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. 

Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations

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Abstract: Rising powers often seek to reshape the world order, triggering confrontations with those who seek to defend the status quo. In recent years, as international institutions have grown in prevalence and influence, they have increasingly become central arenas for international contestation. In this seminar, Phillip Lipscy will describe the main findings from his book, which examines how international institutions evolve as countries seek to renegotiate the international order. He offers a new theory of institutional change and explains why some institutions change flexibly while others successfully resist or fall to the wayside. The book uses a wealth of empirical evidence - quantitative and qualitative - to evaluate the theory from international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Union, League of Nations, United Nations, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The book will be of particular interest to scholars interested in the historical and contemporary diplomacy of the United States, Japan, and China.

Speaker bio: Phillip Y. Lipscy is the Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. His fields of research include international and comparative political economy, international security, and the politics of East Asia, particularly Japan.

Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations, examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations. His research addresses a wide range of substantive topics such as international cooperation, the politics of energy, the politics of financial crises, the use of secrecy in international policy making, and the effect of domestic politics on trade. He has also published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy.

Lipscy obtained his PhD in political science at Harvard University. He received his MA in international policy studies and BA in economics and political science at Stanford University. Lipscy has been affiliated with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo, the Institute for Global and International Studies at George Washington University, the RAND Corporation, and the Institute for International Policy Studies.

For additional information such as C.V., publications, and working papers, please visit Phillip Lipscy's homepage.

Phillip Lipscy Thomas Rohlen Fellow Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Seminars

The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past

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This event is now full, and we are no longer able to accept reservations.
Please send an email to sj1874@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.

 

Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in World War II to the status of a national founding myth in the search for a unifying force to heal a divided country, and shows how dangerous the ramifications of this have been.

The book explores why Russia, unlike Germany, has failed to come to terms with the darkest pages of its past: Stalin's purges, the Gulag, and the war deportations. The narrative roams from the corridors of the Kremlin to the wilds of the Gulags and the trenches of East Ukraine. It puts the annexation of Crimea and the newly assertive Russia in the context of the delayed fallout of the Soviet collapse.
 
The Long Hangover is a book about a lost generation: the millions of Russians who lost their country and the subsequent attempts to restore to them a sense of purpose. Packed with analysis but told mainly through vibrant reportage, it is a thoughtful exploration of the legacy of the Soviet collapse and how it has affected life in Russia and Putin's policies.
 

Shaun Walker

Shaun Walker is Moscow Correspondent for The Guardian and has reported from Russia for more than a decade. He studied Russian and Soviet history at Oxford University, and has worked as a journalist in Moscow for more than a decade.

 
Copies of this book will be on sale at the event.
Shaun Walker Speaker
Lectures

Rethinking National Security

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Abstract: In 1945, our homeland was inviolate. Since then, we have invested trillions of dollars to improve our national security, yet we now can be destroyed in under an hour. In mathematics, such an absurd result from otherwise logical reasoning proves that at least one assumption must be in error. This talk therefore examines a number of assumptions that form the foundation of our thinking about national security, starting with the very concept itself: In the nuclear age, is national security separable from global security?

Speaker bio: Martin Hellman is best known for his invention, joint with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle, of public key cryptography, the technology that enables secure Internet transactions. He has been a key player in the computer privacy debate, won three “outstanding professor” awards from minority student organizations, and pioneered a risk-informed framework for nuclear deterrence. His current work “Rethinking National Security” critically examines the assumptions that form the foundation of our national security. Hellman’s many honors include election to the National Academy of Engineering and receiving (jointly with Diffie) the million dollar ACM Turing Award, the top prize in computer science.

 
 

Martin Hellman

Not in residence

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CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member
Professor (Emeritus) of Electrical Engineering
Hellman,_Martin.jpeg
Martin E. Hellman is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford, a recipient (joint with Whit Diffie) of the million dollar ACM Turing Award, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and an inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He became a CISAC affiliated faculty member in October 2012.

