U.S. Army Col. Tracy Roou is a senior military fellow at CISAC this year. She is researching security cooperation with challenging governments and preparing for her next assignment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. She recently met with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Washington, D.C., at the headquarters of the Rumsfeld Foundation. They discussed military cooperation as a tool of foreign and defense policy. Here, she shares her thoughts about that meeting and what it meant to her personally as a military officer, as well as to her research.

CISAC has given me the platform to learn from two former U.S. Secretaries of Defense, William J. Perry and Donald Rumsfeld. They happen to be the first and the last secretaries of defense to visit Uzbekistan, where I recently served as defense attaché. Their deep insight into the complicated world of policymaking and the military’s ability to provide capabilities and build relationships as a tool of foreign policy in the former Soviet Union, has added greatly to my understanding of strategic thinking in that part of the world.

The chance to meet with Rumsfeld to discuss military cooperation with challenging governments was an incredible opportunity for my research, but also a true honor and a highlight of my Army career. I was well aware of his reputation as a tough interview. The meeting started with his questions about me, my career and family, and my year at CISAC as a U.S. Army War College Fellow. After I described the depth of expertise at CISAC and Stanford about strategic thinking and military policy, he jokingly asked why I needed to meet with him.

It was clear that Secretary Rumsfeld still keeps an intense battle rhythm. But he was gracious, generous with his time and open to all of my questions. A large bust of Winston Churchill sits in the corner of his conference room, where we met for an hour.

Our session covered many areas, but mostly focused on the former Soviet Union and U.S. military cooperation in that region. In the context of foreign policy with challenging governments, Rumsfeld said: “Linking U.S. diplomacy and the military – even when powers will try to pull them apart – is very important.”

Rumsfeld has been back in the news, with a new documentary about his work and leadership in public service, especially overseeing the Iraq War. Though some are saying he was evasive and impenetrable in the documentary, “The Unknown Known,” I found him to be open and engaging when discussing U.S. foreign policy in the former Soviet States and Russia, which is the focus of my research.

Few remember that as a young U.S. congressman, Rumsfeld was a co-sponsor of the Freedom of Information Act, a landmark tool granting American citizens and reporters the ability to push for government transparency. With his memoir, “Known and Unknown,” his declassified papers give insight on many tough policy decisions with challenges to the to the government, many of which can be found on his website, The Rumsfeld’s Papers.

I learned that the Rumsfeld Foundation helps young leaders in government, business and academia in Central Asia and the Caucuses better understand the concepts of a market economy, a civilian-led military and a free and open government. The foundation helps microfinance organizations working with the world’s poorest people and it grants fellowships to graduate students interested in public service.

“I had spent a lot of time in Central Asian Republics and felt that they did not have a good connection among themselves, nor did they have much connection or awareness of the Unites States,” Rumsfeld says in a video on his foundation website. “So we’ve established a fellowship program to bring over 10 or 12 Central Asian fellows, mid-career people so that they’ll develop relationships and go away with a better understanding of what the United States of America is all about and the kind of opportunities that free systems offer.”

Following our meeting, I was given a tour of foundation offices, which are filled with photographs and presidential letters of various periods in his life in public service, starting as a U.S. Navy pilot. As I left, I noted the two cabinet chairs from his two terms as secretary of defense sitting at the entryway.

I came away from my meeting with Rumsfeld with the realization that our 13^th and 21^st secretary of defense is as nuanced and complex as many of the policy and security issues he tackled in his extraordinary career. At the end of our meeting, he agreed to a photograph together, next to the Churchill bust, as well as another meeting.

In his book, “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” he refers to a quote by Churchill: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” 

In a rare and exclusive interview in the Tehran Times, CISAC and FSI Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker tells Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari that the only way forward for the country’s nuclear program is transparency and international cooperation.

The interview comes during an unprecedented period of rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. Several days after his inauguration last August, President Hassan Rouhani called for the resumption of negotiations with the so-called P5+1, a group of six world powers using diplomatic efforts to monitor Iran’s energy program.

In September, President Barack Obama called Rouhani, marking the highest-level contact between the United States and Iran since 1979 hostage crisis.

