Following the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the decision by President Donald Trump to remove U.S. troops from northern Syria, there are many questions surrounding the future of the region, which is controlled in part by Al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists, former Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Brett McGurk told Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast.



ISIS initially gained momentum in Syria in 2012, when the government had eroded and a state of anarchy was developing, said McGurk, who is the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. “Starting in 2012 and 2013, thousands of foreign extremist fighters were pouring into Syria, looking for extremist groups to join. And Baghdadi’s guys — which became ISIS — basically took advantage of this.”

By 2014, ISIS controlled a territory with about eight million people and had revenues of about $1 billion a year, McGurk noted.

“I was an early advocate that we needed military force almost immediately,” he said. “To get someone recruited right into Syria, then go blow himself up at a kid’s soccer game, or an ice cream shop — if you have that pipeline, you know you have something pretty serious.” 

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The Anti-ISIS Strategy
In the summer of 2014, President Barack Obama decided to take action, with a few conditions: first, that the coalition against ISIS would be broad, and include countries outside of the United States; second, that U.S. troops would work with local partners in Iraq and Syria to fight the terror group; and third, that the coalition would share the costs and burdens associated with the military campaign.

“The campaign launched during the third week of August or so during that summer, and it was a real war,” McGurk said. “It was a very difficult, town-by-town struggle, but a successful war.”

The Death of al-Baghdadi
While al-Baghdadi will be replaced by a successor, the former ISIS leader is “somewhat irreplaceable,” said McGurk. He claimed to be a caliph — a religious leader in Islam believed to be a successor to the Prophet Mohammed — and in 2014 declared the territory controlled by ISIS in Iraq and Syria a caliphate, or Islamic state.

“People around the world who pledge allegiance to ISIS pledge allegiance to him — so Baghdadi is a unique figure,” McGurk said. “His removal from the scene is excellent news.”

Related: Read Brett McGurk’s thoughts on what it takes for U.S. foreign policy to succeed in the Middle East

The situation between the United States and Ukraine is complex. Three experts on Ukraine recently joined the World Class podcast to break down what you need to know. What happened on the July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky? Who are Ukraine’s former prosecutors general and how have they impacted the current situation? And what really happened between former Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine? We’ve got you covered.

On the Trump-Zelensky phone call:

“The majority of people in Ukraine were listening not to what the American president was saying, but what the Ukrainian president was replying. And frankly speaking, I think it was a very tough conversation for our president.” -Sasha Ustinova, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament

“If you look at the context of that July 25 phone call, there were two other things happening in the same time frame. First, about a week before [the call], President Trump had put about $391 million in military assistance on hold that had been authorized by Congress for Ukraine... The second thing is that President Trump had invited Zelensky to come to the United States back at the beginning of June, but they'd not yet set a date. Those are two big things for Zelensky, particularly at the beginning of his term in office.” - Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), and William J. Perry Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation

[Ready to dive deeper? Read Steven Pifer’s recent blog post for the Brookings Institution and Anna Grzymala-Busse’s “The Failure of Europe’s Mainstream Parties" in The Journal of Democracy]

On Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin:

“Shokin was clogging up the system such that corruption cases couldn’t go forward because they’d get stuck in a file in a drawer in his office. And so the sense was not only in the U.S. government, but also in the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, that Shokin had become a single point of failure. The notion of getting rid of Shokin didn’t emanate from Joe Biden.” -Colin Kahl, Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor from 2014-2017 and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

“Shokin was not trying to investigate corruption — he was trying to help a former corrupt state official, Mykola Zlochevsky, escape criminal prosecution. I was actually one of the people who organized demonstrations in front of the general prosecution office because everybody was so sick of Shokin, and so disappointed in him for helping former [corrupt] officials to get back into the country.” -Ustinova

The impact on both countries:

“I believe this is damaging to American diplomatic efforts with Ukraine because you have an embassy there that's trying to pursue American interests. We want Ukraine, for example, to help put pressure on Iran. We want Ukraine to do more on reform. And then you have Giuliani coming in with a very different agenda. Those two agendas are not consistent and send mixed signals to the Ukrainians.” -Pifer

“It's very much in the U.S. interest to advance anti-corruption efforts around the world because corruption is corrosive to stability and it's also something that our authoritarian adversaries exploit. It's definitely not in the U.S. national interests to use official offices to put pressure on foreign countries to investigate political opponents under the fig leaf of corruption. That's what the impeachment inquiry will decide, whether there was an abuse of power in this domain.” -Kahl

“Ukrainians know that Shokin and [former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy] Lutsenko are the bad guys in our country … And now we’re seeing that the United States president was misinformed in saying that [Shokin was doing a good job]. So of course it was disappointing, but I really hope that getting the facts out and the truth out will help people in both Ukraine and in the United States.” -Ustinova

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The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University is pleased to announce that Rose Gottemoeller has been appointed the next Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer. She will spend the next three years at Stanford working with FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and will simultaneously be a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008.

