In a Q&A, SK Center Fellow Yong Suk Lee discusses U.S. policy toward North Korea and the viability of 'secondary sanctions'

North Korea launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on July 3, a first for the country that has increasingly advanced proliferation and testing over the last three years despite condemnation from the international community.

The United States, following the ICBM launch, called for additional efforts to cut-off flows of currency into North Korea. Officials have said, as part of the proposals, they are considering ‘secondary sanctions’ that would target companies and financial institutions that deal with North Korea even beyond those already banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Just returned from Seoul, SK Center Fellow Yong Suk Lee spoke with Shorenstein APARC about the effectiveness of historical sanctions on North Korea, one of his research areas. He also shared thoughts on U.S. policy toward North Korea and the viability of new sanctions.

Could you describe how sanctions have historically been applied on North Korea? What do they generally look like in terms of scope and whom do they often target?

Sanctions generally fall into three different categories: trade, travel and financial transactions, and in the case of North Korea, all three kinds have been applied. Trade sanctions, for example, have focused on minerals, technology and energy sources, with the goal of hindering the purchase of products that could aid in weapons development. Financial sanctions, for example, have sought to control flows of money to and from certain individuals and entities associated with the government. Whether sanctions are applied multilaterally through the U.N. or unilaterally, it’s difficult to enforce them especially in a country as closed-off as North Korea. It’s also difficult to identify how to draw the line between sanctions that only punish the bad behaviors of a few versus those that affect the broader population: that’s a balance policymakers attempt to strike.

Your research has looked at the impact of sanctions in both rural and urban areas of North Korea from the 1990s through the 2000s. How did you analyze their implementation and performance? In a technical sense, have sanctions been effective?

In the 1990s, sanctions on North Korea relaxed in concert with the Sunshine Policy, an effort by the South Korean administration under Kim Dae-jung to engage North Korea. By the early to mid-2000s, the international community began to increase sanctions again as North Korea continued its nuclear and weapons development. The goal of my research in analyzing those two time periods was to compare and understand the impact of sanctions within North Korea, particularly the impact on its domestic economy. Since there’s not much subnational data available, I identified a proxy for economic activity – nighttime lights as seen from outer space – that acted as an indicator of consumption, production and energy allocation across North Korea.

I found that certain areas became relatively brighter than other areas when sanctions increased. The capital Pyongyang, cities that share a border with China, and pockets where manufacturing is clustered all became brighter. This result indicates that sanctions were effective in a technical sense, yet were ineffective in reaching their intended target. The North Korean regime has found ways to reallocate resources toward urban areas where government officials and elites reside.

How has North Korea evaded potential effects of sanctions in the past?

North Korea has avoided effects of sanctions through internal actions, such as redistribution of resources to government officials and elites, like those patterns identified in my research, and also though external actions, such as trade with other countries. Increasing financial activities and trade with neighbor countries fills in some of the gaps caused by sanctions. North Korea has also maintained ties with African, Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries, some of which receive migrant workers from North Korea. Those workers often send remittances back to acquaintances in North Korea, thereby supporting its economy.

In a recent report, you’ve written about China’s relationship with North Korea and how that relationship has aided in the development of markets. Can you describe how the two are tied?

The relationship between China and North Korea is close. By sheer numbers, around 80 percent of North Korea’s trade is with China. All sorts of goods are exchanged through China. For example, goods produced in Western countries that are barred from directly trading with North Korea are often funneled through China. Especially outside of urban areas, North Koreans seek goods from China because they can’t otherwise access them. They also make money by selling goods, mostly minerals, to China. The China-North Korea border is quite porous, so you have a situation where a large number of individuals are engaging in small transactions, and although they may be disparate, the transactions add up.

Is there a strategy that provides hope that China will step up pressure on North Korea?

A lot of the debate, especially in the United States, is about putting pressure on China to do something about North Korea. But if you take a step back and think about it from the Chinese perspective, I think a valid question to ask is: why would China be interested in pressuring their neighbor? For the United States, the main issue with respect to North Korea is the nuclear threat. For China, Japan and South Korea, however, the main issue is not necessarily the nuclear threat but instead the issue of regional stability. So, while China remains important, it is one of many actors that are involved in addressing challenges related to North Korea. I think that point is largely missing from the debate.

