Stanford University

Homeland Security

Reforming national cyber defense

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Abstract: The U.S. government continues to struggle with how best to defend the country from cyber attacks. Reacting out in frustration, Senator John McCain wondered aloud if the United States should consider what lessons can be learned from a new cyber defense organization in the United Kingdom called the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). In this paper, Stuart Russell and Michael Sulmeyer examine the NCSC, its origins, its missions, and its effectiveness. They then consider how certain aspects of the NCSC might map onto the more complicated governance structure around cyber defense in the United States. Despite important differences between the United Kingdom and the United States, they conclude that there is a great deal the United States can adapt from the United Kingdom’s efforts, particularly the NCSC’s ambitious Active Defense agenda. 

Speaker Bio: Dr. Michael Sulmeyer is the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project Director at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Contributing Editor for the national security blog Lawfare. Before Harvard, he served as the Director for Plans and Operations for Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. There, he worked closely with the Joint Staff and Cyber Command on a variety of efforts to counter malicious cyber activity against U.S. and DoD interests. For this work, he received the Secretary Medal for Exceptional Public Service.

Previously, he worked on arms control and the maintenance of strategic stability between the United States, Russia, and China. As a Marshall Scholar, Sulmeyer received his PhD (DPhil) in Politics from Oxford University, and his dissertation, "Money for Nothing: Understanding the Termination of U.S. Major Defense Acquisition Programs," won the Sir Walter Bagehot Prize for best dissertation in government and public administration. He received his B.A. and J.D. from Stanford University and his M.A. in War Studies from King's College London. In the mid-1990s, he was the System Operator (SysOp) of The Summit BBS in Santa Barbara, California.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

616 Serra Street

Stanford, CA 94305

Director, Cyber Security Project Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Seminars

Machine intelligence and national security

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This event is restricted to current Stanford students, faculty, staff and visiting scholars. 
The event is at capacity and RSVPs are now closed. Thank you for your understanding.
 
Abstract: Machines are increasingly helping us with cognitive tasks in addition to physical labor. Like the industrial revolution, this transition in how we use machines will have major impacts on the security of states and the character of armed conflict. How should we think about this transition? What issues should we prepare for? I will parse several broad areas where AI applications may affect elements of national power, and highlight issues we can already see emerging for national security leaders.
 
Speaker Bio: Dr. Matthew Daniels works for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and NASA. His principal areas of focus include U.S. space programs, deep space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Previously he was an engineer at NASA, where he worked on spacecraft designs and special projects for the director of NASA Ames in Mountain View, CA. Matt received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Stanford and a B.A. in physics from Cornell, was a fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and is an adjunct professor at Georgetown.
 

William J. Perry Conference Room

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

616 Serra Street

Stanford, CA 94305

Matthew Daniels

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Dr. Matthew Daniels is currently serving at the White House. His work focuses on U.S. space programs and technology strategy.

Previously he was the DoD's inaugural Technical Director for AI in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering, overseeing the DoD's broad artificial intelligence R&D portfolio. He has also served as Advisor to the Director of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, focusing on strategy for U.S. space programs, and a member of the strategy and plans team for the NASA Administrator, focusing on deep space exploration and development. He is the only person to have served simultaneously at Net Assessment and NASA. Outside of the U.S. Government, Matt has been a research affiliate at MIT and Stanford, space technology advisor to MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, a senior fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, and continues to teach on space security and exploration at Georgetown.

Earlier Matt was a research engineer at NASA, with work in spacecraft design, stochastic control, and new science missions. He has served as part of NASA Ames delegations to build new technology projects with U.S. allies and partners in Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Matt received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Stanford, a B.A. in physics from Cornell, was a Fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and is a recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

 

Advisor Department of Defense and NASA
Seminars

Countering Terrorism

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Fifteen years after September 11, the United States still faces terror threats—both domestic and foreign. After years of wars, ever more intensive and pervasive surveillance, enhanced security measures at major transportation centers, and many attempts to explain who we are fighting and why and how to fight them, the threats continue to multiply.

So, too, do our attempts to understand just what terrorism is and how to counter it.

Two leaders in the field of terrorism studies, Martha Crenshaw and Gary LaFree, provide a critical look at how we have dealt with the terror threat over the years. They make clear why it is so difficult to create policy to counter terrorism. The foes are multiple and often amorphous, the study of the field dogged by disagreement on basic definitional and methodological issues, and the creation of policy hobbled by an exacting standard: the counterterrorist must succeed all the time, the terrorist only once. As Countering Terrorism shows, there are no simple solutions to this threat.

