The escalation between India and Pakistan over the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir is revealing important insights into India's evolving defense posture and military capabilities. Arzan Tarapore joins Michael McFaul to discuss what happened between April 22 and May 10, what the clash says about the security landscape of the Indo-Pacific region, and why it matters in global politics.

Arzan Tarapore is a research scholar at the Center in International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His work focuses on Indian military strategy and regional security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Prior to his scholarly career, he served for 13 years in the Australian Defence Department in various analytic, management, and liaison positions, including operational deployments and a diplomatic posting to the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Watch the video version of their conversation above, or listen to the audio below, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcast platforms. 

TRANSCRIPT:

McFaul: You're listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. I'm your host, Michael McFaul, the director of FSI.

Today I'm talking to Arzan Tarapore, a research scholar at the Center on International Security and Cooperation, which is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute here at Stanford. His work focuses on India's military strategy and regional security issues in the Indo-Pacific, which is why he is the perfect person to talk with us today about the escalation earlier this year between India and Pakistan in the Kashmir region. And India's evolving military strategy more generally, as it relates to players like the United States, China, and Russia.

Arzan, welcome to World Class.

Tarapore: Thanks very much, Mike. It's good to be on.

McFaul: So, I want to start with a chat group I was on several weeks ago with a bunch of former U.S. government officials. And at one point, somebody interjected, “We are about to see the biggest military war in the world since Russia invaded Ukraine.”

And I have to tell you, I was taken aback. I don't follow issues between Pakistan and India as closely as I should, and I look forward to learning more about that now that my book is done and I have more time.

But that really startled me. Take us back to that moment. Help us understand what occurred that made people so alarmist, and then why that didn't turn out to be the case.

Tarapore: Yeah, okay, that's a very big question. Let me see if I can hit all the high spots. Look, the trigger for that comment, probably, was a terrorist attack that happened in India at a place called Pahalgam on the 22nd of April. And it was an attack that was conducted, as far as we can judge, by a Pakistan-based terrorist group that attacked innocent civilians.

And in particular, it was designed, it seems, to be as inflammatory, as provocative as possible, right? Because the terrorists were at a tourist spot, and they rounded up people and got those people to identify themselves — whether they were Hindu or Muslim — and they executed the Hindu men.

McFaul: Wow. Oh my God.

Tarapore: So it was designed to be as communal and as provocative as possible. And in that sense, it worked because the Indian government almost immediately was assumed to be poised to retaliate.

And this is interesting. This is notable, because about as recently as a decade ago, it was always an open question whether India would retaliate militarily against these types of terrorist attacks. And the situation has changed so much in the past decade that this time around it was almost assumed from the get-go that India would retaliate. And indeed they did retaliate.

McFaul: And they did.

Tarapore: And they did. And probably the reason that that member of your group chat said what they said is because India and Pakistan have, for decades, been poised with their militaries pointed at each other. These are very large militaries, very capable militaries. And nuclear armed militaries.

McFaul: Yes. Let's not leave out that small fact.

Tarapore: Exactly, right? Which is always overriding concern in Washington. So, it was President Clinton who, back in the 90s, called South Asia the most dangerous place in the world. He identified India Pakistan as the sort of scenario that if any scenario in the world was going to lead to a nuclear exchange, since the 90s there's been a strong case to be made that it would be India Pakistan. And that's always colored American thinking whenever there's a crisis between India and Pakistan and this time around was no different.

McFaul: And tell us how it played out, and how it ended.

Tarapore: So, the inevitable—that is, an Indian military attack—happened on the night of 6-7 May. So, in the very early hours of the 7th of May, local time. At about 1 a.m., India launched standoff attacks, meaning attacks launched by aircraft that did not cross into Pakistani airspace.

So the Indian aircraft stayed on the Indian side of the border and launched long-range munitions plus probably some loitering munitions, so sort of what some people call suicide drones. So, drones that are designed to go to the target and destroy the target and themselves.

S,o India launched these standoff attacks against nine terrorist targets, terrorist sites.

McFaul: And they were terrorist sites, right?

Tarapore: Yes. So there's a line of Pakistani information operations that suggests that civilians were killed. That may or may not be true. But certainly the Indian position is that they were terrorist targets and that the Indian claim is that the strike was designed to minimize civilian casualties as far as possible. Hence they attacked, for example, at 1 a.m., right, when places were probably not occupied.

McFaul: Got it.

Tarapore: So, a bunch of these sites were sort of in the countryside. And we know that because they showed the full motion video of the sites being destroyed by the missiles and they are just for some of them were just a building in the middle of the countryside or a couple of others that were terrorist headquarter complexes in the middle of cities and these are big sort of campuses that include living quarters and operation centers and mosques all on the same campus. And a couple of those sites were struck as well.

But again, at 1am and in a very targeted fashion to minimize civilian casualties. And by and large, they did a pretty good job of minimizing civilian casualties.

McFaul: So they could have done more and they chose this kind of response, right?

Tarapore: Exactly. And not only that, but they also in the subsequent press briefings, they were very clear in saying, “Listen, our quarrel is with the terrorists. We do not intend to start a war with Pakistan. We will respond if Pakistan responds to us. But we very deliberately have not struck Pakistan military targets or targets of the Pakistan state. We've only struck terrorists. And so as far as we are concerned, we have done what we needed to do. Now it's up to Pakistan to stand down and not retaliate.”

Of course, there was no chance of that happening. Pakistan did retaliate. And so then we entered a period of about three or three and a half days of tit for tat attacks between India and Pakistan. Again, all of them largely targeting each other's particular military sites; everything from sort of air defence sites to air bases on each side.

