To begin his talk, Archon Fung poses the following question: why is there no "killer" ICT platform in politics? After all, there are highly disruptive platforms in social media, commerce and other realms. These so-called "killer" platforms tend to be characterized by three features: notably that many users adopt the ICT platform and abandon the old way of doing something; the new platform improves users' experience by changing how they do some activity; and the organizations using new killer platforms displace those that do not use them.

Fung proceeds to present explanations for this puzzle, following a brief clarification of the scope of his question. When Fung refers to politics, he is not referring to aspects like partisan mobilization, e-government or the public sphere; instead, he examines the potential for ICT platforms in the realms of decision-making, problem solving and accountability. While the typical level of resolution for discussion is on the macro effects of ICT as a social force, Fung's analysis stems from his narrowing in on ICT platforms (such as Facebook, Wikipedia, Ushahidi, and others) themselves.

The first argument Fung presents in answer to his initial question is that both the suppliers and the demanders are different in politics than in other areas (e.g. commerce). Politics is aggregative, characterized by collective action and results, not focused on "individual benefits and gratification" like commerce and social interaction might be.

Second, while it is possible to have parallel, collaborative production in some types of platforms (e.g. Wikipedia), production in politics is characterized by strategic action. Various examples can help illustrate that there are key differences between commerce and politics on the supply side. In commerce, Amazon's customers want books and Amazon wants to sell books. While citizens want influence in the public sphere, however, politicians and officials typically do not want to give citizens power to influence the public sphere. Although there are counterexamples, as in some cities (such as Belo Horizonte) in Brazil, where 10% of the electorate directly influences public spending online through the Participatory Budgeting process, these cases are few and far between.

Another important factor is that there are much more ambiguous benefits in politics than in other spheres. While it is well understood that amassing more Facebook, Amazon or Google users will result in more money or fame, it is less well know what the benefits of more public deliberation or accountability might be. Since the factors that explain platform success in other areas don't translate to politics, Fung concludes, there is less innovation in the supply side.

In order to understand cases in which ICT platforms have nevertheless become important on the local level, Fung and his colleagues carried out a large case study analysis of specific examples from Brazil, Chile, Kenya, India, and Slovakia. Through analyzing these cases, which include such examples as São Paolo's Cidade Democrática, Santiago's Reclamos, Nairobi's Budget Tracking Tool and others, the researchers arrive at three key conclusions.

1. ICT platforms that have had success within the realm of politics that Fung is interested in have been characterized by the predominance of professionals and organizations among their users. The main users of Cidade Democratica, for example, are organizations and professionals.
2. Second, ICTs do not necessarily act independently. Instead, journalism and media play an important role, and even make up the main base of users for platforms like Bratislava's Fair Play Alliance and Mumbai Votes. After all, ICT can help journalists reduce research costs and represents a neutral and credible source.
3. ICT's do not go around or undermine traditional NGOs and government. Instead, at least in the cases examined, they are typically effective because they operate through these existing organizations. Kiirti in Bangalore is one example.

The bottom line from Fung's case study analysis is that getting context right can be more important for an ICT platform's success than getting the technology right. Typically, the uptake of a platform only occurs once all other pieces are in place.

In the final part of his talk, Fung addressed audience questions, many of which related to Fung's chosen standards for a killer platform. One audience member asked why Facebook could not be considered a killer platform, given its many uses for political purposes. After all, Facebook enables a kind of action to occur that would have occurred before, since it can often be accessed even in countries where public gatherings may be restricted. Another questioned why Wikileaks was not considered a killer platform. Fung replied that while Wikileaks does bring together people and information better, a killer platform would need to transform the nature of politics from group to individuals, which no existing platform has yet achieved.

Each president of the United States enters office thinking he will be able to define the agenda and set the course of America's relations with the rest of the world. And, almost invariably, each confronts crises that are thrust upon him-wars, revolutions, genocides, and deadly confrontations. Neither Woodrow Wilson nor FDR imagined having to plunge America into world war. Truman had to act quickly, and with little preparation, to confront the menace of Soviet expansion at war's end. JFK, for all his readiness to "bear any burden" in the struggle for freedom, did not expect his struggle to contain Soviet imperial ambitions would come so close to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Nixon was tested by a surprise war in the Middle East. Carter's presidency was consumed by the Shah's unraveling and the Iranian revolution. George H.W. Bush rose to the challenge of communism's collapse and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Clinton squandered the opportunity to stop a genocide in Rwanda and waited tragically too long before stopping one in Bosnia. George W. Bush mobilized the country to strike back after September 11, but, in the view of many, he put most of his chips in the wrong war.