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Gary LaFree
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Office of the Director of National Intelligence: From Pariah and Piñata to Managing Partner

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This is a chapter in the second edition of The National Security Enterprise, a book edited by Roger Z. George and Harvey Rishikof that provides practitioners' insights into the operation, missions, and organizational cultures of the principal national security agencies and other institutions that shape the U.S. national security decision-making process. Unlike some textbooks on American foreign policy, it offers analysis from insiders who have worked at the National Security Council, the State and Defense Departments, the intelligence community, and the other critical government entities. The book explains how organizational missions and cultures create the labyrinth in which a coherent national security policy must be fashioned. Understanding and appreciating these organizations and their cultures is essential for formulating and implementing it. Taking into account the changes introduced by the Obama administration, the second edition includes four new or entirely revised chapters (Congress, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury, and USAID) and updates to the text throughout. It covers changes instituted since the first edition was published in 2011, implications of the government campaign to prosecute leaks, and lessons learned from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This up-to-date book will appeal to students of U.S. national security and foreign policy as well as career policymakers.

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Georgetown University Press
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Thomas Fingar

A Conversation with General Michael Hayden

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About the Event: In conversation with Philip Taubman, General Hayden will discuss intelligence and cybersecurity challenges the United States faces in combatting terrorism, dealing with North Korea, Iran and Russia, and will assess President Trump’s relations with the U.S. intelligence community. 

About the Speaker: General Michael Hayden is a retired four-star general who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency when the course of world events was changing at a rapid rate. As head of the country’s premier intelligence agencies, he was on the frontline of global change, the war on terrorism and the growing cyber challenge. He understands the dangers, risks, and potential rewards of the political, economic, and security situations facing us. General Hayden dissects political situations in hot spots around the world, analyzing the tumultuous global environment and what it all means for Americans and America’s interests. He speaks on the delicate balance between liberty and security in intelligence work, as well the potential benefits and dangers associated with the cyber domain. As the former head of two multi-billion dollar enterprises, he can also address the challenges of managing complex organizations in times of stress and risk, and the need to develop effective internal and external communications.

In addition to leading CIA and NSA, General Hayden was the country’s first principal deputy director of national intelligence and the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the country.  In all of these jobs, he worked to put a human face on American intelligence, explaining to the American people the role of espionage in protecting both American security and American liberty.  Hayden also served as commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center and served in senior staff positions at the Pentagon, at U.S. European Command, at the National Security Council, and the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. He was also the deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces in South Korea.

Hayden has been a frequent expert and commentator on major news outlets and in top publications, valued for his expertise on intelligence matters like cyber security, government surveillance, geopolitics, and more. He was featured in the HBO documentary Manhunt, which looked at espionage through the eyes of the insiders who led the secret war against Osama bin Laden, and in Showtime’s The Spymasters, a detailed look at the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Hayden is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group and a distinguished visiting professor at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. He is on the board of directors of Motorola Solutions and serves on a variety of other boards and consultancies. In 2013, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) awarded Hayden the 29th annual William Oliver Baker Award.  General Hayden is also the first recipient of the Helms Award presented by the CIA Officers’ Memorial Foundation.  In 2014 he was the inaugural Humanitas visiting professor in intelligence studies at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.  His recent memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, has been a New York Times best-seller and was recently selected as one of the 100 most notable books of 2016.

Philip Taubman is Adjunct Professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is also the former Moscow and Washington Bureau Chief, and Deputy Editorial Page Editor, of The New York Times. Philip Taubman served as a reporter and editor at The New York Times for thirty years, specializing in national security coverage. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America’s Space Espionage, and The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb. He is working on a biography of George P. Shultz, the former secretary of state.

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Michael Hayden Former director, CIA, NSA
Seminars

The Challenges of Providing Data Security

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Drell Lecture Recording: https://youtu.be/K8qLqJwi4Qc

 

Drell Lecture Transcript: NA

 

Speaker's Biography: Admiral Inman graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1950, and from the National War College in 1972.  He became an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin in 1987.  He was appointed as a tenured professor holding the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy in August 2001.  He served as Interim Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs from 1 January to 31 December 2005 and again from January 2009 to March 2010.

Admiral Inman served in the U.S. Navy from November 1951 to July 1982, when he retired with the permanent rank of Admiral.  While on active duty he served as Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.  After retirement from the Navy, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) in Austin, Texas for four years and Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Westmark Systems, Inc., a privately owned electronics industry holding company for three years.  Admiral Inman also served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 1987 through 1990.

Admiral Inman’s primary business activity since 1990 has been investing in start-up technology companies, where he is a Managing Director of Gefinor Ventures and of Limestone Capital Advisors.  He serves as a Trustee of the American Assembly and the California Institute of Technology.  He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Admiral Bob R. Inman National Security Agency
Lectures
Drell Lecture

Inside the CIA: A Conversation with Michael Morell

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This event is at maximum capacity. We thank you for your interest and regret that we cannot accept more registrations.

