Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

Disinformation Campaigns in Europe

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Vera Zakem has been leading work at CNA Center for Stability and Development on how Russia and other actors use propaganda and disinformation to influence and target populations in Europe. She will highlight how Russia and other actors exploit internal sources of vulnerabilities and instability to target vulnerable populations in Europe via disinformation and influence campaigns. Vera's work includes conducting in-country field work in many of the countries in the region.

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Vera Zakem specializes in developing innovative solutions, analytics, and partnerships in assessing root causes of conflict and instability for vulnerable populations, information warfare, social media, and disinformation, and civil-military operations. She incorporates development, diplomacy, and civil-military operations in assessing today’s security environment. She currently leads CNA’s work in assessing internal vulnerabilities to vulnerable populations, Europe and Russia, disinformation and propaganda, technology, and influence.

Zakem has conducted in-country fieldwork in the Balkans, Baltics, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Earlier in her career, she has collaborated multinational and government organizations in analyzing and assessing human security. She taught adversary, futures analytics and red teaming at the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University. Throughout her career, Zakem has worked with diverse sectors in promoting the role of women in security and development.

Zakem has an M.A. in Government from Johns Hopkins University, a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of San Francisco and has also spent a year at Tel Aviv University in Israel. She speaks Russian, Spanish, and Hebrew. She is a Term Member, Council on Foreign Relations.

William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd floor

Vera Zakem Director of Strategy and Partnerships and Project Director Guest speaker CNA Center for Stability and Development
Lectures
European Security Initiative Lecture Series
European Security Initiative

Reset of U.S. nuclear waste management strategy and policy

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This talk is co-sponsored by the Precourt Institute for Energy and will take place in the Engineering Quad (see address above) from 4:30 - 5:20 PM

 

Abstract: The U.S. nuclear waste management program is stymied on multiple fronts – from the disposal of the high-level and transuranic wastes of defense programs, to the spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants, and even, the disposition of fissile material from dismantled nuclear weapons. In 2002, Congress approved President George W. Bush’s decision that the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada be selected as the nation’s repository for high-activity radioactive wastes. In 2008, the Department of Energy submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct that facility. Two years later, the administration concluded that developing a repository at Yucca Mountain was “unworkable.” Today a stalemate prevails between those who continue to maintain that the Yucca Mountain project is “unworkable“ and those who believe that the choice of the site is the “law.“

Against this background, the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies sponsored a series of five meetings to identify the critical issues that must be addressed in ordert to move the U.S. program forward. The issues identified, which will be discussed in the presentation, include:

  • New nuclear waste management organization
  • Consent-based sitting process
  • Integration of the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle
  • Revision of regulations and a new approach to the assessment of safety
  • Analysis of the risk of a status quo approach for the United States

 

Speaker bio: Rod Ewing is the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and Co-Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University. Rod has written extensively on issues related to nuclear waste and is a co-editor of Radioactive Waste Forms for the Future (1988) and Uncertainty Underground – Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste (2006).  He received the Lomonosov Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2006 for his work on issues of the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a Principal Editor for Nano LIFE, an interdisciplinary journal focused on collaboration between physical and medical scientists and is a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In 2012, he was appointed by President Obama to chair the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which provides scientific and technical reviews of the U.S. Department of the Energy’s programs for the management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. He stepped down in 2017.

 

NVIDIA auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305

Rodney C. Ewing

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E203
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-8641
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1946-2024
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security
Professor of Geological Sciences
rodewingheadshot2014.jpg MS, PhD

      Rod Ewing was the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and Co-Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University. He was also the Edward H. Kraus Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, where he had faculty appointments in the Departments of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences and Materials Science & Engineering.  He was a Regents' Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico, where he was a member of the faculty from 1974 to 1997. Ewing received a B.S. degree in geology from Texas Christian University (1968, summa cum laude) and M.S. (l972) and Ph.D. (l974, with distinction) degrees from Stanford University where he held an NSF Fellowship.    His graduate studies focused on an esoteric group of minerals, metamict Nb-Ta-Ti oxides, which are unusual because they have become amorphous due to radiation damage caused by the presence of radioactive elements. Over the past thirty years, the early study of these unusual minerals has blossomed into a broadly-based research program on radiation effects in complex ceramic materials.  In 2001, the work on radiation-resistant ceramics was recognized by the DOE, Office of Science – Decades of Discovery as one of the top 101 innovations during the previous 25 years. This has led to the development of techniques to predict the long-term behavior of materials, such as those used in radioactive waste disposal.

