What’s the most exciting finding from your research, and why does it matter for democracy and development?

In the mid-1990s, I worked in the U.S. government at the State Department and the National Security Council, focusing on Russia and European security. One of the major issues at the time was whether NATO should expand to include countries in Central and Eastern Europe. I later wrote a book on that decision, which was published in 1999.

One of the most important things I found was that NATO enlargement didn’t come from a single formal decision by the president and his cabinet. Instead, it developed gradually, driven by individuals who believed strongly in the policy and worked to move it forward over time. It was a much more incremental and contested process than people often assumed.

What was especially significant was that policymakers saw NATO enlargement as a way to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law in Central and Eastern Europe. By offering countries the prospect of membership, they hoped to encourage democratic reforms and political stability. I think NATO enlargement had a profound impact on democratic development in the region, and my research helped explain how and why that policy came about.

What have been some of the most challenging aspects of conducting research in this field, and how did you overcome them?

Much of my work sits at the intersection of political science and history, and one of the biggest challenges is studying relatively recent events, where records are often incomplete. When you study earlier historical periods, you have access to archives and official records, but when you study more recent foreign policy decisions, much of that material is still classified.

Because of that, I’ve relied heavily on interviews with policymakers and officials. Interviews are incredibly valuable, but they also have limitations. People remember events differently, and often present events in a light that best reflects their own role or perspective, which is why it’s important to interview multiple people and compare their accounts to develop a more accurate understanding of what happened.

I’ve also used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain declassified documents, although that process can take many years. Some requests I filed for my 1999 book didn’t produce results until I was working on later books in 2003 and even 2008. But over time, those documents helped confirm and strengthen my understanding of how key decisions were made. Doing this kind of research requires patience, but it’s essential if you want to understand how foreign policy actually develops.

How has the field changed since you started, and what gives you hope?

The field has changed quite a bit since I finished my PhD in 1990. One major shift was that after the Cold War ended, there was less emphasis on area studies and regional expertise. When I was trained, people were expected to combine theoretical work with deep knowledge of particular regions, which is now less common. 

What gives me hope is the current generation of students. Many students today are highly capable of integrating knowledge of politics and history with technological expertise. Especially at places like Stanford, students have the opportunity to combine social science knowledge with new technologies. I think that combination will shape the future of the field.

What gaps still exist in your research, and what projects are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a project with Michael McFaul and Elizabeth Economy on great power competition, focusing on how major powers try to influence the foreign policy orientation of smaller states. It’s an important issue, especially given the current international environment.

I’ve also continued working on NATO enlargement and its long-term consequences. When I published my book on NATO expansion in 1999, I didn’t expect that these issues would still be so central decades later. But NATO enlargement continues to shape relations between Russia, Europe, and the United States, particularly in light of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Hence, understanding how those earlier decisions connect to current events remains a major focus of my work.

What advice would you give to students interested in this field?

Students should focus on topics that genuinely interest them. You can’t predict what will be important five or ten years from now. Choosing a topic solely because you think it will be important in the future isn’t a good strategy if you’re not truly interested in it. Instead, study subjects that motivate you and that you feel compelled to understand. Unexpected events can suddenly make your area of interest highly relevant. Passion and curiosity are essential for meaningful research.

What book would you recommend to students interested in international relations?

I recommend Robert Jervis’s Perception and Misperception in International Politics, published in 1976. Jervis was one of the most brilliant scholars in international relations and had a major influence on the field.

His book explores how leaders interpret and misinterpret the world, and how those perceptions shape international relations. It combines insights from politics, psychology, and history, and helps explain why cooperation between states is often difficult. It’s an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to understand the role of leadership and perception in international politics.

Iran’s Revolution and Economy Are Intertwined

Taking a broad view of Iran’s revolution, Abbas Milani, the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies, says that understanding the country’s future requires understanding its past.

“The 1979 Iranian revolution was no revolution at all. It was a cunning bait-and-switch game cleverly played by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who put himself at the head of the movement,” Milani writes in the New York Times.

For decades, this regime, first led by Khomeini and until recently his successor, Khamenei, has successfully kept its population under repressive control through a combination of fear, violence, and brutality, says Milani. But that stronghold has shown cracks, and fear of the regime had begun waning prior to the U.S.-Israel attacks. Coupled with frustrations with a failing economy, skyrocketing inflation, and plummeting currency, Milani sees opportunity for real change within Iran.

“The economy is a clear source of constant threat to the regime, and the new secular women and men of Iran are unwilling to accept anything less than what they were initially promised before being deceived nearly half a century ago. The machinery of the regime may survive today. But the counterrevolution of yesteryear is begetting the revolution of tomorrow.”
 

America’s Firepower Is Superior, but Not Infinite

Speaking at a panel discussion hosted by the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), FSI Director Colin Kahl, a former under secretary of defense for policy at the U.S. Department of Defense, acknowledged the magnitude and deft execution of the unfolding military operation.