In the eye of the historical storm, and in the absence of a challenge as immediate and overpowering as September 11, Pearl Harbor, or the Nazis' march across Europe, it is risky to identify any set of world events as game-changing. Yet that is what many analysts, including myself, believe the Arab revolutions of 2011 are. And a surprising number of specialists-including hard-eyed realists like Fareed Zakaria-have seized upon the crisis in Libya as a defining moment not just for the United States in the region but for the foreign policy presidency of Barack Obama as well.

To date, one could say that Obama has had a surprisingly good run for a foreign policy neophyte. He has revived the momentum for arms control with a new START treaty with Russia, while pressing the issue of human rights within Russia. He has managed the meteoric rise of China decently, while improving relations with India. He has not cut and run from Iraq-as most Republicans were convinced he would. And he has ramped up but at least set limits to our involvement in Afghanistan. As the Arab revolutions have gathered momentum, he has increasingly positioned the United States on the side of democratic change. His statements and actions have not gone as far as democracy promotion advocates (like myself) would have preferred, but they have overridden cautionary warnings of the foreign policy establishment in the State Department, the Pentagon, think tanks, and so on. Without Obama's artful choreography of public statements and private messages and pressures, Hosni Mubarak might still be in power today.

All of this, however, may appear in time only a prelude to the fateful choice that Obama will soon have to make-and, one fears, is already making by default in a tragically wrong way-in Libya. Why is Libya-with its six million people and its significant but still modest share of global oil exports-so important? Why must the fight against Muammar Qaddafi-a crazy and vicious dictator, but by now, in his capacity for global mischief, a largely defanged one-be our fight?

When presidents are tested by crisis, the world draws their measure, and the impressions formed can have big consequences down the road. After watching Jimmy Carter's weak and vacillating posture on Iran, the Soviets figured he'd sit on the sidelines if they invaded and swallowed Afghanistan. They misjudged, but Afghanistan and the world are still paying the price for that misperception. In the face of mixed messages and a long, cynical game of balance-of-power, Saddam too, misjudged that he could get away with swallowing up Kuwait in 1991. When the United States did not prepare for war as naked aggression swept across Asia and Europe, the Japanese thought a quick strike could disable and knock out the slumbering American giant across the Pacific. When Slobodan Milosevic and his Bosnian Serb allies launched their war of "ethnic cleansing," while "the West"-which is always to say, first and foremost, the United States-wrung its hands, many tens of thousands of innocent people were murdered and raped before President Bill Clinton finally found the resolve to mix air power and diplomacy to bring the genocidal violence to a halt.

If Muammar Qaddafi succeeds in crushing the Libyan revolt, as he is well on his way to doing, the U.S. foreign policy establishment will heave a sad sigh of regret and say, in essence, "That's the nasty business of world politics." In other words: nasty, but not our business. And so: not their blood on our hands. But, when we have encouraged them to stand up for their freedom, and when they have asked for our very limited help, it becomes our business. On February 23, President Obama said: "The United States ... strongly supports the universal rights of the Libyan people. That includes the rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and the ability of the Libyan people to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. They are not negotiable. ... And they cannot be denied through violence or suppression." Yet denying them through murderous violence and merciless suppression-with a massacre of semi-genocidal proportions likely waiting as the end game in Benghazi-is exactly what Qaddafi is in the process of doing.

Barack Obama has bluntly declared that Qaddafi must go. The Libyan resistance, based in Benghazi, has appealed urgently for the imposition of a no-fly zone. Incredibly, the Arab League has endorsed the call, as has the Gulf Cooperation Council. France has recognized the rebel provisional government based in Benghazi as Libya's legitimate government-while Obama studies this all. Can anyone remember a time when France and the Arab League were ahead of the United States on a question of defending freedom fighters?

