As President Obama will soon discover, erasing the nuclear weapons legacy of the cold war is like running the Snake River rapids in Wyoming — the first moments in the tranquil upstream waters offer little hint of the vortex ahead. Now that Mr. Obama has set a promising arms reduction agenda with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, he faces the greater challenge of getting his own government and the American nuclear weapons establishment to support his audacious plan to make deep weapons cuts and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.

So far, Mr. Obama has effectively coupled an overarching vision of getting to a world without nuclear weapons, outlined in a speech in Prague earlier this year, with concrete first steps like the one-quarter reduction in operational strategic nuclear weapons promised in Moscow this week. Given his short time in office, and the looming December expiration of the treaty with Russia covering strategic nuclear arms reductions, the new limits are a good, realistic start. It is especially important to extend the monitoring and verification provisions of the expiring arms accord.

But the overall Obama approach involves a balancing act that requires him to move boldly while reassuring opponents that he is not endangering our security. Put simply, he has to maintain a potent nuclear arsenal while slashing it.

Mr. Obama might consider Ronald Reagan’s experience when he tried to set a similar course. The nuclear weapons crowd practically disowned Reagan when he proposed abolishing nuclear weapons during his 1986 summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. After the meeting, when Reagan asked his generals to explore the ramifications of possibly sharply cutting warheads and eliminating nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, they politely but firmly told their commander in chief it was a terrible idea.

Mr. Obama’s moment of truth with his generals is coming later this year when the Pentagon completes its periodic Nuclear Posture Review. This, in the Pentagon’s words, “will establish U.S. nuclear deterrence policy, strategy and force posture for the next 5 to 10 years.” So it will be the American nuclear weapons bible for the remainder of Mr. Obama’s presidency, one term or two.

President Obama must make sure it reflects his thinking. That will not be automatic, because the nuclear weapons complex — the array of Pentagon and Energy Department agencies involved in nuclear operations, including the armed services and the weapons labs — harbors considerable doubt about his plans. The same goes for the wider world of defense strategists. There is resistance in Congress, too.

The view in these quarters is that the weapons cuts Mr. Obama envisions — deeper than the modest goals set in Moscow this week — would dangerously undermine the power of America’s arsenal to deter attacks against the United States and its allies. Sentiment also favors building a new generation of warheads, a step Mr. Obama has rejected.

If the White House does not assert itself, the Nuclear Posture Review could easily spin off in unhelpful directions. The review that was produced when Bill Clinton was president in 1994 offered a rehash of cold war policies. The one that was done when George W. Bush took office in 2001 was more unconventional, but was quickly overshadowed by the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq.

To serve Mr. Obama’s interests, the new review should lay the groundwork for pronounced cuts in weapons and shape America’s nuclear stockpile to fit a world in which threats are more likely to come from states like North Korea and Iran than from a heavily armed power like Russia.

After the review, the next big test for Mr. Obama will likely be Senate consideration of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He has pledged to resubmit this 1996 United Nations treaty, which was flatly rejected by the Senate in 1999.

To get the two-thirds majority needed for its approval, Mr. Obama will need to hold his fellow Democrats in line — far from a sure thing — and also pick up some Republican support. Two influential Republican senators — John McCain and Richard Lugar — are pivotal. Both voted against the treaty in 1999.

Opponents wrongly argue that the treaty is unverifiable. That might have been the case a decade ago, but technological advances make monitoring of even small underground nuclear tests possible today. Critics also say a permanent ban on testing — the United States has honored a moratorium since 1992 — would eventually cripple the nation’s ability to maintain reliable warheads. So far, most weapons experts would say, that has not proven to be true and should not be for many years.

Few presidential moments are more glittering than the announcement of arms reduction accords in the Kremlin’s gilded halls. For Mr. Obama, that was the easy part.

Peter B. Henry, the Matsushita Professor of International Economics at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and an affiliated faculty member with the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), has been appointed by President Obama to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, the White House has announced. This distinguished and diverse group of 28 accomplished Americans is responsible for recommending an exceptional group of men and women to the President for selection as White House Fellows, America’s most prestigious program for leadership and public service.

