Events Calendar

USC's Homeland Security Center (CREATE) Monthly Seminar Series

Speaker: John Mueller, Ralph D. Mershon Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies of Ohio State University

Talk Title: “Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Threat, Capacity, Risk, Cost, Benefit”

Series: CREATE Monthly Seminar Series

Abstract: An examination of the degree to which terrorism presents a threat and an assessment of counterterrorism measures. The key question from which analysis should spring is not "are we safer?" but "how safe are we?" Some measures do seem to be cost-effective--reducing risk at a reasonable cost--but other fail rather impressively to do so.

Biography: John Mueller is the Ralph D. Mershon Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies of Ohio State University. He is also adjunct professor of Political Science at Ohio State and a Cato Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

He is currently working on terrorism and particularly on the reactions (and costly over-reactions) it often inspires. His book, Terrorism, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security, written in collaboration with engineer and risk analyst Mark Stewart, applies cost-benefit analysis to issues of homeland security and was published in 2011 by Oxford University Press. Information about this book. His 2010 book, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda (Oxford University Press), suggests that atomic terrorism is highly unlikely and that efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation frequently have damaging results. Information about this book. He has also written Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (Free Press, 2006). The New York Times called the book "important" and "accurate, timely, and necessary." Information about this book. Another book, War and Ideas: Selected Essays was published in May 2011 by Routledge. Information about this book. He is also the editor of a set of case studies, Terrorism Since 9/11: The American Cases, published as a webbook in 2011 and 2012 by the Mershon Center. Information about this book.

Before coming to Ohio State in 2000, Mueller was on the faculty at the University of Rochester for many years. From 2000 to 2011, he held the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at Ohio State’s Mershon Center and was a professor of political science. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also received several teaching prizes, and in 2009 received the International Studies Association's Susan Strange Award that "recognizes a person whose singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency in the international studies community." In 2010, he received Ohio State University's Distinguished Scholar Award. He was also selected for the Playboy Honor Roll of 20 Professors Who Are Reinventing the Classroom in the October 2010 issue of the magazine.
For a full bio please visit: http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/MUELLER.BIO.htm

To ensure that I order your lunch, please RSVP no later than Friday, February 1, 2013. Please advise if you require a vegetarian option.

Hope to see you there!

Best Regards,

Erin Calicchio
Administrative Assistant
University of Southern California
U.S. Department of Homeland Security - National Center for
Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE)
3710 McClintock Ave, RTH 313
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2902
213-740-3863
calicchi@usc.edu
www.usc.edu/create




Host: Homeland Security Center @ USC (CREATE)

More Information: Mueller Invite_2-6-13.docx

Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 306

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Kelly Buccola