The Foreign Policy Institute hosts “Crisis Stability in Space: China and Other Challenges,” on Sept. 15, 2016

MEDIA ADVISORY

“Crisis Stability in Space: China and Other Challenges,” a panel discussion and reception, will be hosted by the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

The latest study by The Foreign Policy Institute examines current instability in the space domain, how political and military crises could spill over into space, the danger of a possible space war with China, and steps the United States can take to reduce these dangers.

The study also identifies and explains the major features of space’s strategic landscape, a new and often misunderstood domain of potential conflict. The publication assesses these challenges and how it could affect space deterrence and incentives to escalate or go to war in space.

Introduction
Carla P. Freeman, Director, The Foreign Policy Institute

Panel Discussion with Special Guest and Study Co-Authors 
Mallory Stewart, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, U.S. Department of State

Dean Cheng, Senior Research Fellow at the Asian Studies Center, The Heritage Foundation
Karl Mueller, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corp.
Victoria Samson, Washington Office Director, Secure World Foundation

Moderator
Bruce MacDonald, Adjunct Professor in the Energy, Resources and Environment Program, Johns Hopkins SAIS

Time and Date
4:30 – 6:30 p.m., reception will follow
Thursday, September 15, 2016

Location
Johns Hopkins SAIS

Kenney Herter Auditorium

Register
The event is open to the public and media, with registration. Members of the working press should send RSVPs to [email protected]. Camera setup will only be permitted from 3:30-4:30 p.m.

Media Contacts
Stacy A. Anderson (media inquiries)
Communications Manager
Johns Hopkins SAIS
202.663.5620 office
202.853.7983 mobile
[email protected]

Prama Verma (program inquiries)
Program Assistant
Foreign Policy Institute
202.663.5785 office
[email protected]

About the Speakers

Dean Cheng is The Heritage Foundation's senior research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. He specializes in China's military and foreign policy, including its relationship with the rest of Asia and the United States. He has written extensively on China’s military doctrine, technological implications of its space program, and “dual use” issues associated with the communist nation's industrial and scientific infrastructure. He previously worked for the China Studies division of the Center for Naval Analyses, the federally-funded research institute and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the Fortune 500 consulting firm. Before entering the private sector, Cheng studied China’s defense-industrial complex for a congressional agency, the Office of Technology Assessment, as an analyst in the International Security and Space Program.

Cheng has testified before Congress and provided expertise to various news outlets including NPR, CNN, BBC News, The Washington Post, Financial Times, and Bloomberg News. He is the author of the forthcoming Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and Cyber Operations (Praeger Publishers). He has spoken at the National Space Symposium, National Defense University, the Air Force Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies. Cheng earned a bachelor's degree in politics from Princeton University and studied for a doctorate at MIT.

Carla P. Freeman is Director of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS, where she is concurrently Associate Director of the China Studies program and an Associate Research Professor. She has served as the American Co-Director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, program officer for civil society and sustainable development for The Johnson Foundation, and a political risk consultant on Asian issues for various firms.  She has held faculty positions at Alverno College, Beloit College and the University of Wisconsin at Parkside; and academic fellowships as a Peace Scholar with the United States Institute of Peace, visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and visiting scholar at Harvard’s Fairbank Center.

Dr. Freeman received a BA in Southeast Asia and History from Yale University and certificates from the Beijing Foreign Languages University and Sciences Po in Paris. She completed her MA and PhD in international relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS. She is the author of numerous publications in academic and policy journals and the editor of several books.  Her current project is a book with the working title, China and the Global Commons.

Bruce W. MacDonald is president of Provectus Analytics and Technologies, where he leads studies on China and crisis stability in space, cross domain dynamics, and multi-polar missile defense dynamics. He is also teaches the challenges in nuclear nonproliferation at Johns Hopkins SAIS. He directed the Federation of American Scientists’ study on the security implications of Chinese missile defense developments for the United States. MacDonald served as Senior Director to the 2008-2009 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. He was the project leader and final report author for the Council on Foreign Relations’ study, China, Space Weapons, and U.S. Security, in 2008. MacDonald was Assistant Director for National Security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1995-1999. He served as Senior Director for Science and Technology on the National Security Council staff. He was a professional staff member of the House Armed Services Committee for Air Force. He was a State Department specialist on nuclear weapons, space, technology, and missile defense. While at the State Department, he chaired the Interagency START Policy Working Group and served on the U.S. START delegation in Geneva.