McFaul: On each side, right?

Tarapore: On each side.

McFaul: And did planes cross the line, or was it was the same kind of thing that you just described?

Tarapore: Planes never crossed the line, as far as we know. So, even though there were claims that some aircraft were shot down on the Indian side, and the Indian military leadership has subsequently conceded that, admitted that.

McFaul: So there were? That has been confirmed? I didn’t know that.

Tarapore: They have confirmed that they suffered some losses. They have not confirmed how many or what type. But it seems to be somewhere in the order of two to five Indian aircraft were shot down.

A bunch of Pakistani air bases were struck by Indian Air Force strikes. And this time around, unlike in the last crisis in 2019, the Indians were very assiduous in releasing battle damage assessment—photography and video—to prove they did actually hit these targets.

And through this whole process of about three and half days of tit for tat strikes, where the Indians scored a few big strikes against the Pakistan military and the Pakistan military did not really score any big hits against the Indian military. There were a few rounds that went astray and did sort of hit civilian targets, but by all accounts unintentionally. Through this all, the two militaries tried to keep things relatively proportionate. Neither one took big steps. They did not cross big thresholds to escalate.

But then on the last day, there were some concerns that Pakistan was in fact preparing for a bigger escalation. That's when the U.S., which had hitherto sort of tried to stay hands off, that's when the U.S. started making some phone calls to both capitals.

And then as probably prompted by that, prodded by U.S. pressure, Pakistan made a phone call to India—the Director General of Military Operations made a phone call to his opposite number in India—suggesting a ceasefire, which India agreed to. And that was the end.

So it was about a three and a half day stoush, little conflict, mostly run by missiles and loitering munitions. So no one crossed into the other country’s territory. It was a very sort of modern conflict in that sense.

McFaul: So, I want to get back to the Americans in a minute, but before that: what did you learn about Pakistani military capabilities and Indian military capabilities as a result of this?

Tarapore: So it was pretty interesting. It was very interesting, actually. Because for decades, basically throughout the 21st century, we have been worried about the prospect of a conventional war between India and Pakistan as a result of a terrorist attack.

And the mental model that we've always had is a large, combined arms, ground-centric invasion by India against Pakistan, right? Basically a war.

And for years, India has been trying to find options short of that in a way that would not prompt a Pakistan nuclear escalation. And it seems, after a couple of crises, that India has found a way to hit back at Pakistan militarily using these standoff capabilities that are relatively new in the Indian arsenal.

So, India has recently acquired a lot of these capabilities that have given it the strategic option to hit Pakistan without starting a war, So, when you ask, what did we learn about their capabilities, we learned that India has the capability to conduct these standoff attacks. And interestingly, from my point of view, the real star for the Indian military was air defense.

Whereas India managed to score a few good hits against the Pakistan Air Force and the terrorist infrastructure on day one, the really interesting thing was that despite Pakistan launching a bunch of mostly drone attacks against India, they did not score any significant hits. And this was a result of a layered air defense system that India has built up, which I was surprised by. The effectiveness was surprising.

McFaul: And where do their missile defenses come from? Are they Russian? Are they mixed?

Tarapore: I'm glad you asked Mike. They come from all over. A lot of it is indigenous.

McFaul: Indigenous! Okay, I didn't know that.

Tarapore: Some of it is indigenous, the shorter range. There's a surface-to-air missile called Akash, which is an indigenous system. There are some old legacy guns that the army operates that prove very effective.

But the really interesting thing that think that you would find in particular interesting is that the most sophisticated—which is to say, the most recently acquired and longest range system that provides the biggest bubble—was the S-400, which India acquired from Russia, much to the chagrin of the United States.

McFaul: Yes, the United States. It was a huge fight, right?

Tarapore: Yup! The U.S. threatened CAATSA sanctions against India for it.

McFaul: Tell everybody what CAATSA sanctions are. It’s a specific category of sanctions passed in the Trump administration, wasn’t it?

Tarapore: Yep, which is designed to deter countries from acquiring Russian equipment. So, the Indian deal to acquire S-400s was happening contemporaneously and the U.S. was always on the horns of a dilemma whether they should enforce CAATSA sanctions against India or issue a waiver.

As far as I recall, the U.S. decided to not make a decision. They never imposed the CAATSA sanctions, but nor did they issue an indefinite waiver. So it was always something that years ago was sort of hanging over the head of the relationship that the U.S. did not go through with sanctioning India. And the Indians now, after Op Sindoor, after this clash, now feel vindicated that in fact they acquired S-400s and you know what? They they proved to be extremely effective in protecting India.

McFaul: Super interesting. So they were right. I remember when we were trying to prevent the Russians from selling the S-400s to the Iranians during our negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal long ago. On paper, this was a significant capability. It sounds like in reality it is as well.

Tarapore: It absolutely is.

McFaul: Let's talk about the geopolitics. Let's just talk about the reaction. Walk us through U.S., China, Russia. How did they react to this conflict? And what are your takeaways in terms of the geopolitics of a very complicated set of bilateral relationships, especially with India, it seems to me, but with Pakistan as well.

How did the great powers react? And what do we learn about great power competition from this conflict?

Tarapore: So as you would know, as listeners would know, China is Pakistan's primary patron, great power patron. It provides Pakistan the bulk of its military capability. And in fact, this India-Pakistan clash was seen by some in some quarters as a test of Chinese military capability . . .

McFaul: Yes.