U.S. policy has maintained that sanctions will encourage the North Korean regime to change its behavior. Could additional sanctions help?

New sanctions might help. If the intended goal is to decrease flows of currency into North Korea, it would make sense to impose sanctions on Chinese entities or individuals since they remain North Korea’s most prolific trade partners. But the question remains: would it encourage the Chinese government to change its position, and in turn, the North Korean government to bow to additional pressure? From my perspective as an economist, I don’t think enough incentives are at play for either country to react significantly. North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world, and as history has shown, poor countries can survive in that manner for a long time. They find ways to adapt. Additionally, North Korea has nuclear weapons and the government sees them as leverage for maintaining the status quo.

What should officials keep in mind when considering sanctions?

Sanctions by their very nature are meant to inflict some harm, and that aspect alone does not sit well with the North Korean government. This, however, is where U.S. policy currently stands. It is caught in a deadlock. On one hand, the United States feels an immediate need to discipline the regime for its repeated missile launches under grounds that it threatens national security, and on another hand, the United States does not recognize North Korea’s nuclear program. Given this context, there is little room to consider tools of engagement.

There’s clearly no easy solution to the challenges posed by North Korea, and whatever the solution may be, it will consist of many steps. Over the long-term, I think slowly relaxing sanctions and pursuing quiet engagement with North Korea has greater likelihood of success. Putting aside political leadership and ideology for a moment, if North Koreans had an opportunity to engage in limited economic activities, it could create incentives. Economic development is already changing North Korea and might be its greatest motivation to come to the table to talk about change.

The United States has placed unilateral sanctions on other countries such as Iran, for example, which negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal, and Cuba, which saw opening and reforms in 2016. Do those cases provide lessons that could be applied to the North Korea case?

Iran, compared to North Korea, has a much larger population and holds a prominent position on the world’s stage. Sanctions on Iran carry weight because of the country’s economic ties across the world. That’s one aspect to keep in mind. Another is that Iran isn’t a totalitarian society. The government has to respond to its people to some degree. So, in general, there are more incentives that exist in Iran that could have influenced the decision to negotiate the 2015 Nuclear Deal.

As for Cuba, the case is also unique. The U.S. trade embargo that existed following the end of the Missile Crisis of 1962 lasted for decades not because of a continued existence of nuclear weapons, as in the case of North Korea, but I believe because of ideological issues that remained between two countries. Cuba wasn’t as isolated either, so it was able to conduct business with many countries during that time period. Sanctions have recently been lifted by the United States due to the passage of time and diplomatic efforts.

What happens when rising countries like China, India and Brazil collide with international organizations still operating from a post-World War II landscape?

That’s the question Phillip Lipscy, assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, addresses in his new book, Renegotiating the World Order. Lipscy analyzes how influential global organizations like the U.N. Security Council and International Monetary Fund react, or, in some cases, don’t react to pressures exerted by rising nations. While the influence of these international organizations has increased stability and peace, Lipscy details the hurdles rising countries must overcome to have a seat at the global table. He also discusses how established countries like the United States exert their influence in these matters.

The Stanford News Service interviewed Lipscy, who is also the Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, about his new book:

What is the major takeaway from your book?

My book examines how countries renegotiate their position in the world order. I specifically look at international institutions like the United Nations Security Council, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and European Union (EU). These institutions play important roles in the international system and they are often contested by countries that seek greater influence. I show that renegotiation plays out differently depending on the institution’s policy area: institutions in competitive policy areas tend to adjust flexibly or collapse as states exit, while institutions in noncompetitive policy areas can remain relevant even while resisting change.

Why is understanding institutional change in international relations important?

Before the early 20th century, renegotiating the world order often meant acquiring a strong military and fighting or coercing other countries. As I argue in the book, several transformations have made peaceful renegotiation more viable. Military confrontation has become more costly with the advent of nuclear weapons, and several factors – like joint democracy and economic interdependence – have made conflict less likely. At the same time, the rise of international institutions gives countries mechanisms to gradually and peacefully elevate their influence in the international system.

What motivates countries to pursue institutional change?