There is much more that can be done beyond imposing a no-fly zone. No one in their right mind is calling for putting American boots on the ground in Libya. But we can jam Qaddafi's communications. We can, and urgently should, get humanitarian supplies and communications equipment, including satellite modems for connection to the Internet, to the rebels in Benghazi, where they can be supplied by sea. And we should find a way to get them arms as well. Benghazi is not a minor desert town. It is Libya's second largest city, a major industrial and commercial hub, and a significant port. Through it, a revolt can be supplied. If Benghazi falls to Qaddafi, it will fall hard and bloodily, and the thud will be heard throughout the world.

Time may be running out. As the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, "All that stands between Kadafi and rebel headquarters in Benghazi are disorganized volunteers and army defectors spread thinly along the coastal highway." They have passion and courage, but they lack weaponry, strategy, and training. Like so many rebel movements, they need time to pull these all together. Time is what a no-fly zone and an emergency supply line can buy them.

Libya's rebels are pleading for our help. "Where is America?" asked one of them, quoted in the L.A. Times, who was manning a checkpoint in Port Brega. "All they do is talk, talk, talk. They need to get rid of these planes killing Libyan people." The "they" he was referring to was the Americans, beginning with their leader-one would hope, still the leader of the "free world"-President Obama.

Many prudent reasons have been offered for doing nothing. It is not our fight. They might lose anyway. We don't know who these rebels really are. We have too many other commitments. And so on. The cautions sound reasonable, except that we have heard them all before. Think Mostar and Srebrenica. And we had a lot of commitments in World War II as well, when we could have and should have bombed the industrial infrastructure of the Holocaust. As for the possibility that the rebels might lose-a prospect that is a possibility if we aid them and a near certainty if we do not-which would be the greater ignominy: To have given Libya's rebels the support they asked for while they failed, or to have stood by and done absolutely nothing except talk while they were mowed down in the face of meek American protests that the Qaddafi's violence is "unacceptable"?

Oh yes. There is also the danger that China will veto a U.N. Security Council Resolution calling for a no-fly zone. Part of us should hope they do. Let the rising superpower-more cynical than the reigning one ever was-feel the first hot flash of hatred by Arabs feeling betrayed. Go ahead, make our day.

Presidents do not get elected to make easy decisions, and they certainly never become great doing so. They do not get credit just because they go along with what the diplomatic and military establishments tell them are the "wise and prudent" thing to do. This is not Hungary in 1956. There is no one standing behind Qaddafi-not the Soviet Union then, not the Arab League now, not even the entirety of his own army. That is why he must recruit mercenaries to save him. Qaddafi is the kind of neighborhood bully that Slobodan Milosevic was. And he must be met by the same kind of principled power. For America to do less than that now-less than the minimum that the Libyan rebels and the Arab neighbors are requesting-would be to shrink into global vacillation and ultimately irrelevance. If Barack Obama cannot face down a modest thug who is hated by most of his own people and by every neighboring government, who can he confront anywhere?

For the United States-and for Barack Obama-there is much more at stake in Libya than the fate of one more Arab state, or even the entire region. And the clock is ticking.

On February 25 and 26, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, in partnership with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, hosted a symposium titled, "Addressing the Accountability Gap in Statebuilding: The Case of Afghanistan." This event brought together leading experts, government officials, diplomats, practitioners, and academics to examine the problems of accountability, corruption, and election fraud that have risen in the wake of international statebuilding efforts in Afghanistan.

This unique forum allowed participants-both Afghan actors and members of the international community- who are heavily involved in building the institutions of the Afghan state, to participate in an honest exchange with their peers to surface challenges and generate recommendations to improve the practice of statebuilding moving forward. 

Panels were designed around the following questions: how to establish accountability in statebuilding, address electoral fraud evidenced in 2009 and 2010, manage powerbrokers who monopolize informal governance networks, coordinate anti-corruption efforts, and develop a political strategy for Afghanistan's future. What surfaced throughout these presentations and discussion was the issue of the "double compact" in Afghanistan-the failure of Afghans to self-govern and the failure of the international community to construct the institutions of a functioning state.

Participants proposed a new framework for governance that adopts a more participatory approach with the international community, Afghan government, and the public as equal partners in statebuilding endeavors. While challenges emerged there were also a number of key recommendations and strategies proposed  that can be pioneered by this influential group of policymakers and practitioners to ease the transition of responsibility to the Afghan government in 2014.  

