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At the NATO Summit in Wales in September 2014, NATO leaders were clear about the security challenges on the Alliance’s borders. In the East, Russia’s actions threaten our vision of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace.  On the Alliance’s southeastern border, ISIL’s campaign of terror poses a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond.  To the south, across the Mediterranean, Libya is becoming increasingly unstable. As the Alliance continues to confront theses current and emerging threats, one thing is clear as we prepare for the 2016 Summit in Warsaw: NATO will adapt, just as it has throughout its 65-year history.

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Douglas Lute, Ambassador of the United States to NATO

 

In August 2013, Douglas E. Lute was sworn-in as the Ambassador of the United States to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  From 2007 to 2013, Lute served at the White House under Presidents Bush and Obama, first as the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, and more recently as the Deputy Assistant to the President focusing on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  In 2010, AMB Lute retired from the U.S. Army as a Lieutenant General after 35 years on active duty.  Prior to the White House, he served as the Director of Operations on the Joint Staff, overseeing U.S. military operations worldwide. He served multiple tours in NATO commands including duty in Germany during the Cold War and commanding U.S. forces in Kosovo.  He holds degrees from the United States Military Academy and Harvard University.

A light lunch will be provided.  Please plan to arrive by 11:30am to allow time to check in at the registration desk, pick up your lunch and be seated by 12:00 noon.

Co-sponsored by The Europe Center, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

 

Douglas Lute United States Ambassador to NATO Speaker
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Every week, the Islamic State (ISIS) makes further headlines with its ruthless behavior. Beheadings, mass executions, burnings and extreme acts of brutality are the methods of a terrorist campaign intended to cow opponents and rally potential fighters. At the same time, the group is fighting a guerilla war against Iraqi forces while engaging in more conventional infantry battles against Kurdish Peshmerga and Free Syrian Army cadres. The many tactics of ISIS raises the question: Which type of war are we fighting against?

CISAC's Joe Felter and his Empirical Studies of Conflict colleagues Eli Berman and Jacob Shapiro ask those questions in this National Interest article.

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The Europe Center Graduate Student Grant Competition

Call for Proposals:

The Europe Center is pleased to announce the Fall 2014 Graduate Student Grant Competition for graduate and professional students at Stanford whose research or work focuses on Europe. Funds are available for Ph.D. candidates from across a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to prepare for dissertation research and to conduct research on approved dissertation projects. The Europe Center also supports early graduate students who wish to determine the feasibility of a dissertation topic or acquire training relevant for that topic. Moreover, funds are available for professional students whose interests focus on some aspect of European politics, economics, history, or culture; the latter may be used to support an internship or a research project. Grants range from $500 to $5000.

Additional information about the grants, as well as the online application form, can be found here.  The deadline for this Fall’s competition is Friday, October 17th. Recipients will be notified by November 7th. A second competition is scheduled for Spring 2015.
 

Highlights from 2013-2014:

In the 2013-2014 academic year, the Center awarded grants to 26 graduate students in departments ranging from Linguistics to Political Science to Anthropology. We would like to introduce you to some of the students that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured students this month are Michela Giorcelli (Economics) and Orysia Kulick (History).

Giorc

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elli’s project, “The Effects of Management and Technology on Firms’ Productivity: Lesson from the US Marshall Plan in Italy,” explores the role of productivity in the process of economic growth and development. It is typically difficult to isolate the causal effect of management training programs and technology transfer programs on business productivity because these measures are often endogenous to other unobservable factors. To overcome this concern, Giorcelli employed a unique research design to analyze the effects of the Marshall Plan’s transfer of US management and technology to Italian firms in the aftermath of WWII. 