The motivations vary. The common theme is a sense of unfairness. For example, Japan’s economy grew rapidly after the conclusion of World War II in 1945. Japanese leaders felt that their country deserved international recognition and respect, but they were frustrated that their status in international institutions lagged behind.  Japan has never been a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, and Japan ranked fifth in IMF voting power in 1980 despite having the world’s second-largest economy. Japanese nationals remain underrepresented in most international organizations, particularly in leadership posts. More recently, policymakers in countries like China and India have expressed similar frustrations.

Is this an important aspect of U.S. foreign policy as well?

Institutional change is not just a foreign policy priority for rising states. The United States has also sought institutional change on numerous occasions. For example, the U.S. has been critical of U.N. agencies that give only one vote to each member state while assessing financial contributions according to economic size. This creates situations where the U.S. pays the largest share of an agency’s budget but gets routinely outvoted by countries paying much less. The U.S. has pulled out of several international organizations over this type of concern. The U.S. withdrew membership from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1985 after accusing the institution of over-representing Soviet interests. In the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the U.S. renegotiated voting rules in its favor by threatening to withdraw funding.

Can you talk about the role policy areas, both competitive and noncompetitive, play in international institutions? 

One of the key theoretical insights of the book is that characteristics of policy areas have predictable effects on political institutions, just like markets affect private firms. International institutions sometimes operate in policy areas where competition is fierce, like development aid. In these policy areas, it is easy to create alternative institutions or bargain for better outcomes by threatening exit. On the other hand, creating competition in the policy area of the IMF is challenging: to address international financial crises, you need adequate resources, access to sensitive information, and political cover provided by broad membership. It is very difficult to create a successful competitor to the IMF from scratch. This limits the bargaining power of dissatisfied states and effectively locks them in, even if they believe the institution is fundamentally unfair.

Your book points out that the composition of some of the world’s most important organizations – U.N. Security Council, IMF – are based on the world order in the immediate aftermath of WWII. What does it say that the makeup of these notable organizations hasn’t changed significantly in more than 70 years?

There has been some change. For example, the U.N. Security Council added some nonpermanent members in 1965 and the IMF has redistributed voting power on several occasions. However, it is also true that these institutions reflect what I call a “World War II effect.” The permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council are essentially the major Allied Powers of World War II, excluding important countries like Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil. Similarly, I show that the Axis Powers from World War II remain underrepresented in important areas like IMF voting shares and leadership positions in major international organizations. It is remarkable that some institutions are able to maintain these types of imbalances for many decades despite fundamental shifts in the international system: this is one of the puzzles that motivated me to write the book.

Recently, Harvard political scientist Graham Allison has argued that the U.S. and China may be “destined for war” because of China’s rising power. Do you agree with this?

China is vested in the international status quo to a much larger degree than historical rising powers. China’s economic rise in part has been fueled by economic openness promoted by the U.S. and major international organizations like the IMF and World Trade Organization. There are some exceptions, like development aid institutions, where Chinese dissatisfaction has led to the creation of alternative institutions. In my view, China’s new institutions, like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, illustrate how China can increase its international influence and prestige without resorting to violence or coercion. Rather than seeing these institutions as threats, the U.S. should welcome them and cooperate with China to shape their trajectory.

Does your book have any implications for President Trump’s policies toward international institutions? 

The president wants to cut U.S. budgetary contributions toward international institutions like the United Nations. This has been something of a partisan issue for many years with Republican administrations pushing for similar policies: it is rooted in suspicion toward big government and unaccountable bureaucracies. It is true that international organizations can become inefficient and wasteful, so maintaining accountability is helpful and necessary. However, I worry that President Trump’s approach will be blunt and ineffectual. Combined with understaffing at the State Department, arbitrary budget cuts could put the U.S. at a serious diplomatic disadvantage as other countries seek to expand their international influence: precisely the type of international renegotiation that my book highlights.

Milenko Martinovich is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

Published in the journal Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, this new article by Siegfried Hecker and Paul C. White below is based on content in Hecker's 2016 book, Doomed to Cooperate: How American and Russian Scientists Joined Forces to Avert Some of the Greatest Post-Cold War Nuclear Dangers:

“Nuclear weapons stink when taken apart,” a Russian nuclear weapons engineer told his audience. The year was 2000, and he spoke to a group of Russian and American experts who were attending a workshop in Sarov, the Russian Los Alamos, on how to safely dismantle nuclear weapons. The engineer was right: Nuclear weapons being disassembled smell like rotten eggs or a high-school chemistry lab gone bad. They can contain high explosives, organic substances, uranium, plutonium, and many other materials. Over the years, these materials interact, outgas, corrode, and are subject to irradiation, producing a foul smell. Hardly anyone outside the room would have had any reason to be aware of this, so the engineer’s words inspired knowing nods, and acted like a wink or a secret handshake: The Russian and American nuclear scientists in the room shared a common bond.

