About the event: Russian officials and experts often voice the view that the United States was hell-bent on undermining, even destroying Russia during the turbulent period of the Soviet breakup thirty years ago. The primary US goal, in this telling, was to expand NATO to Russia's borders to isolate and threaten the Russian state. Rose Gottemoeller, drawing from the historical record and her own professional experience, refutes this notion. Gottemoeller argues that, to the contrary, successive American presidents were convinced that deep cooperation with Russia is essential to international security and stability. This conviction was born during the George H. W. Bush administration and took definitive shape during the administration of Bill Clinton, when he and his Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin agreed to develop technological cooperation that would be useful to both countries. George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin carried the conviction further, and the two countries made enormous strides on cooperation in outer space, counterterrorism, and nuclear energy over the next twenty years. While today is starkly different from the 1990s, Gottemoeller takes the lessons learned and considers what it would take—when Russia exits its horrific adventure in Ukraine and atones for the damage it has done—to resume cooperation for the sake of global security.

About the speaker: Rose Gottemoeller is the William J. Perry Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute.

Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008, and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program.  

At Stanford, Gottemoeller teaches and mentors students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program and the CISAC Honors program; contributes to policy research and outreach activities; and convenes workshops, seminars and other events relating to her areas of expertise, including nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation and non-proliferation.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.