Stanford University

Opinion: Ukraine’s Nuclear Threat Today Is Nonexistent

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Trying to justify Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Kyiv sought to develop nuclear weapons. That is a glaring untruth, as he well knows. 

Thirty years ago, Ukraine had on its territory the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. Kyiv gave those weapons up—in large part because Russia said it would respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and not use force against it. The country has never sought to reacquire nuclear arms. Read the rest. 

Originally for Aviation Week

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Trying to justify Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Kyiv sought to develop nuclear
weapons. That is a glaring untruth, as he well knows.

Foreign Policy in Hard Economic Times

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For winter quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

                                                                                           

About the Event: Freddy Chen has developed a domestic political theory to explain the consequences of economic shocks for foreign policy. He argues that political leaders have incentives to improve their perceived competence by linking economic grievances to foreign countries. This linkage, in turn, increases public desire for more hawkish foreign policy. Nonetheless, leaders’ ability to make such connections depends on whether they can successfully manipulate information about the culpability for economic shocks. Therefore, the extent to which leaders can control the information environment determines whether an economic shock leads to more aggressive foreign policy. Survey experiments fielded on the American public and a unique sample of U.S. foreign policy analysts show that the information environment shapes elites’ expectations about leaders’ political behavior, public perceptions of leader competence, perceived culpability for the economic shock, and public preferences over foreign policy. Moreover, a cross-national analysis demonstrates that an economic shock tends to increase foreign policy hawkishness if the shock is more foreign-related or if the public has less access to a potential voice of the opposition. This article advances our understanding of the relationship between economic shocks, foreign policy, and public opinion as well as the interactions between domestic politics and international relations, with important implications for both political science research and policymakers.

About the Speaker: Frederick Chen is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and currently a Pre-doctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. His research focuses on how economics and security can interact to influence international relations, particularly through domestic political mechanisms. His work has appeared in the Journal of Politics and Conflict Management and Peace Science. He received the David A. Lake Award for best paper from the International Political Economy Society. He earned his M.A. in International Relations from Peking University (2016) and B.A. in International Politics from Tsinghua University (2013).

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Frederick R. Chen CISAC
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Research Seminar Series

Ash Narayan

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Ashray Narayan is an M.A. candidate in International Policy at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute whose work bridges technology policy, media, and democracy. He previously managed programs at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation with Professor Andrew Grotto, led marketing and launch strategy for the Sequoia‑backed startup Rox, and held senior creative roles at Buck Mason and Bode. Earlier experiences include the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and research at UC Berkeley. Ashray earned a B.A. in Economics from USC. 

Master's in International Policy Class of 2027
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Facebook's Faces

Facebook's Faces event flyer on blue and red background with photo of Chinmayi Arun
Join us on Tuesday, March 1 from 12 PM - 1 PM PT for a panel discussion on “Facebook’s Faces” featuring Chinmayi Arun, Resident Fellow at the Yale Law School in conversation with Nate Persily of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. This weekly seminar series is jointly organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative.

About The Seminar: 

Scholarship about social media platforms discusses their relationship with states and users. It is time to expand this theorization to account for differences among states, the varying influence of different publics and the internal complexity of companies. Viewing Facebook’s relationships this way includes less influential states and publics that are otherwise obscured. It reveals that Facebook engages with states and publics through multiple, parallel regulatory conversations, further complicated by the fact that Facebook itself is not a monolith. Arun argues that Facebook has many faces – different teams working towards different goals, and engaging with different ministries, institutions, scholars and civil society organizations. Content moderation exists within this ecosystem.
 
This account of Facebook’s faces and relationships shows that less influential publics can influence the company through strategic alliances with strong publics or powerful states. It also suggests that Facebook’s carelessness with a seemingly weak state or a group, may affect its relationship with a strong public or state that cares about the outcome.

To be seen as independent and legitimate, the Oversight Board needs to show its willingness to curtail Facebook’s flexibility in its engagement with political leaders where there is a real risk of harm. This essay hopes to show that Facebook’s fear of short-term retaliation from some states should be balanced out by accounting for the long-term reputational gains with powerful publics and powerful states who may appreciate its willingness to set profit-making goals aside in favor of human flourishing.

About the Speakers:

Chinmayi Arun
Chinmayi Arun is a resident fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center of Internet & Society at Harvard University. She has served on the faculties of two of the most highly regarded law schools in India for over a decade, and was the founder Director of the Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University Delhi. She has been a Human Rights Officer with the United Nations and is a member of the United Nations Global Pulse Advisory Group on the Governance of Data and AI, and of UNESCO India’s Media Freedom Advisory Group.

Chinmayi serves on the Global Network Initiative Board, and is an expert affiliated with the Columbia Global Freedom of Expression project. She has been consultant to the Law Commission of India and member of the Indian government’s multi stakeholder advisory group for the India Internet Governance Forum in the past.

Nate Persily
Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration.  He is codirector of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet, and the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, which supported local election officials in taking the necessary steps during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safe voting options for the 2020 election. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.