Tarapore: . . .  because the Pakistanis operate so much Chinese equipment.

Well, I think it's not a very good test of Chinese capability for many reasons. One, because the equipment itself that Pakistan operates is lower grade export variants of what China’s is. It's not integrated into a system in Pakistan in the same way as it is in China. And it's not used with the same what we would call “multi-domain doctrine” as the Chinese use.

So it's not a very good test of the Chinese equipment.

McFaul: Okay, well that's an important point, a very important point. They don't have the best stuff.

Tarapore: Yeah, that's right. They don't have the best stuff and they don't use it “properly,” quote unquote, in the same way that the Chinese do.

So, from the Indian point of view, this is a country, India, that has always been concerned about what they call the collusive two front threat: Pakistan and China ganging up on India, where if there was a crisis or a conflict with one, then India was always concerned that the other rival would opportunistically take advantage of it and open a second front.

I've always been skeptical of that. And I think what this conflict showed was what India considers to be no longer a two front dilemma, but one reinforced front. Because in this view, Pakistan was essentially, if not an appendage of China, it was nevertheless underwritten by China.

It may, according to some accounts, have benefited from real-time Chinese support during the conflict. For example, intelligence support, electronic warfare support by China, perhaps even Chinese personnel helping to advise Pakistan on how to use its weapons and how to plan and operate them. We don't know if that's true, but that's a possibility.

McFaul: Speculation, interesting That's a big step.

Tarapore: It is a big step. And so if you ask about China's approach to this, then clearly China is not neutral in this, right? China is underwriting Pakistan in this. But openly, diplomatically, it's not going to take a position and it's not going to take advantage of this sort of conflict to cause trouble on the India-China border. It's not that sort of exploitation.

Similarly, as with the U..S, there were Russian comments throughout this conflict that either proponents of an India-Russia relationship or critics of an India-Russia relationship could use instrumentally.

Some people, sometimes some Russian officials said something about India and Pakistan sort of creating this sense of equivalence that in fact they're not on our side, that they're being ambivalent. Others would say that no, in fact, Russia was more solidly behind us than any other country was.

And the same occurred with the U.S. There were U.S. officials who commented that either India is a victim of terrorism and that Pakistan is a perpetrator of terrorism, which pleased Indians, or that this conflict is none of our business, that it's something for India to handle, which they could live with.

Or, when President Trump started talking about India and Pakistan having been at war for a thousand years or whatever he said . . .

McFaul: Thousand years, he said. Yes.

Tarapore: . . . Indians rolled their eyes and were frustrated because for decades Indian officials have been trying to get Americans to internalize this idea that India is an important partner of the U.S. and that this hyphenation between India and Pakistan is an outdated idea that no longer applies.

And now here we have a President of the United States, again talking about India and Pakistan in the same breath, talking about having mediated between them, talking about having coerced both sides using the cudgel of trade deals, and promising to get the two sides to sit down and talk about Kashmir.

All of these things to anyone who doesn't follow South Asia, prima facie sound reasonable. To anyone who follows South Asia, these are all red lines and big alarm bells, especially in India, because they go against decades of American policy.

And so it was a sense of, in the extreme, a sense of betrayal. Or at a minimum, was a sense of rolling your eyes at a president who has not been well briefed.

McFaul: Who doesn't know the details. So what do you think? Was it was he just winging it, or was this really a policy change that was scripted?

Tarapore: No. So the interesting thing is, I mean, if you look at what the United States, quote unquote, deep state did—that is, the State Department, the U.S. State Department and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio—their comments were very consistent with U.S. policy over the last couple of decades. The concern is strategic stability, that these are two nuclear armed countries, we don't want conflict escalating carelessly, and that India is in fact a victim of terrorism and that, you know, there's no role for the United States to mediate a Kashmir issue.

There was none of that sort of sense, right? The State Department and the Secretary of State played a very straight bat and were consistent. It was President Trump who spoke extemporaneously about a conflict he seems to be not well-versed in, which has raised heckles.

But also, on the one hand, we can say that this is just a president speaking extemporaneously. On the other hand, he is the commander in chief of the United States.

McFaul: Exactly, yeah, right, exactly.

Tarapore: So you can't quite ignore what he says.

McFaul: Right. And just two seconds on the Russians. You gave us a little bit of it, but did they seem pleased? Obviously, they seem pleased with how their S-400s performed. Is this another – because obviously Modi has a pretty special relationship with Putin, I would say, compared to other leaders of democracies. Is this seen as a sign of closer relations between India and Russia, or is that too far?

Tarapore: I think that's going too far. I think the broader trend of India trying to wean itself off Russia remains, but it may have been set back a little bit by this. And what I mean by that is, for example, even if you take just the S-400s themselves, India bought five regiments of them and only has taken delivery of three of them.

COVID interrupted the deal, right? COVID interrupted the deliveries and then the Ukraine war interrupted the deliveries.

McFaul: Okay, I didn't know that.

Tarapore: And so the Indians are still waiting to take delivery of two regiments. And now, again, as we've said, this conflict seems to have vindicated the Indian decision to acquire S-400s. And that in fact, you know, there may be niche military capabilities that the Russians can offer India that proved to be operationally useful. So this relationship is far from a relic, right? This relationship is very much a live relationship that yields dividends for India.

McFaul: Great point. And tragically, the Russians have learned a lot about how to use drones in Ukraine. I just talking to some officials who work on European security, and they are way far ahead of where we expected them to be in terms of that. That could be an exportable technology in the future for other countries, for sure.

