May 26th, 2011

CISAC announces its 2011-2012 Undergraduate Honors Students

CISAC announces its 2011-2012 Undergraduate Honors Students Read more »

April 25th, 2011

Stephen Stedman: Why honest elections really matter

Stanford's Stephen Stedman, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation, discusses democracy's surge and the growing need for elections with integrity. Stedman was recently named director of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security. Read more »

April 18th, 2011

Leonard Weiss: The U.S. may have hid Israel's nuclear test

CISAC's Leonard Weiss, a former staff director for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Senator John Glenn, provides a first-hand account.

• » Israel’s 1979 Nuclear Test and the U.S. Cover-Up

January 27th, 2011

Ethics and War: Why So Many Civilians Are Dying

There are more laws and international treaties designed to protect human rights in conflict zones than ever before. Yet civilians continue to pay the ultimate price, with women and children frequently caught in the crossfire. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was one civilian casualty for every eight or nine military casualties, said Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist who played a key role in helping his country overcome apartheid, served as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and became a household name in 2009 for his controversial fact-finding mission after an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. During World War II, the ratio increased to 1-to-1. Today, after what was, Goldstone said, a "very bloody century," every combatant casualty is matched by nine civilian deaths. What explains this? Goldstone joined Stanford historian James Campbell and Peter Berkowitz, a political scientist, to grapple with this paradox as part of Stanford's Ethics and War Series, co-sponsored by the Center for International Security and Cooperation. Audio transcript available
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October 29th, 2010

Cultural critic Susie Linfield discusses 'The ethics of seeing'

As a little girl Susie Linfield was captivated by a book entitled The Black Book of Polish Jewry that included photos of starving Jews in the ghettos. "I was grieved by them. I was shamed by them. But I was also sort of compelled by them," says Linfield, director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program at New York University. Decades later, she reflected again on the way photographs informed her view of war as she examined photos from the Balkans and Rwanda. In her book, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence (University of Chicago Press), Linfield returns to this theme. She spoke at Stanford as part of the Ethics and War series, sponsored in part by the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and talked with CISAC about the political context behind warfare and what she calls "the ethics of seeing." Read more »

July 22nd, 2010

Kate Marvel named 2010-2011 Perry Fellow

The Perry Fellowship honors an early or mid-career researcher from the United States or abroad with a record of "outstanding work in natural science, engineering or mathematics...who is dedicated to solving international security problems." Read more »

June 14th, 2010

Tenth class of honors students exhorted to be doers as well as scholars

Thirteen members of the 2010 CISAC Honors Class in International Security Studies graduated on a balmy summer day June 11, joining 101 alumni of the popular program that marks its 10th anniversary this year. Read more »