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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. 

Will land reform sow peace in Latin America?

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Michael Albertus
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On the eve of the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Colombia, CDDRL Post-Doctoral Scholar Michael Albertus co-authored a piece on the Foreign Policy website suggesting that land reform could help end decades of conflict in Latin America. Both authors suggest that Colombia's Victims Law can serve as a model for good governance across the region, holding the potential to uproot drug problems and improve security for the lives of everyday citizens.
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US Policy Toward Afghanistan, What’s Next?

November 19, 3:45PM
Breakout Session

Following a decade of war, the departure of all U.S. troops from Iraq and a significant drawdown of troops in Afghanistan are all but imminent.  These drawdowns – and the framework in which these drawdowns transpire – will have major implications for U.S. national security, bilateral and regional relations, and the image of the U.S. in the world.  We will be joined by Dr. Dan E. Caldwell, a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University and the author of Vortex of Conflict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq; Ms. Anja Manuel, Principal at RiceHadley Group LLC; and Mr. Frederic Wehrey, Senior Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation, to discuss these timely issues.

 

Information on the event is available at: http://www.pacificcouncil.org/page.aspx?pid=730

Anja Manuel Affiliate, CISAC Speaker
Dan Caldwell Distinguished Professor of International Relations Speaker Pepperdine University
Frederic Wehrey Senior Policy Analyst Speaker the RAND Corporation
Panel Discussions

WAR: Ethical Challenges on the Horizon

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Stanford's two-year Ethics and War series will come to a close on May 16 with "WAR: Ethical Challenges on the Horizon."


What upcoming challenges will force leaders to rethink the balance between morality and war?
What will this ethical debate look like?
How do these paradigm shifts impact national security?

 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website. 

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Oak Lounge

Charles Dunlap Maj. General, USAF (Ret.), Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, Duke Panelist

Scott D. Sagan

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-2715 (650) 723-0089
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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
rsd25_073_1160a_1.jpg PhD

Scott D. Sagan is Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, and the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He also serves as Co-Chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Scott D. Sagan Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Political Science, Stanford Panelist
Debra Satz Philosophy, and Center for Ethics in Society, Stanford Panelist
Scotty McLennan Dean for Religious Life, Stanford Moderator
Seminars
Stanford Ethics & War Series

Performance of "Reykjavik" and post-performance panel

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In October 1986, a historic summit meeting was held at Reykjavik, Iceland, between the United States, under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet Union, under the leadership of President Mikhail Gorbachev. What began as a summit with an agenda of limited reduction of nuclear weapons and human rights quickly transformed into a discussion by the two leaders advocating for elimination of all nuclear weapons. The prospect of a world without nuclear weapons had never before been held at such a high level and has never been held since. These negotiations were truly historic and in many ways groundbreaking in helping to end the Cold War.

Reykjavik, a one-act play, written by Richard Rhodes, is a dialogue taken from the actual transcripts of the negotiations between the two presidents. Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-four works of history, memoir, and fiction, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. A past visiting scholar at MIT and Harvard University, he is presently an associate of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. 

The play runs for seventy-five minutes and will be followed by a question-and-answer session on May 8 with Richard Rhodes and on May 9 with a panel of nuclear security experts led by Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists.

This program is co-sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists, the Fund for Peace Initiatives, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, and Stanford Continuing Studies.

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website. 

CEMEX Auditorium, Zambrano Hall
Knight Management Center
Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Charles Ferguson President, Federation of American Scientists Host
Seminars
Stanford Ethics & War Series

Performance of "Reykjavik" and post-performance Q&A

-

In October 1986, a historic summit meeting was held at Reykjavik, Iceland, between the United States, under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet Union, under the leadership of President Mikhail Gorbachev. What began as a summit with an agenda of limited reduction of nuclear weapons and human rights quickly transformed into a discussion by the two leaders advocating for elimination of all nuclear weapons. The prospect of a world without nuclear weapons had never before been held at such a high level and has never been held since. These negotiations were truly historic and in many ways groundbreaking in helping to end the Cold War.

Reykjavik, a one-act play, written by Richard Rhodes, is a dialogue taken from the actual transcripts of the negotiations between the two presidents. Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-four works of history, memoir, and fiction, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. A past visiting scholar at MIT and Harvard University, he is presently an associate of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. 

The play runs for seventy-five minutes and will be followed by a question-and-answer session on May 8 with Richard Rhodes and on May 9 with a panel of nuclear security experts led by Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists.

This program is co-sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists, the Fund for Peace Initiatives, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, and Stanford Continuing Studies.

 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website. 

 

CEMEX Auditorium, Zambrano Hall
Knight Management Center
Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Richard Rhodes Playwright, Author and Affiliate at CISAC Speaker
Seminars

Politics by Other Means: International Law in the Political Contest over Taiwan’s Status and Cross-Strait Relations

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Abstract:

On both sides of the Taiwan Strait and on both sides of Taiwan’s partisan divide, international legal concepts—the criteria for statehood, other factors that matter for international status (including democratic politics and human rights), standards for and rights of self-determination and secession—have been key weapons in the political struggle over Taiwan’s international stature and security and the nature and trajectory of cross-Strait relations.  Rooted in steps taken during the early days of China’s Reform Era, this pattern of politics developed dramatically during the Lee Tenghui and Chen Shui-bian presidencies on Taiwan and has taken new turns since Hu Jintao shifted Beijing’s cross-Strait policies and Ma Ying-jeou came to power in Taiwan.  The prospect of Ma’s second term and a leadership transition on the Mainland raise new questions about future trends in this unusually international law-focused politics.

 

Speaker Bio:

Jacques deLisle is the Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, professor of political science, and associate director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.  His writings on Taiwan’s politics and international status, cross-Strait relations, China’s approach to international law, and domestic legal reform and its challenges in China appear in law reviews, international affairs journals, policy commentaries, and other media.

CISAC Conference Room

Jacques deLisle Professor of Law and Political Science Speaker the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Seminars

Does Decapitation Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Targeting in Counterinsurgency Campaigns

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Abstract:

Is killing or capturing insurgent leaders an effective tactic? Previous research on interstate war and counterterrorism has suggested that targeting enemy leaders does not work. Most studies of the efficacy of leadership decapitation, however, have relied on unsystematic evidence and poor research design. An analysis based on fresh evidence and a new research design indicates the opposite relationship and yields four key findings. First, campaigns are more likely to end quickly when counterinsurgents successfully target enemy leaders. Second, counterinsurgents who capture or kill insurgent leaders are significantly more likely to defeat insurgencies than those who fail to capture or kill such leaders. Third, the intensity of a conflict is likelier to decrease following the successful removal of an enemy leader than it is after a failed attempt. Fourth, insurgent attacks are more likely to decrease after successful leadership decapitations than after failed attempts. Additional analysis suggests that these findings are attributable to successful leadership decapitation, and that the relationship between decapitation and campaign success holds across different types of insurgencies.

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