About the event: Michael F. Joseph will present the theory and experimental chapter from his forthcoming book (Cambridge May, 2026), The Origins of Great Power Rivalries. In it, he advances a comprehensive rationalist theory of how great powers assess emerging threats; why enduring great power rivalries unfold through either delayed competition, or delayed peace; and how diplomacy functions when rising powers emerge on the scene. In an important departure from traditional realist theory, Joseph argues that countries are motivated by distinct principles - normative values that shape foreign policy beyond simple security concerns. He then integrates these complex motives into a formal model of great power rivalry to explain how rational states draw qualitative inferences about rivals' intentions by examining the historical context of their demands, not just military capabilities. Empirically, he shows that his predictions about the instances and timing of competition better fit great power rivalry cases than leading rationalist and psychological alternatives via a medium-n analysis of great power rivalries since 1850. He illuminates British reactions to Stalin at the beginning of the Cold War via an in depth historical analysis. He animates a theoretically sophisticated defense of America's approach to China in the post-Cold War era with 100s of Washington-insider interviews and a novel analysis of recently declassified estimates. He demonstrates that real life intelligence analysts integrate diplomacy, historical context and an appreciation of strategic incentives as his theory expects, by embedding a survey experiment into an intelligence simulation given to 100s of real-life intelligence analysts and national security professionals from the CIA, State Department, DOD and elsewhere. Michael is known for "hot takes," and all information he presents is his personal opinion and does not reflect the position of any government and should not be taken seriously be anyone.

About the speaker: Michael F. Joseph is an Assistant Professor at UCSD. He harnesses a decade of foreign policy experience and sophisticated research skills to resolve modern national security problems of great power competition, and technology in the intelligence community. His research was recognized with APSA's 2021 Formal Theory Section Award, the 2023 Palmer Prize, and a $450,000 NSF Grant for National Security Preparedness, among other accolades. His book is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. His articles are published or forthcoming in the APSR (x3), JOP (x2), IO, and other journals. Policy insights from this research have attracted policy-maker attention in DC, and appear in the Washington Post, War on the Rocks, and other leading outlets.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

About the Speaker 

Chunling Lu studied international relations (BA) and political science (MA) at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and sociology (MA) and applied statistics (MS) at Syracuse University, where she also received her PhD in economics. She received postdoctoral training on health care policy analysis at the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy, and joined the School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine in 2008 after three years as Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Institute for Global Health.

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About the event: This project presents the concept of wartime access—decisions by states to let other states fight wars from inside their borders—and establishes its centrality to U.S. power projection. Although permissive wartime access has been a defining feature of the post-1945 world, states do not always let the United States military in. States sometimes restrict access sharply or deny it altogether. This project asks, why do states sometimes grant, sometimes restrict, and sometimes deny wartime access? It argues that the general trend of permission is attributable to states’ expectations that they will derive security benefits from the United States in exchange for granting access, and that the United States will protect them from retaliation by the target and help them manage any spillover from the war. While security factors tend to point states towards granting access, states tend to deny or heavily restrict access when the domestic political costs of open alignment with the United States are prohibitively high. The study develops a new dataset of 85 partner access decisions across eleven U.S.-led wars since 1945 and conducts paired comparisons of wartime access decisions within each war. The project concludes with a discussion of policy implications, with particular attention to wartime access in the context of a hypothetical U.S. effort to defend Taiwan.

About the speaker: Rachel Metz is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. Metz’s research and teaching focus on international security, security assistance and security cooperation, military effectiveness, nuclear strategy, and methods for studying military operations. Her book project examines the United States’ approach to building militaries in partner states, and her research has been published in International Organization, International Security, Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, H-Diplo, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, The National Interest, and The Washington Post, among other outlets.

Metz received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a member of the Security Studies Program. Her work has received funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation, Defense Security Cooperation University, and the Carnegie Corporation. Previously, Metz was a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, an adjunct researcher for the RAND Corporation, and a Eurasia Group Fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation. Metz is a research affiliate at MIT.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

Former Stanford President John Hennessy moderated a conversation about AI’s impact on the world with distinguished technology executive Craig Mundie and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. As AI continues its unprecedented transformation of our world, Mundie and Friedman reflected on their 25-year friendship and discussed the technological and societal trends that led them to argue, in a recent op-ed, that humanity has entered a new era of civilization. They explored the implications of this shift for daily life and geopolitics, as well as the technical and normative frameworks needed to establish trust in AI systems.

Sponsored by Stanford University's Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford Data Science, and Starling Lab.