It was a strange phenomenon. Until just 10 years previously, the experts’ respective governments had been adversaries. But Russian and American nuclear scientists shared ties that no one else in the world could appreciate. Working far apart, they and their forebears had ushered into existence the world’s most destructive weapon, the atom bomb. They had worked to improve it, manage it, and make sure it was reliable. Now, they were trying to keep nuclear weapons safe from accidents and secure against theft and sabotage as the two superpowers downsized their arsenals. The scientists and engineers knew something that few others understood: That the most dangerous time in a typical nuclear weapon’s life cycle is not when it is being created, transported, or readied for launch. Rather, it is when it is being taken apart. Corrosion, changes in the sensitivity of chemical high explosives, outgassing of various compounds, radiation damage, and dimensional changes all challenge the skills of weapons engineers and scientists. The experts in the room might once have been one another’s opponents in some sense, but many on each side had intimate knowledge of weapons disassembly—who else could better understand what their counterparts were going through? 

An urgent problem

The story of how the United States and Russia worked together to address weapons safety had begun years before, and represents a remarkable tale of once-mortal-adversaries cooperating on matters that took them right to the edges of their respective countries’ most sensitive nuclear secrets.

It started with the disastrous Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in April 1986. After briefly denying it had occurred, Moscow reached out to the international nuclear community for help mitigating the tragic consequences. Washington assisted quickly and effectively. Years later, Russian nuclear weapon scientists told their American counterparts (including the authors of this column) that the Chernobyl accident had happened because the Soviet Union was isolated. That is, Russian nuclear reactor designers, engineers, and operators had not had the opportunity to learn from their international peers. The weapon scientists assured us that the safety of nuclear bombs had always been much more rigorous. Yet the memory of the Chernobyl tragedy, and the enormous increase in the number of weapons being moved and disassembled, made Russian nuclear scientists keen to discuss concerns and safety practices with American counterparts.

The end of the Cold War all but eliminated immediate fears of a nuclear war. In an ironic twist of fate, though, it dramatically increased the risk of nuclear accidents and the potential for theft or diversion of nuclear weapons and materials. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia had to transport unprecedented numbers of weapons from former Soviet republics to Russia for dismantlement. No one was as sharply aware of the risks as Russia’s nuclear weapons personnel.

In the wake of the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives launched by George H.W. Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev in September and October of 1991, which promised transparency and dialogue on safe warhead transportation and storage, the Russians gave voice to their concerns. In Washington in November 1991, Viktor N. Mikhailov, later Russia’s minister of atomic energy, specifically requested help with weapon safety and security, as well as help storing the huge excess of fissile material that would result from the accelerated dismantlement of his country’s nuclear stockpile. The US Congress responded to these requests promptly by way of the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction legislation.

The scope and timing of the Nunn-Lugar efforts matched the urgency of Russian requests. To deal with security concerns related to the surge in warhead transportation, the United States cooperated to develop accident-resistant transportation containers. It provided armored Kevlar blankets to shield warheads and warhead containers from terrorist bullets, and smart rail cars that enabled secure monitoring of warhead shipments. Washington also helped meet the new storage requirements (resulting from increased dismantlement rates) by providing containers and technical and financial support for the construction of a state-of-the-art fissile material storage facility at the Mayak site in Russia.

These Nunn-Lugar-sponsored efforts, managed by the US Defense Department and supported by the US national nuclear labs, were a good beginning, but the Russian nuclear weapons experts wanted to do more to mitigate the dangers. The extraordinary number of nuclear weapons returning from the field and waiting to be disassembled included some past their certified lifetime. During one of the first meetings of Russian and American nuclear experts at Los Alamos in December 1992, Rady I. Ilkaev, the deputy scientific director of the Russian national nuclear lab VNIIEF, proposed direct, unclassified consultations on nuclear weapon safety.