Tarapore: Absolutely.

McFaul: So to close out: give us your sense of what's next. What do you think happens here? Is this just a one-off or are you worried about other escalatory events?

Tarapore: An India-Pakistan crisis is never a one-off.

McFaul: That's a good point! I shouldn't laugh, but it's been there for a long long time.

Tarapore: It's been there for a long, long time. So, the sub-conventional campaign of terrorism based in Pakistan against India will continue. And as I said at the outset, what used to be hard to think of and then became a question of uncertainty has now become a certainty that India will retaliate.

Modi, after this conflict, gave a speech where he basically pledged that any future attack against India will be met with retaliation, Indian military retaliation. So it is now a matter of policy that India will retaliate against Pakistan.

McFaul: Before go on: we have not—the United States and obviously not China—we do not have enough influence vis-a-vis Pakistan to shut those terrorist camps down, right?

Tarapore: No way. This is foundational to the Pakistan army, foundational to the most powerful political actors in Pakistan.

McFaul: Got it.

Tarapore: And I think what this latest conflict shows is that India also recognizes that it is futile to try and dissuade the Pakistani military-jihadi complex from attacking India.

That used to be what they tried to do: to dissuade them, to deter them. What we've seen in 2025 is India recognizing it cannot dissuade Pakistan. It must instead impose costs upon these terrorists, and now the Pakistan army as well, so that it just makes it harder for them to attack India, so that attacks become less frequent and less provocative.

That seems to be where India is leaning. It is expecting future attacks from Pakistan And it's correct. And it will retaliate next time. That is a highly probable eventuality.

The question for me is, okay, so we now expect this sort of conflict to recur. The question is, what does it mean for India's overall defense posture, including what lessons does India learn for deterring conflict with China on the land border. And what does it mean for India's ability to project power into the Indian Ocean region? This is a country that faces challenges, security challenges on all sides.

And every time one of these fronts becomes active and it seizes the attention of decision makers in Delhi, the concern is that India will react to it and it will over learn the lessons of the last crisis and it will come at the expense of other priorities elsewhere.

So that'll be the thing that I watch. To what extent does this cast a shadow over Indian security planning for the months and years ahead?

McFaul: Wow, it sounds super scary. It sounds like Clinton was right, what he said back then. And when you add, as you did, we're talking about two nuclear powers. Obviously, China is a nuclear power.

Tarapore: Three!

McFaul: Three. This is frightening part of the world. That's why we're grateful, Arzan, to have you on World Class! We're grateful to have you at FSI and at Stanford, because we’ve got to be following this issue. So thanks for joining World Class today.

Tarapore: Absolutely my pleasure. Thanks Mike, for bringing some attention to this issue.

McFaul: You've been listening to World Class from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review and be sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on what's happening in the world, and why.

When Stanford sociologist Gi-Wook Shin left his home country of South Korea in 1983 to pursue graduate studies at the University of Washington, he was certain he would return to Korea upon graduation. More than 40 years later, Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is still in the United States. 

Yet he does not consider himself a case of brain drain for Korea. Shin, who is also the founding director of the Korea Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and APARC director, has continuously contributed to Korea by leading transnational collaborations, researching and publishing on pressing issues in Korean affairs, and otherwise engaging in diverse intellectual exchanges with the country.

Shin’s experiences sparked his interest in the sociological patterns of mobile talent and a central question: How do countries attract, develop, and retain talent in a globalized world? His new book, The Four Talent Giants (Stanford University Press, 2025), explores that question regarding transnational talent flows from a comparative lens by examining how four strikingly different Asia-Pacific nations – Japan, Australia, China, and India – have become economic powerhouses.

We interviewed Shin about his book – watch:

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The book’s main idea, Shin explains, is that how countries manage talent is key to their strength and future success. He calls the four Asia-Pacific nations the book examines “talent giants” because each has used a distinct talent strategy that has proven critical to national development. Three of these nations – China, Japan, and India – are among the top five economies in the world in terms of GDP, and Australia, despite its relatively small population size, is third in terms of wealth per adult.

In The Four Talent Giants, Shin investigates how these four nations have become global powers and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges, such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions, and what lessons their developmental paths hold for other countries.

A New Framework for Studying Human Resource Development 

Asia’s robust economic growth over the past forty years is nothing short of a remarkable feat. The Asia-Pacific today continues to be the world's fastest-growing region, despite global economic uncertainty. How did this phenomenal ascendance come about?

The existing literature has emphasized common “recipes” of success among Asia-Pacific powers. Endeavoring to find one-size-fits-all formulas that could be replicated in other countries seeking rapid development, it has overlooked the distinct developmental journeys of Asian nations. “We need a new lens, or framework, to explain their successes, while also accounting for cross-national variation in development and sustainability,” writes Shin. 

In his book, Shin examines talent – the skilled occupations essential to a nation’s economy – as a key driver of economic development. While all countries rely on human resources for development, their talent strategies vary based on historical, cultural, and institutional factors. Shin introduces a new framework, talent portfolio theory (TPT), inspired by financial portfolio theory, to analyze and compare these national approaches.

“TPT views a nation’s talent development, like financial investment, as constructing a ‘talent portfolio’ that mixes multiple forms of talent – domestic, foreign, and diasporic – adjusting its portfolio over time to meet new risks and challenges,” he explains. Just as an investor may select different financial products in a mix of assets, countries can create talent portfolios by picking from various strategies.