Hellman is best known for his invention, with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle, of public key cryptography. In addition to many other uses, this technology forms the basis for secure transactions and cybersecurity on the Internet. He also has been a long-time contributor to the computer privacy debate, starting with the issue of DES key size in 1975 and continuing with service (1994-96) on the National Research Council's Committee to Study National Cryptographic Policy, whose main recommendations were implemented soon afterward.

Prof. Hellman also has a deep interest in the ethics of technological development. With Prof. Anatoly Gromyko of Moscow, he co-edited Breakthrough: Emerging New Thinking, a book published simultaneously in Russian and English in 1987 during the rapid change in Soviet-American relations (available as a free, 2.6 MB PDF download). In 1986, he and his wife of fifty years published, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet, a book that provides a “unified field theory” for successful relationships by illuminating the connections between nuclear war, conventional war, interpersonal war, and war within our own psyches (available as a free, 1.2 MB PDF download).
 
His current research is devoted to bringing a risk-informed framework to nuclear deterrence and critically examining the assumptions that underlie our national security.

Prof. Hellman was at IBM's Watson Research Center from 1968-69 and an assistant professor of EE at MIT from 1969-71. Returning to Stanford in 1971, he served on the regular faculty until becoming Professor Emeritus in 1996. He has authored over seventy technical papers, six US patents and a number of foreign equivalents.

More information on Professor Hellman is available on his EE Department website. His publications, many  of which can be downloaded in PDF, are on the publications page of that site.
Martin Hellman Professor, Electrical Engineering (emeritus) Stanford University
Seminars

CANCELED - Good Grids Make Good Neighbors: Peace and Sustainability in the Post Paris World

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Please note that this event is canceled. We regret the inconvenience.

Abstract: Clean energy provides a number of benefits at scales from household to village to city and region. An unrealized and under-appreciated opportunity is to transition conflict regions from external fuel supply chains to local, clean and unpolluting energy. The benefits of this transition include local energy security to shared benefits from sustaining local generation capacity, which we term 'peace through grids'.  

Speaker bio: Daniel M. Kammen is a Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group where he serves as Chair, the Goldman School of Public Policy where he directs the Center for Environmental Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. Kammen is the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL; http://rael.berkeley.edu), and was Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center from 2007 - 2015.

He was appointed by then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in April 2010 as the first energy fellow of the Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) initiative. He began service as the Science Envoy for U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016, but resigned over President Trump’s policies in August 2017. He has served the State of California and US federal government in expert and advisory capacities, including time at the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Department of Energy, the Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy

Dr. Kammen was educated in physics at Cornell (BA 1984) and Harvard (MA 1986; PhD 1988), and held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard. He was an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University before moving to the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Kammen has served as a contributing or coordinating lead author on various reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1999. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Kammen helped found over 10 companies, including Enphase that went public in 2012, Renewable Funding (Renew Financial) a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) implementing company that went public in 2014. Kammen played a central role in developing the successful bid for the $500 million energy biosciences institute funded by BP.

During 2010-2011 Kammen served as the World Bank Group’s first Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. While there, Kammen worked on the Kenya-Ethiopia “green corridor” transmission project, Morocco’s green transformation, the 10-year energy strategy for the World Bank, and on investing in household energy and gender equity. He was appointed to this newly created position in October 2010, in which he provided strategic leadership on policy, technical, and operational fronts. The aim is to enhance the operational impact of the Bank’s renewable energy and energy efficiency activities while expanding the institution’s role as an enabler of global dialogue on moving energy development to a cleaner and more sustainable pathway. Kammen’s work at the World Bank included funding electrified personal and municipal vehicles in China, and the $1.24 billion transmission project linking renewable energy assets in Kenya and Ethiopia.

He has authored or co-authored 12 books, written more than 300 peer-reviewed journal publications, and has testified more than 40 times to U.S. state and federal congressional briefings, and has provided various governments with more than 50 technical reports. For details see http://rael.berkeley.edu/publications. Dr. Kammen also served for many years on the Technical Review Board of the Global Environment Facility. He is the Specialty Chief Editor for Understanding Earth and Its Resources for Frontiers for Young Minds.