He began his career as a defense contractor on advanced missile defense concepts and strategic forces. MacDonald received a masters’ degree in aerospace engineering and rocket propulsion from Princeton University, and a master’s degree in public and international affairs from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Karl P. Mueller is a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation. He specializes in research related to military and national security strategy, particularly coercion, and deterrence. Mueller has written and lectured on a wide variety of national security subjects, including airpower theory, grand strategy, economic sanctions, nuclear proliferation, counterterrorism policy, space weapons, and war gaming. His recent Rand publications include Precision and Purpose: Airpower in the Libyan Civil War (2015), Denying Flight: Strategic Options for Employing No-Fly Zones (2013), Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century (2008), and Striking First: Preemptive and Preventive Attack in U.S. National Security Policy (2006).

Mueller is currently working on projects about defending the Baltic States, managing crisis escalation, and the future of U.S. airpower. Before joining Rand in 2001, he was a professor of comparative military studies at the U.S. Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS). Mueller is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University. He received his PhD in politics from Princeton University.

Victoria Samson is the Washington Office Director for the Secure World Foundation and has more than 18 years of experience in military space and security issues. Before joining the foundation, Samson served as a Senior Analyst for the Center for Defense Information (CDI), where she leveraged her expertise in missile defense, nuclear reductions and space security issues to conduct in-depth analysis and media commentary. Prior to the CDI, Samson was the Senior Policy Associate at the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a consortium of arms control groups in the Washington, D.C. area, where she worked with Congressional staffers, members of the media, embassy officials, citizens, and think tanks on issues surrounding national missile defense and nuclear weapons reductions.

Samson was a researcher at Riverside Research Institute, where she worked on war-gaming scenarios for the Missile Defense Agency's Directorate of Intelligence. She has been interviewed by media outlets including the New York Times, Space News, and NPR. She is also a prolific author of op-eds, analytical pieces, journal articles and updates on missile defense and space security matters. Samson holds a BA degree in political science with a specialization in international relations from UCLA and a MA in international relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS.

Mallory Stewart is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Emerging Security Challenges and Defense Policy in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance (AVC). She is responsible for the management of the Office of Emerging Security Challenges and the Office of Chemical and Biological Weapons Affairs. Stewart joined the State Department in 2002 as an attorney in the Legal Adviser’s Office. She represented the United States before the Iran-U.S Claims Tribunal as an attorney in the Office of Claims and Investment Disputes. Stewart focused on international and domestic treaty law in the Office of Treaty Affairs, and worked on legal issues related to nonproliferation sanctions, conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction, missile defense, and space in the Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control. She was the State Department lawyer for the U.S. delegation that negotiated the Ballistic Missile Agreements with Poland and Romania, and was the lead lawyer on the 2013 U.S.-Russian Framework for the Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons.

In 2014, Stewart was a recipient of the Secretary’s Award for Excellence in International Security Affairs for her work on the international effort to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School.

About The Foreign Policy Institute

The Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) was established in 1980 to unite the worlds of scholarship and policy in the search for realistic answers to international issues facing the United States and the world.

The FPI seeks to advance practically oriented research and discussion about foreign policy. To this end, it organizes research initiatives and study groups, and hosts leaders from around the world as resident or non-resident fellows in fields including international policy, business, journalism, and academia.

About Johns Hopkins SAIS

A division of The Johns Hopkins University, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is a global institution that offers students an international perspective on today’s critical issues. For seven decades, students have distinguished themselves by pursuing academic excellence in international relations. The school was established in Washington, D.C. in 1943, and opened its campus in Bologna, Italy in 1955. It initiated one of the first Western university programs in the People’s Republic of China when it launched a campus in Nanjing in 1986.

The school’s mission is to provide an interdisciplinary professional education that prepares a diverse graduate student body for internationally-related positions of responsibility; to foster research, scholarship and cross-cultural exchange; and to contribute knowledge, expertise and leadership to the global community.

For more information, visit sais-jhu.edu or @SAISHopkins

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