Norman Naimark's 'Stalin's Genocides' published in Ukranian
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Joseph Felter to join CISAC as senior research scholar
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The Center for International Security and Cooperation is delighted to welcome Dr. Joseph Felter as a Senior Research Scholar. At CISAC, Joe will build and lead a research program on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, working closely with CISAC scholars and others from around Stanford. He will also serve as a west coast representative of the Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) Project, a nationwide multi-university undertaking. Joe begins at CISAC on September 1st.
Felter is a colonel in the U.S. Army and a career Army Special Forces officer with distinguished service in a variety of special operations assignments. As a military attaché to the Philippines he helped develop the country’s counterterrorist capabilities and advance the peace process between the Philippine government and a major Islamic separatist group. He has conducted foreign internal defense and security assistance missions across East and Southeast Asia and has participated in operational deployments to Panama, Iraq, and twice to Afghanistan.
Felter formerly led the International Security and Assistance Force, Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team (CAAT) in Afghanistan reporting directly to Gen. David Petraeus and advising him on counterinsurgency strategy. Joe also directed the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point from 2005-2008, and has taught at West Point and the School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Felter has published many scholarly articles on the topic of counterinsurgency and has focused on the study of how to combat the root causes of terrorism. Some highlights include: "Can Hearts and Minds be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq," with Eli Berman and Jacob N. Shapiro. Journal of Political Economy (forthcoming); "Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines," with Eli Berman, Michael Callen, and Jacob N. Shapiro. Journal of Conflict Resolution (forthcoming); "Iranian Influence in Iraq: Politics and 'Other Means,'" with Brian Fishman. Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, N.Y., October 2008; and "Recruitment for Rebellion and Terrorism in the Philippines," in James Forest ed. The Making of a Terrorist: Recruitment, Training and Root Causes (Praeger International, 2006).
Joe holds a BS from West Point, an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD in Political Science from Stanford.
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PESD director Frank A. Wolak talks energy with Japanese CEOs and former PM
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Frank Wolak was a panelist at a one-day symposium in Tokyo put on by the Center for International Public Policy Studies entitled “Can Japan have a new economic paradigm after the catastrophic quake and tsunami on 11th March?”.
Wolak described how active demand-side participation by consumers through the use of dynamic pricing could help manage Japan’s current energy shortfall and benefit Japanese industry by stimulating the demand for the advanced metering and other electronic equipment necessary to implement dynamic pricing. Wolak summarized the results of several PESD research projects demonstrating significant price-responsiveness at both the residential and industrial level to retail prices that vary with real-time system conditions.
The major topic at the symposium was how Japan would meet its current and future electricity supply needs and what role nuclear power should play. There was general agreement among the panelists that nuclear power should remain part of Japan’s energy mix for both economic and energy security reasons, along with more stringent nuclear safety regulations. Other participants included Junichiro Koizumi (former Prime Minister of Japan) and Chief Executive Officers from a number of major Japanese corporations including Toshiba, Nippon Steel, Toyota, Panasonic, and Canon.
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Emmerson examines strategic importance of Indian Ocean region
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Despite the significance of Southeast Asia, India, and Australia, they are often overlooked in economic analyses of Asia. SEAF director Donald K. Emmerson took part in a Pacific Pension Institute roundtable event, July 13-15, focusing on the economic potential of this "southern rim." He opened the conference by reviewing the historical and social diversity of these countries and assessing the extent to which that diversity is an asset or a liability for economic growth, political stability, and democratic reform.
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Farmers in rural China struggling to survive, Scott Rozelle comments
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Two-hundred million farming households in China are struggling to capitalize on their nation's breathtaking economic development. While city dwellers are enjoying fast-rising living standards, much of rural China remains a hardscrabble landscape where average incomes of about $3,200 a year are less than a third of what they are in urban areas. "No one is going to get rich off farming," said Scott Rozelle, an expert on China's rural economy at Stanford University. "It's not going to happen until farm sizes get bigger. That's why millions of people are moving to the cities."
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When will European groups send flotillas to help people of North Korea and Syria?
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Freedom House’s Freedom in the World survey showcases an alarming decline in freedom, democracy and respect for human rights around the world for a fifth consecutive year. Only 60% of the world’s 194 countries and 14 territories can be defined as democracies with respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms.
While universal human rights are trampled upon in dictatorships as North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya and China, the European foreign policy debate is dominated by Israel’s blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza and the US-led war against international terrorism.