Kammen is a frequent contributor to or commentator in international news media, including Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Financial Times. Kammen has appeared on ‘60 Minutes’ (twice), NOVA, Frontline, and hosted the six-part Discovery Channel series Ecopolis. Dr. Kammen is a Permanent Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. In the US, he has served on several National Academy of Sciences boards and panels.

Daniel M. Kammen Professor of Energy University of California, Berkeley
Seminars

SCPKU World Leaders Forum features Mike McFaul, panelists exchange views on US-Asia Pacific future relations

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The Lee Shau Kee World Leaders Forum on “US and the Asia Pacific” was held on November 13th, 2017. This event that brought 250 participants to the Center also marked the 5th anniversary of the Stanford Center at Peking University’s (SCPKU) anniversary and 10th anniversary of the Stanford China Program.  Stanford Political Science Professor and SCPKU Director Jean Oi welcomed the audience with remarks highlighting Stanford’s initiative to build China studies at the home campus with the creation of the China Program and in China with the construction of SCPKU -- Stanford’s “Bridge Across the Pacific.”   Professor Michael McFaul, Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, opened the forum with a stimulating keynote address on “The Historical Origins and Contemporary Consequences of President Trump’s Worldview.” In his talk, Prof. McFaul examined the President’s views and characterized them as fitting within but standing on the extreme end of long-standing foreign policy traditions.  Combining his scholarly expertise with his experience in the Obama administration, Prof. McFaul offered the audience a sharp, wide-ranging but balanced overview of the continuities between Obama’s and Trump’s policies and the stark difference in rhetoric between these two Presidents. He used dynamic representations of isolationists versus internationalists, and realists versus liberals to explain that foreign policy differences exist within political parties rather than between them. Prof. McFaul took the audience around the globe, with timely accounts of the continuities, the positive changes and the adverse changes in US foreign policy under President Trump in, for example, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.  Overall, he argued that democratic institutions in the US are open to evolution and renewal; that the structures of American leadership are still robust; and pointed to different historical periods (as during the inter-war period in the 1930’s; the rise of communism in the 1950’s; the rise of the Soviet Union in the 1970’s and Japan’s rapid ascendance in the 1980’s) when pundits declared America’s demise only to be proven wrong. Prof. McFaul asserted that current “predictions of permanent American decline is premature.”  Prof. McFaul, however, did point to North Korea as a major point of worry, which segued into the panel discussion that followed.

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Professor Michael McFaul, Director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies,
keynotes SCPKU's Lee Shau Kee World Leaders Forum.
Courtesy of Stanford University.

 

What will happen with North Korea was a focus of the lively high-level panel discussion chaired by Professor Jean C. Oi on “The US, China and Asia Pacific” with Karl Eikenberry, Former US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Director of US-Asia Security Initiative at Stanford; Kathleen Stephens, Former US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea and William J. Perry Fellow at Shorenstein APARC of Stanford; Thomas Fingar, Former chairman, National Intelligence Council; Former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research; Shorenstein APARC Fellow; Yu Tiejun, Associate Professor and Vice President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University; and Zhu Feng, Executive Director, China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea and Director, Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University.

 

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SCPKU World Leaders Forum panelists discuss future of US-Asia Pacific relations.
Courtesy of Stanford University

 

Prof. Fingar started the discussion on US-China relations, flatly rejecting the realist theory of conflict between rising and declining powers and the notion that “two tigers cannot get along.” He pointed out that interdependencies between the US and China have grown and that the US and China have more in common than ever before. Yet, with growing interdependence, chances for friction have also increased; thus, “having more issues,” he stated, “does not necessarily mean that the relationship is more fragile – perhaps the opposite [is true].” He also stated that China faces enormous challenges domestically and internationally, and that the US will be reacting to China rather than the other way around.

