The prospect of civil nuclear cooperation between the United States and India has stirred controversy for its potential impact on nuclear proliferation. I will discuss the origins or the U.S.-India nuclear deal, its current political prospects in the United States and India, and evaluate its impact on the nonproliferation regime. My talk will be based on part on the report U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation: A Strategy for Moving Forward.

Michael Levi is a fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He was previously a science and technology fellow at the Brookings Institution. Levi is the author of two books, The Future of Arms Control (Brookings, 2005, with Michael O'Hanlon), and Rethinking Nuclear Terrorism (Harvard University Press, forthcoming).

The siting and construction of high-level biocontainment facilities involves a complex review process with environmental impact documents, legally mandated reviews, and public involvement in decision making about associated risks. In some cases, serious public opposition and legal challenges may arise during the review and approval stages of a project. The recent proposed construction of NIH-NIAID regional and national biocontainment labs provided an opportunity for a real-time study of the review and approval processes associated with labs in many different locations. By analyzing environmental impact documents, mass media coverage, internet communications, and detailed timelines at the various labs, it was possible to identify common issues and features associated with labs in general, as well as specific concerns associated with those where public controversies and opposition arose. The study focused on both good and bad experiences at various recently proposed lab sites and compared them with other past case examples to identify 'lessons learned' that are relevant to both current and future biocontainment projects. Overall, the study documented the continuing importance of trust, transparency, and due process in public decision making and highlighted the importance of developing and implementing a comprehensive pro-active risk communication strategy at the earliest stages of project planning. The study also documented indications of public insecurity associated with biodefense research, which may translate into future problems for public health researchers.

Margaret Race is an ecologist working with NASA through the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. She recently completed a study on public decision making and risk communication associated with the construction of BSL-3 and BSL-4 biocontainment labs nationwide. The study, which was begun during a fellowship at Stanford University and CISAC, reflects her longstanding interest in risk perceptions, legal and societal issues, public communication and education associated with controversial science and technological proposals. In her work with NASA, she focuses on planetary protection and the search for extraterrestrial life--which will someday involve construction of a BSL-4 biocontainment lab for handling and testing scientific samples returned from Mars and other solar system locaitons. During the past decade, she has been a lead member of an international team of researchers that helped NASA develop a protocol for the quarantine, handling, and testing of extraterrestrial samples from Mars. She has served on numerous National Resource Council studies analyzing risk communication and societal issues associated environmental protection on Earth and in space. Dr. Race received her BA degree in Biology and MS degree in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Ph.D. in Ecology/Zoology from the University of California at Berkeley. Her teaching and research work has included positions at Stanford University (Human Biology Program), UC Berkeley (Assistant Dean, College of Natural Resources), and Office of the President, University of California (Senior Science Policy Analyst and Director of Planning). She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in Marine Policy and Ocean Management at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

After considering trends in the role of nuclear weapons and some lessons from history, this presentation examines nuclear signaling in the context of the evolving role of nuclear weapons (for deterrence and dissuasion, among other purposes) and likely developments of U.S. nuclear forces and their concepts of operation for regional crises. Following the development of a 2015 regional crisis scenario, the utility of potential signaling options are examined in light of current U.S. nuclear force development trends. Options for future U.S. nuclear force and concepts development for signaling as part of overall tailored deterrence are identified and examined.

Owen Price is a consulting visiting fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies International Security Program, on sabbatical until March 2007 from the U.K. Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), where he has worked for 12 years. Most recently, he led a team of systems engineers working on AWE capability programs, work designed to ensure that AWE continues to be able to design and field new warheads of tasked to do so by the British government. From 2000 to 2003, he led the AWE Verification Research Program, was a technical adviser to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and was a member of the U.K. delegation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee Meetings in 2003 and 2004. Price holds an MA in engineering from the University of Cambridge, England, and an MBA in engineering management from the University of Bradford, England. He is currently reading (part time) for an MSc in systems engineering at the U.K. Defense Academy, Cranfield University, Shrivenham, England. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and is a British national.