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Giorcelli collected and digitized balance sheets data for 6,035 Italian firms eligible to receive the US management and technology support between 1930 to 1970. She then exploited an exogenous change in policy implementation that randomly determined which firms actually received Marshall Plan support. Preliminary results show that all firms that received either support significantly increased their productivity. Moreover, firms that received both sets of support simultaneously showed an additional increase in productivity, suggesting that management and technology are complementary in production. (Inset: The archives where Giorcelli conducted her research)

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Kulick’s project, “Regionalism in Ukraine and the Long Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1954--2014,” used original historical evidence collected from Ukrainian archives to study the political nexus between party elites in Kiev and in Moscow. For example, Kulick gleaned insights about the political economy of postwar industrial reconstruction from local archives in Dnipropetrovsk, a metallurgical powerhouse in the region. Previously inaccessible primary sources indicate that as the Soviet economy grew more complex, the state apparatus became more independent. Consequently, managerial specialists needed more autonomy to meet deadlines and quotas, making them--rather than the party--the source of innovation in postwar Ukraine. 

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According to Kulick, “my research this summer opened up new ways of thinking about the relationship between the party and the institutions that made up the Soviet state and economy.” Kulick used insights from Soviet-era KGB documents to shed new light on the current propaganda emanating out of the Kremlin. For example, she found that the long-term pull toward greater improvisation has had ongoing consequences. The current conflict is not just about Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation; it is also the byproduct of the dissolution of intransigent and poorly understood late Soviet-era institutions. (Inset: Kulick documents military mobilization during her summer in Ukraine)
 


Undergraduate Internship Program: Highlights

The Europe Center sponsored four undergraduate student internships with leading think tanks and international organizations in Europe in Summer 2014.  Laura Conigliaro (International Relations, 2015) joined the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), while Elsa Brown (Political Science, 2015), Noah Garcia (BA International Relations and MA Public Policy, 2015), and Jana Persky (Public Policy, 2016) joined Bruegel, a leading European think tank. Our featured student this month is Laura Conigliaro.

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During her time at CEPS, Conigliaro worked on a 68-page research paper on genetically modified organisms (GMO) policy in the European Union. In the paper, she traces E.U. legislation and policy development on GMOs from 1990 onward, and also offers conclusions for the future trajectory of the E.U.’s GMO policy. Conigliaro argues that the evolution of the E.U.’s GMO policy is a topic of extreme relevance--and difficulty--because it is the source of high-level trade conflicts between Europe and the United States. Consequently, the study of GMO policymaking can help advance our understanding of E.U. institutions, E.U. “comitology” (policy process), and E.U.-U.S. bilateral relations. 

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Conigliaro plans to incorporate the summer fellowship experience into her Stanford academic career, for example, by presenting research findings at Stanford’s Symposia of Undergraduate Research and Public Service (SURPS). Looking ahead, she writes: “I hope to use the knowledge and experience gained of the E.U. Institutions and policy process through the lens of the GMO issue to broaden and diversify my potential career opportunities and areas from my traditional area of concentration, East Asia, to also include the European Union.”


Recap:  Panel on Europe-Russia Relations and EU expansion

On September 30, 2014, Miroslav Lajčák, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, participated in a panel discussion in which he shared his thoughts and opinions about Europe’s relationship with Russia, and about the E.U.’s management of its future membership and associations. The Minister’s viewpoints were of particular interest, given his role in the E.U. foreign policy establishment, and the Slovak Republic’s role in the E.U. and NATO.

“The fact is that E.U.-Russia relations have worsened dramatically. That cannot be denied. But it’s not E.U. enlargement that played a major role in this.”  According to the Minister, Russia did not view E.U. enlargement with hostility, in part, because enlargement remained a transparent process. “But it all changed when Europe decided to enter into Russia’s immediate neighborhood...the former Soviet Republics. And this was something that

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Miroslav Lajčák
was seen by Russia as a hostile activity, and this was what Russia fiercely resisted.” The Minister spoke candidly about the potential conflicts of concepts between the E.U.’s Eastern Partnership policy, Russia’s Near Abroad policy, and the idea of a Eurasian Union. A fundamental and ongoing source of tension pertains to the geopolitical position of Russia’s immediate neighbors: “The fact is that Russia never accepted the full sovereignty of the former Soviet Republics.” Apart from discussing the escalation of tensions between the E.U. and Russia, the Minister spoke about the role of sanctions and reforms as a path for moving forward and achieving lasting peace in Europe.

Minister Lajčák’s brought a variety of experiences to the panel. He served as the European Union Chief Negotiator for the E.U.-Ukraine and E.U.-Moldova Association Agreements, and was the European Union Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Sarajevo. Additionally, he was previously the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. 