 

Amb. Stephens, Prof. Yu and Prof. Zhu all turned the discussion more squarely towards the intensifying North Korea missile crisis. The panelists all characterized this as a critical moment not only on the Korean peninsula but in all of Northeast Asia.  Amb. Stephens stressed how important this is in the working relationship of the US and China as they strive to manage future crises and issues. While everyone found agreement on one common point – i.e., the implausible prospects of a “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” of North Korea -- each gave unique perspectives on what might happen on the Korean peninsula as the situation unfolds. Prof. Yu outlined three possible scenarios of (i) accepting North Korea as a nuclear power de facto; (ii) imposing increasingly draconian sanctions; and (iii) turning towards the military option against North Kore. But he did not express much optimism that any of these options would, in the end, provide good outcomes. Amb. Stephens, on the other hand, emphasized the strength and resilience of the US-ROK relationship stating “I wouldn’t underestimate [the US’] commitment to the ROK.” She also foresaw a future in which the US will conduct more military exercises, and install more anti-missile defense systems across Northeast Asia as a result of the North Korean threat – a prospect which, she surmised, the PRC would not welcome.

 

Prof. Zhu, on the other hand, offered a more optimistic perspective on the North Korean nuclear standoff by pointing to the increasing cooperation between the US and China. Asking the listeners to “please take the report that China is actively opposing North Korea seriously” he held out the hope that North Korea might return to the negotiating table once it saw that China was supporting the United States.

 

Amb. Eikenberry, as the final panelist to share his remarks, took the discussion to the broader Asia Pacific level and drew distinctions on “Asia Pacific” and “Indo Pacific,” as the latter description better reflects maritime flows, the geographical layout as well trade flows more accurately. He invited panelists to depict what would happen in different possible scenarios and outcomes relating to military crisis in the region. The panelists shared their views on action options involving sanctions and multilateral agreements, and agreed that countries should focus on achieving shared goals. 

 

 

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SCPKU's 3rd Annual Lee Shau Kee World Leaders Forum on "US and the Asia Pacific," November 13, 2017.
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The Legacy of John W. Lewis

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Colleagues, policymakers, and other friends of John W. Lewis

will celebrate his contributions as scholar, activist and mentor.

 

Click here for the live-stream

 

 

 

This event is co-sponsored by:

 

 

 

 

Encina Hall, 1st floor

Bechtel Conference Center

 

Conferences

Improving Recognition of Near-Miss Events

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Abstract: Despite decades of research on organizational disasters, such events remain too common. Scholars across a wide range of disciplines agree that one of the most viable approaches to preventing such catastrophes is to observe near-misses and use them to identify and eliminate problems before they produce large failures. Unfortunately, these important warning signals are too often ignored because they are perceived and interpreted as successes rather than near-misses, near-failures, or simply failures.  Through a series of studies, we explore how organizational messages might nudge more recognition of a near-miss event as something other than a success.  The intent is not to make organizations more risk-averse, per se, but to make leaders with decision power more aware of the risks they assume and how the low probabilistic nature of high risk decisions facilitates our tendency to become more risk-tolerant over time.

Speaker Bio: Catherine Tinsley, Ph.D., is the Raffini Family Professor of Management at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, Faculty Director of the Georgetown University Women’s Leadership Institute, Academic Director of Georgetown McDonough’s Executive Master’s in Leadership program, and a Senior Policy Scholar at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.  Tinsley is an expert on principled leadership, workforce development, negotiations, and decision making.  She looks at how and why people make decisions, especially when managing risk, and empowering employees.  She applies decision analytic frameworks to understand leadership challenges, and expert and novice responses to natural disasters (such as hurricanes) and man-made disasters (terrorist attacks).

For the past three years, she participated in The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland where she spoke about the interplay between confidence and economic empowerment. Tinsley has collaborated with the White House and U.S. State Department on developing programs related to gender and workforce development, including partnering with the Council of Women World Leaders to convene the first ever world-wide meeting of the Ministers of Women’s Affairs.  

Tinsley has served on three committees for the National Academy of Sciences— The Committee to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security, The Committee on Unifying Social and Cultural Frameworks in the Military, and the Committee on The Context of Military Environments (where she served as vice-Chair).   She has received several awards for her research as well as grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and Army Research Office.  

Tinsley has published more than 50 articles and book chapters in peer-reviewed journals and her research has been covered extensively in the popular media.

Catherine Tinsley Professor of Management McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
Seminars
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