 

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Who’s to Blame for Democratic Backsliding: Populists, Presidents or Dominant Executives?

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When backsliding occurs at the hands of populist presidents who were elected in landslide elections, producing dominant executives with few institutional checks and weak opposition parties, should we blame the decline in democracy on their populist ideology, their presidential powers, or their parties’ dominance in the legislature? The literature on democratic backsliding has mostly arrived at a consensus on what backsliding entails and collectively has revealed its growing prevalence around the globe. Yet, scholars have not settled on causal explanations for this phenomenon. We assess the evidence for recent ideology-centered arguments for democratic backsliding relative to previous institutional arguments among all democratically elected executives serving in all regions of the world since 1970. We use newly available datasets on populist leaders and parties to evaluate the danger of populists in government, and we employ matching methods to distinguish the effects of populist executives, popularly-elected presidents, and dominant executives on the extent of decline in liberal democracy.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Marisa Kellam
Marisa Kellam is associate professor of political science at Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan). Her research focuses on the quality of democracy in Latin America. In her work, she links institutional analysis to governance outcomes within three lines of inquiry: (1) political parties and coalitional politics, (2) media freedom and democratic accountability, and (3) populism and democratic backsliding. She has published her research in peer-reviewed journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, Electoral Studies, and Political Communication. After earning a Ph.D. in political science from UCLA, she spent several years as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. Since 2013, Marisa Kellam has been teaching international and Japanese students in the English-based degree programs of Waseda University’s School of Political Science & Economics.

At this time, in-person attendance is limited to Stanford affiliates only. We continue to welcome our greater community to join virtually via Zoom.

Didi Kuo

Online, via Zoom

Marisa Kellam

Encina Hall

616 Jane Stanford Way

Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2021-23
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Marisa Kellam researches the quality of democracy with a focus on Latin America and a growing interest in East Asia. Her research links institutional analysis to various governance outcomes in democracies along three lines of inquiry: political parties and coalitional politics; mass electoral behavior and party system change; and democratic accountability and media freedom. She has published her research in various peer-reviewed journals, including The British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, Electoral Studies, and Political Communication. Originally from Santa Rosa, California, Marisa Kellam earned her Ph.D. in political science from UCLA and spent several years as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. Since 2013, she has been Associate Professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, where she also served as Director of the English-based degree programs for the School of Political Science & Economics. Currently she is a steering committee member for the V-Dem Regional Center for East Asia.

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Governance

The Great Experiment

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Never in history has a democracy succeeded in being both diverse and equal, treating members of many different ethnic or religious groups fairly. And yet achieving that goal is now central to the democratic project in countries around the world. It is “the great experiment” of our time.

Why is it so hard to build diverse democracies? Would principles and policies do we need to adopt to maximize the chances of making them work? And how good are the chances of success? The project of building thriving diverse democracies may well fail. But the chances of success, this talk argues, are better than the pessimism which is now dominant suggests.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

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Yascha Mounk is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Founder of Persuasion. The host of The Good Fight podcast, his latest book is The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure.

 

 

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Didi Kuo

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Yascha Mounk Professor of the Practice of International Affairs Johns Hopkins University
Seminars

Russia, Ukraine and NATO: The View from Paris

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 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 
 

SEMINAR RECORDING

YouTube

 

About the Event: Europe's attention has been transfixed for more than two months by the Russian military build-up near Ukraine, efforts to coordinate a trans-Atlantic response, and contacts with Russia and Ukraine.  France has been closely involved in shaping the West's policy and diplomacy, and President Macron in February visited both Moscow and Kyiv.  Sylvie Kauffmann, editorial director, leader writer and columnist for Le Monde, will discuss how the crisis has been viewed in Paris and the French government's policy response.

 

About the Speaker: Sylvie Kauffmann is Editorial Director, Leader Writer and Columnist for Le Monde, writing a weekly column on global affairs. Her opinions on European and international politics have also appeared in the New York Times. Previously, she was the first female Editor-in-Chief of Le Monde, including during the Wikileaks collaboration with El País, the Guardian and the New York Times. She has reported from Asia, Eastern Europe and the United States, where she wrote a prize-winning series of articles about life in America following the 9/11 attacks. Kauffmann graduated from the Institut d’Études Poltiques Aix-en-Provence and the faculty of law at the University of Provence Aix-Marseille.

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Sylvie Kauffmann
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European Security Initiative

The Kremlin Paints Itself into a Corner

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As the crisis between Russia and NATO and Ukraine has developed over the past three months, the Kremlin increasingly has painted itself into a corner.  Continuing its military build-up around Ukraine while rejecting U.S. and NATO offers of a diplomatic path to ease tensions, Moscow appears to be limiting itself to two choices:  war or an embarrassing climb-down.

The size of the Russian military arrayed near Ukraine has grown steadily and now numbers some 130,000 troops.  Large Russian formations have positioned themselves near the Russia-Ukraine border, in occupied Crimea and in Belarus, providing multiple potential attack vectors.