After Minister Lajčák spoke, he was followed by comments by Michael McFaul, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institute and Freeman Spogli Institute; Norman Naimark, the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor in East European Studies in the History Department and The Director of Stanford Global Studies; and Kathryn Stoner, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Faculty Director of the Susan Ford Dorsey Program in International Studies.


Introducing “Immigration and Integration in Europe” Policy Lab

The Europe Center would like to introduce a new research project entitled, “Immigration and Integration in Europe:  A Public Policy Perspective,” led by Professors David Laitin and Jens Hainmueller. Duncan Lawrence has recently joined Stanford University to help direct the project. The project is part of the new Policy Implementation Lab at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The social and economic integration of its diverse and ever growing immigrant populations is one of the most fundamental and pressing policy issues European countries face today. Success or failure in integrating immigrants is likely to have a substantial effect on the ability of European countries individually and collectively as members of the European Union to achieve objectives ranging from the profound such as sustaining a robust democratic culture to the necessary such as fostering economic cooperation between countries. Various policies have been devised to address this grave political dilemma, but despite heated public debates we know very little about whether these policies achieve their stated goals and actually foster the integration of immigrants into the host societies. (Inset: David Laitin)

Professor Jens Hainmueller.The goal of this research program is to fill this gap and create a network of leading immigration scholars in the US and Europe to generate rigorous evidence about what works and what does not when it comes to integration policies. The methodological core of the lab’s research program is a focus on systematic impact evaluations that leverage experimental and quasi-experimental methods with common study protocols to quantify the social and economic returns to integration policies across Europe, including polices for public housing, education, citizenship acquisition, and integration contracts for newcomers. This work will add to the quality of informed public debate on a sensitive issue, and create cumulative knowledge about policies that will be broadly relevant. (Inset: Jens Hainmueller)


The Europe Center Sponsored Events

We invite you to attend the following events sponsored or co-sponsored by The Europe Center:

Additional Details on our website
October 8-10, 2014
“War, Revolution and Freedom: the Baltic Countries in the 20th Century”
Stauffer Auditorium, Hoover Institution
9:00 AM onward

Save the Date
April 24-25, 2015
Conference on Human Rights

A collaborative effort between the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School (IHRCRC), the Research Center for Human Rights at Vienna University (RCHR), and The Europe Center. The conference will focus on the pedagogy and practice of human rights. 

Save the Date
May 20-22, 2015
TEC Lectureship on Europe and the World 
Joel Mokyr
Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Economics and History, Northwestern University

We welcome you to visit our website for additional details.

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Amb. Ivo Daalder
Ivo H. Daalder is president of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Founded in 1922, the Council is a leading independent, nonpartisan organization committed to educating the public and influencing the discourse on global issues of the day. Prior to joining the Council in July 2013, Daalder served as the Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for more than four years. Daalder also served on the National Security Council staff as director for European Affairs from 1995-97. 

Before his appointment as Ambassador to NATO by President Obama in 2009, Daalder was a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, specializing in American foreign policy, European security and transatlantic relations, and national security affairs. Prior to joining Brookings in 1998, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and director of research at its Center for International and Security Studies. Ambassador Daalder was educated at Oxford and Georgetown Universities, and received his PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


 

Ivo Daalder Speaker President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former US Ambassador to NATO
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Conference Agenda for Day 3, October 10, 2014:

 

9:00 – 10:15 AM Chair: Katherine Jolluck, Stanford University

  • Aigi Rahi-Tamm, Tartu University. Doubly Marginalized People: the Hidden Stories of Breaking Trust between People in Estonian Society (1940–1960)
  • Daina Bleiere, Rīga Stradiņš University. Women in the Soviet Latvian Nomenclature (1940–1987)

10:30 AM – 12:15 PM Chair: Darius Staliunas, Lithuanian Institute of History

  • Saulius Grybkauskas, Lithuanian Institute of History. The Second Secretaries of Communist Parties in the Soviet Baltic Republics during 1944–1990
  • David Beecher, University of California, Berkeley. A Tale of Two Scholars:  Paul Ariste and Yuri Lotman
  • Gail Lapidus, Stanford University. The Baltic National Movements and the End of the USSR