The keynote address was delivered by former Afghan Minster of Finance and 2009 presidential candidate Dr. Ashraf Ghani, to an audience of more than 100 students and members of the local community. Dr. Ghani provided an honest and pragmatic account of the parallel and conflicting systems driven by the international community, which have given rise to systemic failure and corruption in Afghanistan.

"We are dealing with a crooked playing field," Dr. Ghani said recognizing that both the Afghan and international community were jointly responsible for this outcome. "When the field itself is crooked the nature of reform and change that we must initiate are very different. "

Dr. Ghani spent considerable time discussing the outsourcing of development to Washington-based firms that manage million dollar contracts and outsource technical work to foreign technocrats. This in Dr. Ghani's opinion does little to strengthen the internal capacities of the state, provide training opportunities to Afghans or allocate resources effectively to the general public.

Dr. Ghani stressed the importance of speaking honestly about these dysfunctions in the development system, "We need to start talking truth to each other if we are going to deal with this phenomenon. This double failure now is the genesis of the present."

Dr. Ghani channeled the sentiments of the Afghan public into the room by emphasizing the uncertainty that defines their lives. "Today it is the sense of injustice that drives conflict," Dr. Ghani said. "The level of conflict is driven by injustice. What Afghans yearn for is normalcy-the sense that the lives of our children and grandchildren will be better and what my generation endured will not be repeated."

The level of conflict is driven by injustice. What Afghans yearn for is normalcy-the sense that the lives of our children and grandchildren will be better and what my generation endured will  not be repeated.                    -Dr. Ashraf Ghani 

 Looking forward, Dr. Ghani advised that accountability mechanisms and feedback loops must be implemented to ensure that the necessary auditing and accounting mechanisms are in place to control corruption and ensure transparency. In addition, he called for one coherent system of rules that must be developed and agreed upon to govern development and prevent parallel systems from circumventing these rules. Finally, he advised adopting national programs that model the success of the National Solidarity Program, which reduced child mortality rates by 16%.

Dr. Ghani commented on the unique position that Afghanistan occupies at the crossroads of Asia, in the middle of "four huge hubs of change," China, India, Russia, and the Gulf. "A new regional era has to be created, if France and Germany could overcome hundreds of years of conflict we must create another sense of opportunity."

Dr. Ghani concluded by placing the hope and responsibility for Afghanistan's future in the hands of its younger generation, "We must talk about the generation compact in Afghanistan, our sons and daughters-both literal and figurative-are the source of growth and the source of dynamism...The women of Afghanistan, the youth of Afghanistan, and the poor of Afghanistan are the three numerical majorities that have been reduced to political and economic minority. Without investing in women, investing in youth and tackling the challenge of poverty, we are not going to have stability."

At the end of the two day symposium, participants collectively called for a comprehensive political strategy to facilitate the peaceful and legal transfer of power in 2014, which marks the end of President Karzai's term in office. With this important milestone in the near future, the international community remains committed to working with their Afghan counterparts to introduce political reform measures that will strengthen accountability mechanisms between the Afghan state and society. 

As Dr. Ghani eloquently stated at the end of his presentation, "We have to have an agenda of the future, we must engage in writing the history of the future."

One critical element of the laws of war is a concept known as "belligerent privilege," which stipulates that combatants may legally kill other combatants but may not target civilians. What, then, does a soldier do about the fact that in modern warfare it can be extraordinarily difficult to tell the difference?

Terrorists often choose to move undetected through the ranks of civilian populations. They hide in plain sight by wearing civilian clothes rather than uniforms or distinctive emblems. "They may be farmers by day and fighters by night," said David Luban, a Georgetown professor of law and philosophy, at an event that was part of the Ethics and War series. What's more, civilians may offer food and shelter to enemy soldiers - do they in the process become combatants? And what, finally, should the soldier do about civilians who are being used as a shield to protect combatants?

These are tricky questions. Luban said the phrasing of the Geneva Convention leaves open the possibility that soldiers may legally target civilians in a conflict zone. Article 48 says the military must discriminate between civilians and combatants at all times. Yet Article 51 notes that civilians shall only enjoy full protection in times of conflict "unless and for such times as they take a direct part in hostilities."

