Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Winston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. – George Orwell, 1984
A project 20 years in the making officially came to completion with the dedication of the restoration of Encina Commons and new Bechtel Courtyard on November 7.
The new space will be shared by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and two departments in the School of Humanities and Sciences: Stanford Global Studies and the Department of Political Science. Philanthropic support played a key role in the renovations.
This fall, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) began its ninth offering of Stanford e-Japan, an online course that introduces U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations to high school students in Japan. Stanford e-Japan is made possible through the support of the Yanai Tadashi Foundation, Tokyo.
Two former Department of Defense (DoD) officials shared the stage at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), where they discussed the decision to remove U.S. troops from northern Syria, women in the military, and the importance of public service.
David M. Kennedy, the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus at Stanford University, award winning teaching and author of more than a dozen, including Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history, spoke to a packed audience on October 22nd, 2019. Kennedy used the outcome of the 2016 American presidential election, which surprised many observers, to reflect on both its historical and current determinants.
A team of Stanford experts, including SHP's Paul Wise, has produced a series of videos aimed at benefiting children detained at the U.S. border. Intended for lawyers who work with detained migrants, the videos describe how to interview young people using techniques informed by scientific knowledge on trauma.
Around the world, democracy is in retreat. In its Freedom in the World 2019 report, the independent watchdog organization Freedom House records the 13th consecutive year of global declines in political rights and civil liberties.
Today the Stanford Internet Observatory published a white paper on GRU online influence operations from 2014 to 2019.
Congress has long weighed sanctions as a tool to block the Nord Stream II gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Unfortunately, it has mulled the question too long, and time has run out. With some 85% of the pipeline already laid, new congressional sanctions aimed at companies participating in the pipeline’s construction will not stop it. Instead, they will become a new bone of contention between the United States and Europe.
Given much of the recent coverage surrounding security and the fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks, you would be forgiven for assuming that security concerns are largely limited to China in general and Huawei in particular.
This is not the case.
On October 20-22, the Stanford Center at Peking University hosted the 6th meeting in the series of Nuclear Risk Reduction Project workshops organized by Stanford University and China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and the Center for Strategic Studies of the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP). The Stanford team included CISAC’s Dr. Siegfried Hecker, Elliot Serbin, Dr. Larry Brandt and Nick Hansen as well as young nuclear scientists from the UC Berkeley and Sandia National Laboratories.
A war is raging in Mexico, but silence from newspapers, international organizations, and politicians has prevented most U.S. citizens — and indeed many publics around the globe — from taking notice. The war is not dissimilar from the violent conflicts in the Northern triangle in Central America. The immigration flows from Central America into the United States have, however, provided greater visibility for the plight of countries like Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, polities beset by seemingly intractable wars between governments and drug trafficking criminal gangs.
How do Ukrainians assess the performance and prospects of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, now five months in office, as he tackles the country’s two largest challenges: resolving the war with Russia and implementing economic and anti-corruption reforms? In two words: cautious optimism.
The world population is aging faster than ever before and governments must confront the increasing burden of healthcare spending on their economies. At a time when the economics of aging is inseparable from the economics of healthcare, successful adaptations to older population age structures necessitate better understanding of the value of medical care.
Stanford Health Policy’s Kathy McDonald — one of the nation’s leading experts in patient safety and health-care quality — has been named a distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins University, and will soon be leaving the Stanford Cardinal for the Hopkins Blue Jays.
Whether it’s designing equipment or developing drugs, scientists often fail to consider how gendered preferences, biases and assumptions can lead to unintended consequences.
According to Stanford historian Londa Schiebinger, it’s time for science to catch up.
The Democrats are facing a dilemma: If they defend democratic norms by acting to remove President Trump from office, they risk getting dragged into a polarizing style of politics that works to his political advantage. Read here.
Stanford Health Policy’s Michelle Mello, a professor of law and professor of medicine, writes in this Annals of Internal Medicine editorial that California’s experience is a cautionary tale about what happens when vaccination exemption laws have holes.
Authorities don’t seem to understand the real threat from cyber-operations.
Following the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the decision by President Donald Trump to remove U.S. troops from northern Syria, there are many questions surrounding the future of the region, which is controlled in part by Al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists, former Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Brett McGurk told Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast.
In today’s Egypt, commitment to democracy appears scarce among actors both within the regime and in civil society, and public-opinion polls further suggest that demands for democratic governance have been abandoned. An undemocratic political understanding and disenchantment with the concept of democracy seemingly prevail among a majority of the population.
The recent escalation of diplomatic and trade disputes between South Korea and Japan has alarmed numerous observers and is rather confusing to many around the world to whom the two countries seem to have much to lose and little to gain by the deterioration of the bilateral relationship. What underlying forces are driving the conflict? Are these new forces, or the same historical forces coming to a head? How much are factors from the international environment, such as the behavior of the United States, influencing the current escalation?
Since November 2018, a grassroots revolt of the forgotten lower middle classes from France’s far-flung suburbs and rural areas has risen against high taxes; social injustice; and the elites, President Emmanuel Macron foremost among them. Although this “Yellow Vest” movement is not dead, it is now weakened by internal feuds, excessive violence, a takeover by the far left, and Macron’s deft handling.
U.S.-Turkish relations have plunged to a new nadir. In the past month, a senior Republican senator has suggested suspending Turkey’s membership in the NATO alliance, while the secretary of state implied a readiness to use military force against America’s wayward ally.
In these circumstances, U.S. nuclear weapons have no business in Turkey. It is time to bring them home.
Russia’s global strategy for reasserting itself as a geopolitical superpower has led to an increased presence in Africa, where it has broadened efforts to shape the continent’s politics and pursue new economic opportunities to allay the effects of sanctions.
