Stanford University

Military

The Strategic Impact of Ballistic Missile Defense in Northeast Asia

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In the past, debates regarding the strategic impact of ballistic missile defense were largely theoretical because few systems were ever deployed. This is no longer the case. Today, the United States has begun to deploy BMD systems against short, intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles. Moreover, many of these systems are either transportable or mobile (e.g., the PAC-3, THAAD and Aegis BMD systems) and, hence, can be deployed to protect US allies and US forces overseas. In addition, some foreign governments have expressed interest in deploying such systems, notably Japan. Japan's interest in ballistic missile defense has moved beyond joint research and development and is entering the deployment phase. This raises the issue of the strategic impact of regional BMD systems in Northeast Asia, in particular, whether US/Japanese BMD systems will be effective against emerging North Korean ballistic missile threats and, if so, what impact these BMD systems might have on Chinese ballistic missile capabilities. This seminar will delve into the military/technical capability of regional BMD systems and provide a preliminary assessment of their strategic impact.

Dean Wilkening directs the Science Program at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University and spent 13 years at the RAND Corporation prior to coming to Stanford in 1996. His major research interests have been nuclear strategy and policy, arms control, the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, ballistic missile defense, and conventional force modernization. His most recent research focuses on ballistic missile defense and biological terrorism. His work on missile defense focuses on the broad strategic and political implications of deploying national and theater missile defenses, in particular, the impact of theater missile defense in Northeast Asia, and the technical feasibility of boost-phase interceptors for national and theater missile defense. His work on biological weapons focuses on understanding the scientific and technical uncertainties associated with predicting the outcome of hypothetical airborne biological weapon attacks, with the aim of devising more effective civil defenses, and a reanalysis of the accidental anthrax release in 1979 from a Russian military compound in Sverdlovsk with the aim of improving our understanding of the human effects of inhalation anthrax.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Dean Wilkening Speaker
Seminars

Between Elite and Mass: Scientists, Corporate Management and the Military-Industrial Complex

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Charles Thorpe is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Previously he taught at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University in Wales, followed by time at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London. Dr. Thorpe received his PhD in Sociology and Science Studies from the University of California, San Diego in 2001. He is the author of Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect, published by University of Chicago Press in 2006.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Charles Thorpe Associate Professor of Sociology Speaker University of California, San Diego
Seminars

Military Biodefense: A Casualty of Kinetic Warfare?

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Frank Smith (speaker) is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Chicago and a predoctoral fellow at CISAC. His research examines military and civilian decisions about biological warfare and tests different theories about the sources of military research, development, and doctrine, as well as the rise of civilian biodefense. In addition, he has worked on a variety of projects that address technology and national security at the RAND Corporation, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He earned his BS in biological chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2000.

Rebecca Slayton (discussant) is a lecturer in the Science, Technology and Society Program at Stanford University and a CISAC affiliate. In 2004-2005 she was a CISAC science fellow. Her research examines how technical judgments are generated, taken up, and given significance in international security contexts. She is currently working on a book which uses the history of the U.S. ballistic missile defense program to study the relationships between and among technology, expertise, and the media. Portions of this work have been published in journals such as History and Technology and have been presented at academic conferences. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she recently completed an NSF-funded project entitled Public Science: Discourse about the Strategic Defense Initiative, 1983-1988. 

As a physical chemist, she developed ultrafast laser experiments in condensed matter systems and published several articles in physics journals. She also received the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship in 2000, and has worked as a science journalist for a daily paper and for Physical Review Focus. She earned her doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University in 2002.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Frank Smith Speaker
Rebecca Slayton Speaker
Seminars

Regional Challenges: A Romanian Perspective

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Prince Radu is visiting the Bay Area as special representative of the Romanian government, part of a program entitled the "Friendship Tour" covering several countries. The prince has played a major role in organizing the worldwide official visits of His Majesty King Michael I of Romania, in 1997 and 2002, marking Romania's accession into NATO. Prince Radu is colonel in the Romanian Army and holds a Ph.D. in military sciences.

His speech will address the new challenges facing Southeastern Europe and the ways in which Romania will contribute to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Jointly sponsored by the Hoover Institution, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Forum on Contemporary Europe at Stanford University.

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Lou Henry Hoover Building
Room 100
Stanford University

Prince Radu of Romania Speaker
Seminars

Assessing the International Influences on Democratization

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Jon Pevehouse, an associate professor at the Harris School, has written widely on international organizations and international political economy issues in the field of international relations. His most recent work focuses on American foreign policy and how domestic political institutions constrain the president's ability to exercise military force abroad. He also is involved in an ongoing project on the political implications of regional trade integration.