“The men and women of this commission embody what makes the White House Fellows program so special,” said President Obama in making the June 17 announcement. “These leaders are diverse, non-partisan, and committed to mentoring our next generation of public servants. I am confident that they will select a class of White House Fellows that demonstrate extraordinary leadership, strong character, and a deep commitment to serving their country.”

“Peter Henry is a superb scholar, teacher, leader, and mentor,” said CDDRL Director and FSI and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Larry Diamond. “This recognition is richly deserved and will give Peter a national venue to continue developing a new generation of leaders, scholars, and policy practitioners.”

Alumni of the White House Fellows Program include former Secretary of State Colin Powell, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, and author Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Henry is also the John and Cynthia Fry Gunn Faculty Scholar and Associate Director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy at Stanford’s business school.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Among the numerous awards and honors Henry has received are a National Science Foundation Early CAREER Development Award, a National Science Foundation Minority Graduate Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship, and the National Economic Association Dissertation Prize.  He has published several articles in journals and books, including “Capital Account Liberalization, the Cost of Capital, and Economic Growth” in the American Economic Review and “Perspective Paper on Financial Instability” in Bjorn Lomborg’s Global Crises, Global Solutions.

Dr. Henry received his BA in Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was later a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned a BA in Mathematics.  He received his PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institution of Technology.

Professor Henry is also part of the distinguished Stanford faculty group that teaches in the Draper Hills Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program each summer at Stanford.  From some 800 applicants, this program selects 25 to 30 rising leaders from important countries in transition – such as Russia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe—and brings them to Stanford to examine and help foster linkages among democracy, development, human rights, and the rule of law in their countries.  Other Stanford faculty teaching the Draper Hills Summer Fellows include Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper, FSI Deputy Director Stephen Krasner, CDDRL Director Larry Diamond and Deputy Director Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, FSI Senior Fellow Helen Stacy, Avner Greif from economics, and Erik Jensen from Stanford Law School.

Over the past decade, thousands of young people in the post-communist region applied nonviolent methods of resistance to protest against large-scale electoral fraud. In 2000, the social movement Otpor (Resistance) played a vital role in removing Slobodan Milosevic from power. Inspired by Otpor, a number of youth movements emerged in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine. In my post-doctoral project at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, I examine why some youth movements were more successful than others in mobilizing the population against the repressive political regime. My research suggests that political learning of autocratic incumbents has contributed to the diminishing power of similar youth movements.

In the wake of the 1998 draconic laws on universities and the mass media, a group of students from the University of Belgrade formed the youth movement Otpor and chose the clenched fist as its symbol. In the course of two-year nonviolent struggle against Milosevic, Otpor spread across Serbia and attracted more than 70,000 supporters. The youth movement launched a campaign with the provocative title “He Is Finished” and shifted the blame for all the country’s problems on the incumbent president. In addition, Otpor collaborated with other civil society actors to stage a get-out-to-vote campaign “It’s Time!” aimed at bringing first-time voters to the polling stations. In the 2000 election, almost 86 percent of 18-29 year old Serbs cast their ballot; most of them voted against Milosevic.

Given state pressures on the mainstream media, the Serbian movement delivered its messages by occupying the public space. Movement participants plastered Otpor stickers, spray-painted graffiti, staged street performances, and organized street concerts. “It is amazing how people notice branding in their everyday life, but underestimate it in nonviolent struggle,” a former Otpor activist noted. Without doubt, Otpor succeeded in creating and popularizing a model of nonviolent resistance.

Notwithstanding slight modifications of Otpor’s model, Belarus’ Zubr (Bison) in 2001, Georgia’s Kmara (Enough) in 2003, Ukraine’s Pora (It’s Time) in 2004, and an assortment of Azerbaijani youth groups in 2005 largely took a similar course of action. The youth movements were formed around the time of a national election and called for free and fair elections. Emulating Otpor, youth activists planned a negative campaign targeted at the incumbent president and a positive campaign aimed at boosting youth voter turnout. Likewise, youth movements employed a similar toolkit of protest strategies, including stickers, graffiti, street performances, and rock concerts.