12:15 – 2:00 PM Break

2:00 – 3:15 PM Chair: Paul Roderick Gregory, Hoover Institution

  • Elga Zalīte, Green Library. The Rev. Richards Zariņš Collection in Stanford University Libraries as a Source for the Study of the Post-World War II Latvian Emigration in the United States
  • David Jacobs, Hoover Institution Archives. Stateless Representatives: Baltic Diplomats during the Cold War

3:30 – 4:15 PM Chair: Saulius Sužiedėlis, Millersville University, Pennsylvania

  • Maciej Siekierski, Hoover Institution Archives. Baltic Collections and Scholarship at the Hoover Institution
  • Liisi Esse, Green Library. The Baltic Studies Program of Stanford University Libraries

 

6:00 – 8:00 PM, Cubberley Auditorium, Education Building, 485 Lasuen Mall

Latvian film director Pēteris Krilovs will present his documentary Obliging Collaborators (2014)

 

Conference organizers:  Professors Lazar Fleishman (Slavic Department) and Amir Weiner (History Department)

Sponsored by: Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Office of the Provost, Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford Global Studies Division, The Europe Center, Stanford University Libraries, Division of Literatures, Cultures, & Languages, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of History, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center.

 

Stauffer Auditorium, Hoover Institution (9:00am - 4:15pm)
Cubberley Auditorium (for film screening, 6:00pm - 8:00pm)
 

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Conference Agenda for Day 2, October 9, 2014:


9:00-10:45 AM Chair: Magnus Ilmjärv, Тallinn University

  • Ineta Lipša, Institute of History of Latvia. Interwar History of Latvia: the Gender Aspects
  • Aivars Stranga, University of Latvia. Kārlis Ulmanis' Regime: Politics, Economics, Culture
  • Andres Kasekamp, Tartu University. The Estonian Radical Right in the 1930s: The Collapse of Democracy and the Rise of Authoritarianism. 

11:00 AM – 12:15 PM Chair: David Holloway, Stanford University

  • Arturas Svarauskas, Lithuanian Institute of History. Regime, Society, and Political Tensions in Lithuania, 1938–1940.
  • Magnus Ilmjärv, Тallinn University. Munich Pact and the Baltic States, 1938 – The Fateful Year for the Baltic States.

12:15 – 2:00 PM Break

2:00 – 3:15 PM Chair: Norman Naimark, Stanford University

  • Saulius Sužiedėlis, Millersville University, Pennsylvania. The Nazi Occupation and the Holocaust in Reichskommissariat Ostland: Conflicting Narratives and Memories
  • Uldis Neiburgs, Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. Latvia, Nazi German Occupation, and the Western Allies, 1941–1945

3:30 – 4:45 PM Chair: Gabriella Safran, Stanford

  • Ene Kõresaar, Tartu University. World War II in Estonian Memory and Commemoration
  • Kristina Burinskaitė, The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. The KGB Search of War Criminals in the West and the Attempts to Discredit Lithuanian Emigration

 

Conference organizers:  Professors Lazar Fleishman (Slavic Department) and Amir Weiner (History Department)

Sponsored by: Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Office of the Provost, Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford Global Studies Division, The Europe Center, Stanford University Libraries, Division of Literatures, Cultures, & Languages, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of History, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center.

 

 

Stauffer Auditorium, Hoover Institution

Conferences

Conference Agenda for Day 1, October 8, 2014:

 

9:00 AM

  • Welcome Remarks – Eric T. Wakin, Robert H. Malott Director of Hoover Institution Library & Archives

  • Opening Remarks – Amir Weiner, Stanford University

9:15-10:45 AM – Chair: Amir Weiner

  • Toomas Hiio, Estonian War Museum. Multi-ethnic (or Multi-national) Student Body of the University of Tartu and the WW I: Choices, Political Movements, Volunteers, Mobilizations, and Postwar Consequences

  • Darius Staliunas, Lithuanian Institute of History. Anti-Jewish Violence in Lithuania at the Turn of the 20th Century

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Chair: Aivars Stranga, The University of Latvia

  • Ēriks Jēkabsons, University of Latvia. The War for Independence of Latvia and the United States

  • Tomas Balkelis, Vilnius University. Paramilitarism in Lithuania: Violence, Civic Activism and Nation-making, 1918–1920

  • Bert Patenaude, Stanford University. “Yankee Doodle: American Attitudes toward Baltic Independence, 1918–1921”

 

Conference organizers:  Professors Lazar Fleishman (Slavic Department) and Amir Weiner (History Department)

Sponsored by: Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Office of the Provost, Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford Global Studies Division, The Europe Center, Stanford University Libraries, Division of Literatures, Cultures, & Languages, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of History, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center.