Flotillas to Gaza receive massive publicity in the European press, despite the fact that the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is open and the UN secretary general calling the campaign "an unnecessary provocation."
No flotillas are sailing towards Damascus and Teheran, despite the fact that Amnesty reported some 1,400 deaths in the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime, as well as rape and torture of children. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed 175 people this year, including women, children and homosexuals by public hanging and stoning.
Calls for a boycott of China are rarely issued in the European debate, although the communist regime in Beijing occupies Tibet and accounts for two thirds of the world’s executions. No fly-ins head to Atatürk International Airport, despite the fact that Turkey illegally occupies Northern Cyprus and commits systematic human rights violations in the Kurdish territories.
Elsewhere, very few European writers and cultural figures condemn the Castro regime, despite the fact that Cuba has forced 18 dissident journalists into exile this year.
The one-sidedness of the European foreign policy debate is clearly exemplified in the case of North Korea, one of the world’s worst human rights abusers according to Amnesty. A recently publicized UN report charged that some 3.5 million of the country’s 24 million inhabitants suffer from acute food shortages as result of the totalitarian regime’s policies.
Self-styled peace activists
Pyongyang has established a system of prison camps throughout the country where 200,000 dissidents are subjected to systematic torture and starvation. Forced labor guarantees that no detainees are strong enough to rebel; attempts to escape are punished with torture and execution.
Very few European campaigns are initiated in support of the North Korean people. This selective engagement can be explained by the fact that countries like North Korea don’t generate widespread media coverage or political debate. More significantly, the problems don’t fit into the dominant European foreign policy discourse, which discriminates between moral principles in the name of biased political agendas.
If the Gaza flotilla was motivated by altruistic humanism, we would have seen some boats setting sail for Benghazi, loaded with medicine and humanitarian aid. Ships with oppositional literature and laptops would have done wonders for the democratic opposition in Havana and Tehran. A universal commitment to the promotion of human rights would have prompted European public engagement against the mass starvation and torture in North Korea.
Next time self-styled European human rights and peace activists in Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland or Spain issue declarations in the name of humanism while condemning the only democracy in the Middle East, you should think twice; specifically when these statements are motivated by a questionable commitment to the promotion of democracy and human rights in all countries of the world.
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Political Movements in an Authoritarian Hierarchy
This project investigates the sources of stability and conflict in authoritarian regimes, especially regimes that have a unitary national government, apply threats and repression to their own officials, and lack an exit option for bureaucrats to move into careers in a separate private sector. It also seeks to develop theories about political movements in which bureaucrats are viewed as active participants in political processes that can rapidly undermine a government.
Garuda Rising, Black Swan Waiting: Economic and Political Future of Indonesia
Indonesia’s growing economic and political strengths are drawing a range of responses, from the optimism of many investors to the pessimism of some scholars. In this Presidential Distinguished Lecture, presented at Singapore Management University, Southeast Asia Forum director Donald K. Emmerson offers a balanced view somewhere between these two extremes. His tilt is positive, however: The success of dynamic and democratic Indonesia is not assured, but on balance the garuda's rise is good news not only for Indonesians, but for the larger world as well.
Emmerson’s lecture draws on data from an April 2011 senior executive survey conducted in Jakarta by the risk management firm CastleAsia (see attached handout).
Video and photos of Dr. Emmerson courtesy Singapore Management University.
Singapore Management University
Donald K. Emmerson
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emmerson@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Affiliated Faculty, CDDRL
Affiliated Scholar, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
At Stanford, in addition to his work for the Southeast Asia Program and his affiliations with CDDRL and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Donald Emmerson has taught courses on Southeast Asia in East Asian Studies, International Policy Studies, and Political Science. He is active as an analyst of current policy issues involving Asia. In 2010 the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars awarded him a two-year Research Associateship given to “top scholars from across the United States” who “have successfully bridged the gap between the academy and policy.”
Emmerson’s research interests include Southeast Asia-China-US relations, the South China Sea, and the future of ASEAN. His publications, authored or edited, span more than a dozen books and monographs and some 200 articles, chapters, and shorter pieces. Recent writings include The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century (ed., 2020); “‘No Sole Control’ in the South China Sea,” in Asia Policy (2019); ASEAN @ 50, Southeast Asia @ Risk: What Should Be Done? (ed., 2018); “Singapore and Goliath?,” in Journal of Democracy (2018); “Mapping ASEAN’s Futures,” in Contemporary Southeast Asia (2017); and “ASEAN Between China and America: Is It Time to Try Horsing the Cow?,” in Trans-Regional and –National Studies of Southeast Asia (2017).
