In the conventional narrative, the genesis of Indonesia’s authoritarian military regime known as the “New Order” is often depicted as a sudden event catalyzed by the kidnapping and killing of six Army generals on September 30th-October 1, 1965. General Suharto, who avoided capture, seized the opportunity to establish a military autocracy that would endure for over three decades (1966-1998). Yet scholars have portrayed the 1950s favorably as a time when Indonesia experimented with liberal and constitutional democracy. By that implication, the New Order was an unforeseen anomaly. Joshua’s research challenges this view. He will argue that the 1950s in Indonesia were beset by underdevelopment, insecurity, disorder, and conflict, which promoted militarization that ultimately paved the way for the New Order’s ascendance. This militarizing process, he will show, offers fresh insight into an understudied period in Indonesian history and helps us better understand the origins of authoritarian military regimes worldwide.

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Norman Joshua is a historian working on civil-military relations and authoritarianism in Southeast Asia.  Other topics covered in his publications include revolutionary politics, counterinsurgency, intelligence, and the political economy of petroleum in Indonesia. He obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University in 2018 and 2023 respectively, where he was also an Arryman Scholar at the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs from 2016 to 2023.

Lunch will be served

About the Event: Every moment of every day, we see, engage, and construct with biology. From gene editing with CRISPR in a lab to making yogurt under kitchen counters, engineering with biology permeates all aspects of our lives. However, not everyone sees biology as around us, in us, and of us. The 21st century may be the century of biotechnology, but it is also the time when many do not feel empowered to engage. People have been disenfranchised from innovating with biology at a moment of crisis: climate change, pandemics, and global inequality afflict millions. But what if everyone could access the tools and knowledge to see, understand, and construct effective biological solutions to their own problems, in their own communities? What if biology was by and for everyone?

Biology for Everyone, a collaborative research project led by Dr. Callie Chappell and their interdisciplinary team, envisions (1) creating publicly accessible labs at the local level, such as in public libraries (LABraries) and (2) professional pathways (LABrarians) and curricula for a national community biology training program. This CISAC seminar will present results from a series of working groups convening a diverse group of scientists, educators, academics, activists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and artists to deliberate on a national strategy to advance biology for everyone (BIO4E).

About the Speaker: Dr. Callie Chappell is a Bio Security and Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Their research focuses on expanding participation, innovation, and imagination in American bioeconomy through community engagement. Previously, they were involved in leading BioJam, a collaboration between community organizations in Salinas, CA and Stanford University, to reimagine bioengineering through the lens of youth leadership, culture, and creativity. Dr. Chappell received their PhD from Stanford University in Biology, where they were a Fellow with the Center for Evolutionary and Human Genomics (CEHG), a graduate ethics fellow with the McCoy Family Center for Ethics, BioFutures Fellow with the Department of Bioengineering, and National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellow. During their PhD, Dr. Chappell was also a Mirzayan Science and Technology Fellow with the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Catherine S. McCarter Science Policy Fellow with the Ecological Society of America (ESA), and president of the Stanford Science Policy Group. In addition to their research and policy work, Dr. Chappell is also a professional artist and arts educator.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

About the Event: All technology is dual use to some degree: it has both civilian and military applications. This foundational feature often makes it hard to limit military competition. In a recent International Organization article, Jane Vaynman and Tristan Volpe reveal why this is the case. They argue that the duality of technology matters because it shapes the tension between detection and disclosure at the heart of arms control: agreements must provide enough information to detect violations, but not so much that they disclose deeper security vulnerabilities. They characterize technology along two dual use dimensions: (1) the ease of distinguishing military from civilian uses; (2) the degree of integration within military enterprises and the civilian economy. As these attributes vary, so do prospects for cooperation. The study introduces a new data set to assess both variables and their impact on competition across all modern armament technologies.

Unfortunately, many modern technologies at the crux of US-China competition today—from space systems and cyber capabilities to AI foundation models—fall in what Vaynman and Volpe identify as a "dead zone" for arms control. They show how the dual use features of these capabilities sharpen the tension between detection and disclosure, thereby dooming the prospects for cooperation. For AI models, however, it may be more productive to consider how this general-purpose technology will shape the dual use attributes of existing weapon platforms, which stand a better chance of being governed. 