      He was the author or co-author of over 750 research publications and the editor or co-editor of 18 monographs, proceedings volumes or special issues of journals. He had published widely in mineralogy, geochemistry, materials science, nuclear materials, physics and chemistry in over 100 different ISI journals. He was granted a patent for the development of a highly durable material for the immobilization of excess weapons plutonium.  He was a Founding Editor of the magazine, Elements, which is now supported by 17 earth science societies. He was a Principal Editor for Nano LIFE, an interdisciplinary journal focused on collaboration between physical and medical scientists. In 2014, he was named a Founding Executive Editor of Geochemical Perspective Letters and appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of Applied Physics Reviews.

      Ewing had received the Hawley Medal of the Mineralogical Association of Canada in 1997 and 2002, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 2006, the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2006, a Honorary Doctorate from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in 2007, the Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 2015, Ian Campbell Medal of the American Geoscience Institute, 2015, the Medal of Excellence in Mineralogical Sciences from the International Mineralogical Association in 2015, the Distinguished Public Service Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 2019, and was a foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He was also a fellow of the Geological Society of America, Mineralogical Society of America, Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, American Geophysical Union, Geochemical Society, American Ceramic Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Materials Research Society. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering in 2017.

      He was president of the Mineralogical Society of America (2002) and the International Union of Materials Research Societies (1997-1998). He was the President of the American Geoscience Institute (2018). Ewing had served on the Board of Directors of the Geochemical Society, the Board of Governors of the Gemological Institute of America and the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

      He was co-editor of and a contributing author of Radioactive Waste Forms for the Future (North-Holland Physics, Amsterdam, 1988) and Uncertainty Underground – Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste (MIT Press, 2006).  Professor Ewing had served on thirteen National Research Council committees and board for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that have reviewed issues related to nuclear waste and nuclear weapons. In 2012, he was appointed by President Obama to serve as the Chair of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which is responsible for ongoing and integrated technical review of DOE activities related to transporting, packaging, storing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste; he stepped down from the Board in 2017.

https://profiles.stanford.edu/rodney-ewing

Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and CISAC Co-Director; Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences Stanford University
Seminars

Stanford Conference on "The Political Economy of Japan under the Abe Government"

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Stanford Conference on "The Political Economy of Japan under the Abe Government"

February 8 - February 9, 2018

Philippines Conference Room

Sponsored by: Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (Stanford University), and Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center (Stanford University)

Organizers: Takeo Hoshi and Phillip Lipscy

 

 

Program

2/8/2018

8:30am     Breakfast
 

9:15am     Welcome remarks
                 Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford University)
                Toru Tamiya (Japan Society for Promotion of Science)
 

9:30am  "Transformation of the Japanese Political System: Expansion of the Power of the Japanese Prime Minister", Harukata Takenaka (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)

Discussant:
Saori Katada (University of Southern California)
 

10:30am  Break
 

10:50am  "Constitutional Revision Under the Abe Administration", Kenneth McElwain (University of Tokyo)

Discussant:
Yu Jin Woo (Stanford University)

 

11:50am  Lunch
 

1:00pm    "Do election results reflect voters' policy preferences? Evidence from the 2017 Japanese general election", Yusaku Horiuchi (Dartmouth College), Shiro Kuriwaki (Ph.D, Harvard University), Daniel Smith (Harvard University)

Discussant:
Rob Weiner (Naval Postgraduate School)

 

2:00pm   "Japan's Security Policy in 'the Abe Era': Radical Transformation or Evolutionary Shift?", Adam Liff (Indiana University)

Discussant:
Ashten Seung Cho (Stanford University)

 

3:00pm  Break
 

3:20pm   "Abenergynomics: The Politics of Energy and Climate Change under Abe", Trevor Incerti (Yale University) and Phillip Lipscy (Stanford University)

Discussant:
Kent Calder (Johns Hopkins SAIS)

 

4:20pm   "Innovation Policy", Kenji Kushida (Stanford University)