The Russians not only sought bilateral technical cooperation, but also believed that Russian-American teamwork would demonstrate an unparalleled level of transparency about nuclear safety, which would help reassure their own citizens and a worried world that remembered the Chernobyl tragedy all too well.

Ilkaev and his Russian colleagues took advantage of the lab-to-lab scientific collaborations that blossomed during the early 1990s to explore much closer cooperation on safety—an approach that resonated strongly with their US lab counterparts. Yet no government agreements were in place to allow such cooperation. So two tracks were pursued in parallel: The governments prepared for formal negotiations, while simultaneously allowing the labs to exchange sensitive but unclassified nuclear-weapon safety and security concerns and practices. This sharing took the form of symposia called the Security Technology Exchanges. 

Four such symposia were held between October 1993 and March 1994, two in each country, at which American and Russian scientists, engineers, and government officials compared experiences on a range of topics. Subjects included analyzing nuclear risk; mitigating risks posed by hazardous materials; understanding the response of engineered systems to abnormal environments; and communicating the content of technical documents. 

One of the most important topics discussed in these symposia and later exchanges was human reliability. The economic and political crisis resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union severely strained one of the foundations of nuclear weapon safety: people. One of the authors of this piece (Paul C. White) recalls that at a July 1993 planning meeting in Ekaterinburg, his Russian counterpart asked, “What do you do when you can no longer count on people to do what they’re supposed to do—to obey the rules?” Although the Russians’ confidence in the loyalty and patriotism of their nuclear workers remained high, they expressed concern that the fraying of the decades-old system of authority could give rise to insider threats.

A mutual strategic interest

These symposia opened doors, established a foundation for building trust, and nurtured professional and personal friendships that endure to this day. They also helped pave the way for government negotiations on the Weapons Safety and Security Exchange agreement, or WSSX, which the US energy secretary and Russian minister of atomic energy signed in December 1994. It entered into force in June 1995. 

In a March 1996 directive, US President Bill Clinton stated that cooperation on weapons safety and security was necessary to facilitate other US policy objectives, such as getting Russia to agree and comply with a true zero-yield Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Clinton authorized lab-to-lab collaboration between the three Russian and three US nuclear weapons labs, with the goal of sustaining the scientific competence of those responsible for the two countries’ respective nuclear stockpiles. His statement was remarkable for declaring that maintaining the expertise of Russian nuclear weapons scientists—America’s Cold War adversaries—was now a US strategic interest.

Although WSSX was an agreement between governments, the nuclear labs provided the driving energy and remained the centers of engagement for all related activities. Over the life of the agreement, which was renewed for five years in 2000, the two sides organized dozens of technical interactions, including symposia, joint studies, workshops, and exchanges of technical papers. The participants completed more than 100 collaborative projects on far-reaching and mutually beneficial topics. Among them were projects on accident response, responding to wildfires near nuclear facilities, and safety during warhead dismantlement. When Americans shared their experience of using a well-known industrial solvent—DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide—instead of mechanical methods to remove high explosives that had bonded to metal weapon parts, a Russian participant stood up and declared, “you have just given us a gift!” Such “gifts” were exchanged reciprocally to improve warhead disassembly on both sides.

The discussions on responding to wildfires would also prove mutually beneficial. It wasn’t just technical staff from Los Alamos and Sarov who got to participate in exchange visits. So, too, did the fire departments of the two cities. In May 2000, Los Alamos experienced a devastating fire that burned more than 400 residences and 30 percent of the lab’s real estate, and threatened facilities that housed high explosives, plutonium, and tritium. In 2010, Sarov had to battle a peat fire at the boundary of its nuclear complex. Los Alamos experienced another serious wildfire in 2011. 

The WSSX exchanges allowed experts to learn new ways of looking at similar problems, unquestionably benefiting each country’s handling of the safety and security of its nuclear weaponry. In the book Doomed to Cooperate, one Russian nuclear safety expert said the exchanges led his country to adopt new federal regulations on nuclear weapons safety and emergency response. 

Sadly, the WSSX agreement was not extended in 2005. The end of this remarkable period of cooperation came at the hands of governments, not scientists. Washington imposed more legal and bureaucratic strictures on joint projects, and veered away from prioritizing nuclear safety to promote an agenda of arms control and transparency. Moscow became increasingly resistant to the presence of US technical personnel at its nuclear facilities. During the last three years, as relations between the US and Russian governments have seriously deteriorated, virtually all nuclear cooperation has ended.