Shin identifies four main strategies by which a country can harness talent – what he calls the four B's: 

• “Brain train” signifies efforts to develop and expand a country’s domestic talent or human capital.
• “Brain gain” refers to attracting foreign talent to strengthen the domestic workforce.
• “Brain circulation” involves bringing back nationals who have gone abroad for work or study.
• “Brain linkage” means leveraging the global networks and expertise of citizens living overseas through transnational collaboration.

Shin uses TPT as an analytical framework to examine how each of the four talent giants has constructed its distinct national talent portfolio and how this portfolio has evolved. As in an investment portfolio rebalancing, a nation can maintain diversification across the four B's and within each B. TPT therefore offers a holistic framework for understanding the overall picture of a country’s talent strategy, and how and why it may “rebalance” its talent portfolio.

Throughout the book, Shin shows that, while Japan has relied on the brain train strategy, Australia, whose population was too small for such an approach, emphasized brain gain. China used brain circulation: it first sent students and professionals abroad to learn, then implemented policies to encourage them to return. India, by contrast, established linkages among its diaspora and used them to develop its economy.

New Geopolitics of Global Talent: Lessons and Policy Implications

The case studies of the four talent giants reveal that there is no single path to talent-driven development. Each of the four Asia-Pacific countries has built its unique talent portfolio, balancing human and social capital, homegrown and foreign-educated individuals, and domestic and diasporic talents. While the talent giants use all four B's to some extent, each emphasizes them differently, reflecting diverse strategies and development paths. The core findings of these studies offer valuable insights for countries aiming to design effective talent policies. 

The four B's were instrumental in the economic rise of the four Asian nations, and they will be equally critical in addressing new challenges facing all economies, from demographic crises to emergent geopolitical tensions. For the United States, one such challenge is its sprawling competition with China, where the battle for talent is heating up in the race for technological supremacy.

Shin warns that the advantage the United States has long held in technological innovation, driven by its ability to attract skilled foreign talent, is now at risk from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, pressures on universities, and cuts to research funding. “Immigrants have not just filled jobs,” he emphasizes. “They have created new industries and helped the US and their home countries. If the US makes it harder for talent to come in and stay, it risks hurting its long-term success.”

The Four Talent Giants is an outcome of Shin’s longstanding project investigating Talent Flows and Development, now one of the research tracks he leads at the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which he launched in 2022. Housed at APARC, the lab is an interdisciplinary research initiative addressing Asia’s social, cultural, economic, and political challenges through comparative, policy-relevant studies. SNAPL’s education mission is to cultivate the next generation of researchers and policy leaders by offering mentorships and fellowship opportunities for students and emerging scholars.

Shin notes that the SNAPL team illustrates all four B’s in his talent portfolio theory, as some members are U.S.-born and trained, some come from Asia and, after working at the lab, return to their home countries, whereas some stay here, promoting linkages with their home countries. “In many ways, this project shows what is possible when we invest in talent and encourage international collaboration.”

In the Media

Stanford Scholar Reveals How Talent Development Strategies Shape National Futures
The Korean Daily, July 13, 2025 (interview)
- English version
- Korean version

Introduction to Issues in International Security is a collaboration between the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE). Four CISAC scholars are featured in accessible video lectures that aim to introduce high school students to issues in international security and increase awareness of career opportunities available in the field. Free discussion guides, developed by Irene Bryant of SPICE, are available for each of the lectures in this series.

For the fourth year since 2022, Dr. Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez introduced the lectures and lessons in the discussion guides to students from San Jose and Salinas Valley. The course culminated in a symposium on May 22, 2025 that was organized by Sabrina Ishimatsu. Each student had the opportunity to present their research project to CISAC scholars, the Honorable Rose Gottemoeller, Professor Norman Naimark, Dr. Harold Trinkunas, and Visiting Research Scholar Xunchao Zhang. The scholars provided extremely useful feedback on their research projects and also asked thought-provoking questions. Students from the 2022, 2023, and 2024 cohorts have commented on how the feedback and questions from the CISAC scholars helped them to prepare for college.

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Also during the symposium, students were honored to listen to reflections on the importance of international security from former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta who underscored the importance of education and encouraged the students to consider international security, or more broadly international relations as an academic field of study and career. Panetta has also served as Director of the CIA and White House Chief of Staff. Students were also very fortunate to listen to words of encouragement from Alexandra Arguello, a 2023 alum of the course taught by Ornelas Rodriguez. Arguello is now a student at Harvard University.

Ornelas Rodriguez closed the symposium by extending his praise for the 2025 cohort which exceeded his expectations and commended them for adding his class to their already busy academic lives.

To stay informed of SPICE news, join our email list and follow us on Facebook, X, and Instagram.

The following is a guest article written by Akari Kikuchi, an undergraduate student studying at the School of Social Sciences at Waseda University in Japan. Akari enrolled in the 2025 SPICE/Stanford–Waseda Intensive Course: Exploring Peace in East Asia and Beyond Through the Lenses of Cultural Understanding, Education, and International Relations, which was organized by SPICE and Waseda’s Faculty of Social Sciences and taught by Meiko Kotani. The course brought together students from the Graduate School of Social Sciences, the School of Social Sciences, the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, the School of International Liberal Studies, and the School of Political Science and Economics. With participants from Japan and international students representing 10 different countries, the course created a truly dynamic and diverse learning environment.

Looking back on our five-day program, I feel a deep sense of gratitude—for the opportunity to take part in the program, and for the people I met along the way. I’m proud to have shared this experience with such thoughtful, motivated students and teachers.

Although the program took place during our spring break, the energy and engagement from the students involved were truly inspiring. I was impressed by their insightful questions and responses.