Stauffer Auditorium, Hoover Institution

Conferences
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Abstract: This book project is the first historical study of the postwar Soviet civil defense program, and an innovative comparative account of American and Soviet civil defense. It offers a comparative institutional history of the superpowers’ civil defense drawing on previously unexamined Soviet and American archival sources. It offers findings that challenge common assumptions about the logic driving the two nations’ potentially apocalyptic nuclear flirtation, such as that that a mutual recognition that nuclear war would be suicidal prevented the leaders of the two superpowers from embracing civil defense. In actuality, Moscow and Washington developed their civil defense policies in accordance with domestic political concerns, sometimes in direct contradiction to their declared strategic doctrines or military planning. The strange history of Cold War civil defense shows that the superpowers made their nuclear weapons policies as the result of power struggles between different institutions pursuing their own narrow self-interests, with results that imperiled the survival of civilization itself.

About the Speaker: Edward Geist received his Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina in May 2013. Previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the RAND Corporation in Washington DC, he is a native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His research interests include emergency management in nuclear disasters, Soviet politics and culture, and the history of nuclear power and weapons. His dissertation, a comparative study of Soviet and U.S. civil defense during the Cold War, draws upon previously unexamined archival sources to examine the similarities and differences in how the two superpowers faced the dilemmas of the nuclear age. Edward is also interested in the potential uses of simulation and modelling for historians and is developing a piece using these techniques to explore the potential historical implications of the the U.S. and Soviet Union's use of qualitatively different technical assumptions to model strategic nuclear exchanges. A previous recipient of fellowships from Fulbright-Hays and American Councils to conduct research in Moscow and Kyiv, he has published articles in the Journal of Cold War StudiesRussian Review, and the Bulletin of the History of Medicine.

Encina Hall (2nd Floor)

Edward Geist MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow PhD CISAC
Seminars

Not in residence

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Affiliate

James O. Ellis Jr. retired as president and chief executive officer of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 18, 2012. He became an affiliate of CISAC in Fall 2013. For 2013-2014, he is the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow and member of the Arctic Security Initiative at the Hoover Institution. 

INPO, sponsored by the commercial nuclear industry, is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the highest levels of safety and reliability--to promote excellence--in the operation of nuclear electric-generating plants.

In 2004, Admiral Ellis completed a distinguished thirty-nine-year navy career as commander of the United States Strategic Command during a time of challenge and change. In this role, he was responsible for the global command and control of United States strategic and space forces, reporting directly to the secretary of defense.

A 1969 graduate of the US Naval Academy, Admiral Ellis was designated a naval aviator in 1971. His service as a navy fighter pilot included tours with two fighter squadrons and assignment as commanding officer of an F/A-18 strike/fighter squadron. In 1991, he assumed command of the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. After selection to rear admiral, in 1996 he served as a carrier battle group commander leading contingency response operations in the Taiwan Straits.

His shore assignments included numerous senior military staff tours including commander in chief, US Naval Forces, Europe, and commander in chief, Allied Forces, Southern Europe, during a time of historic NATO expansion. He led United States and NATO forces in combat and humanitarian operations during the 1999 Kosovo crisis.

Ellis holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and, in 2005, was inducted into the school’s Engineering Hall of Fame. He completed United States Navy Nuclear Power Training and was qualified in the operation and maintenance of naval nuclear propulsion plants. He is a graduate of the Navy Test Pilot School and the Navy Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun). In 2013, Ellis was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

In 2009 he completed three years of service as a presidential appointee on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and, in 2006, was a member of the Military Advisory Panel to the Iraq Study Group.

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