Discriminate Force Revisited
-
Ariel (Eli) Levite is a nonresident senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment. He is a member of the Israeli Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee on Arms Control and Regional Security and a member of the board of directors of the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, Levite was the Principal Deputy Director General for Policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. Levite also served as the deputy national security advisor for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control in the Israeli Ministry of Defense. In September 2000, Levite took a two year sabbatical from the Israeli civil service to work as a visiting fellow and project co-leader of the "Discriminate Force" Project as the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. Before his government service, Levite worked for five years as a senior research associate and head of the project on Israeli security at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Levite has taught courses on security studies and political science at Tel Aviv University, Cornell University, and the University of California, Davis.
CISAC Conference Room
Eli Levite
former Principal Deputy Director General for Policy
Speaker
Israeli Atomic Energy Commission
Seminars
Iran on the Nuclear Threshold - Feasibility of Prevention and of Deterrence
Paragraphs
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Herzliya Conference
Targeting Civilians in War
Paragraphs
Accidental harm to civilians in warfare often becomes an occasion for public outrage, from citizens of both the victimized and the victimizing nation. In this vitally important book on a topic of acute concern for anyone interested in military strategy, international security, or human rights, Alexander B. Downes reminds readers that democratic and authoritarian governments alike will sometimes deliberately kill large numbers of civilians as a matter of military strategy. What leads governments to make such a choice?
Downes
examines several historical cases: British counterinsurgency tactics
during the Boer War, the starvation blockade used by the Allies against
Germany in World War I, Axis and Allied bombing campaigns in World War
II, and ethnic cleansing in the Palestine War. He concludes that
governments decide to target civilian populations for two main
reasons?desperation to reduce their own military casualties or avert
defeat, or a desire to seize and annex enemy territory. When a state's
military fortunes take a turn for the worse, he finds, civilians are
more likely to be declared legitimate targets to coerce the enemy state
to give up. When territorial conquest and annexation are the aims of
warfare, the population of the disputed land is viewed as a threat and
the aggressor state may target those civilians to remove them.
Democracies historically have proven especially likely to target
civilians in desperate circumstances.
In Targeting Civilians in
War, Downes explores several major recent conflicts, including the 1991
Persian Gulf War and the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Civilian casualties occurred in each campaign, but they were not the
aim of military action. In these cases, Downes maintains, the
achievement of quick and decisive victories against overmatched foes
allowed democracies to win without abandoning their normative beliefs
by intentionally targeting civilians. Whether such ?restraint? can be
guaranteed in future conflicts against more powerful adversaries is,
however, uncertain.
During times of war, democratic societies
suffer tension between norms of humane conduct and pressures to win at
the lowest possible costs. The painful lesson of Targeting Civilians in
War is that when these two concerns clash, the latter usually prevails.
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Books
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Cornell University Press
Number
978-0-8014-4634-4
What Iranian leaders really say about doing away with Israel
Paragraphs
Over the past several years, Iranian leaders--most prominently, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--have made numerous statements calling for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. While certain experts have interpreted these statements to be simple expressions of dissatisfaction with the current Israeli government and its policies, in reality, the intent behind Ahmadinejad's language and that of others is clear.
What emerges from a comprehensive analysis of what Ahmadinejad actually said--and how it has been interpreted in Iran--is that the Iranian president was not just calling for "regime change" in Jerusalem, but rather the actual physical destruction of the State of Israel. When Ahmadinejad punctuates his speech with "Death to Israel" (marg bar Esraiil), this is no longer open to various interpretations.
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Globalization's Losers Responding? Foreign Direct Investment and Voting in Israel's Development Towns
-
When do people perceive themselves to be losing out from international economic integration? Do these perceptions translate into vote change? Existing literature studies gain and loss from economic integration as a function of its objective material effect and political preferences that follow are assumed to reflect concerns about a broader set of social outcomes that they associate with economic openess, particularly reentment about relative deprivation.
Graham Stuart Conference Room
4th Floor Political Science
Encina Hall West
Yotam Margalit
Post Doctoral Fellow.PGJ
Speaker
Stanford University
Workshops
A Moment of Truth for Nuclear Energy
-
Drell Lecture Recording: NA
Drell Lecture Transcript: NA
Speaker's Biography: Ariel (Eli) Levite is a nonresident senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment. He is a member of the Israeli Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee on Arms Control and Regional Security and a member of the board of directors of the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies.
Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, Levite was the Principal Deputy Director General for Policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. Levite also served as the deputy national security advisor for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control in the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
In September 2000, Levite took a two year sabbatical from the Israeli civil service to work as a visiting fellow and project co-leader of the "Discriminate Force" Project as the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.
Before his government service, Levite worked for five years as a senior research associate and head of the project on Israeli security at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Levite has taught courses on security studies and political science at Tel Aviv University, Cornell University, and the University of California, Davis.
Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center
Ariel Levite
Speaker
Lectures
America and Europe After Bush
-
This program is sponsored jointly by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, International Law Society, and Stanford Law School.
José María Aznar was born in Madrid in 1953. He is:
- Executive President of FAES Presidente Ejecutivo de FAES (The Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis).
- Distinguished Scholar at the University of Georgetown where he has taught various seminars on contemporary European politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School since the year 2004.
- Member of the Board of Directors of News Corporation.
- Member of the Global Advisory Board of J.E. Robert Companies y Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Latin American division
- Member of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council of the United Status.
- Member of the Advisory Board of Centaurus Capital
- Advisor of Falck SPA
He became Prime Minister of Spain in 1996, following the electoral victory of the Partido Popular. With the party's subsequent electoral victory in the year 2000, this time with an absolute majority, he led the country again for a new term. His time as Prime Minister lasted up until the elections of 2004, when he voluntarily chose not to run for office again.
Throughout his two terms as Prime Minister of the Government he led an important process of economic and social reform. Thanks to various liberalisation processes and the introduction of measures to promote competition, along with budgetary controls, rationalised public spending and tax reductions, almost 5 million jobs were created in Spain. The Spanish GDP figure grew each year by more than 2%, at an average of 3.4% in fact, featuring an aggregate increase of 64% over eight years. Throughout this period, Spain's average income increased from 78% to 87% of the average income of the European Union. The public deficit decreased from an alarming 6% of GDP to a balanced budget. Furthermore, the first two reductions in income tax that democratic Spain has ever known took place during his two terms in office.
One of José María Aznar's most serious concerns is the battle against terrorism. He is in favour of a firm policy, one that is against any kind of political concession, combined with close international cooperation between democratic countries. He is a strong supporter of the Atlantic Relationship and the European Union's commitment to freedoms and economic reform.
He is the Honorary Chairman of the Partido Popular, a party he chaired between 1990 and 2004. Until the year 2006 he was the President of the Centrist Democrat International (CDI) and Vice-President of the International Democrat Union (IDU), the two international organisations that bring together the parties of the Centre, along with Liberals, Christian Democrats and Conservatives throughout the world.
He forms part of the committees of various organisations, including the committee for the initiative known as "One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)" and the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC).
José María Aznar began his political career in the political party known as Alianza Popular, in 1979. In 1982 he was elected a Member of Parliament for Ávila. He then went on to become the Regional Chairman of Alianza Popular in Castile-Leon and the Head of the Regional Government of Castile-Leon between 1987 and 1989. In 1989, following the re-founding of the Partido Popular, he was chosen as a party candidate for Prime Minister in the general elections of 1989. The following year he was elected Chairman of the Party. He led the Partido Popular in the elections of 1993, 1996 and the year 2000. Throughout these four legislatures, he served as a Member of Parliament for Madrid. Between 1989 and 1996 he was the Leader of the Opposition.
José María Aznar graduated in law at the Complutense University. He qualified as an Inspector of State Finances in 1975.
He has written the following books: Cartas a un Joven Español (2007), Retratos y Perfiles. De Fraga a Bush (2005) ("Portraits and Profiles: From Fraga to Bush"), Ocho años de Gobierno (2004) ("Eight Years in Government"), La España en que yo creo (1995) ("The Spain I Believe in"), España: la segunda transición (1994) ("Spain: The Second Transition") and Libertad y Solidaridad (1991) ("Freedom and Solidarity").