“The U.S. and Israeli militaries are doing things that no militaries in the history of the world have been capable of doing. From a kind of tactical and operational sense, it is extraordinarily impressive,” he said.

But Kahl also warns that an extended military campaign could spell trouble for the United States both in the current conflict and for future readiness.

“Iran has what is basically an inexhaustible supply of short-range, one-way attack drones that only cost about $35,000 apiece. We are shooting them down with $2 million missiles. That is an exchange rate Iran will take any day of the week.”

China and Russia are also watching this conflict and America’s artillery usage, says Kahl:

“We are expending a lot of long range precision munitions and a lot of air interceptors. And a lot of these weapons are exactly the systems you need for a contingency in North Korea, across the Taiwan Strait, or in the Baltics,” he says. “If you're in Moscow and Beijing, you’re counting those, and you know that for the next two or three years, the United States' cupboard is going to be bare and a more confrontational posture will not be viable.”

U.S.-Israel Interests are Aligned but Not Identical

Unlike in previous conflicts when the U.S. was joined in combat with NATO allies or other partners, the strikes on Iran were conducted in tandem with only one other nation, Israel.

Amichai Magen, the director of the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program, believes some of the impetus for the strikes is to send a message to anti-American and anti-Israel actors.

“If you can take out Maduro or undermine the regime in Iran, you are signaling to Russia and China that America is repositioning and re-establishing deterrence against its peer competitors,” Magen told NBC Bay Area.

Or Rabinowitz, a visiting scholar of Israel studies, also points to Iran’s insistence in recent negotiations on keeping its ability to produce advanced centrifuges as being particularly significant in the decision to execute military action.

But there is the possibility of divergence in the United States and Israel’s overarching goals as well, Rabinowitz says, especially when it comes to questions of nuclear capabilities. 

“Take Qatar as an example,” she told the CISAC panel. “Qatar is an actor that the Trump administration is very at home with, even though they are an anti-Israel actor. Something similar could emerge in Iran that feels malleable enough for the U.S. to work with on the nuclear issue, but they don’t forgo their ideology, their anti-Israel rhetoric, or their support for destabilizing Israeli-Arab normalization. The U.S. may choose to live with that even if Israel isn’t happy about it. That’s where you’ll see divergence.”

China Is Likely to Sit This One Out

When it comes to Iran’s partnerships and allies, experts believe Tehran is unlikely to see much help from Moscow or Beijing. Writing for Foreign Affairs, Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani track how Russia’s focus on Ukraine has diverted its ability to engage with players in the Middle East, citing its meager response to the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and limited engagement with Iran in the aftermath of the airstrikes in June 2025 targeting nuclear facilities.

Lisa Blaydes, an FSI senior fellow, thinks China—Iran’s major trading partner—will take a similar backseat approach to the current conflict. 

“We think that China might have some leverage over Iran. But it's not clear how much will there is in China to get involved in this,” she explained at an event hosted by the The Program on Arab Reform and Development. “We know one of the only planes to land in Tehran recently was a Chinese plane that was bringing weapons to support the Iranian regime. Will this continue? Is it a one-off? Is it a pattern? I don't think we know yet.”

While a majority of Iran’s oil does end up in Chinese markets, China also has important economic and trade interests in the Gulf, says Blaydes, where all six Gulf Cooperation Council nations have been hit by retaliatory Iranian missile strikes.

“The Gulf is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative. And there's a lot of money at stake. Disturbances in a place like the Strait of Hormuz would cause major disruptions to global supply chains. So I don't know if the Chinese want to weigh in strongly on either side.”
 

The Risk of Global Destabilization Is Real

The question on most people’s minds in regards to the war is, “What happens next?” Hesham Sallam, a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, acknowledges the complexity and gravity of the situation.

“This is a very unpredictable situation. And it is concerning that multiple U.S. officials don’t seem to have a consistent answer about a situation that is so consequential and that puts so many people in harm's way,” says Sallam.

If not handled carefully, Sallam warns that the threat of escalation is very real. Faced with a potentially existential risk, leaders in what remains of the regime may seek broad global destabilization. 

“There’s a logic here for the regime that if you don’t exact more costs and prolong the conflict and make this as inconvenient as possible for everyone, Iran will not be dealt with on equal footing,” he says. “So they may be looking to exact huge costs not just on the U.S. and Israel and countries in the region, but to disrupt global energy markets and the flow of trade as a means of ensuring something like this never happens again.”
 