Nuclear safety has become more challenging as the designers and engineers who developed the weapons in today’s arsenals retire, and the experience of nuclear testing fades into distant memory. The older generation has passed on as much experience as possible to the younger engineers—particularly the idea that ensuring nuclear safety is a never-ending job. The WSSX projects demonstrated that cooperation has great safety benefits, and can be accomplished without jeopardizing either side’s nuclear secrets. The scientists and engineers on both sides are prepared to resume cooperation. The bonds they forged endure, reflecting a unique like-mindedness, a sort of simpatico professional relationship (or sympatiya in Russian) that helped make scientific engagement such a success and the world a safer place.

CISAC co-director Amy Zegart wrote this July 11 essay in The Atlantic on what the Donald Trump Jr. emails mean:

Line by ugly line, Donald J. Trump Jr.’s emails with British-born former tabloid reporter and Russian intermediary Rob Goldstone are now plastered on The New York Times website. They reveal an astounding set of communications. Goldstone promises incriminating information about Hillary Clinton that could be used in the campaign—with the Kremlin’s backing. Junior’s response should have been to speed dial the FBI. Instead, he writes three little words with big, big consequences: “I love it.”

It’s quite a turn for the First Son. Just a few months ago, The New York Times gave him a fawning spread replete with woodsy photos. Now his association with dirt doesn’t look quite so good.

My three big takeaways from this breaking story:

1) The key word in The New York Times piece is “flurry.” There isn’t one email exchange. There are many. Trump Jr.’s email “dump” will not be the end of the story. Instead, as Churchill once said, it’s just the end of the beginning. Investigators and journalists will be following the email trail.

2) Even the emails released so far paint a damning portrait. The “we didn’t know better, we’re just amateurs” defense with respect to foreign policy—which the White House has been using to this point—will not hold up. Campaign chairman Paul Manafort attended the now-infamous June 9, 2016 meeting with Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Manafort is no neophyte in this world. He has worked on multiple Republican presidential campaigns over decades. What’s more, the red line, whether it’s a legal or political one, is: “Thou shalt not work with foreign powers to gain advantage in a U.S. election.” As former FBI director Jim Comey would put it, there is no fuzz on this whatsoever. Even if the foreign power involved were the Brits and not the Russians, meeting with a foreign government to get opposition dirt for a U.S. presidential election is wrong and probably illegal.

3) It is telling that every new piece of hard information major newspapers have reported recently about the Russian meddling in the 2016 election—every single one—supports the Intelligence Community’s conclusions about it. In January, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the community's assessment that “Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” and that he and his government “aspired to help president-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton.” The reporting has yet to implicate Putin himself, but Goldstone’s email citing a Russian official’s offer to “provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia,” as part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” is the clearest public evidence yet of the IC’s conclusion. And the emails were released by Trump Jr. himself—right before The New York Times posted them.

We need to stop saying of the intelligence community—as Donald Trump Sr. has encouraged—“These are the people who brought us Iraq WMD” and start saying, “These are the same people who found bin Laden.” In fact, Donald Trump Jr. proudly displays an American flag signed by members of SEAL Team Six—the unit that took out bin Laden—in his office. Junior should have thought harder about the kind of intel that helped the SEALs succeed—and what it might mean for his father.

Amy Zegart is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Professor of Political Science, by courtesy. She is also the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and directs the Cyber Policy Program. She is a contributing editor to The Atlantic.

On July 7, the William J. Perry Project issued the following statement from CISAC's William J. Perry regarding the adoption of the UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, which was approved by the UN on the same day: 

"The new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is an important step towards delegitimizing nuclear war as an acceptable risk of modern civilization. Though the treaty will not have the power to eliminate existing nuclear weapons, it provides a vision of a safer world, one that will require great purpose, persistence, and patience to make a reality. Nuclear catastrophe is one of the greatest existential threats facing society today, and we must dream in equal measure in order to imagine a world without these terrible weapons."