Earlier work includes “Sunnylands or Rancho Mirage? ASEAN and the South China Sea,” in YaleGlobal (2016); “The Spectrum of Comparisons: A Discussion,” in Pacific Affairs (2014); “Facts, Minds, and Formats: Scholarship and Political Change in Indonesia” in Indonesian Studies: The State of the Field (2013); “Is Indonesia Rising? It Depends” in Indonesia Rising (2012); “Southeast Asia: Minding the Gap between Democracy and Governance,” in Journal of Democracy (April 2012); “The Problem and Promise of Focality in World Affairs,” in Strategic Review (August 2011); An American Place at an Asian Table? Regionalism and Its Reasons (2011); Asian Regionalism and US Policy: The Case for Creative Adaptation (2010); “The Useful Diversity of ‘Islamism’” and “Islamism: Pros, Cons, and Contexts” in Islamism: Conflicting Perspectives on Political Islam (2009); “Crisis and Consensus: America and ASEAN in a New Global Context” in Refreshing U.S.-Thai Relations (2009); and Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia (edited, 2008).
Prior to moving to Stanford in 1999, Emmerson was a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he won a campus-wide teaching award. That same year he helped monitor voting in Indonesia and East Timor for the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center. In the course of his career, he has taken part in numerous policy-related working groups focused on topics related to Southeast Asia; has testified before House and Senate committees on Asian affairs; and been a regular at gatherings such as the Asia Pacific Roundtable (Kuala Lumpur), the Bali Democracy Forum (Nusa Dua), and the Shangri-La Dialogue (Singapore). Places where he has held various visiting fellowships, including the Institute for Advanced Study and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Emmerson has a Ph.D. in political science from Yale and a BA in international affairs from Princeton. He is fluent in Indonesian, was fluent in French, and has lectured and written in both languages. He has lesser competence in Dutch, Javanese, and Russian. A former slam poet in English, he enjoys the spoken word and reads occasionally under a nom de plume with the Not Yet Dead Poets Society in Redwood City, CA. He and his wife Carolyn met in high school in Lebanon. They have two children. He was born in Tokyo, the son of U.S. Foreign Service Officer John K. Emmerson, who wrote the Japanese Thread among other books.
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What books do CISAC researchers recommend?
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Incoming Stanford freshmen will be reading three books on ethics and war this summer recommended by Scott D. Sagan. Here they are, along with other suggestions from CISAC researchers for summer reading on international affairs, technology, and security.
Jason R. Armagost Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State, by Garry Wills
Edward Blandford Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World, by Jill Jonnes
Martha Crenshaw In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, by Erik Larson
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, by David Fromkin
Lynn Eden Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, by Richard J. Evans
Katherine D. Marvel Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty,
by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
Scott D. Sagan Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, by S.C. Gwynne
“Three Books” Freshmen Reading
Selected by Scott Sagan, to "help our students evaluate when war is justified, how to fight justly the wars that do occur, and how best to manage the aftermath of war."
March, by Geraldine Brooks. A novel of the U.S. Civil War
The Violence of Peace: America's Wars in the Age of Obama, by Stephen Carter. An analysis of the current wars through the lens of just war theory
One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, by Nathaniel Fick. A young officer's memoir of Afghanistan and Iraq
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Restitution for Reconciliation: The US, Japan, and the Unpaid Assets of Asian Forced Mobilization Victims
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More than six decades after the end of World War II, the Japanese government has yet to return an estimated ¥278 million worth of unpaid financial assets owed to Asian victims of forced mobilization for the war effort. During the Allied Occupation of Japan, American authorities directed Japanese officials to deposit these assets in the Bank of Japan for eventual restitution, setting up a custody account in 1946 and a foreign creditor’s account in 1949. However, the outbreak of the Korean War destroyed any chance of restitution, as the U.S. preoccupation over the cold war conflict effectively froze the unpaid assets that still remain in the Bank of Japan. Clarifying the historical record of American involvement in managing these accounts can contribute towards a U.S.-mediated effort to reach regional reconciliation between Japan and its neighbors in Northeast Asia.
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The Journal of Northeast Asian History