The P5+1 and Iran are drafting a comprehensive nuclear agreement to ensure that Tehran is not building a nuclear bomb, but trying to expand its nuclear energy program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has given Iran until Aug. 25 to provide more details about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.

In the interview, Ziabari did not pull any punches with Hecker.

“You’ve argued that Iran doesn’t possess sufficient uranium reserves like Japan, and its uranium enrichment program is not cost-effective,” Ziabari asks. “However, you know that Iran’s nuclear program was first launched in 1950s as part of the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program. At that time, the United States thought that it’s beneficial to help Iran with its nuclear energy program, because Iran was an ally, but now, Iran is a foe, and does not need nuclear power anymore. Is it really like that?”

You can read Hecker's response and the entire the Q&A in its entirely on Ziabari’s website.

In Feburary, the Iranian government republished an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Hecker and Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University. The story ran in Farsi on at least one official website. That could reflect, the scholars say, a genuine internal debate in Tehran regarding the future of its nuclear program.

President Barack Obama announced this week that the United States would complete its pullout of troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, leaving 9,800 troops by the end of this year and cutting that in half by 2015. A small force will remain to protect the U.S. embassy in Kabul and help with local security. The president said this would free up combat troops for emerging terrorism threats in the Middle East and North Africa and effectively put an end to the longest war in U.S. history.

Ret. U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009-2011, answers a few questions about the way forward. Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC.

Critics say the drawdown is too dramatic and rapid and could seriously diminish the progress NATO and its allies have made in the country. What is your view?

I think the drawdown schedule is militarily sound and responsible. First, the commander on the ground has indicated his support for the timelines. Second, by the end of 2016 – the announced target date for completion of the military drawdown – our armed forces will have operated in Afghanistan for over 15 years. It will be time for the Afghan government, with continued U.S. and international material and security assistance support, to take full responsibility for the defense of its country. In fact, the president's announcement represents the culmination of combined U.S., NATO, and Afghanistan planning that began in 2010.

Third, militant extremists in distant lands often effectively exploit the presence of U.S. armed forces serving in their county to rally support for their cause. At some point, large scale U.S. military deployments can become counterproductive, undermining efforts to develop accountable responsible governance and security forces.     

Are the Afghans ready to take over the security operations in their country?

U.S. and NATO military forces have been complimentary about the performance of the Afghan National Army and Police since they began in 2012 to assume greater responsibility for securing their country. Certainly, the Afghan security forces did well protecting the recent April 5th presidential election. Their major challenges will be ensuring adequate international monetary support (perhaps $3 billion a year for some years to come) and adapting to a tactical environment in which they will not have access to U.S. and NATO firepower, logistics, communications, and intelligence. Combat against the Taliban will be more equal contests.

There are concerns that the Taliban is sitting in the wings, just waiting for the withdrawal of American troops. Are those concerns valid?  

I have heard this argument since I first served in Afghanistan in 2002. I don't buy it. By 2016 we'll be in the 15^th year of a military mission that began in 2001. Will another 15 years be adequate to prove we can "wait them out?" It is time for the Afghans to take charge of their own destiny. Furthermore, the Taliban are not a cohesive movement; there is not a centralized Taliban command "waiting in the wings." Last, the Taliban are not the primary threat to Afghan stability.The greater challenges are Pakistan's policies towards Afghanistan, Afghanistan national political reconciliation, and massive government corruption. 

What is the legacy that the United States leaves behind?

Most Afghans have told me over the years that the greatest U.S. legacy will be democracy and all that has brought. If Afghanistan is able to strengthen its political institutions and stabilize the country in the years after foreign forces return to their homes, I would agree that the introduction of democracy will be what we are remembered for. 

Military interventions have traditionally been a source of controversy in the United States. But America’s appetite for the dispatch of armed forces has been diminished greatly by factors that have primarily emerged in the 21st century. These include, most painfully, the protracted campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq that have made US political and military leaders more cautious about waging wars to end tyranny or internal disorder in foreign lands.

Debates on military intervention are complicated by the network of political, security and economic interests that must be balanced when contemplating this option. In this IISS commentary, Karl Eikenberry, the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC, talks about how four factors have heavily influence the current calculus.