Efforts to clarify these issues have proved to be "highly dangerous," said Luban. In 2009, the Obama administration made a change in the Military Commissions Act to label anyone who materially supports hostilities against the U.S. as an "unprivileged enemy belligerent." As a result, civilians who tacitly support an enemy regime or terrorist organization may be lawfully targeted. Unfortunately, the amendment drew no distinction between those who did so voluntarily and those who did so involuntarily. It other words, a civilian actively helping a terrorist might be construed to be a combatant. But less clear, said Luban, is how the U.S. government would consider an Afghan woman who under duress shelters members of the Taliban.

The lack of consensus, he said, has led to widespread confusion within the military. One soldier told Luban that he didn't "think anyone has worked out what to do when civilians take on certain risks by assisting the enemy," or what to do when "soldiers and civilians are indistinguishable."

It is equally difficult to know how far the military is obligated to go to protect innocent civilians. It is often left to the discretion of an individual solider or unit to make that call, and often in a split second. Luban cited one well-known example in which one British soldier, Frank Richards, was ordered to throw bombs into cellars to target German soldiers during the First World War. When Richards chose to issue a warning cry to alert civilians in hiding, he lost a key advantage over his enemy.

The attitude toward civilians is very different today, Luban said. The unspoken sentiment among soldiers is that "we'll not lose another life for these people." But they are wrong to think this way. Luban cited recent studies that indicate it is in the best interests of soldiers to protect the innocent. Brigades that actively try to prevent civilian casualties tend to take the fewest casualties in their own ranks. "If you're careless in protecting civilians," he argued, "you're careless in everything."

The key, Luban said, is establishing clear boundaries. Wars are inevitable, and no matter how compelling the moral arguments, he argued, "the states that ratify treaties like the Geneva Convention will never accept rules that ruin their own military effectiveness." However, the issues surrounding civilians in war zones must be addressed to ensure that soldiers are not left with a dangerous incoherence. Ultimately, he said, "we need analytic clarity."

President Obama's vision of a "world free of nuclear weapons" -- first enunciated in Prague in April 2009 -- has been derided by his critics as a utopian fantasy that will have no influence on the nuclear strategies of other nations.

But in a special issue of The Nonproliferation Review, entitled Arms, Disarmament, and Influence: International Responses to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, 13 prominent researchers from around the world examined foreign governments' policy responses to Obama's 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the landmark document published a year and a day after his Prague speech.

They found that many nations, though not all, had been "strongly influenced by Washington's post-Prague policy and nuclear posture developments," which reduced the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national strategy, and assured non-nuclear nations that the U.S. would never use nuclear arms against them provided they remained in compliance with their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Indeed, the 11 case studies presented "demonstrate that U.S. pronouncements and actions influenced bureaucratic infighting and domestic debates inside a number of important foreign governments, and that some of these governments have adjusted their own policies and actions accordingly."

Read the full report here.

See a presentation about the report here, or listen to a different one here.

Read CISAC co-director Scott Sagan's essay on "Obama's Disarming Influence" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  

Read Thomas Fingar's essay on "How China Views U.S. Policy" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 

Highlights:

* Russia adopted a nuclear doctrine that was considerably more moderated than it would have been had the United States not pushed ahead with its own policy changes. In the run up to the April 2010 publication of the NPR, Washington "reset" relations with Russia, ended the deployment of missile defense components in Poland and the Czech Republic, and resumed the disarmament negotiations that ultimately led to the ratification of the New START treaty. As a result of this process, and continuous consultation with Russia about the NPR, Moscow narrowed the role of nuclear weapons in its policy and the range of circumstances in which it would consider using them. (page 39)

* "The most important short-term success of Obama's nuclear weapons policy," along with the "Prague Spirit," has been to halt the erosion of the NPT. "Obama's policies helped extract a minimum positive result from the 2010 NPT Review Conference, a favorable outcome compared to the chaos that his predecessor's representatives had created at the 2005 conference." The Obama policy was welcomed as a positive development, which allowed "key players, such as Egypt and Brazil, to strive for compromise, and others, such as Russia and China, not to block it." (page 219)

* The U.S. effort to encourage other governments to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their policy was successful in the United Kingdom, which adopted a nuclear posture that was very similar to that to the U.S. (page 238)