Discussant:
John Zysman (University of California, Berkeley)
 

5:20pm     Adjourn
 

6:30pm     Group Dinner

 

2/9/2018

9:00am   Breakfast
 

9:30am   "Abenomics, Monetary Policy, and Consumption", Joshua Hausman (University of Michigan), Takashi Unayama (Hitotsubashi University), and Johannes Wieland (University of California, San Diego)

Discussant:
Huiyu Li (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)
 

10:30am  Break

10:50am "The Great Disconnect: The Decoupling of Wage and Price Inflation in Japan", Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University) and Anil Kashyap (University of Chicago)

Discussants:
Joshua Hausman (University of Michigan)
Johannes Wieland (University of California, San Diego)
 

11:50pm  Lunch
 

1:00pm  "Corporate Governance Reform", Hideaki Miyajima (Waseda University)

Discussant:
Curtis Milhaupt (Stanford University)
 

2:00pm   "Womenomics", Nobuko Nagase (Ochanomizu University)

Discussant:
Steve Vogel (University of California, Berkeley)
 

3:00pm  Break
 

3:20pm  "Japanese Agricultural Reform Under Abe Shinzo: Two Steps Forward, A Half-Step Back?", Patricia Maclachlan (University of Texas at Austin) and Kay Shimizu (University of Pittsburgh)

Discussant:
Takatoshi Ito (Columbia University and National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)
 

4:20pm   "Yen Depreciation and Competitiveness of Japanese Firms", Kyoji Fukao (Hitotsubashi University) and Shuichiro Nishioka (West Virginia University)

Discussant:
Katheryn Russ (University of California, Davis)
 

5:20pm  "Next Step", Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University) and Phillip Lipscy (Stanford University)
 

5:50pm  Adjourn

Conferences

FSI Student Opportunities Info Session

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Calling all Stanford students! Join us to learn about FSI's student opportunities during the summer. FSI has internship positions in policy organizations in over 15 countries. Our programs are fully-funded and mentored by FSI faculty. You will have the chance to speak directly to former interns.

Visit our website for more info: http://fsi.stanford.edu/studentprograms

Our Year of Living Dangerously

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"As 2018 unfolds, the domestic and international dimensions of Trump’s crisis-ridden presidency are beginning to intersect in wildly unpredictable and potentially disastrous ways. There are signs of preparations for a U.S. military attack on North Korea by mid-year, and a new report by a leading Russian expert on North Korea indicates that the Pyongyang regime “is convinced that the U.S. is preparing to strike.” This would likely be not a full-scale military assault to terminate the North Korea’s tyrannical regime but rather a punishing “bloody nose” strike, either to send a message about American resolve to halt further testing and development of Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons program or to actually destroy as much of its existing infrastructure as possible," writes Larry Diamond in The American Interest. Read here. 

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North Korea and South Korea Break Silence

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Former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens spoke on the "PBS News Hour" about the first high-level talks between North Korea and South Korea in more than two years. The two nations agreed to hold future military talks aimed at easing border tensions and the North pledged to send a delegation to the Olympic Games next month.

Stephens called it a good first step and an “all-too-rare positive development” on the peninsula. The decrease in potential for disruptions to next month’s games could—according to Stephens-be seen as the first deliverable by South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-In, on a promise to reengage with the North.

Ambassador Stephens said it was not surprising that denuclearization did not come up during Tuesday’s talks, noting North Korea’s position that the issue is one to be dealt with the United States. Ambassador Stephens speculated that once the Olympics closed, the peninsula might experience a period of reduced tensions along with confidence building. However, she believes that come the spring there would still remain important questions about military exercises as well as nuclear weapons.

Asked about news reports of discussions within the Trump administration on the possibility of targeted strikes against North Korean military sites, Ambassador Stephens described it as a very risky strategy, adding that the discussions alone could prove unnerving in South Korea as well as North Korea.

The full interview is available on PBS.

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Former Ambassador Stephens discusses talks between North and South Korea on PBS News Hour
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Colin H. Kahl

Encina Hall 
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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Colin Kahl is director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow. He is also the faculty director of CISAC’s Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, and a professor of political science (by courtesy).

