Crenshaw presents new book project on terrorism
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What is it about terrorism that makes it so difficult to study and counteract through U.S. government policy? That’s the central question CISAC Senior Fellow Martha Crenshaw hopes to answer in an upcoming book she is co-authoring with Gary LaFree, Director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), where Crenshaw serves as lead investigator. at the University of Maryland.
The idea for the book stems from Crenshaw’s long career in grappling with terrorism and observing how governments struggle to combat it. She has been writing and thinking about terrorism since the 1970s and is currently conducting a multi-year project mapping the evolution of violent extremist groups. However, the difficulties inherent in the topic have not much changed for academics and policymakers.
The problems start with defining terrorism, something that has bedeviled both researchers and policymakers for decades, Crenshaw told a Stanford audience in CISAC.
“We are still arguing about what terrorism means. But even if you agree on a definition, then applying it to the real world remains difficult,” she said.
Beyond semantics, the study of terrorism faces a series of hurdles inherent to the topic. An overarching social theory of the causes of terrorism remains elusive, and there is no agreement on whether terrorism actually works.
Additionally, academics have used many different levels of analyses–individual, organizational, cultural, economic, and others–but have yet to agree on which analyses bear more fruit.
Despite what you might gather from what’s said in the media, terrorism events are actually very rare. Terrorist attacks that kill large amounts of people are even more rare. “9/11 was a black swan, a highly consequential event but only a one-of-a-kind. We show why it’s the case that terrorism is very rare and therefore makes it very hard to predict any kind of trends,” Crenshaw said.
Most of the information available is about attacks that actually happened. But there are many more plots, about ten times more, than actual attacks. Crenshaw said she and her research assistants have used news media and government documents to identify failed and foiled plots against the United States, European Union, and NATO countries plus Australia and New Zealand. The plots have been coded in a dataset that she will analyze.
There are additional obstacles in the way of researchers and policymakers.
Attributing responsibility for attacks is difficult, which hampers research and government responses. “How do you know who to respond against? The concept of terrorism is mixed in with insurgency. It’s hard to think of a policy that targets one but not the other,” Crenshaw said. Terrorist organizations are very small and the boundaries between groups are extremely porous. Yet, there is not a preponderance of lone wolves.
Sometimes, the U.S. government obstructs research. Crenshaw lamented the over-classification of government documents, and drew particular attention to the designation “For Official Use Only”, which is not a classification but a designation that seems to depend on the agency using it.
“If you are analyzing illegal forms of violence there are three sources of information: governments, victims, and terrorists. Victims are difficult to find. Self-reporting is even harder and usually unfeasible. And governments are very secretive. We would like to see more transparency and openness on their part,” she said.
“I think what is being done here is really important when it comes to the question of why it’s so hard to find policy solutions for terrorism,” said Betsy Cooper, a Law and International Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC, who offered commentary on the book draft to the seminar. “A lot of what is in the chapter about the state of counter-terrorism research is very important.”
“I learned a lot especially about the automation in the global terrorism database and it poses some interesting questions. Is something terrorism because we say it is or can we use objective criteria regardless of whether you see it as something else?”
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Security Conundrum Series: An evening with U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
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The video recording of this event can be watched on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j57OuqbtD9Q&feature=youtu.be
In an age of terrorism, where should a democratic society draw the line on government surveillance? Edward Snowden’s explosive disclosures about the National Security Agency’s intelligence-collection operations have ignited an intense debate about the appropriate balance between security and liberty in America. In a special series this year, nationally prominent experts will explore the critical issues raised by the NSA’s activities, including their impact on our security, privacy, and civil liberties. This timely series will address one of the most challenging questions the nation faces today as it tries to strike the right balance between safety and liberty. The Security Conundrum will look behind and beyond the headlines, examining the history and implementation of the NSA operations, the legal questions generated by them, the media’s role in revealing them, and the responsibility of Congress to oversee them. It will also address the NSA’s uneasy and evolving relationship with Silicon Valley. Each session in the series is designed to explore these issues from a different vantage point. The guest speakers, in conversation with Stanford scholars, will probe the problems, explain the political, legal, and technological contours of the NSA actions, and outline ways to preserve the nation’s security without sacrificing our freedoms.