* Due in large part to the Obama policy, some of the non-nuclear weapons states in NATO began to push for the removal of sub-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe. At the November 2010 NATO summit, members agreed to a new Strategic Concept that called for negotiations with Russia and a linkage between the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons in NATO Europe to comparable reductions in western Russia. (page 238)

* Obama's new nuclear doctrine was a driving force behind a May 2010 agreement among 189 nations at the Nonproliferation Review Conference to a set of disarmament objectives and steps to reinforce the nuclear non-proliferation regime. (page 238)

* The Obama disarmament initiatives encouraged Indonesia's decision to begin the process of ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. (page 238)

* China continues to view Washington's nuclear doctrine with suspicion. Although Beijing viewed the 2010 NPR favorably compared to its 2001 predecessor, it still found serious cause for concern. This is partly the result of timing: the NPR came out amid a period of rising tension between U.S. and China. It also reflected a tendency among Chinese leaders to view virtually all U.S. doctrine and actions as part of a concerted effort to constrain its rise. In this view, the NPR would foster comparisons between nuclear decreases in Russia and the U.S., and increases in China, and be used as leverage to force Beijing to engage in an expensive conventional arms race. In keeping with this China-centric view, Chinese officials were also concerned about the U.S. military's continued development of missile defense capabilities. (page 243)

* Many non-nuclear weapons states--such as Egypt, Brazil, and South Africa--emphasize their opposition to any constraints being placed on their right to enjoy the benefits of civilian nuclear energy. Some of their opposition is "due to post-colonial sensitivity about any apparent inequality in the terms of international agreements that divide the world into 'haves' and 'have-nots.'" Others are engaged in bargaining, waiting to see what nuclear-weapons states will do regarding disarmament before offering to accept more constraints on nuclear technology development. Some governments also appear to be engaged in "hedging behavior--protecting their ability to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium" to be closer to acquiring nuclear weapons in the future, should they choose to do so. This may be disappointing for Washington policymakers, but it should not be surprising. After all, the U.S. employs a similar "hedging strategy" in its management of its own nuclear stockpile. As a result, it is imperative to begin discussions of how to reduce the danger of both kinds of nuclear hedging behavior. (page 255)

* The Obama administration must continue "to ensure there is consistency and discipline in the messages" emanating from the military and the government bureaucracy. Some foreign governments viewed the NPR's guarantees as mere rhetoric. "Such a skeptical view is encouraged whenever a senior US military officer makes statements that reflect a lack of understanding or lack of discipline regarding nuclear use policy." Even after the NPR was released, a top U.S. general insisted that the United States had not altered its "calculated ambiguity" policy. (page 258)

The special issue of the Nonproliferation Review was coordinated by Scott D. Sagan, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and Jane Vaynman, a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University, and a National Security Studies Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. The journal is published by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and it is edited by Stephen Schwartz.

Authors:

Irma Argüello is founder and chair of the NPSGlobal Foundation, a private nonprofit initiative that focuses on improving global security and reducing risks stemming from WMD proliferation.

Ralph A. Cossa is President of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. He is senior editor of the Forum's quarterly electronic journal, Comparative Connections. 

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy is the founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo. He is also the Chair of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies' Middle East Project.

Thomas Fingar is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow and Senior Scholar in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Brad Glosserman is Executive Director of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. Mr. Glosserman is co-editor of Comparative Connections, the Pacific Forum's quarterly electronic journal, and writes, along with Ralph Cossa, the regional review.

S. Paul Kapur is associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a faculty affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Mustafa Kibaroglu is an Assistant Professor at Bilkent University.

Michael Krepon is the co-founder of the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank specializing in national and international security problems. 

Harald Müller is executive director of Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and Professor at International Relations at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Pavel Podvig is an independent analyst based in Geneva, Switzerland, where he manages the research project Russian Nuclear Forces.

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. He also serves as the co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Science's Global Nuclear Future Initiative.

Scott Snyder is Director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at The Asia Foundation, Senior Associate at Pacific Forum CSIS, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Korean Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jane Vaynman is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University and a National Security Studies Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

^{The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), is an interdisciplinary university-based research and training center addressing some of the world's most difficult security problems with policy-relevant solutions. The Center is committed to scholarly research and to giving independent advice to governments and international organizations.}