Satellites are absolutely essential and extremely vulnerable for national and economic security. How do we deal with this dilemma?

Michael Krepon is co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center and the author or editor of eleven books and over 350 articles. Prior to co-founding the Stimson Center, Krepon worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Carter administration, and in the U.S. House of Representatives, assisting Congressman Norm Dicks. He receive an MA from the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and a BA from Franklin & Marshall College. He also studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo, Egypt.

Krepon divides his time between Stimson's South Asia and space security projects. The South Asia project concentrates on escalation control, nuclear risk reduction, confidence building, and peace making between India and Pakistan. This project entails field work, publications, and Washington-based programming, including a visiting fellowship program. The space security project seeks to promote a code of conduct for responsible space-faring nations and works toward stronger international norms for the peaceful uses of outer space.

Bioterrorism is a growing threat. While the U.S. government has spent considerable sums on programs designed to protect the United States from a biological attack, no clear strategy has been articulated to guide planning and expenditures. This talk will present the outlines of a coherent strategy for coping with bioterrorism that includes diplomacy, deterrence and defense, with the emphasis on defense.

Dean Wilkening directs the Science Program at CISAC. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University and spent 13 years at the RAND Corporation prior to coming to Stanford in 1996. His major research interests have been nuclear strategy and policy, arms control, the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, ballistic missile defense, and conventional force modernization. His most recent research focuses on ballistic missile defense and biological terrorism. His work on missile defense focuses on the broad strategic and political implications of deploying national and theater missile defenses, in particular, the impact of theater missile defense in Northeast Asia, and the technical feasibility of boost-phase interceptors for national and theater missile defense. His work on biological weapons focuses on understanding the scientific and technical uncertainties associated with predicting the outcome of hypothetical airborne biological weapon attacks, with the aim of devising more effective civil defenses, and a reanalysis of the accidental anthrax release in 1979 from a Russian military compound in Sverdlovsk with the aim of improving our understanding of the human effects of inhalation anthrax.

"Ethnicity in Today's Europe" will commence with a Related Presidential Lecture featuring Partha Chatterjee.

Conference Statement

Headlines today blaze with stories about the fate of Europe. There is a sense, both in Europe and around the world, that a sort of "tipping point" has been reached. A recurrent theme is the question of demographics. For instance, how are European social welfare systems going to cope with an aging population? What role will immigrants from outside Europe's borders, both recent and less recent, play in European society? What will be the impact of immigration between the member states of the European Union? What place will Europe's growing population of Muslims have in twenty-first century Europe?

As the ongoing process of unification redraws Europe's borders, as the populations of major European cities become more and more diverse, the question of ethnicity is at the forefront of many of the most important debates on the continent. On the one hand the long history of European national and ethnic identities is at play, as is the legacy of colonialism. On the other, a significant recent upswing in the movement of peoples around the globe has changed the face of Europe, often literally. Movement, of course, from outside Europe's borders into European states. But also, and crucially, movement within the space between Portugal and the Urals. Such movement certainly responds to a number of economic and social needs. At the same time, European conceptions of citizenship, equity, and nationhood often exist in tension with the realities of changing ethnic populations.

The conference "Ethnicity in Today's Europe" at Stanford will address this topic in an interdisciplinary manner. Participants will focus on the question: "What's new about the situation in Europe today?" Bringing together scholars from different disciplines, the conference will provide a historical perspective together with contributions addressing economic, social, cultural, and political issues. Some themes that may be discussed include: how the current situation mirrors or departs from the past; the role of the media in portraying the interaction between different groups; the different perspectives of specific populations within Europe; whether Europe's diversity is best described under the rubric of ethnicity, nationality, race, or some other term; similarities and differences between European nation-states with regard to diversity within their borders. Above all, participants will use their own disciplinary perspective to assess what is at stake in the interaction between peoples in Europe as the twenty-first century gets underway.

"Ethnicity in Today's Europe" is jointly presented by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Stanford Humanities Center.