“I am thrilled that Rose Gottemoeller will be joining FSI next year,” said FSI Director Michael McFaul. “In addition to her most recent senior appointment at NATO, Rose is one of the most experienced arms control experts in the country. Our students and research community will have a truly unique opportunity to learn from this most talented American diplomat.“

George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State and the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, added, “As the highest-ranking civilian woman in NATO’s history, Rose has built a career of service promoting peace and security around the world and will provide expertise to some of the most relevant global policy issues facing the world today. We welcome the wealth of knowledge and real-world experience in foreign relations, diplomacy and international affairs she will bring to the Hoover Institution."

At Stanford, Gottemoeller will teach and mentor students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program and the CISAC Honors program; contribute to policy research and outreach activities; and convene workshops, seminars and other events relating to her areas of expertise, including nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation and non-proliferation.

"Since CISAC's inception, the Center has focused much of its research and teaching on the causes of great power conflict and strategies to avoid nuclear war,” said Colin Kahl, Co-director of CISAC. “Few people in the world have as much practical experience — or enjoy more widespread respect — tackling these existential challenges as Rose Gottemoeller. We are thrilled to welcome her to the CISAC community."

The Payne Lectureship is named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, brothers who gained an appreciation for global problems through their international business operations. The Payne Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader, with an emphasis on visionary thinking; a broad, practical grasp of a given field; and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global community and its challenges. 

“For me, this is an exciting opportunity,” Gottemoeller said.  “I love teaching and mentoring students, and I am itching to get some writing done.  It’s an honor to have the chance to dive into this work as the Payne Distinguished Lecturer, with great colleagues at both FSI and the Hoover Institution.”

When Colin Kahl came on board as Vice President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor in 2014, the situation in Ukraine was one of a few “crisis issues” that Biden and his staff were tasked with ameliorating by former President Barack Obama, Kahl told Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast.

Less than a year after Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the ousting of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Biden and his team were focused on curbing corruption, helping Ukraine’s new leaders with the governance of the country and ensuring that the 2014 Minsk agreements were resolved, said Kahl, who is now co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.



“A lot has been made of the corruption piece because of the impeachment inquiry and the false allegations against Biden, but [corruption] was really only one of three major baskets of activity that were going on,” said Kahl of the recent allegations against Biden, which suggest that he had asked the Ukrainian government to fire its former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin because Shokin had been investigating a Ukrainian company on which his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board.

The real problem with Shokin, Kahl explained, stemmed from the fact that there were people working within Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office who wanted to investigate corruption cases, but they were unable to do so because Shokin was marginalizing those people and pushing them out of the office. As a result, no one of significance was prosecuted for corruption during Shokin’s tenure as prosecutor general, Kahl said.

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“Shokin was clogging up the system such that corruption cases couldn’t go forward because they’d get stuck in a file in a drawer in his office,” Kahl said. “And so the sense was not only in the U.S. government, but also in the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that Shokin had become a single point of failure. The notion of getting rid of Shokin didn’t emanate from Biden.”

Biden, Kahl and others on Biden’s staff traveled to Kiev in December 2015 to discuss the conditions for securing a $1 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. and the IMF with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Several of the conditions of the loan had to do with deterring corruption in the country, and one of those conditions was the reform of the Prosecutor General’s office, Kahl said. Biden asked Poroshenko to dismiss Shokin during that trip; three months later, Shokin resigned, and Ukraine ultimately received the $1 billion in financial assistance.

“This is not a ‘he’ story, it’s a ‘we’ story,” Kahl explained. “That is, the State Department was all in on this, the White House was all in on this, and so were the Europeans, the IMF and Ukrainian reformers. This isn’t a Biden story — this is a U.S. story.”
 

Women are underrepresented in the economics profession, as recent research and the public spotlight have shown. But changes are afoot as both men and women in the field try to understand the scope of the gender gap.

At the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Faculty Fellow Maya Rossin-Slater is taking steps to address underlying factors of the disparity. In September, the economist and assistant professor in the School of Medicine held a mentoring workshop to assist women who are third-year economics PhD students — a pivotal point for doctoral candidates as they transition from mostly structured classes to independent research. Rossin-Slater is also a core faculty member at Stanford Heatlh Policy.