On February 11, National Security Advisor Sullivan warned of the possibility of a Russian assault and urged American citizens to leave Ukraine.  The same day, the Pentagon ordered 3000 U.S. soldiers to Poland.  They will augment 1700 troops already deployed there, and the U.S. military has moved 1000 other troops from Germany to Romania.  These will not enter Ukraine but will bolster NATO’s defense on its eastern flank (other allies are taking similar steps).

The Kremlin has framed the crisis as one between Russia and NATO, citing NATO enlargement as bringing the alliance closer to Russia.  However, the last ally to join NATO that borders on Russian territory joined in 2004.  So, why the crisis now?  Moreover, if Moscow’s beef is with NATO, why is it posturing its military to threaten Ukraine?

This Kremlin-manufactured crisis is as much if not more about Ukraine.  Moscow fears Ukraine is falling irretrievably out of its orbit, though nothing has done more than Kremlin policy to push Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West.  It should surprise no one that Russia’s military seizure of Crimea in 2014 followed by its instigation of and support for a conflict in Donbas that has taken 14,000 lives would affect Ukrainian attitudes toward Moscow.

This crisis is not about Ukraine’s entry into NATO.  Alliance members show little enthusiasm for putting Ukraine on a membership track.  Moscow knows that but wants more:  Ukraine in a Russian sphere of influence, denying Kyiv the right to choose its own foreign policy course. 

In December, the Russian government gave U.S. officials a draft U.S.-Russia treaty and draft NATO-Russia agreement, then promptly made them public—hardly a sign of serious negotiating intent.  U.S. and NATO officials responded in January meetings with their Russian counterparts and subsequently in writing.

Washington and NATO rejected Kremlin demands that NATO foreswear further enlargement and withdraw forces from the territory of allies who joined the alliance after 1997.  However, their responses picked up on some ideas in the Russian drafts, proposing discussions and possible negotiations on arms control, risk reduction and confidence-building measures that could make genuine contributions to European security, including Russia’s.

Moscow replied that the responses addressed only questions of secondary concern and ignored the key Russian demands regarding NATO.  Oddly, in addition to demands on no further enlargement and withdrawing forces, Russian President Putin claimed the West ignored his demand regarding offensive missiles near Russia.  In fact, both Washington and NATO indicated a readiness to negotiate the question of missiles.

While offering Russia a diplomatic “off-ramp” from the crisis, the United States, NATO and European Union have sought to deter a military assault by specifying costs they would impose on Moscow.  Those costs include substantially more painful sanctions, increased military assistance to Kyiv and a bolstering of NATO force presence on its eastern flank.

Washington has consulted intensively with its NATO allies, the European Union and Ukraine on how to manage the crisis.  The West seems relatively unified in its reaction to the Russian proposals and support for Ukraine—perhaps more so than the Kremlin expected.

French President Macron visited Moscow on February 7.  Following a five-hour meeting with Putin, he reported an agreement not to escalate the crisis.  The Kremlin spokesperson the next day refuted that claim, saying “Moscow and Paris could not have struck any deals. It is simply impossible…  France is a NATO member, where it doesn’t hold leadership—another country holds this bloc’s leadership.  So, what kind of deals can you talk about?”

On February 10, British Foreign Secretary Truss made no headway during a frosty meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.  Lavrov played a game of gotcha and treated Truss brusquely at their joint press briefing.

On February 12, President Biden spoke to Putin, their third conversation in two months.  No breakthroughs resulted.  On February 15, German Chancellor Scholz will meet Putin in Moscow.

The current situation offers few grounds for optimism.  Moscow denies any intent to attack, but the Russian military build-up continues and has brought more troops and equipment close to Ukraine.  While Russian military capabilities may overmatch Ukrainian armed forces, the latter would fight, and Ukrainian civilians are arming up to resist as well.  (Above and beyond the penalties imposed by the West, the main costs to Russia of an assault would be inflicted by the Ukrainian military and partisan operations against an invading Russian force, particularly if the Russians got bogged down in a quagmire.)

Moscow thus far has turned aside Western attempts to engage in dialogue on de-escalating the crisis, insisting on demands it knows will not be met while not engaging on offers that could enhance the security of both sides.  The rude treatment accorded to Macron and Truss in Moscow does not bode well for diplomacy.

Putin may not yet have made a final decision, and Moscow has left the door ajar for negotiation.  But it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Kremlin is painting itself ever tighter into a corner.  It can launch an attack on Ukraine, one that would be viewed by the world as an act of outright aggression, or it can back down and accept offers that have been on the table for weeks.  The latter could prove embarrassing.  It could appear that Russia’s military build-up was a bluff that had been called.  Putin does not seem one who wants others to think that he bluffs.

If the Kremlin chooses war, that will be a calamity for Ukraine—and it could well prove the same for Russia.  Hopefully, Moscow will conclude that the costs of an attack would outweigh the political gains it might hope to achieve and turn to a more realistic diplomatic approach, however awkward that climb-down might seem. 

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As the crisis between Russia and NATO and Ukraine has developed over the past three months, the Kremlin increasingly has painted itself into a corner.

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