An Evening with U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
Senator Dianne Feinstein has been at the vortex of the debate about Edward Snowden’s disclosures since he exposed an array of National Security Agency surveillance programs in 2013. As chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 2009-2014, and now the ranking minority member, Senator Feinstein has tried to help the nation strike the appropriate balance between security and liberty as she and her Senate colleagues examined NSA practices in light of the Snowden materials. She also played a leading role in the Senate investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency detention and interrogation program following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Senator Feinstein pressed to make the Senate report public. Some parts of the study were released in December 2014. A California Democrat and Stanford graduate, she has served in the Senate since 1993.
In her May 28 appearance at Stanford, Senator Feinstein will discuss the Congressional role in overseeing America’s intelligence agencies, including the NSA and CIA, and establishing the laws that govern their operations. The format for her appearance will be a colloquy with Philip Taubman, a consulting professor at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times.
To register for a free ticket, please follow this link.
The Security Conundrum is co-sponsored by Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security and Cooperation,the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Law School.
CEMEX Auditorium
Knight Management Center
641 Knight Way, Stanford University
Dianne Feinstein
U.S. Senator from California
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United States Senate
Philip Taubman
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Philip Taubman is an affiliate at CISAC. His biography of George Shultz, In The Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz, was published by Stanford University Press in January 2023. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. At the Times, Taubman served as a Washington correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, deputy editorial page editor, Washington bureau chief and associate editor. McNamara At War: A New History, co-authored by Philip Taubman and William Taubman, will be published in September 2025 by W.W. Norton. Philip Taubman was a history major at Stanford, Class of 1970, and served as editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily in 1969. Before joining the New York Times, he worked as a correspondent for Time magazine and was sports editor of Esquire. He was a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees, 1978-1982, and served as secretary of the Stanford Board, 2011-2018. He is author of The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (Harper Collins, 2012) and Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage. (Simon & Schuster, 2003).
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Rewiring the Pentagon: Charting a New Path on Innovation and Cybersecurity
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The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security & Cooperation, and the Hoover Institution are honored to co-sponsor the 2015 Drell Lecture with The Honorable Ashton B. Carter, 25th U.S. Secretary of Defense, who will speak on "Rewiring the Pentagon: Charting a New Path on Innovation and Cybersecurity." The event will include welcoming remarks by Stanford University President John Hennessy. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session with Carter moderated by Amy Zegart, co-director of the CISAC and senior fellow at Hoover. Questions will be collected from the audience as well as from Twitter, using the hashtag #SecDefAtStanford.
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Drell Lecture Transcript: NA
Speaker's Biography: Secretary Carter was the 2014-2015 Payne Distinguished Visitor at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies until he left upon his nomination by the White House. Ash Carter served in numerous jobs in the Department of Defense, and as the twenty-fifth Secretary of Defense under President Obama.
Cemex Auditorium
655 Knight Way
Stanford University
Ashton Carter
25th United States Secretary of Defense
Speaker
United States Department of Defense
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USSTRATCOM commander hosts CISAC for policy talks
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U.S. Navy Adm. Cecil D. Haney, the U.S. Strategic Command commander, hosted CISAC Co-Directors David Relman and Amy Zegart as well as CISAC faculty and fellows at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska on March 30-31, 2015, to promote military-to-university cooperation and innovation, and provide a better understanding of USSTRATCOM’s global missions.
The visit follows Haney’s trip to Stanford last year, during which he held seminars and private meetings with faculty, scholars and students to discuss strategic deterrence in the 21st century. Those discussions focused on reducing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile while maintaining an effective deterrent, the integration of space and cyberspace in nuclear platforms and the congested, contested and competitive operating environment in space.
“Developing and maintaining partnerships with security experts from the private sector and academic institutions like CISAC enables USSTRATCOM to view the strategic environment from a different perspective and adjust our decision calculous accordingly,” Haney said. “We are excited about this unique opportunity to exchange ideas and share information with this prestigious organization.”
Haney opened the discussions by presenting a command mission brief, in which he described USSTRATCOM’s nine Unified Command Plan-assigned missions, his priorities as commander and his ongoing effort to build enduring relationships with partner organizations to exchange ideas and confront the broad range of global strategic challenges.