The UN treaty places a strong moral imperative against possessing nuclear weapons and gives a voice to some 130 non-nuclear weapons states who are equally affected by the existential risk of nuclear weapons. There is no one solution to this global threat, and there is much more work to be done beyond this treaty to reduce this risk. I call on nuclear-armed states to step up their participation in the fight against the nuclear threat by securing the eight remaining ratifications to enact the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, extending the New START agreement, continuing the critical work of the Nuclear Security Summits, and avoiding the unnecessary risk posed by introducing destabilizing new nuclear weapons. My hope is that this treaty will mark a sea change towards global support for the abolition of nuclear weapons. This global threat requires unified global action."

Read more about the treaty here.

William J. Perry, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense, recently joined other nuclear and diplomatic experts in writing a letter to President Trump urging diplomatic talks with North Korea; wrote a Politico op-ed on how to make a deal with North Korea; and delivered the 2017 Barnett-Oksenberg Lecture on issues between China and the United States. Perry is the director of the Preventive Defense Project at CISAC.

The CISAC Fellowship Program is training and educating the next generation of thought leaders and policy makers in international security.

Our fellows spend the academic year engaged in research and writing, and participate in seminars and collaborate with faculty and researchers. Every summer, many complete their fellowships and move on to new career endeavors. For the 2016-17 academic year, CISAC hosted 21 fellows (the center has 399 former fellows).

Some of our fellows, in their own words, explain what they will be doing next:

Andreas Lutsch

Having spent two years as a nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at CISAC, I return to my home institution, the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, Germany. As a historian of late modern history, I do so in great gratitude for an excellent and abundantly rich scholarly experience at Stanford. Once I am back in Germany, I will publish my first book early next year, the manuscript of which I finalized at CISAC. I will also proceed to publish the manuscript of my second book, which I wrote entirely at Stanford. And I will move towards the pursuit of the so-called “habilitation,” which is required (in Germany) to qualify for a position as a full professor in my home country. 

It is not easy to put into a few words how much my CISAC experience has helped me with making progress at a crucial juncture of my career. CISAC fellowships offered me a transformative opportunity to make my research more rigorous, to think more creatively and more carefully, to appreciate interdisciplinary approaches in addressing complex problems, to improve my teaching abilities, and to establish relationships with leading scholars and specialists, which I hope will be long-lasting ties to communities at CISAC, Stanford, and the U.S.

Anna Péczeli

I have a tenured position at my institute in Hungary so I will move home in August and get back to teaching and research.

My CISAC experience was amazing, from the beginning I felt that I was part of a community here. I got much useful feedback on my research, and I really feel that my work improved in quality and I became a better researcher. I learned a lot about how to present my ideas so that it would be relevant for policy makers, and my fellowship opened new doors for me. I am grateful for this opportunity, and I am certain that I will continue to be an active member of the CISAC community wherever I go.

Eric Min

During the 2017-2018 academic year, I will remain at CISAC. As a social sciences postdoctoral fellow, I will study how international actors and third parties utilize diplomacy to manage and resolve interstate conflicts. This builds upon my broader research agenda, which uses new quantitative data and statistical methods to analyze the strategic logic of negotiations during war. 

Given that I came from a predominantly social science background, my year at CISAC was invaluable in helping me to understand the policymaking world and how my research could more effectively communicate the technicalities of my research to a broader informed yet general audience. I also learned about what kinds of pressing questions concern policymakers, which I will use to shape my future work. I look forward to meeting another group of diverse and knowledgeable individuals next year. 

Jennifer L. Erickson

This fall, I will return to my regular life at Boston College, where I am an associate professor of political science and international studies. In the upcoming academic year, I will continue to work on the research I worked on at CISAC on new weapons and the laws and norms of war and the nuclear weapons portion of my project in particular. I will also teach two sections of the Introduction to International Studies for BC undergraduates and the Field Seminar in International Politics for BC graduate students. In the fall, I also look forward to being affiliated with the Security Studies Program at MIT. 

CISAC has been a tremendous source of academic support for my research. Not only has it given me time and resources to do research and write, but it has also introduced me to new colleagues, who have generously provided insights and expertise that have improved that research. It also made it possible for me to attend events like a conference on New Dilemmas in Ethics, Technology, and War at the Air Force Academy in April 2017, the Military Immersion Map Exercise at RAND in May 2017, and the UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons in June 2017.

These experiences, as well as all of the opportunities to attend events and meet people at CISAC itself, will continue to shape how I think about my research and teaching and have helped me build new professional networks for the long term.