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For Oleksii Movchan, a member of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s Parliament) and deputy chair of the parliamentary committee on economic development, his focus is on expanding financing tools for reconstruction. As part of a project he began during his 2025 SU-DD fellowship, he is drafting legislation to reform municipal bond regulations, aimed at increasing the participation of local governments in securities and debt markets and attracting additional resources for rebuilding Ukraine. To accomplish this work, he has relied on the Problem-Solving Framework he learned at Stanford, and shares that his experience in the SU-DD program made him more confident in his values and encouraged him to “stand on [his] principles and values of integrity, openness, and respect to human rights and democracy.” By strengthening municipal access to capital, his work seeks to support infrastructure recovery while reinforcing transparent financial governance.

Maria Golub, a senior political and policy advisor working on EU and NATO integration, is developing a national Coalition for Recovery — an inclusive, cross-sectoral platform designed to unify Ukraine’s defense, reconstruction, and reform agendas. With Ukraine balancing the demands of war and reconstruction, Golub’s 2025 SU-DD project aims to ensure that recovery planning connects security, governance, and innovation rather than treating them as separate tracks. Currently in a pilot, her proposals have already informed the government's 2026 recovery and resilience planning process.

At the regional level, Mykhailo Pavliuk, vice-chairman of the Chernivtsi Oblast (state) legislature in Ukraine, is actively implementing reforms to advance self-government and deepen Ukraine’s decentralization process. His work, initiated during his time at Stanford in 2023, focuses on strengthening “consolidated, self-sufficient communities” by developing political, financial, infrastructure, and social strategies that can be carried out locally, including cross-border regional initiatives in Chernivtsi. He said the most important element is “supporting the potential of people at the local level through the activities of advisory bodies, consultations, and modeling of joint decisions,” bringing citizens closer to decision-making on community affairs. Pavliuk emphasized that decentralization has been critical to Ukraine’s resilience since 2022, while noting that “there would certainly be a greater outcome in peacetime,” without the constraints imposed by war.

In the media sector, Alyona Nevmerzhytska, CEO of the independent outlet hromadske, is actively implementing her 2025 SU-DD project to strengthen the organization’s long-term sustainability and resilience. Her work, she says, “addresses two interconnected challenges: financial vulnerability and the rapid emergence of AI in the media landscape.” By developing diversified revenue strategies and integrating responsible AI tools into newsroom workflows, she aims to “improve efficiency, counter disinformation, and expand audience reach.” Despite ongoing security risks, she shares that the newsroom has maintained consistent production, adapted its operations, and prioritized staff safety, demonstrating what she described as “strong institutional resilience.” During her time on campus, Nevmerzhytska met with Stanford journalism and technology experts, whose guidance enhanced her strategic thinking around AI integration and digital modernization, “providing practical insights and [the] confidence to adopt responsible AI tools for efficiency and multilingual production.” She reports that hromadske continues to serve as a platform for accountability and public debate, reinforcing its role within Ukraine’s civil society.

Iaroslav Liubchenko, currently CEO of Ukraine’s national electronic public procurement system Prozorro, focused his 2023 Stanford project on strengthening transparency, efficiency, and institutional integrity in Ukraine’s defense procurement architecture. Today, that vision has become central to his leadership agenda. Prozorro is advancing three core priorities: deepening European integration through the approximation of EU public procurement directives into national legislation — in cooperation with Member of Parliament Oleksii Movchan — and sharing Prozorro’s digital governance model with EU partners; scaling up defense procurement within the system, including drones, unmanned and robotic systems, electronic warfare capabilities, non-lethal equipment for military infrastructure, and strengthened cooperation with the Defence Procurement Agency; and developing the broader Prozorro ecosystem through new coalitions and markets, advanced digital instruments, and AI integration. Prozorro seeks to ensure that Ukraine’s defense and rebuilding efforts are supported by transparent, technology-driven, and institutionally resilient procurement systems — not only fully aligned with EU standards, but capable of serving as a model for public procurement reform across Europe.

Ukraine’s Path Forward

Together, the fellows describe a future shaped not only by physical rebuilding but by the strength of Ukraine’s institutions and civic life. When asked about the country’s priorities for the next several years, their responses aligned in three areas: securing victory and sustaining defense capacity, advancing EU integration, and rebuilding critical infrastructure. Each emphasized that reconstruction must be paired with governance reforms to ensure public trust and long-term resilience.

Amid the political, economic, and human toll of war, our fellows agreed that the “unbreakable spirit and will of Ukrainians” gives them hope. “I am inspired by the endurance of Ukrainian society,” said Nevmerzhytska. “Despite exhaustion and loss, people continue to volunteer, innovate, and support each other. That civic resilience gives me confidence that Ukraine’s democratic spirit remains strong.”

As we look to the beginning of the fifth year of Russia’s war, Ukraine’s future is still uncertain. But the projects these leaders developed during their time at Stanford have carried into their work in parliament, regional government, civil society, media, and the defense sector. What began as ideas for reform are now being tested and adapted under wartime conditions, as they work to keep institutions functioning and prepare for the country’s long-term recovery.