Zegart, who is also a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, said getting to see and experience how USSTRATCOM operates first-hand was “an eye opener.”
“It’s one thing to think about deterrence, it’s another to live it,” she said. “When you go to each other’s neighborhoods, you gain a better understanding of where each side is coming from … and that’s enormously important to us in how we think about deterrence and what we can do to help USSTRATCOM and its mission.”
“These kinds of exchanges have cascade effects on young people; how they think about civil-military relations [and] how they understand what our military is doing,” she added.
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The delegation also received a tour of USSTRATCOM’s global operations center and held discussions with subject matter experts on strategic deterrence, cyber responsibility and nuclear modernization.
“As a cybersecurity fellow, it was fascinating to visit the global operations center and the battle deck to see the role that cybersecurity and information technology plays in the strategic deterrence mission,” said Andreas Kuehn, a CISAC pre-doctoral cybersecurity fellow from Switzerland. “At CISAC, we often discuss deterrence from a theoretical perspective, so it was very insightful to hear from people who work in [this field] and see how they deal with deterrence in an operational manner.”
The two-day visit concluded with an open discussion, during which CISAC and USSTRATCOM members discussed the most effective means to share information, plan future engagements and continue working to build on the mutually beneficial relationship between the two organizations.
“Sometimes people talk [about strategic issues] in the abstract and it becomes difficult to understand what is happening on the ground and in the real world,” Kuehn said. “I think [USSTRATCOM] took extra steps to keep the conversations open and concrete.”
USSTRATCOM is one of nine Department of Defense unified combatant commands charged with strategic deterrence, space operations, cyberspace operations, joint electronic warfare, global strike, missile defense, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, combating weapons of mass destruction, and analysis and targeting.
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CISAC Scholars Consider Threats by Islamic State
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In this talk sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, three CISAC scholars discuss the Islamic State, Iran and the Taliban and the threats they impose to American security. The talk is moderated by Brad Kapnick, a Partner at Katten & Temple, LLP, and SIEPR Advisory Board member. Joining him are Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at CISAC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and professor, by courtesy, of political science; CISAC Senior Fellow Scott Sagan, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science; former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, the William J. Perry Fellow at CISAC and a consulting professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute.
This is an abbreviated version of the talk below. The full talk can be found here.
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The Limits of Counterterrorism: Constructing Policy Responses
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Abstract: The purpose of this book project is to explain what it is about terrorism that makes it inherently difficult for the American government to formulate an effective counterterrorism policy. Why is terrorism such an intractable problem? What are the obstacles to developing a consistent and coherent counterterrorism strategy? The barriers that we identify flow from the issue itself, not the particular political predispositions of individual policy makers or flawed organizational processes. We also find that scholars and policy makers face similar difficulties – the study of terrorism is often confused and contentious, and the study of counterterrorism can be even more frustrating.
The book is co-authored by Martha Crenshaw and Gary LaFree, Director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, as well as professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
About the Speaker: Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI and a professor of political science by courtesy at Stanford. She was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., where she taught from 1974 to 2007. She has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. Her recent work includes “Trajectories of terrorism: Attack patterns of foreign groups that have targeted the United States, 1970–2004,” in Criminology & Public Policy, 8, 3 (August 2009) (with Gary LaFree and Sue-Ming Yang), “The Obama Administration and Counterterrorism,” in Obama in Office: the First Two Years, ed. James Thurber (Paradigm Publishers, 2011), and “Will Threats Deter Nuclear Terrorism?” in Deterring Terrorism: Theory and Practice, ed. Andreas Wenger and Alex Wilner (Stanford University Press, 2012). She is also the editor of The Consequences of Counterterrorism (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010). In 2011 Routledge published Explaining Terrorism, a collection of her previously published work.
She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. In 2005-2006 she was a Guggenheim Fellow. Since 2005 she has been a lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. In 2009 she was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation/Department of Defense Minerva Initiative for a project on "mapping terrorist organizations." She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Political Psychology, Security Studies, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She is currently a member of the Committee on Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture of the National Academies of Science.