- This event is part of the Robert G. Wesson Lectures Series -

About the Event: Michael Morell, Former Deputy Director and twice Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, will be interviewed by Amy Zegart, CISAC Co-director and Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Audience members will have an opportunity to ask questions after the interview. 

About the Speaker: Michael Morell, the former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is the Wesson Lecturer at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Center for International Security and Cooperation for 2017. He is one of our nation’s leading national security professionals, with extensive experience in intelligence and foreign policy.  He has been at the center of our nation’s fight against terrorism, its work to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and its efforts to respond to trends that are altering the international landscape—including the Arab Spring, the rise of China, and the cyber threat.  Politico has called Michael the “Bob Gates of his generation.”

During his 33-year career at CIA, Michael served as Deputy Director for over three years, a job in which he managed the Agency’s day-to-day operations, represented the Agency at the White House and Congress, and maintained the Agency’s relationships with intelligence services and foreign leaders around the world.  Michael also served twice as Acting Director, leading CIA when Leon Panetta was named Secretary of Defense and again after David Petraeus left government.

Michael’s senior assignments at CIA also included serving for two years as the Director of Intelligence, the Agency’s top analyst, and for two years as Executive Director, the CIA’s top administrator—managing human resources, the budget, security, and information technology for an agency the size of a Fortune 200 firm.

Michael has been a witness to history on multiple occasions.  He is the only person who was both with President Bush on September 11th, when al-Qaida burst into the American consciousness, and with President Obama on May 1st, when Bin Laden was brought to justice.  Michael played a major role in the Bin Laden operation.

Michael is known inside CIA for his leadership.  He inspired individuals and work units to perform beyond expectations.  He mentored most of the Agency’s current senior leadership team, including a significant number of women and minorities.  When he departed CIA, thousands of officers wrote Michael notes of thanks.

Michael is the recipient of many awards.  He received the Presidential Rank Award for exceptional performance – the nation’s highest honor for civilian service.  He also received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, CIA’s highest award, for his role in the Bin Laden operation.  Michael is also the recipient of the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and the Department of Defense Service Medal.    

Today, Michael is involved in a wide range of activities.  He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company; Senior Counselor to Washington’s fastest growing consulting firm, Beacon Global Strategies; and a consultant to a number of private sector entities.  He is the Chairman of the Board of one of those entities – Culpeper National Security Solutions, a subsidiary of DynCorp International.

Much of what Michael does today is tied to national security.  Until recently, he was a senior national security contributor for CBS News.  He is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose Show discussing national security issues.  He is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; a Senior Fellow at West Point’s Center on Combatting Terrorism; a resident fellow this fall at the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, a member of the Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Group, which advises the Secretary of Homeland Security on national security issues; a member of the Board of Director’s of the Atlantic Council, a member of the Advisory Board to the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism, and a member of the Atlantic Council’s advisory group to its study on the future of the Middle East.  He served as a Member of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology.

Michael is the author of the New York Times bestseller on CIA’s nearly 20-year fight against al Qa`ida.  The title of the book is “The Great War of Our Time:  An Insider’s Account of the CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism – From al Qaida to ISIS.”  It was published in May 2015.

Michael is a native of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and he maintains close ties to northeast Ohio.  His father and mother—who taught him hard work, the pursuit of excellence, and humility—were an autoworker and a homemaker.  Michael is a first-generation college student, earning a B.A. summa cum laude in economics from the University of Akron.  He also earned an M.A. in economics from Georgetown University.  

Michael is involved with charities associated with supporting the families of fallen soldiers and intelligence officers.

 

Inside the CIA: A Conversation with Michael Morell
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Encina Hall, 2nd floor

Michael Morell Former director Central Intelligence Agency
Seminars

Meet Your Army: Now, What Do You Want Us to Do?

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Abstract: The Army is in a period of Transition and Transformation, where the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan are supposed to be over or winding down, in theory enabling the force to rebalance and refocus our efforts.  Though we have been here before with many post-war and conflict periods, the Army and DoD are in actuality presented with possibly the most complex set of challenges and threats to the Army’s mission and to national security as a whole this nation has experienced.  While the Budget Control Act is currently preventing any strategic planning for operations, training, personnel forecasting and management, and R&D/Acquisition investment, all key factors for input into any strategy, the myriad threats to national security and in global competition are on the rise.  Resources and focus are down; threats and competition are going up.  China’s rapid development and matching need for resources, such as those in Africa and the South China Seas; a reemerging Russia, bent on disrupting NATO efforts to expand while simultaneously persisting in efforts to expand their reach in the Arctic and the Middle East and disrupt U.S. interests where it can in the “Grey Zone” of conflict; an unstable and possibly nuclear weapons-capable North Korea; an Iran that will be nuclear-armed and looking to maintain Shia hegemony in the Middle East and defeat U.S. interests in the region; and existing and emerging transnational terrorist organizations and states, such as Daesh/ISIL; innovative and widely-available technologies in cyberwarfare, unmanned aerial systems, dynamic shifts in regional and global demographics, information and liberation technology, and even the U.S. national debt round out a list of our current and future national security challenges.

