencies, particularly in Britain, France and the United States. He is the author of Countering Terrorism in Britain and France: Institutions, Norms and the Shadow of the Past (Cambridge University Press, 2013). He has published articles in Security Studies, the Review of International Studies, and the European Journal of Criminal Research and Policy. Dr Foley holds a PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute in Florence. He has been the Zukerman post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and recipient of a “Terrorism Research Award” from the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). Dr Foley has briefed governments and security practitioners on his research findings, including British and French counterterrorist officials and Department of Defense staff at the Pentagon in Washington DC. He comments for a variety of national and international media, including BBC News, France 24 and Voice of America.

Frank Foley Lecturer in International Relations, Department of War Studies King's College London
Seminars
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