Abstract: New defense technologies raise complex questions about states’ abilities to project force, consequences for civilian casualties, and reactions by foreign leaders and publics. Yet many technologies become normalized and legitimated, whereas others are banned. This paper seeks to account for the failure of strong anti-submarine norms to emerge after World War I, in the process legitimizing submarines as a weapon in World War II and beyond. In the First World War, Germany’s submarine commerce warfare was a major point of contention between the great powers, which sought to strategically deploy and manipulate rules and norms of warfare in response to this new technology. However, despite widespread condemnation of Germany’s “barbaric” practices and calls by Great Britain to abolish the weapon entirely, postwar conferences failed to prohibit or effectively regulate submarine warfare. Rather, the submarine has become an accepted defense technology. I argue that Germany demonstrated the utility of submarines as an offensive weapon and the limits of applying existing rules to their use during the war, with consequences for norm creation and cooperation after the war. The paper suggests lessons for current policy debates, as well as insights into the political processes behind the development of norms of war.

About the Speaker: Dr. Jennifer L. Erickson is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. She is also an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Boston College (on sabbatical in 2016-2017). Her current research project deals with new defense technologies and the creation of laws and norms of war, examining cases on World War I, nuclear weapons after World War II, and new weapons in the contemporary era. Her book, Dangerous Trade: Conventional Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation (Columbia UP 2015), explains states’ commitment to and compliance with new humanitarian arms trade norms, articulated in the UN Arms Trade Treaty and related multilateral initiatives. She has additional ongoing research projects dealing with sanctions and arms embargoes.

Speaker Bio:

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She was a predoctoral and postdoctoral fellow at CDDRL (2012-2015).

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Leading the world's only global Navy, Secretary Mabus has traveled over 1.3 million miles, visited over 150 countries and territories to maintain and develop international relationships. He has focused efforts to rebalancing the U.S. Fleet to have 60% of all Navy and Marine Corps assets based in the Indo-Asia-Pacific by the end of the decade as a reflection of our commitment to this critical region. Additionally, he has established a Marine Rotational Force in Darwin on a rotational basis to conduct exercises and train with the Australian Defense Force and maintain a stronger presence in the Pacific region.

Secretary Mabus is also leading efforts to use alternative energy sources to improve our warfighting capabilities and reduce our reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels, denying potential adversaries the opportunity to use energy as a weapon against us, and our partners. During the 2016 Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the largest naval exercise in the world, completed in August, the ships of nine partner nations took delivery of, and operated on, biofuel blends delivered from U.S. ships.

Ray Mabus is the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy, the longest to serve as leader of the Navy and Marine Corps since World War I. Responsible for an annual budget in excess of $170 billion and leadership of almost 900,000 people, Secretary Mabus has worked to improve the quality of life of Sailors, Marines and their families; decrease the Department's dependence on fossil fuels; strengthen partnerships with industry and internationally; and increase the size of the Navy fleet.

Abstract: DNA synthesis providers form the primary biosecurity safety net for the synthetic biology industry. Twist’s silicon-based DNA synthesis platform allows for synthesis of 2-3 orders of magnitude more DNA in the same footprint as traditional methods. This poses a challenge to existing labor-intensive biosecurity screening practices as recommended by US government guidance. Can the technical and regulatory environments adapt to lower the cost and increase throughput of screening while maintaining or even improving detection accuracy? This talk will provide an overview of current best practices, review technical gaps in existing regulatory guidance and suggest possible improvements to help continue to power the rapid scientific and economic development of synthetic biology.

About the Speaker: James Diggans leads the Bioinformatics and Biosecurity group at Twist Bioscience, a DNA synthesis company based in San Francisco, CA. The group develops algorithms and predictive models and builds large-scale distributed computing systems supporting Twist’s next generation synthesis technology, including biosecurity and export control screening systems. He currently represents Twist’s membership to the International Gene Synthesis Consortium and to the US Department of Commerce/BIS Materials Technical Advisory Committee.

Dr. Diggans received his PhD from George Mason University and previously led the computational biology group at MITRE, designing software-defined biosensors and battlefield chem/bio sensor fusion systems. He has also worked in molecular diagnostics spending five years building and validating machine learning algorithms for cancer detection from tissue biopsy. 

Agriculture is placed as the centerpiece of Shizo Abe’s package of economic policy, known as Abenomics. Since his return to the president of the Liberal Democratic Party in September in 2012, Shinzo Abe has repeatedly expressed his high expectation on Japan’s agriculture as one of the most promising industries.   Abe argues that agricultural income should be doubled and agricultural exports should be tripled if its fill powers are exerted. Abe claims that the major stumbling block for agriculture is too much political power of the Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives, popularly called Zenchu, which is an apex body of Japan's system of agricultural co-operatives. Among Japanese mass media, Zenchu has been described as one of the most powerful voting groups for the Liberal Democratic Party. According to Abe, Zenchu is only concerned in its own vested interests and prevents innovation in the agricultural industry. In the current session of the Diet, Abe has submitted new bills to reduce the power of Zenchu. Taking the responsibility for failing to persuade Abe to realize how Zenchu has promoted agricultural development,  Mr. Akira Banzai, the president of Zenchu, has resigned. Abe’s agricultural policy makes a sharp contrast with the traditional agricultural policy in the successive LDP’s governments (including the first Abe cabinet from 2007 to 2008).  Why does Abe take such an unfriendly attitude to Zenchu? Is really Zenchu is so harmful for the agricultural industry? Does Japanese agriculture really have such high potentials? Why did Abe change agricultural policy so drastically after the resignation of the first cabinet? By examining these questions, the speaker explains a new and tricky dynamics of Japanese agriculture. The speaker reveals the fact that, contrary to mass media’s popular image of ‘ever strong Zenchu,’  Zenchu’s political power started declining in the middle of 1990s and sharply dropped in the late 2000s. The speaker also describes that political groups of the manufacturing and commercial industries, which support Abenomics, are now becoming more and more active in staring agriculture-related businesses for the purpose of receiving agricultural subsidies.  The speaker points out that agricultural subsidies are now used as a cover for the implicit collusion between the current Abe government and the political groups of manufacturing and commercial industries: i.e., instead of Zenchu, manufacturing and commercial sector are cow becoming the major recipients of agricultural subsidies.