SECDEF Ash Carter has articulated that the DoD is looking for a Third Offset Strategy to keep our unique hedge of capabilities against many, if not all of these threats and conditions.  Unfortunately, neither the First nor Second Offset were devised as such and only came into their being once key technologies and applications were developed against a much smaller list of threats and capabilities than we face now.

The key question is then, how does the Army, with these challenges, limitations, and threats, create opportunities now that assist a Third Offset Strategy?  Or at least, how are we going to fight and win our nations’ wars in the near and far-term?

About the Speaker: COL J.B. Vowell has served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army for over 25 years.  He has had a variety of postings, including Europe, the Pacific, Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan.  He was a combat leader in both the Surge in Iraq, 2006-2007 and the Surge in Afghanistan, 2010-2011.  He currently serves as Army Chief of Staff GEN Mark Milley’s Senior Fellow to Brookings Institution, where he works to assist in the development of policy and strategy with research towards Land Warfare, 2030-2050 and the Human Domain of Battle.

COL Vowell commanded 2d battalion, 327th Infantry (“No Slack”) in the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, KY.  During this 2.5-year command, COL Vowell trained and deployed his Infantry Task Force to Kunar and Nangarhar provinces in support of Operation Enduring Freedom XI in Afghanistan.  During this year-long deployment, COL Vowell and his task force of more than 1,000 men and women were deployed along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, dealing with local, national and international issues at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of policy and diplomacy.  The documentary film, The Hornet’s Nest, features the numerous missions and heroic fights during this challenging combat deployment.

COL Vowell then commanded 3rd Brigade Combat Team (“Rakkasans”), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), from 2013-2015.  COL Vowell led the Brigade's deployment to Afghanistan for ISAF and Operation Resolute Support (RS) from January 2015-October 2015, where his task force led the efforts to train, advise, and assist Afghan Army and Police efforts across Eastern Afghanistan to defeat Taliban, al-Qaeda, and newly-formed ISIL efforts to destabilize the country.

COL Vowell’s military and civilian education includes the United States Army Command and General Staff College, the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), and he was a War College Fellow to Stanford and CISAC from 2012-2013. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree (Biology) from the University of Alabama and a Master of Science degree in Human Resources Management from Troy State University and a Masters of Arts in Theater Operations from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

 

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

Infantry Officer U.S. Army
Seminars

Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy

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Abstract: Derek Chollet will offer his inside assessment of Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy, tackling the prevailing consensus to argue that Obama has profoundly altered the course of American foreign policy for the better and positioned the United States to lead in the future. His recent book The Long Game combines a deep sense of history with new details and compelling insights into how the Obama administration approached the most difficult global challenges. With the unique perspective of having served at the three national-security power centers during the Obama years – the White House, State Department, and Pentagon – Chollet takes readers behind the scenes of the intense struggles over the most consequential issues: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the meltdown of Syria and the rise of ISIS, the Ukraine crisis and a belligerent Russia, the conflict in Libya, the tangle with Iran, the turbulent relationship with Israel, and the rise of new powers like China. An unflinching, fast-paced account of U.S. foreign policy, The Long Game reveals how Obama has defied the Washington establishment to redefine America’s role in the world, offering important lessons for the next president.

About the Speaker: Derek Chollet served in senior positions during the Obama administration at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon, most recently as the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He is currently a counselor and senior advisor at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Institute of War and Peace Studies, and a regular contributor to Defense One and many other publications. His previous books include America Between Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, coauthored with James Goldgeier, and The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, coedited with Samantha Power. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family.

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

Derek Chollet Fmr. U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Department of Defense (formerly)
Seminars

America, the Middle East, and Grand Strategy in the Post-9/11 Era

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Abstract: Grand strategy represents a state's overarching theory of what constitutes national security and how best to produce national security. Do U.S. presidential administrations have grand strategies? If so, do these theoretical frameworks shape the actual practice of American foreign policy? This seminar addresses these questions, focusing on the grand strategies of the Bush and Obama administrations and American foreign policy in the Middle East since 9/11. 
 
About the Speaker: Dr. Colin Kahl is the National Security Advisor to the Vice President and Deputy Assistant to the President. He is on public service leave from Georgetown University, where he is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon (2009-2011), where he received the Outstanding Public Service Medal in 2011.  He has published articles on U.S. foreign and defense policy in the Middle East in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly. Kahl's previous research, including his book States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (Princeton, 2006), focused on the causes of civil and ethnic conflict. Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

Colin Kahl National Security Advisor to the Vice President, Deputy Assistant to the President Office of the Vice President
Seminars
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