Our group presentation—which took place on the final day of the course, after a week full of thought-provoking lectures and discussions—was especially memorable for me. It reminded me how exciting it can be to overcome differences in language and perspective. My part of the presentation focused on how media shapes public perceptions—and sometimes even hostilities—toward other nations. That topic reflected something I found really interesting from one of the lectures earlier in the week: how essential media literacy is when it comes to understanding the world around us. We looked at how the same event can be framed differently depending on the source, and how these narratives create public emotions and opinions.

What I found most important—what I’d like to emphasize—is that this program didn’t just talk about “peace” as an abstract goal. Instead, it helped me understand how peace has been threatened. Through this practical approach, we could explore the often-elusive concept of “peace” in a real-world context.

The world today feels overwhelmingly unstable. The more you think about peace, the more cruelty you see around you. It can feel disheartening, but I found a sense of renewed hope through this project. We discussed weighty, complex issues with people from different countries and cultures. Although that seemed challenging to me at first, in the end I realized that it was based in the simple experience of learning to respect the person in front of me. I think the memory of discussing peace with people from diverse backgrounds during this project will serve as “a guide” toward peace.

The fear of opening up or facing language barriers might hold people back, but I believe the program is worth trying, and I hope many more people will take this great opportunity in the future!

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Sponsored by Stanford Global Studies (SGS) through the support of U.S. Department of Education Title VI funding, the Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) Community College Faculty Fellowship convenes a cohort of community college faculty and academic staff from various disciplines to work collaboratively with Stanford staff for one academic year (August–May). Each EPIC Fellow designs a project that aims to internationalize curricula and develop global competencies among community college students. Jonas Edman worked with seven EPIC Fellows from the 2024–25 cohort throughout the academic year, providing guidance, support, and resources to advance their projects’ development. Their names, titles, institutions, and projects are as follows:

• Joel Blank, Professor of Political Science, San Joaquin Delta College: “Beyond the Nation-State: Enhancing Local Governance Through Sister Cities Partnerships”
• Deborah Brown, Professor of History and Ethnic Studies, Riverside City College: “Sankofa: Centering Africa in African American Studies”
• Lisa Gilbert, Professor of Geology, Oceanography and Environmental Science, Cabrillo College: “Global Competency in Introductory Environmental Science”
• Jessica Moronez, Professor of Sociology and Social Justice Studies, Chaffey College: “Global Perspectives and Gender Justice: Enhancing Prison Education at CIW Prison”
• Francisco Nájera, Instructor of Ethnic Studies, Orange Coast College: “Centroamericanos en Diáspora: Transnational Worldviews in Central American Studies”
• Jacob Vazquez, Agriculture Business Instructor, Butte College: “Developing Global Competencies in an Agricultural Economics Course”
• Cirian Villavicencio: Professor of Political Science, San Joaquin Delta College: “Beyond the Nation-State: Enhancing Local Governance Through Sister Cities Partnerships”

EPIC Fellows participated in a series of professional learning activities over the course of the academic year, including a three-day intensive workshop on the Stanford campus, monthly virtual meetings featuring cutting-edge research from Stanford scholars and collaborative project workshopping, and personalized mentoring sessions with Edman. The Fellowship culminated with the tenth annual EPIC Symposium, “Integrating Global Topics into Community College Curricula,” which was held on May 17, 2025 and featured opening comments by Dr. Kate Kuhns, Executive Director of Stanford Global Studies; a keynote address by Professor Jisha Menon, Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division; two panels of 2024–25 EPIC Fellows; and a panel of EPIC Community College Leadership Program Fellows. SGS Academic and Outreach Manager Dr. Kristyn Hara (in green in photo below; photo courtesy Rod Searcey) was the primary organizer and facilitator of the EPIC Fellowship, including the EPIC Symposium.

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Each 2024–25 EPIC Fellow gave an overview of their project to an audience of Stanford faculty and staff, EPIC alumni, and other community college professionals from across California and beyond. Full descriptions of the 2024–25 EPIC Fellows’ projects can be found here.

The EPIC Fellows received certificates from SGS upon their successful completion of the program. With the formal close of the Fellowship, they were also invited to join the Global Educators Network (GEN), which, in partnership with SGS, seeks to inform, inspire, and empower community college educators—and their students—to more deeply engage with global themes and learning resources, as well as international dialogue, research, and pedagogical strategies.

Following the EPIC Symposium, the seven EPIC Fellows with whom Edman worked shared reflections on their experience of the program.

As a community college professor, being selected as a Stanford University EPIC Fellow was an extraordinary honor and experience. The world-class support provided by the Global Studies staff, faculty, and affiliated experts was invaluable in developing and implementing our international curriculum. The yearlong series of monthly symposiums covering a wide range of global topics introduced valuable ideas and resources into our project and fostered a strong sense of community among the fellows providing support and encouragement throughout the process. This program is not only worth continuing—it deserves to be expanded, especially as we work to cultivate a truly global student citizenry.—Joel Blank

I have had the honor of working on a project that centers Africa and focuses on the wisdom of African ancestors and elders. Baba Gary Mukai and Jonas Edman guided us on a journey where they shared their own stories that are deeply connected to Global Studies and built bridges for us fellows to develop our projects and collaborate with other colleagues. These personal stories are at the heart of the work we do in Global Studies. As an EPIC fellow, I am concluding my fellowship year with renewed focus on Global Studies and the importance of honoring indigenous lives, experiences, and histories while critically looking at my own power, privilege, and positionality. Asante sana, EPIC Program coordinators!—Deborah Brown