Part boot camp and part networking event, the daylong workshop brought together 28 graduate students from across California. Twice that many students had applied for the opportunity to practice insider skills, discuss their research interests, and get paired with a mentor.

The need for such an assist is clear, Rossin-Slater says. In the United States, women now have grown to account for about 60 percent of those who hold bachelor’s degrees. But in the discipline of economics, they constitute a steady 30 percent of the students. Meanwhile, other majors, such as math, have risen to a 48 percent share of women in recent years.

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“Economics is about a lot of different aspects of human behavior in society,” Rossin-Slater told the workshop participants. “And you cannot think about all kinds of questions unless you have a diverse set of people doing the research.”

“You, here, are part of the next generation of female economists who can help change the profession.”

Females who are underrepresented in the economics arena — while getting their degrees or later, while working — face a variety of systemic barriers, Rossin-Slater said. And they may be at a particular disadvantage, lacking female peers, role models or mentors in their own departments and networks.

The mentoring workshop at Stanford sought to begin addressing that problem for graduate students and will hopefully catalyze similar initiatives elsewhere.

“You should continue to do the research that you are doing, and be excited about it. Be confident. Do economics,” Rossin-Slater told the participants. “As you see here today, women research every possible field.”

Mentors participating in the inaugural workshop included female economists working at think tanks and university professors — including SIEPR Faculty Fellow Maria Polyakova — focusing on applied economics, microeconomics and macroeconomics.

In organizing the workshop, Rossin-Slater said she had thought about challenges she herself had faced as a third-year PhD student, and she modeled it after a successful workshop that the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession hosts for female assistant professors. Rossin-Slater is slated to talk about the female PhD workshop at the annual AEA conference in January.

The September event at Stanford featured a mix of informative sessions — on topics, such as, “How do you ‘do research’?” — as well as practice exercises. Participants worked through hypothetical but common scenarios — What should you do, say, if you’re interrupted during your presentation at a seminar, and challenged about your research?

SIEPR, along with the National Science Foundation, funded Rossin-Slater’s workshop.

"With the mounting body of evidence that the economics culture can be unwelcoming to women and minorities, it is great to see our faculty taking concrete steps to counteract this environment and broaden the pipeline of candidates who can make important contributions to the field,” said SIEPR Deputy Director Gopi Shah Goda.

“SIEPR is proud to support such efforts, as they are perfectly aligned with our goal of cultivating the next generation of economic policy scholars.”

As details about the July 25 phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continue to emerge, Oleksandra “Sasha” Ustinova — a member of the Ukrainian parliament who has been fighting corruption in the country for years — said that Ukrainians are reacting to the news differently than Americans are.

For one thing, Ukrainians are paying less attention to what Trump said and more attention to Zelensky’s side of the phone call, Ustinova told Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast.



While many Ukrainians acknowledge that the newly-elected Zelensky was in a tough position going into his first conversation with the president of the United States on July 25, many were disappointed to learn that Zelensky promised Trump that the next prosecutor general of Ukraine would be “100 percent my person, my candidate,” especially given the country’s recent controversies surrounding the past two men to serve in that position.

“That is not acceptable,” Ustinova said. “The prosecutor general should be independent. We have already seen many corrupt prosecutor generals.”

Take Viktor Shokin for example, who served as the prosecutor general of Ukraine from 2015 to 2016, explained Ustinova. He is being described by some Americans as an honest man who was forced out of office in part by former Vice President Joe Biden, who supposedly asked the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin because he had been investigating Burisma Holdings, a Ukranian company on which his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board.

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That story couldn’t be farther from the truth, Ustinov said.

“Shokin was not trying to investigate corruption — he was trying to help a former corrupt state official, Mykola Zlochevsky, escape criminal prosecution,” she explained. “I was actually one of the people who organized demonstrations in front of the general prosecution office because everybody was so sick of Shokin, and so disappointed in him for helping former [corrupt] officials to get back into the country.”

Shokin’s successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who was Ukraine’s prosecutor general from 2016 through August 2019, also did not have the Ukrainian people’s best interests at heart, she said. Under Lutsenko, four of the five outstanding criminal cases against Zlochevsky were shut down. Zlochevsky – a Ukrainian oligarch who founded Burisma Holdings — was required to pay a $4 million fine and was ultimately allowed back in Ukraine.

“Ukrainians know that Shokin and Lutsenko are the bad guys in our country,” she said.. “So of course it was disappointing to hear [people speaking about them in a positive way], but I hope that getting the facts and the truth out there will help a lot of people – not only in Ukraine, but also in the U.S. — to understand who is good and who is bad.”