Cameron Tracy

In the next academic year, I will be a postdoc in Stanford’s Department of Geological Sciences. There, I will continue my work on the role of geologic disposal (burial) of weapons plutonium in the global arms control and disarmament regimes. I will also conduct scientific research on the manner in which nuclear materials change in response to their environments. For example, I am currently starting a project in which I attempt to determine the conditions in which uranium-bearing materials have been stored by studying the oxidation and hydration of their surfaces. This could help to determine the provenance of smuggled uranium that has been interdicted by law enforcement or security authorities. 

My fellowship at CISAC has allowed me to translate my scientific skills to the policy realm, and to greatly expand the impact of my work. I have long been interested in science policy, but lacked the resources, connections, and experience necessary to effectively analyze critical issues and to communicate the results to both scholarly and governmental audiences. Through interactions with CISAC’s resident policy experts, I learned about the role that technical analysis can play in the policymaking process.

While my transition to policy-relevant work is ongoing, my efforts have already yielded some impact on international policy, with an Australian Royal Commission report citing my work on quantifying the long-term risks associated with the burial of nuclear materials. I expect that the valuable experience and mentorship I received over the course of my CISAC fellowship will continue to inform and enhance my work at the interface of nuclear science and policy.

Jooeun Kim

I will become the Jill Hopper Memorial Fellow at Georgetown University and will be teaching a course, the History and Politics of Nuclear Proliferation, in spring 2018. From August this year, I will be a visiting scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. CISAC provided me with amazing resources. I loved my intellectually stimulating meetings with my mentor Scott Sagan and other amazing scholars who opened their office doors to me. CISAC is an ‘intellectual candy store.’ I am grateful to everyone there for creating such a special environment.

Andrea Gilli

Starting July 1, I will be a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs where I will keep working on my research about technology and international security.

The CISAC experience helped my career in three main ways. First, CISAC is a fantastic academic environment where young researchers can deal with leading scholars in a plurality of fields: the constant interactions between different views and expertise represent a unique source of intellectual growth that has helped me develop new ideas and identify new questions in my field.

Second, CISAC's activities and professional growth initiatives help fellows gain the skills and acquire the knowledge to succeed not only as an academic but also, more broadly, as public intellectual. CISAC has helped me improve my understanding of policy dynamics as well as my capacity to present to non-experts the findings of my research. Third, CISAC's "be-good" motto combined with its strong mentorship provides fellows with a perfect working environment.

Eva C. Uribe

This fall, I will be starting my position as a systems research analyst at Sandia National Lab. For my research here at CISAC, I have taken a broad, holistic look at the proliferation impact of the thorium fuel cycle. Therefore, CISAC has given me valuable experience in thinking through difficult problems using a systematic, top-down approach, which is a skill that I will take with me to my next position.

Accepting a postdoctoral fellowship with CISAC was an unconventional career move for me, personally. I got my doctorate in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2016. Most of my peers in the chemistry department went on to conduct postdoctoral research at another university, a national lab, or in industry. A few made the leap into science policy fellowships in Washington, D.C. For me, CISAC provided a happy compromise between these two options. It allowed me the freedom to continue conducting technical research (albeit outside the chemistry lab), while still exploring the policy implications of my research.

My experience at CISAC helped my career progression in two ways. First, through targeted workshops, reading groups, and less formal daily interactions, CISAC provided me with the opportunity to view my research and interests from a different lens, that of the policymaker.  It was interesting to see my fellow fellows, of all academic backgrounds, struggling with how to translate the finer points of their academic research into policy-relevant media. I learned a lot from their experiences and challenges. The second way that CISAC has helped my career progression was through exposure to others who have done this transition successfully. This was achieved through fantastic seminar series, as well as through daily interaction with faculty and fellows here at CISAC. Speaking with people who have worked at high levels in Washington, D.C. made me realize that I would prefer to continue doing policy-relevant academic and technical research in nuclear science, rather than to transition to policy completely.

Fellowship information

Current fellowship opportunities at CISAC include: 

•  Social Sciences or Humanities International Security Fellowship

•  Natural Sciences or Engineering International Security Fellowship

•  Cybersecurity and International Security Fellowship

•  Law and International Security Fellowship

•  Nuclear Security Fellowship

•  William J. Perry Fellowship in International Security

For more information about CISAC fellowships, email cisacfellowship@stanford.edu.