I’m deeply grateful to Gary Mukai, Jonas Edman, Kristyn Hara, Stanford faculty speakers, and the 24–25 cohort of brilliant EPIC fellows for your support and inspiration. You helped fill my year with creative thinking, meaningful conversations, and encouragement to seek out new collaborations. Together with interdisciplinary artist Carmina Eliason, I reimagined our Introductory Environmental Science course through a variety of lenses. As we developed case studies from Kenya to Brazil, I found unexpected inspiration in Dune’s Arrakis—exploring scarcity, adaptation, and ethics—which helped me return with new ideas for teaching resilience locally. I couldn’t have predicted this journey, and I’m so very thankful.—Lisa Gilbert

I had a fantastic experience as a Stanford EPIC fellow during the 2024–2025 academic year. My SPICE team (Gary and Jonas) and my brilliant colleagues inspired me to enhance my curriculum by helping me forge connections between the local and the global. This is particularly important for my incarcerated students at CIW prison, who have limited access to resources. I cannot wait to share the knowledge I gained from Stanford Global Studies with my students!—Jessica Moronez

It was incredibly rewarding to have the time, space, and resources to be able to reflect on globalizing curriculum with the EPIC program. Seeing everyone’s passion in bringing their vision to reality was a great inspiration. This is what curriculum development should look like. At a time when petty nationalism is on the rise, this work is vital, timely, and necessary. We need our students and our communities to care about the lived experiences of folks all around the world. —Francisco Nájera

I had a great experience with Stanford University’s EPIC Fellowship. I really appreciate how the fellowship allows community college faculty to connect Stanford’s world-renowned resources and insights to our students. I feel very grateful for the investment the fellowship made in me and am excited to see how it helps transform our students.—Jacob Vazquez

The Stanford EPIC Fellowship was an amazing opportunity to learn from like-minded individuals deeply committed to opening students’ learning to the world. During our year-long fellowship, we shared ideas, heard from Stanford professors about their globally centered research, and utilized the university’s first-class resources to expand and innovate our curriculum. We also received caring professional support from Stanford’s Global Studies staff as we developed our projects. Overall, the fellowship was a transformative and enriching intellectual experience that I recommend for community college faculty interested in global studies and internationalizing their curriculum.—Cirian Villavicencio

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Reflecting on the 2024–25 EPIC program, Edman (photo above courtesy Rod Searcey) noted, “One of the highlights of my years at SPICE has been the annual EPIC Symposium. It was such an honor to moderate the panel, and it was so rewarding to listen to the 2024–2025 EPIC Fellows’ engaging presentations. The Fellows represented such a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds, and this certainly contributed to engaging discussions throughout the year. Once again, I am most grateful to Kristyn Hara for expertly facilitating the EPIC Fellowship over the past year and for meticulously planning and implementing the 2025 EPIC Symposium.”

The EPIC Community College Faculty Fellowship is one of several ongoing community college outreach initiatives in global education between SPICE and Stanford’s four National Resources—the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), and SGS.

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The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research recognizes Stanford's top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science, and engineering among the graduating senior class. Charles's thesis is entitled The Limits of Payout Politics: How Biden-Harris Federal Spending Shaped (and Didn't Shape) the 2024 Presidential Vote. His thesis examines whether the Biden-Harris administration’s signature spending programs — the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS Act — yielded electoral rewards in the 2024 presidential election. Using an original dataset of over 40,000 geocoded federal projects representing $227 billion in county-level investments, Charles finds no statistically significant association between per-capita spending and shifts in Democratic vote margins, even when accounting for partisan context and project visibility. Through interviews with federal and local officials, he identifies three explanatory mechanisms: implementation lags prevented most projects from reaching completion before Election Day, administrative and policy bottlenecks systematically delayed development, and Republican messaging successfully reframed spending as inflationary. These findings suggest that retrospective voting operates primarily through immediate, visible benefits rather than campaign promises or announced investments, with significant implications for how policy initiatives must be designed to deliver outcomes within electoral cycles.

Adrian's thesis is entitled The Gavel and the Gun: Post-War Trials and State-Building Politics in Yugoslavia (1945-1949). His thesis explores how the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) authorities used the post-World War II justice process to consolidate power from 1945 to 1949. Drawing on trial transcripts, newspapers, and other archival materials, the study argues that the Yugoslav state instrumentalized judicial structures in three distinct stages: first, using honor courts to assert basic state capacity; second, conducting public-facing war crimes trials to promote the state’s ideological legitimacy; and third, orchestrating espionage trials to suppress dissent and entrench single-party rule. While affirming that the KPJ often subordinated judicial integrity to its state-building project, the thesis complicates conventional narratives by attending to the moral ambiguities, partial truths, and undeniable moments of justice present in even the most politicized of trials. In doing so, it offers broader insights into the fraught intersection of law, memory, and power in postwar societies.