José María Aznar has been awarded honorary doctorates by Sophia University in Tokyo (1997), Florida International University (1998), Bar-Ilan University in Israel (2005) Ciencias Aplicadas University in Perú (2006), Andrés Belló University in Chile (2006), Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala (2006) and by Università Cattolica Sacro Cuore in Milán (2007).
He is married to Ana Botella, with whom he has
three children and three grandchildren.
A video recording of this event can be viewed at: http://www.law.stanford.edu/calendar/details/2201/#related_information_and_recordings.
Stanford Law School
Room 290
José María Aznar
Former Prime Minister, Spain
Speaker
Lectures
Evidence from Imagery: The Iran and Syrian Nuclear Programs - An Open & Shut Case?
-
Abstract: In this age of increasing "Global Transparency," commercial satellite imagery has now made it possible for anyone to remotely peer "over the fence" and view what heretofore had been otherwise impossible...clandestine nuclear facilities (most significantly, those capable of producing fissile material suitable for use in nuclear weapons). The synergistic combination of readily available tools: personal computers, the internet, three-dimensional virtual globe visualization applications such as Google Earth, and high resolution commercial satellite imagery has gone beyond what anyone could have imaged just a few years ago. The downside of all this is that those who want to keep their clandestine nuclear facilities and associated activities from being either detected, identified, and/or monitored, are becoming more adept in their use of camouflage, concealment, and deception.
Iran is one such case where it has followed a steep learning curve of adapting to the threat that overhead observation can pose. After repeated dissident group revelations about Iran's clandestine nuclear facilities, together with confirming media broadcast of commercial satellite images of those facilities followed by verification inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); the government of Iran has become increasingly aware of this threat and gone to greater and greater lengths to try and defeat it. Iran's cover-up tactics have improved with time...from concealed infrastructure and false cover stories (Natanz)...to refurbishment and sanitization of facilities following removal of incriminating equipment (Kalaye Electric and Lashkar Abad), to the wholesale razing of facilities together with the removal of dirt and vegetation to defeat IAEA forensic environmental sampling (Lavizan).
While the international community continues to debate the issue of whether or not Iran's nuclear program is purely peaceful in nature (helping it to stay an "open case"), Iran is defiantly pursuing its goal of fissile material production. Syria, on the other hand (evidently together with North Korea), was also quite aware of the overhead observation threat, taking great pains to conceal its plutonium production reactor at Al-Kibar. Syria disguised the true function of the facility by employing minimal site security (no fences or guard towers), having minimal support infrastructure (with non visible powerlines and only buried water lines), not installing a telltale reactor ventilation stack or cooling tower, hiding the reactor building in a ravine (terrain masking), and finally camouflaging the facility with a false façade to make it appear as a byzantine fortress. Nonetheless, despite all those steps, a leak of ground-level reactor construction and interior photographs, which formed the basis for the subsequent bombing of the facility by Israel, successfully thwarted that effort (the "closed case?"). Rather than confessing the truth about al-Kibar, the Syrian government rushed to remove all traces of the destroyed reactor and supplant it with a new larger footprint building for as yet unknown purposes while continuing to claim it was previously only a disused military warehouse. The IAEA asked d Syria for permission to inspect not only the Al-Kibar site, but reportedly up to three other sites thought to be associated with it. The Syrians refused access to all but the now heavily sanitized Al-Kibar location. We must now all await the IAEA report on the findings of that singular onsite inspection.
Frank Pabian is a Senior Nonproliferation Infrastructure Analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has over 35 years experience in the nuclear nonproliferation field including six years with the Office of Imagery Analysis and 18 years with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's "Z" Division. Frank also served as a Chief Inspector for the IAEA during UN inspections in Iraq from 1996-1998 focusing on "Capable Sites." In December 2002, Frank served as one of the first US nuclear inspectors back in Iraq with UN/IAEA. While at Los Alamos, Frank has developed and presented commercial satellite imagery based briefings on foreign clandestine nuclear facilities to the International Nuclear Suppliers Group, the IAEA, NATO, and the Foreign Ministries of China and India on behalf of the NNSA and STATE.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Frank Pabian
International Research, Analysis, and Development Work Force, LANL
Speaker
Seminars