Encina Hall (2nd floor)
Martha Crenshaw
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
Speaker
Stanford University
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From "Olympic Games" to the Sony Hack: The Future of Offensive Cyber in Statecraft
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Abstract: When President Obama approved the "Olympic Games'' cyber attacks on Iran, he told aides that he was worried about what would happen when nations around the world began to use destructive cyber attacks as a new weapon of disruption and coercion. Now, we've begun to find out. David Sanger, the national security correspondent of The New York Times and author of Confront and Conceal, the book that revealed the cyber program against Iran, will explore how offensive cyber operations have developed in the Obama administration -- and why they have been so little debated.
About the Speaker: David E. Sanger is National Security Correspondent and senior writer for The New York Times. He is the author of two bestsellers on foreign affairs: The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (2009) and Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (2012). He served as the Times’ Tokyo Bureau Chief, Washington Economic Correspondent, White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush Administrations and Chief Washington Correspondent.
Mr. Sanger has twice been a member of New York Times teams that won the Pulitzer Prize, first for the investigation into the causes of the Challenger disaster in 1986, and later for investigations into the struggles within the Clinton administration over technology exports to China. He teaches national security policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
This event is offered as a joint sponsorship with the Hoover Institution.
Encina Hall (2nd floor)
David Sanger
National Security Correspondent and senior writer for The New York Times
Speaker
New York Times
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Judicial Review of National Security - the Israeli experience (1995-2013)
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Abstract: Adjudication of national security poses complex challenges for courts. In Judicial Review of National Security, David Scharia explains how the Supreme Court of Israel developed unconventional judicial review tools and practices that allowed it to provide judicial guidance to the Executive in real-time. In this book, he argues that courts could play a much more dominant role in reviewing national security, and demonstrates the importance of intensive real-time inter-branch dialogue with the Executive, as a tool used by the Israeli Court to provide such review. This book aims to show that if one Supreme Court was able to provide rigorous judicial review of national security in real-time, then we should reconsider the conventional wisdom regarding the limits of judicial review of national security.
About the Speaker: Dr. David Scharia (PhD, LLM) heads the Legal and Criminal Justice Group at the United Nations Security Council Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). Before joining the United Nations, Dr. Scharia worked at the Supreme Court division in the Attorney General office in Israel where he was lead attorney in major counter-terrorism cases. Dr. Scharia served as a Member of the experts’ forum on "Democracy and Terrorism” established by Israel leading think-tank the Israel Democratic Institute. He was National Security Scholar-in-Residence at Columbia Law School and currently serves as a member of the professional board of the International Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT). Dr. Scharia is a renowned expert on law and terrorism and the author of two books.
Encina Hall (2nd floor)
David Scharia
Coordinator of the Legal and Criminal Justice Group at the United Nations Security Council Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED)
Speaker
United Nations Security Council
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Self-Regulatory Lessons From the US Commercial Nuclear Power Industry: Why Does It Work and Why Can’t It Be Replicated?
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Abstract: In the early morning hours of March 28, 1979, began a series of events that led to a partial meltdown of the reactor core at Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the worst accident in the history of the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States. Catalyzed by this event, the industry leadership formed an independent oversight entity, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, resourced its technical staffing, and ceded significant authorities to it in the areas of operational oversight, training and accreditation, the sharing of operational experience and provision of assistance to plants in need. As the former President and CEO of INPO, Admiral Ellis will discuss the requirements for effective self-regulation, specifically, and consider the issues surrounding broader employment of the concept.
About the Speaker: James O. Ellis Jr. is an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a CISAC Affiliate. He retired as president and chief executive officer of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), a self-regulatory nonprofit located in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 18, 2012. In 2004, Admiral Ellis completed a thirty-nine-year US Navy career as commander of the United States Strategic Command. In this role, he was responsible for the global command and control of US strategic and space forces.
His sea service included carrier-based tours with three fighter squadrons and command of the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. His shore assignments included commander in chief, US Naval Forces, Europe, and Allied Forces, Southern Europe, where he led United States and NATO forces in combat and humanitarian operations during the 1999 Kosovo crisis.
