The United States has navigated a turbulent and complex relationship with Pakistan since its inception in 1947 in an attempt to achieve security and stability in South Asia. The Pakistan Army is a primary actor in determining geopolitical relations in the region and its conventional military strategy is a strong indicator of the army’s strategic calculus. Despite a renaissance of interest in understanding the Pakistan Army, there are no existing empirical analysis on the strategic calculus of the Pakistan Army. This thesis analyzes when, how and why the Pakistan Army has shifted its conventional military strategy in the post-Cold war era. A shift in an army’s conventional military strategy indicates a major change in its perceived existing threats and in the capabilities of the army to address a shifting threat landscape. What accounts for the Pakistan Army’s strategy shifts since 1989? An investigation of the Pakistan Army’s capabilities, doctrines, rhetoric and force distribution discovers that Pakistan shifted its conventional military strategy four times since 1989: a ‘post-Cold war strategy’ from 1989-1994, a ‘defense minimal strategy’ from 1994-2001, a ‘two-front commitment strategy’ from 2001-2010, and a ‘three-front commitment strategy’ from 2010-2019. Few institutions face such extreme pressures from a variety of different factors. Based on existing literature and interviews, this investigation finds that the Pakistan Army must balance external forces, internal forces, bureaucratic pressures and its nuclear strategy when forming and evolving its conventional military strategy. Through an analysis of the conditions surrounding strategic shifts and examining each individual pressure, this thesis presents the case that external forces, specifically those emanating from India and the U.S. and bureaucratic politics, primarily in leadership changes, have impacted shifts in Pakistan’s conventional military strategy substantially. A proposed policy to address these new findings centers on a carefully calibrated US South Asia policy comprising the management of Pakistan-India relations and balanced incentives and coercive tools.

Why is the United States able to shape the actions of friendly nations? In this thesis, I offer an answer by examining American efforts to influence cases of invasion and the liberalization of domestic politics in Kenya and Uganda from 1989 to 2012. Drawing on academic, journalistic, and participant reporting on each case, including interviews with key American policymakers, I test three theoretical frameworks: balance of interests, dependence, and diplomatic strategy. Through these I attempt to explain American influence over the 1998 Ugandan and Rwandan invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the 2011 Kenyan invasion of southern Somalia, the 1991 Kenyan reinstitution of multiparty politics, and the 2005 Ugandan abolition of presidential term limits and reinstitution of multiparty politics. The existing literature on these cases focuses on outcomes broadly, and on African states’ comparative ability to secure agency relative to the wishes of their donors. Taking the United States as my focus, in this comparative case study, I find consistent limits to America’s ability to shape the actions of Kenya and Uganda regarding their core interests; however, clear, sustained application of coercive diplomacy still altered outcomes — especially when it used the leverage offered by dependence. This thesis creates a model of American agency in maximizing leverage over aid-dependent states.

Performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) has in many ways revolutionized the thinking about seismic engineering design and acceptable performance of buildings in earthquakes. It is now making its way into commercial engineering design and risk analysis practice, as engineers aim to design better-performing buildings, and holders of mortgage or insurance instruments try to better understand the risk they face from damage to associated buildings. Some parts of the calculations (e.g. structural response) have been extensively assessed and validated. There are few similar studies, however, that focus on the damage and loss predictions. The purpose of this dissertation is to address this, by analyzing, evaluating, and improving the damage and loss predictions. The specific PBEE methodology examined in this dissertation is the FEMA P-58 Seismic Performance Assessment Procedure. FEMA P-58 damage and loss predictions are analyzed, to determine how they are impacted by other parts of the calculations. Firstly, variance-based sensitivity analyses are conducted to investigate the interaction of loss predictions with different inputs to the calculations, using two buildings at an example site in downtown Los Angeles. This type of sensitivity analysis operates within a probabilistic framework, and measures sensitivity across the whole input space. Of the six inputs considered in the analyses, it is found that predictions of building repair cost (as a fraction of replacement value) are most sensitive to shaking intensity and building age, while building re-occupancy time predictions are most sensitive to shaking intensity and building lateral system. Secondly, a methodology is developed to quantify the impact of available structural response data from seismic instrumentation on the quality of the damage and loss predictions. The methodology is applied to buildings that were instrumented during the 1994 Mw 6.7 Northridge earthquake. The density of instrumentation examined ranges from the case in which all floors are instrumented to that in which no floors are instrumented and simplified procedures are used to produce structural response predictions. It is found that the quality of the predictions generally improves as the density of seismic instrumentation increases, but it is not crucial for the density to be very high to achieve reasonable accuracy in both damage and loss predictions (although this may depend on the arrangement of instrumentation within a building). Loss predictions are evaluated using data observed in previous seismic events, to understand the degree to which they reflect real-life consequences of earthquakes. A methodology is developed for evaluating the ability of FEMA P-58 component-level losses to predict damage observed for groups of buildings. The methodology explicitly incorporates uncertainties in predictions, and utilizes a ground shaking benchmark to determine whether the FEMA P-58 loss predictions provide more insight into damage than variations in ground shaking between buildings. Two sample applications of the methodology are provided, involving non-structural component damage data for groups of buildings in the 2011 Mw 6.1 Christchurch earthquake, for which there is negligible variation in shaking between buildings, and the Northridge earthquake, for which there is notable variation in shaking between buildings. It is found that FEMA P-58 non-structural component-level loss predictions perform better overall than the ground shaking benchmark in both cases. A preliminary evaluation of building-level losses is also conducted for a sample of buildings in the Christchurch earthquake. Mean building repair cost predictions are compared with observed building damage, and mean recovery time predictions are compared with closure times reported by tenants. Both types of building-level loss predictions are found to generally align with the observed data, despite limitations of the information used to produce the predictions. Finally, this dissertation includes a number of recommendations for improving non-structural mechanical component fragility functions and associated loss predictions used in FEMA-58 calculations. The fitting technique currently used for the functions does not converge in some cases, and the methodology used to predict anchored mechanical component losses can lead to some unexpected results, such as non-smooth variation of repair costs with anchorage capacity. An alternative statistical technique is proposed for fitting the fragility functions that mitigates the non-convergence problems when fitting and makes predictions that better align with damage observed in past events. A more intuitive methodology for predicting anchored mechanical component losses is suggested, which leads to loss predictions that vary monotonically as a function of anchorage capacity and better correspond with damage observed in past events. The findings of this dissertation help to enhance understanding of, and improve, the damage and loss predictions used in the FEMA P-58 seismic performance assessment procedure. They ultimately enable various stakeholders, such as building owners, design professionals, lenders, and insurers, to make more informed decisions about seismic risk.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is a parasitic waterborne fungus that has recently decimated frog populations worldwide. This Bd-induced loss of frogs has caused harm to both human and natural systems, and is considered a top priority within conservation science. However, the dynamics of Bd are still not fully understood, especially in different geographies and climates. The proportion of frogs infected with Bd –known as the infection prevalence– can vary by physiology, season, and habitat, even within a given region. One ecologically important location where frog Bd prevalence is still unknown is the San Francisco Bay Area. In this honors thesis, I begin to characterize Bd infection prevalence in the Bay Area’s frogs by exploring how the proportion of frogs infected differs by species, sex, age, body condition, month, and habitat type. The diversity of environments across Stanford University-owned lands serve as the focal region of this study. From 2013 to 2019, frogs across this region were captured and non-invasively tested to diagnose infection. My results suggest that the overall Bd infection prevalence is 21.7% within these Bay Area frogs. Among the five species studied, vulnerable Rana draytonii had the lowest infection prevalence (9.62%). Surprisingly, the invasive species Lithobates catesbeianus, known elsewhere to readily contract Bd, also had a low infection prevalence relative to other species studied. Bd-positive frogs exhibited lower mass to body length ratio, a proxy for general health, than their Bd-negative counterparts. When grouped by life stage, tadpoles were least often infected by Bd, with a prevalence of just 1.49%. When comparing habitat type, the lowest infection prevalence was in undeveloped pools (3.64%), followed by semi-urban creeks. Dammed reservoirs demonstrated the highest infection prevalence (69.23%) followed by highly developed ponds and ditches, but were not statistically significant. These findings lay the groundwork for further study and have the potential to inform targeted conservation efforts for the Bay Area’s at-risk species.

In the wake of the American military’s transition to an all-volunteer force, scholars and military leaders alike cautioned that the Armed Forces defending the nation would disproportionately draw from the least advantaged and least politically powerful populations. Should that be the case, certain communities would pay higher costs of war while others would be relatively untouched, leaving the president free to command with little public accountability. This thesis adopts an experimental statistical counterfactual approach to examine the geographic casualty distribution across states during the post-9/11 wars had there been a conscripted force employed. The data presented suggest that the conventional logic is partially correct: an all-volunteer force is not egalitarian. It disproportionately burdened certain states—predominantly in the South and Midwest— with higher casualty rates than would have a conscripted force. However, many of the states that shouldered the costs of war under an AVF also carry disproportionate political gravity as electoral swing states. These findings suggest that a President who chooses to use force is more likely to face electoral backlash for his or her decisions under an all-volunteer force than under a conscripted force. This finding runs contrary to the popular contention that a conscripted force is inherently more democratic and will lead to better electoral accountability for use of force.