Adelaide's thesis is entitled Philoxenia: Local Responses to Immigration in Calabria, Italy. Over recent decades, many nations across Europe and the Americas have responded to mass migration movements across the globe with hostile policies, xenophobic sentiment, and poorly managed immigration systems. At the same time, several municipalities in Calabria, Italy that struggle with severe depopulation and economic hardship have experienced positive transformations upon opening refugee reception centers, including reversals to declining population trends, job creation and the continuation of important public goods, such as elementary schools — but not all towns that have a demand for immigration respond in the same way. Many Calabrian municipalities have not opened refugee resettlement centers, and others have become a breeding ground for labor exploitation among migrant workers. This thesis employs a mixed-methods approach to consider how structure, agency, and culture account for the variation in local responses to migrants and refugees throughout the relatively homogenous region of Calabria. A systematic analysis of quantitative municipal-level data paired with four granular case studies suggests that a municipality’s structural characteristics alone do not explain the variance in local responses to immigration. Rather, the presence of an entrepreneurial local actor, such as a mayor or non-profit leader with strong humanitarian commitments, is necessary to recognize and actualize the aligned interests between locals and newcomers and bring about cultures of hospitality. While much of the literature on local responses to immigration has focused on urban settings, this thesis aims to widen academic discussions to include more rural contexts and contributes to the underdeveloped literature on hospitality, rather than hostility, toward newcomers.

The Class of 2025

Charles, Adrian, and Adelaide are part of a cohort of 13 graduating CDDRL honors students who have spent the past year working in consultation with CDDRL-affiliated faculty members and attending honors research workshops to develop their thesis projects. The theses this year covered topics as wide ranging as authoritarian repression, conflict and state-building, regulation and governance, and democratic accountability. Students embarked on original research across multiple countries, conducting interviews, fielding surveys, plumbing archives, and building datasets.

“We are so proud of this year’s cohort of seniors in the Fisher Family Honors Program,” shared Didi Kuo, Center Fellow at FSI and co-director of CDDRL’s Fisher Family Honors Program. “Our multidisciplinary students brought a range of methods and analytical approaches to inform their understanding of democracy and development. They asked a range of trenchant research questions and brought a collaborative spirit to the research enterprise that improved everyone’s projects.”

In addition to the Firestone Medal and CDDRL Outstanding Thesis Awards, members of the Class of 2025 have received several other honors heading into graduation:

• Kate Tully is among four Stanford students named as 2025 Rhodes Scholars. The prestigious award provides support for talented scholars to pursue postgraduate degrees at Oxford University in England.
• Alex Borthwick, Adrian Feinberg, Malaina Kapoor, and Avinash Thakkar, along with junior Emma Wang, are among the newest members elected to the Phi Beta Kappa academic honors society.
• Adrian Feinberg was also named a Gaither Fellow. The national program offers recent graduates the opportunity to work as research assistants on projects related to democracy, global security, and foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.
• Alex Borthwick, Adrian Feinberg, Elizabeth Jerstad, and Gabriela Holzer have all received the Award of Excellence. Designed to recognize the top 10% of the class, this award honors graduating seniors who have demonstrated a sincere commitment to the university through involvement, leadership, and extraordinary Stanford spirit.

CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. Honors students participate in research methods workshops, attend honors college in Washington, D.C., connect to the CDDRL research community, and write their thesis in close consultation with a faculty advisor to graduate with a certificate of honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law.
 

Explore the rest of the thesis topics of the Fisher Family Honors Program Class of 2025 below:

The SPICE/Stanford e-Course on Global Health is a distance-learning course sponsored by Takatsuki Senior High School and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University. Students are encouraged to think critically about global health through a variety of lenses and contexts. Course instructor Sabrina Ishimatsu recently wrote these reflections about the program’s 10th anniversary.

For the last ten years, it has been my privilege to work with Principal Tsuyoshi Kudo, the staff, and the students of Takatsuki Senior High School. Without the vision and leadership of Principal Kudo, this course would not be what it is today.

Many years ago, as a young college graduate, I worked as an English teacher in Japan through the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. It was one of the seminal experiences of my life. Being immersed in a new country and culture opened my mind to new ideas and possibilities I had not before considered.

All these years later, working with the Takatsuki Senior High School students has been very natsukashii (fondly nostalgic). Seeing them in their classroom and wearing their school uniforms feels so familiar and brings back great memories of my time in Japan. However, what makes this course so personally fulfilling is reconnecting to such curious and hopeful young minds. Their earnest enthusiasm and optimism imbue me with a similar youthful spirit. 

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As a middle-aged adult, it is easy to forget that the most urgent questions young people ask themselves are ones of self-identity. “Who am I? What do I stand for? Where will my future take me?” While this course doesn’t claim to answer these questions, I hope it will open students’ minds to new possibilities. Week after week, we learn from acclaimed global health professionals—including many from Stanford’s School of Medicine—who work in the real world. I recall one guest lecturer, an emergency room doctor who established the first comprehensive emergency response system in India and then created a similar system in Nepal where none had previously existed. There was also the doctor who trained community members in rural Guatemala to make house calls and monitor malnutrition in babies, drastically reducing the area’s child mortality rate. These brilliant and resourceful people, rather than focusing on material wealth, have dedicated their lives to help vulnerable people around the world. Their stories light the path for how a health professional can be a noble global citizen and change the world for the better. What a powerful example for the students of Takatsuki Senior High School who have not only gained knowledge from these experts but have also had their eyes opened to the many possibilities for them to be change-making global citizens.

There is a 16-hour time difference between Japan and California, so I usually begin teaching each class at 9:00pm on a Friday, and it ends late into the night. When a class is particularly inspiring, I find myself buzzing with excitement and I can’t go to sleep. I have to find my husband or one of my 16-year-old twin daughters to tell them all about it. When they look at me, their expression suggests, “Why are you so hyper right now?” My response usually starts, “You won’t believe the amazing person I met tonight…” and “I can’t believe the insightful questions my students asked in their second language!”

The SPICE/Stanford e-Course on Global Health is one of SPICE’s local student programs in Japan. 

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