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.

Valentin Bolotnyy is a Kleinheinz Fellow at the Hoover Institution and an Affiliated Scholar at CDDRL's Deliberative Democracy Lab. He designs and analyzes randomized experiments aimed at understanding how Americans communicate about politics and public policy, and what factors may lead to changes in public opinion on key issues. He also works on forming research partnerships with government agencies to improve public services and gain insight into social behavior. His recent studies have covered the America in One Room experiment, climate adaptation, the gender earnings gap, public infrastructure procurement, immigration policies, and graduate student mental health. Bolotnyy received a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and a BA in Economics and International Relations, with honors and distinction, from Stanford University.

Joanne Spetz is Director and Brenda and Jeffrey L. Kang Presidential Chair in Health Care Financing at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS), University of California San Francisco. Dr. Spetz’s research focuses on the economics of the health care workforce, organization of health care services, and quality of health care. She directs the federally funded UCSF Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care, which generates evidence to ensure an adequate workforce to provide patient-centered care to individuals with long-term care needs across the lifespan. She is an internationally known expert on the nursing workforce, leading studies of nurse supply, demand, education, earnings, and contributions to the quality of care across healthcare settings. Her current research includes serving as the co-Principal Investigator for the National Dementia Workforce Study, and leading a study of the nurse practitioners and midwives in California.

Dr. Lee Sanders is a general pediatrician and Professor of Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he is Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics. He holds joint appointments in the Department of Health Policy, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He teaches in the Human Biology Program and at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (Stanford d.School). He is a national expert in the science of health literacy, which applies a literacy lens to advancing maternal and child health equity. He directs the Stanford Health Literacy Lab, which aims to address child disparities in health and educational, by redesigning primary-care with youth and families. 
 

Dr. Williams' research focuses primarily on reproductive and perinatal epidemiology. Over three decades, she has integrated epidemiological, biological, and molecular approaches into rigorously designed research that has advanced understanding of placental abruption, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia. Her research methodology includes: (1) identifying literature gaps; (2) developing robust epidemiological data systems across North America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and South America; and (3) integrating biochemical and molecular biomarkers into these platforms. In 2019, in partnership with Apple Inc. and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, she co-designed and currently co-leads the Apple Women's Health Study, a large-scale digital national study examining determinants of women's gynecological health. Dr. Williams has been recognized for her excellence in teaching, as the recipient of the 2015 Harvard Chan School’s Outstanding Mentor Award, the UW’s Brotman Award for excellence in teaching (2007), the American Public Health Association’s Abraham Lilienfeld Award for education in epidemiology (2007), and the White House’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (2012).