Pevehouse's previous work has examined reciprocity within regional political conflicts, democratization and regional organizations, the political-military implications of international organizations, and economic interdependence. He is the author of Democracy from Above? Regional Organizations and Democratization (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and (with William Howell) While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War Powers (Princeton University Press, 2007). He is also the author (with Joshua Goldstein) of International Relations (Longman Press), the leading undergraduate text on international relations.

Prior to arriving at University of Chicago, Pevehouse was in the political science department at the University of Wisconsin, where he received the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award. Pevehouse received his B.A. in political science, with honors and highest distinction, from the University of Kansas and received his Ph.D. in political science from Ohio State University.

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Jon Pevehouse Associate Professor Speaker Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago
Seminars

Building Effective States: From Practice to Theory

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Clare Lockhart is co-founder and Director of the Institute for State Effectiveness, advising a number of countries on their approaches to state-building. Between 2001 and 2005, she worked as UN adviser to the Bonn Agreement in Afghanistan and advised the Government of Afghanistan, where she led a number of national initiatives. She returned in 2006-7 as Adviser to NATO and ISAF. Previously she managed a World Bank program on institutional and organizational analysis, designing governance and legal reform approaches, adapting techniques from the private sector and military domains to public sector management, designing toolkits, training seminars and operational guidelines.

fixing failed states small
She has practiced as a constitutional and human rights barrister and is trained in history, law and economics. She has authored a number of papers and toolkits on state-building and development, including the book, Fixing Failed States, OUP 2008.

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World
Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Apr 2008

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Clare Lockhart Co-Founder and Director Speaker the Institute for State Effectiveness
Seminars

Examining Long-term Radiation Effects: Case Studies of the Atomic Bombings of Japan and the Chernobyl Power Plant Thermal Explosion

Submitted by fsid9admin on
This unit explores the long-term effects of radiation through the examination of issues surrounding the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945; and the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl power plant. We hope the unit provides teachers with the tools and background information necessary to more confidently discuss recent events in Japan with their students.

Emerging Superpowers: Influence and Supremacy in the 21st Century

The landscape of world power has evolved dramatically since the end of the cold war. What nations are considered “up and comers” in the 21st century? What are the key elements in the making of a current “superpower”? In addition to military power, nuclear capabilities and forms of government, how will population, human rights, education, religion and culture factor into the equation? Michael McFaul, William Perry, Stephen Stedman address these questions and discuss the role of the U.S., as well as implications to our international security, relations, and policies. Robert Joss, Stanford Graduate School of Business dean, moderates.

Seattle, WA

Michael A. McFaul

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
mcfaul_headshot_2025.jpg PhD

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausėda of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. 

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
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Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Michael McFaul Speaker
William Perry Speaker

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Director, Program in International Relations
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Conferences

A New Look at 9/11 Intelligence Failures: American Institutions and Embodied Knowledge

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Lynn Eden (speaker) is associate director for research/senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan and taught in the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University. Eden's first book, Crisis in Watertown was a finalist for a National Book Award. Her second, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars, was a retrospective look at the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964; it was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection. In the area of international security, Eden focuses on U.S. foreign and military policy, organizational issues, and the social construction of science and technology in the nuclear realm. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments. Eden was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History, a social and cultural approach war and peace in U.S. history; the volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club. Eden's Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton award for best book in science, knowledge and technology. Currently, Eden is particularly interested in organizational learning and error, misunderstandings of the environment, and organizational explanation and rhetoric.

Brent Durbin (discussant) is completing his PhD in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a predoctoral fellow at CISAC and a dissertation fellow at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. His dissertation, "Changing the Guard: How U.S. Intelligence Adapts to New Threats and Opportunities," explains the policy processes governing how U.S. intelligence agencies respond to major changes in the international threat environment. More broadly, Durbin's research focuses on the micro- and macro-level organizational dynamics of national security bureaucracies. Durbin has previously held research fellowships at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, and at the University of Cambridge (U.K.). Prior to attending Berkeley, he served as press secretary for U.S. Senator Patty Murray, and worked as an advisor and senior staff member on several campaigns for U.S. Congress. He graduated magna cum laude from Oberlin College with a BA in politics and English literature. He also holds an MPP from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and an MA in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Brent Durbin Speaker

Lynn Eden

Not in residence

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Affiliate
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Lynn Eden is a Senior Research Scholar Emeritus. She was a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation until January 2016, as well as was Associate Director for Research. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford.

In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

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Lynn Eden Speaker
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