Ellis holds two masters’ degrees in aerospace engineering and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Self-regulation in the US Commercial Nuclear Power: Why Does It Work And Why Can’t It Be Replicated?
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Encina Hall (2nd floor)
James O. Ellis Jr.
Not in residence
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joellis1@stanford.edu
CISAC Affiliate
Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
James O. Ellis, Jr. was elected President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), located in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 18, 2005 and retired from that position on May 18, 2012.
INPO, sponsored by the commercial nuclear industry, is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the highest levels of safety and reliability -- to promote excellence -- in the operation of nuclear electric generating plants. As its leader for seven years, Mr. Ellis oversaw the creation and implementation of processes and standards in the domestic commercial nuclear power industry in areas that include fuel reliability, chemistry, radiation protection, material science, equipment reliability, human performance and safety culture. An acknowledged global leader in nuclear safety, he sat on the board of the World Association of Nuclear Operators and twice co-chaired the United States delegation to the United Nations (IAEA) Convention on Nuclear Safety. In the aftermath of the Japanese nuclear crisis, INPO played a pivotal role in both organizing and implementing the technical engineering and operational support which U. S. industry continues to provide to the Japanese utility. INPO also oversaw the technical review of the Japanese accident and its causes so as to provide precise guidance to the U. S. commercial industry on needed engineering and operational improvements and corrective actions.
In 2004, Admiral Ellis completed a distinguished 39-year Navy career as Commander of the United States Strategic Command during a time of challenge and change. In this role, he was responsible for the global command and control of United States strategic and space forces, reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense. Coordinating with the national laboratories, he was also responsible for the maintenance and reliability of the nation’s aging strategic weapon stockpile through the Stockpile Stewardship program. After merging Strategic Command with United States Space Command, Admiral Ellis was responsible for requirements generation, performance assessment and operational employment of the nation’s space communication and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and their supporting architecture. He also spearheaded the operational deployment of the nation’s ballistic missile defense architecture. He was the designated commander for both defensive and offensive cyber warfare, overseeing the development, procurement and combat employment of those capabilities.
A 1969 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Admiral Ellis was designated a Naval aviator in 1971. His service as a carrier-based Navy fighter pilot included tours with two fighter squadrons, and assignment as Commanding Officer of an F/A-18 strike/fighter squadron. In 1991, he assumed command of the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. After selection to Rear Admiral, in 1996 he served as a carrier battle group commander leading contingency response operations in the Taiwan Straits.
His shore assignments included senior military staff tours directing operations for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Plans, Policy, and Operations). He also served as Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe and Commander in Chief, Allied Forces, Southern Europe during a time of historic NATO expansion and led United States and NATO forces in combat and humanitarian operations during the 1999 Kosovo crisis.
Mr. Ellis holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and, in 2005, was inducted into the school’s Engineering Hall of Fame. He also has a master’s degree in aeronautical systems from the University of West Florida. He completed United States Navy Nuclear Power Training and was qualified in the operation and maintenance of naval nuclear propulsion plants. He is a graduate of the Navy Test Pilot School, the Navy Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) and the Senior Officer Program in National Security Strategy at Harvard University. As an engineering and experimental test pilot, he was both a part of the engineering team and a project pilot during landing structural tests of aircraft and related systems, shipboard catapult and arrested landing evaluations, and fully automatic carrier landing system development and certification. He was the engineering test pilot on a developmental microwave landing system and was the first pilot to successfully employ its capabilities hands-off to touchdown.
His personal awards include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal (three awards), Navy Distinguished Service Medal (two awards), Legion of Merit (four awards), Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (two awards), and the Navy Commendation Medal, as well as numerous campaign and service awards. He was presented the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, the Star of Merit and Honor from the Greek Ministry of Defense and both the Joint Forces Medal of Honor and the Grand Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Mr. Ellis currently serves on the board of directors of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, where he chairs the Strategic Affairs Committee, and Dominion Energy. He is the former Chairman of the Board of Level 3 Communications. In 2009 he completed three years of service as a Presidential Appointee on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and, in 2006, he was a member of the Military Advisory Panel to the Iraq Study Group.
In November, 2013, Admiral Ellis accepted an appointment as an Annenberg Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Seminars