Military interventions have traditionally been a source of controversy in the United States. But America’s appetite for the dispatch of armed forces has been diminished greatly by factors that have primarily emerged in the 21st century. These include, most painfully, the protracted campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq that have made US political and military leaders more cautious about waging wars to end tyranny or internal disorder in foreign lands.

Debates on military intervention are complicated by the network of political, security and economic interests that must be balanced when contemplating this option. In this IISS commentary, Karl Eikenberry, the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC, talks about how four factors have heavily influence the current calculus.

This summer Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is welcoming new leadership to oversee the growth and development of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD), one of the Center's principal research programs examining contemporary issues of political development in the Arab world.

Lisa Blaydes, assistant professor of political science at Stanford, will assume the role of faculty co-director, working together with CDDRL Director Larry Diamond to help shape the program's research agenda. Blaydes will be joined by Hesham Sallam, currently a CDDRL pre-doctoral fellow completing his Ph.D. in government at Georgetown University. He will serve as the program's new associate director, assuming operational management and developing the program's research initiatives and activities at Stanford and throughout the Arab world, in partnership with the faculty co-directors. Sallam is also joining CDDRL as a research associate. In that capacity he will produce research and publications on questions related to political and economic reform in the Arab World.

Sallam is replacing ARD's founding director Lina Khatib, who left CDDRL last year to assume directorship of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace's Middle East office in Beirut.

"We are very excited to have Hesham Sallam assuming this leadership role in the ARD program, and joining the research staff of CDDRL,” said Diamond. “Hesham is not only a superb scholar of Arab politics and political economy, but has also been deeply engaged in analytic and public policy debates about the future of the region. His deep knowledge and broad credibility in the field will be strong and immediate assets to the program, and will help us build on the strong foundation laid by our founding program leader, Lina Khatib."

“I am extremely delighted to join the CDDRL and FSI family,” said Sallam. “I look forward to working closely with the Stanford community, faculty, students, and staff, to expand interdisciplinary discussions of Arab politics and society on campus.”

“By enhancing its intellectual engagement with scholars and activists in Arab world, ARD will continue to nuance our understanding of conflicts over political, social and economic rights in the region by supporting critical scholarship and by developing innovative research agendas,” he said.

Sallam’s dissertation examines how Islamist movements have impacted the politics of economic reform in Egypt before and after the Arab uprisings in 2011. His previous research has received the support of the United States Institute of Peace and the Social Science Research Council. Sallam also serves as co-editor of the Jadaliyya, a leading online magazine, which invites critical debate and analysis of current events in the Arab world from academics, activists and journalists. 

Diamond expressed great enthusiasm over the addition of Lisa Blaydes to the program’s faculty leadership. “Over the past several years, Lisa has rapidly emerged as one of the most original and influential scholars of politics and social change in the Arab world,” he said. “She brings to the program intense intellectual curiosity, scholarly distinction and a keen interest in advancing social science studies of the Arab world."

Blaydes, a specialist in comparative politics and politics in the Middle East, recently published the book, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, which examines the complex relationships among regimes, rent-seeking elites and citizens fostered by authoritarian elections.

“The Arab world is at a critical juncture,” said Blaydes. “Although mass protests have transformed public political consciousness, the long-term impact of the protest movement on more concrete forms of power has yet to be determined. Policy-relevant scholarly research such as that conducted by the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy may help us to identify pathways to political reform.”

Blaydes and Sallam, together with Diamond, participated in the most recent ARD Program conference on political change in the Arab world. Held in collaboration with the Center for Research on Globalization and Democratic Governance at Koc University in Turkey, the conference brought together leaders in policy, academia and government to address issues of violence and government transitions in the region following continuous civil unrest and political uncertainty.

Founded in 2010 with annual support from the Moulay Hicham Foundation, CDDRL's Program on Arab Reform and Democracy aims to be a hub for intellectual capital about issues related to good governance, social change and political reform in the region, producing rigorous and policy-relevant academic research. Conferences and seminars in the U.S. and the Arab world provide innovative forums for academics and policy-makers to advance new ideas and approaches to the most pressing issues facing the region today.

For more information on the Program on Arab Reform and Development, please visit: http://arabreform.stanford.edu/.