At the same time, autocratic incumbents in the post-Soviet region began to scrutinize Otpor’s model of nonviolent resistance to prevent the repeat of the Serbia scenario. In light of electoral revolutions in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine, the governments in Azerbaijan and Belarus deployed coercive measures against youth movements before they could develop into powerful agents of political change. In addition, the incumbent presidents have invested considerable resources into the creation of state-sponsored youth organizations. In 2005 and 2008, the Azerbaijani youth movement Ireli (Forward) called upon young voters to support President Ilham Aliyev. Similarly, the Komsomol-like Belarusian Republican Union of Youth has become a tool for youth co-optation under President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Like in the Soviet times, membership in the state-sponsored youth organization is now a pre-requisite for university admission and career growth in Belarus.

The fortunes of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood may be shifting after three difficult years that saw the group's worst electoral result in history, reports of diminished influence, and sustained government repression. After hitting an unprecedented low, the relationship between the Jordanian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition grouping, has improved recently. This is the opposite of what many observers, including this author, expected. Hammam Sa'id, known as a hardliner, was elected General Guide of the organization in May 2008, leading many to predict heightened confrontation between regime and opposition. Analysts Matthew Levitt and David Schenker wrote, for instance, that the leadership change suggested the Brotherhood "can no longer be considered ‘loyal' to the kingdom." During Sa'id's tenure, however, events have moved in an unexpected direction. Since being elected, he has toned down his abrasive rhetoric, emphasized domestic priorities, and made an effort to reach understandings with the government of Prime Minister Nader al-Dahabi on key issues of contention.

The question of the Palestinian Resistance Movement (Hamas) is one area where Islamists and the regime have moved closer to each other. After nine years of severed ties, Jordan has opened a dialogue with Hamas, recognizing the group's growing influence and its strong position in Gaza. With its close ties to Hamas leaders, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), played a critical role in facilitating the resumption of contacts.  

Moreover, Jordan's King Abdullah-known as one of the region's most pro-Western rulers-has attempted to strengthen ties to other U.S. adversaries, including Iran and Russia. He has met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev three times in the last eight months, and their discussions have increasingly revolved around military assistance and cooperation, including joint production of multi-caliber grenade launchers. Such moves have given Islamists hope that Jordan is beginning to shake off Washington's tight embrace.  

For their part, Islamists are drawing a degree of optimism from their improved relations with the regime. Even IAF Secretary-General Zaki Bani Irsheid, one of the government's fiercest detractors, said in a private conversation in August that Jordan may be entering a "new political phase." Coinciding with the improved ties between Islamists and the regime, relations between internal Brotherhood/IAF factions have also improved after nine months of crippling internal divisions that had threatened to tear the movement apart. In early August, so-called hawks and doves reached an agreement that left both sides content, at least temporarily. The agreement reflects what had been a difficult and sustained round of internal negotiations over a variety of contentious issues, including Bani Irsheid's pending trial by an internal IAF court for allegedly sabotaging his own party's prospects in the 2007 parliamentary elections. This agreement might have postponed further infighting, however, rather than ended it; there are still factions within the Brotherhood that hold substantially different visions on how to proceed in what remains a challenging economic and political environment.  

It is unclear what the Jordanian regime's efforts at strategic repositioning-taking into account a perceived decline in U.S. influence in the region-bode for further political opening and reform. Over the last three years, the Jordanian government interpreted U.S. silence on reform as a green light to clamp down aggressively on Islamists. However, if it continues to see a need to reach out to Hamas, the regime will    need to expand political space for the Islamist opposition and maintain a mutually beneficial working relationship with it.  

Of course, there have been bouts of optimism before, and they have been misplaced. Each time the regime has reached out to the Brotherhood, as it did in advance of the November 2007 elections, it has quickly reversed course and resumed anti-Islamist policies. Islamists are unlikely to be fooled again. Despite the optimism expressed by Bani Irsheid and others, most Islamists see this as yet another round of tactical maneuvering. The Jordanian regime is not necessarily acting in good faith; it is acting in its own self-interest. So too is the Islamist opposition.