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Industrial clusters are ubiquitous in history and the contemporary developing world. While many of them grow dynamically, others stagnate. This study explores factors affecting the success and failure of cluster-based industrial development based primarily on own case studies conducted in East Asia, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa as well as historical studies in Japan and Europe. It is found that the key to the successful development is multi-faceted innovations, encompassing technical and managerial innovations or improvements. Since innovative ideas spill over, collective actions which attempt to internalize externalities often play a role in sustainable development of industrial clusters. An implication is that stagnant clusters can be vitalized if multi-faceted innovations can be stimulated by policy means.   

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He was a core member of World Development Report 2013: Jobs. He was also President of International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) from 2009 to 2012. He received Purple-Ribbon Medal from the Japanese Government in 2010.

He has been conducting comparative analyses on cluster-based industrial development, poverty and income distribution, land reform and land tenure, and Green Revolution between Asia and Africa. He published 123 articles in refereed international journals and 23 coauthored and coedited books. He is Fellows of International, American, and African Association of Agricultural Economists.

Please note event's venue has changed to the Philippines conference room

Conditions of Entry:

Valid photo ID required all of attendees

No posters are allowed

No noise makers are allowed

On the surface, Thai-China relations have never been better, as the two countries work to raise their ties to a higher and broader plane. A five-year plan for strategic cooperation now under negotiation covers political, military, and security affairs; multi-sectoral trade and investment; health, education, information, technology, and culture; and regional and multilateral foreign policy. China is comfortable working with the military government that has ruled Thailand since 2014, and vice versa.

Beijing credits the exercise of Chinese “soft power” in Southeast Asia with having improved Thai views of China. Analysts characterize the warming as a new version of Thailand’s old habit of adapting to powerful outsiders by “bending with the wind.” Prof. Pavin will argue that, although the application of soft power has helped China’s cause in Thailand, it is not the main reason for the present warming of ties between the two countries. Indeed, in the long run, Chinese soft power could prove disastrous for Thailand.

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Abstract: The term "natural disasters" diminishes the key role that the human context plays in turning a natural event into a disaster. In this talk, I present scientific insights into the physical processes governing the onset and evolution of extreme events and discuss how this improved understanding the challenges and opportunities that these present for decision-makers and communities at risk. More specifically, I will focus on three disasters of special current relevance, ice-sheet disintegration, coastal risk and injection-induced seismicity. The common denominator of what at first glance might seem like disparate systems is multiphase flow. The dynamic interactions between multiple solid and fluid phases, such as ice and melt-water; vegetation and waves; rocks and wastewater; give rise to drastic nonlinearities that govern abrupt changes in system behavior reflected in extreme events.

ABSTRACT

By now, those following the news on Syria have been saturated with analysis, data, information, and misinformation on developments there since 2011. Yet we observe an increasing gravitation to mutually exclusive narratives that adorn websites and publications on the situation in Syria: (a) the narrative of pure and consistent revolution versus that of (b) external conspiracy/designs on Syria. Both narratives carry grains of truth, but are encumbered by maximalist claims and fundamental blindspots that forfeit various potentials for enduring cease-fires and/or transitions, let alone mutual understanding. This talk will address these competing narratives in the context of international escalation marked by increasing US-Russian tension and continued multi-layered conflicts on the battlefield. It closes with addressing a framework for understanding and gauging potential prospects despite conflicting declarations by all parties involved.

SPEAKER BIO

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*This event is supported by the Stanford Initiative for Religious and Ethnic Understanding and Coexistence

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Abstract:

On the eve of primaries on the Right in November and for the Socialist Party in January, the French presidential campaign for the April/May 2017 elections is now in full swing. The political landscape is bleak indeed: both major political parties are profoundly divided and fragmented; the incumbent party has suffered a string of defeats since 2012 in municipal, European and regional elections and whoever its candidate(s) may be, he/she will most probably not qualify for the run-off in May, guaranteeing the election of Alain Juppé or Nicolas Sarkozy in the spring. The terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice have accelerated the drift towards identity politics as the extreme right finds validation of its favorites themes on immigration and the supposed radical incompatibility between Islam and the French republican compact; the attacks also stand as a major cause for the implosion of the Socialist Party. Beyond the context (high unemployment levels and a slow, sputtering economic recovery, Brexit, the terrorist threat...), this form of political chaos has institutional roots as the republican model designed by Charles de Gaulle in 1958 is no longer adapted to the challenges France is facing today. This lecture will attempt to unpack the topical from the structural in the long descent of France towards political dysfunction and assess the possible scenarios for political reform.

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**Co-sponsored with the Bill Lane Center for the American West**