From April 2021-July 2023, Dr. Kahl served as the under secretary of defense for policy at the U.S. Department of Defense. In that role, he was the principal adviser to the secretary of defense for all matters related to national security and defense policy and represented the department as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. He oversaw the writing of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which focused the Pentagon’s efforts on the “pacing challenge” posed by the PRC, and he led the department’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and numerous other international crises. He also led several other major defense diplomacy initiatives, including an unprecedented strengthening of the NATO alliance; the negotiation of the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom; historic defense force posture enhancements in Australia, Japan, and the Philippines; and deepening defense and strategic ties with India. In June 2023, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III awarded Dr. Kahl the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian award presented by the secretary of defense.

During the Obama Administration, Dr. Kahl served as deputy assistant to President Obama and national security advisor to Vice President Biden from October 2014 to January 2017. He also served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from February 2009 to December 2011, for which he received the Outstanding Public Service Medal in July 2011.

Dr. Kahl is the co-author (along with Thomas Wright) of Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2021) and the author of States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). He has also published numerous article on U.S. national security and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kahl previously taught at Georgetown University and the University of Minnesota, and he has held fellowship positions at Harvard University, the Council on Foreign Relations, CNAS, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and International Engagement.

He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

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Navigating the challenges of alliance management in Korea

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In advance of talks between North Korea and South Korea, APARC’s Daniel Sneider says the most immediate threat on the peninsula actually comes from the latter.

In a piece for The Hill, Sneider writes that by embracing North Korea’s offer for dialogue, South Korean President Moon Jae-in—who seeks a peaceful Olympic Games, good relations with China, and reduced tensions with the North—risks diminishing America’s presence in the region.

The challenge for the U.S. administration, accordng to Sneider, is to afford South Korea freedom to explore opportunities for dialogue, while ensuring that such freedom does not result in driving the United States off the peninsula.

The full article is available at The Hill

 

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Joint Security Area; Panmunjom, DPRK (North Korea) Flickr/John Pavelka
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“Jihadists” and Religionist Rebels: Responding to the Evolving Profile of Armed

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On November 17, 2017, FSI and CISAC senior fellow Martha Crenshaw spoke to the United Nations about how civil wars affect terrorism. In response to her discussion, Politically Speaking published the following Q&A.

The international response to civil wars and conflicts involving armed or insurgent groups was the subject of discussion as the Department of Political Affairs recently hosted the contributors to a special issue of Dædalus, produced as part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Civil Wars, Violence, and International Responses project.

Martha Crenshaw, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford; Tanisha M. Fazal, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota; and Stathis Kalyvas, Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale, spoke about the evolving profile of armed groups, particularly those ostensibly motivated by religion. Following the 17 November discussion, Politically Speaking spoke to the researchers, whose work aims not only to contribute to current policy-making but also to contextualize current trends by building a larger conceptual understanding of the threats posed by the collapse of state authority associated with civil wars and insurgencies.

Politically Speaking: At the UN we often talk about the internationalization of civil wars, the mobilization of outside support, the involvement of foreign fighters and spillover effects. Can these phenomena be prevented?

Martha Crenshaw: It is not possible to contain civil wars within national boundaries or prevent linkages and spillovers, especially when conflicts involve parties motivated by transnational ideologies such as jihadism and its accompanying sectarianism. Outside actors, whether states or non-states, are drawn into or even instigate these conflicts because they have an affinity for local players and/or because they see support for specific factions as useful in pursuing their own self-interests and rivalries. Due particularly to the prevalence of social media and the ease of internet communication, civil wars in which jihadist or violent Islamist factions are fighting will attract volunteers and inspire individual terrorist attacks against the countries perceived as opposing the global Islamist cause, be they neighbors or physically distant from the battlefield. The difficulty of prevention in such complex scenarios does not mean, however, that nothing can be done.  It is essential not to approach the problem piecemeal; today’s complex and messy conflicts should be considered comprehensively as wholes that may be greater than the sum of their parts. Policies for countering terrorism, insurgency, and “violent extremism” should not be compartmentalized. For example, military efforts to quell violent oppositions may succeed in eliminating the threat on the ground but in the long run stimulate support for the cause and thus perpetuate or even widen the struggle. Military victories do not automatically create stable political orders or solve the political grievances and disputes that led to war in the first place.

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