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Andrei Lankov was born in Leningrad (now Petersburg) and completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Leningrad State University, obtaining a PhD in 1989. He taught Korean history at the Australian National University from 1996 to 2004. Since 2004 he has been teaching at Kookmin University in Seoul where he is currently a professor at the college of social science. His major research interest is in North Korean history and society. Professor Lankov's English-language publications on North Korea include From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960 (Rutgers University Press, 2003); Crisis in North Korea: the Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956 (Universiy of Hawaii Press, 2004); North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea (McFarland and Company, 2007); and The Real North Korea (Oxford University Press, 2013). He has published numerous academic articles, and contributed to major international media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, and Newsweek.

Abstract: The development and maintenance of a nuclear weapons arsenal is primarily about managing risk trade-offs. However, there is no integrated method for performing the high-level risk analysis that would allow for the more explicit examination of those trade-offs, or the testing of assumptions and alternatives. Quantitative risk analytic methods can provide powerful insights to policy and decision makers by explicitly examining estimates of consequences, disparate uncertainties, interdependencies, and trade-offs. Even the initial process of framing a formal risk analysis can provide increased clarity and valuable insights. I will present the current status of my efforts to construct a first version of a quantitative risk analytic method and the associated models. I will also discuss some of the challenges that must be addressed to fully implement those models, and my plans for further development. 

About the Speaker: Jason C. Reinhardt is a national security systems analyst, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Risk Analysis from Stanford University’s Department of Management Science and Engineering Engineering Risk Research Group, focusing on nuclear weapons arsenal management. Specifically, he is developing quantitative risk models to examine the trade-offs faced by nuclear armed nations in the process of disarmament. He is also pursuing research aimed at modeling and quantifying the catastrophic risks posed by near earth asteroid encounters. Other research interests include game theoretic applications to risk analysis and management, as well as adversary models. While at CISAC, he hopes to engage subject matter and policy experts to strengthen his modeling and analysis of nuclear weapon arsenal risk.

Prior to beginning his current studies, Jason managed a group of experts at Sandia National Laboratories that focused on technical studies to guide policy and decision makers across government. He joined Sandia National Laboratories in August of 2002, and has worked on a diverse set of projects both as an engineer and as an analyst, including the development of instrumentation for in-situ atmospheric measurement, embedded systems design, borders security analyses, and nuclear counter-terrorism strategy development.

He has worked extensively with the Department of Homeland Security on nuclear matters, and has also worked with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and within the national laboratory enterprise on a diverse array of national security projects. He has participated in the planning and hosting of international conferences and engagements, briefed congressional representatives, and served as a subject-matter expert on the topics of border security and nuclear and radiological defense.

Jason holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Purdue School of Electrical Engineering at Indianapolis, and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

The nationwide massacres of 1965-66 in Indonesia must have numbered in the thousands, yet historians lack detailed information on particular killings. The scholarly literature on the killings of communist party members and sympathizers typically conveys broad generalizations based on a limited range of sources. In Indonesia today, many people remain confused as to the identity of the perpetrators. Were the massacres carried out by civilians or by army personnel? Were the killings spontaneous or were they officially planned? In addressing such questions, Prof. Roosa will draw upon the latest research on the politicide and his own oral history interviews in Java and Bali. He will argue that the army high command under General Suharto's leadership pushed regional and district commanders to organize the disappearances of detainees, that army officers called upon particular groups of civilians to assist them, and that the army personnel and civilians carried out the massacres in a semi-clandestine manner, ensuring that public knowledge of their dirty work would remain fragmented and confused.

John Roosa has been researching the mysterious events of 1965-66 for the past fifteen years. His book Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'État in Indonesia (2006) was called "the leading book about the 1965 massacres" by the New York Times. The book that he is currently writing presents case studies of specific massacres and explores the difficulties of interpreting memories of violence.

ABSTRACT

The current state of democracy in Mongolia is 1960 Kuwait, 1980 Qatar, 1995 Abu Dhabi, 2012 Mongolia all the same? This was the headline of the “Financial Times” newspaper in March 2012. Mongolia experienced the fastest growing economic growth in the world with 17.2 % of GDP growth in 2011, 12.3% in 2012. But the growth rate didn’t sustain longer and showed significant decline since 2012. Why? The country has since then not been able to meet the expectations that it had accumulated from its previous year’s successful growth performances. At the same time, the assessments of the rule of law, the political stability and the effectiveness of the government have been downgraded, suggesting that Mongolia may not be immune to the resources curse. In fact, Mongolian democracy has been in decline in the past 5 years because of the weak rule of law and justice, clientelism, patronage, corruption and cronyism without much public engagement. Clientelism and relations of patronage are all at risk, especially with the low level of rule of law and high corruption in the country. 

Mongolia is a landlocked country situated between the world’s two superpowers with hybrid regimes. In the south, it is bordered with China that has socialism with its own Chinese characteristics, and in the north, it is bordered with Russia that has authoritarian/totalitarian oligarchy with father figurehead leaders, what we call as countries with hybrid regime system.

Nevertheless, given the present state of Mongolia, external and internal factors, the manifestation of strong civil society and sound political movements for the change might be crucial aspect for defining country’s path towards full democratic development or essentially a corrupt police state with small elite fraction groups ruling over the poor masses.

SPEAKER BIO

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Zandanshatar Gombojav comes to Stanford as a Visiting Scholar at CDDRL.  Before his appointment as Foreign Minister, 2011 during which he had many foreign policy accomplishments from renewing the country's foreign policy concept, which was described as democracy-oriented third neighbour policy, to adopting new trade agreements with several partners and thus started the economic dimension program of the foreign relations. He has made significant contribution in making Mongolia the official member of The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). One of the major achievements during his tenure is that Mongolia took presidency over the community of democracies. His current research interest focuses on issues related to the democratic and political development of Mongolia given its geostrategic situation. At Stanford, he will be working on a larger research project encompassing regional democratic and political development from Mongolia's unique perspective.

He has published extensively on various banking issues and also on topics regarding the international relations process in refereed journals and different conference proceedings. He has been a strong supporter of the reform process, being actively involved in the organization of youth development.