About the Speakers:

Jane Vaynman (Ph.D.) is assistant professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Vaynman’s work focuses on security cooperation between adversarial states, the design of arms control agreements, and the effects of technology on patterns of international cooperation and competition. From 2022-2024 she served a senior advisor in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability at the U.S. Department of State.  Her prior academic appointments include the Department of Political Science at Temple University and the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Dr. Vaynman received her Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University and B.A. from in international relations from Stanford University, with honors from CISAC. 

Tristan A. Volpe (Ph.D.) is an assistant professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology (Oxford University Press, 2023). His work has been published in academic and general policy journals such as International Organization, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Quarterly. Prior to NPS and Carnegie, Dr. Volpe was a predoctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He currently lives on the Monterey Peninsula in California.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

About the Event: This research proposal aims to apply lessons learned from the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime to the design and negotiation of a future global system for AI governance, with a particular focus on India's role and interests.

The emergence of the post 1945 global order was accelerated in part by the discovery and subsequent weaponization of nuclear energy, a disruptive technology at the time. There are  visible parallels with the development of Artificial Intelligence in the backdrop of the present geopolitical flux and redistribution of global power. The nuclear non-proliferation regime, established to govern the development, distribution and deployment of this technology, has been critiqued on account of structural and systemic inequities and its limited success in meeting its objectives. India’s unique position during the NPT negotiations is widely recognized as having paid dividends. 

The proposed research will use a combination of tools, including literature review, case studies and interviews with primary sources to examine the dynamics of international cooperation, compliance and deterrence that have shaped nuclear governance. By juxtaposing these with specific aspects of AI meriting global governance such as technology diffusion, ethical concerns, data security, data monetization etc, the research aims to identify transferable strategies, mechanisms, and norms that can inform the development of AI governance frameworks and evaluate the state of emerging structures and organizations in place to do so. Finally, it will attempt to identify a set of values and approaches India could prioritize in designing new or revamping existing structures for global governance of AI to secure both its own, as well as interests of the Global South.

 The research is timely and significant as it seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of how India could shape and influence international norms for responsible AI development and deployment, establish its leadership in the global AI landscape and ultimately contribute to its quest for technology sovereignty. 
 
About the Speaker: Mahima Sikand is currently a Visiting Scholar with the inaugural Critical and Emerging Technologies and the US-India Strategic Partnership Fellowship at the Center for Security and International Cooperation at Stanford University. At CISAC, Mahima is looking at the intersection of technology, national security and foreign policy as it relates to the evolution of Indian grand strategy, the India-US strategic partnership and shaping global governance frameworks for emerging technologies. Her research is focused on examining the the lessons India could draw from the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime to future negotiations on establishment of a global AI Governance regime.

Mahima is an Indian diplomat with eight years of experience, and has served in various capacities at the Indian Embassy in Moscow and the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. Mahima’s expertise lies in foreign policy, strategy formulation, diplomacy, multilateral negotiations, communications and community engagement.  She holds a Masters in International Relations from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Bachelors in Neurobiology and Physiology from the University of Maryland, College Park. 

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

About the Speaker: Dr. Bárbara Cruvinel Santiago is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), studying how to flag dual purpose physics research so we can prevent its weaponization. Before coming to CISAC, Bárbara got her physics Ph.D. at Columbia University working on astronomical instrumentation under a NASA FINESST fellowship. Born and raised in Brazil, she got her BS in physics at Yale, after which she worked at MIT’s Nobel-Prize-winning LIGO lab and got her master’s at Columbia. She was one of the inaugural fellows of the Next-Generation Fellowship from the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, and received the 2021 American Physical Society 5 Sigma Physicist Award for congressional advocacy in nuclear disarmament.

Before starting her post-doc, Bárbara did research in a variety of fields, from particle and atomic physics to quantum optics and astronomical instrumentation. Her CISAC post-doc research, however, focuses on how to identify dual-purpose research developed by academics/civilians but of military interest, especially in the physical sciences, as a means to help on nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear threat reduction initiatives.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.