Stanford University

Twenty Years of Stabilization and Reconstruction: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan

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*For fall quarter 2021, 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.

 

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Seminar Recording

About the Event: The Afghan government’s collapse in August demonstrated that two decades of donor-driven state-building efforts failed to build a foundation for a stable, democratic, and prosperous Afghanistan. Why did the United States and its allies fail, and what should donors learn for similar state-building efforts in the future, both large and small?

Spanning the U.S. government’s problematic strategies, inappropriate timelines, and poor understanding of the Afghan context, lessons learned reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) have warned for years that the Afghan government was exceptionally fragile and that many of the gains alleged by the U.S. officials were hollow and unsustainable. This CISAC seminar will detail how and why the U.S. government should reform its own institutions to more effectively stabilize conflict-affected environments around the world. 

Download SIGAR’s 20th anniversary report, What We Need to Learn (2021)

Download SIGAR’s report, Stabilization: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan (2018)

 

About the Speaker: David H. Young is a supervisory research analyst at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and a conflict and governance advisor with experience in six conflict/post-conflict environments: Afghanistan, the Sahel, Israel/Palestine, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Northern Ireland. At SIGAR, he was the lead author of three comprehensive lessons learned reports: 1) A study of U.S. efforts to stabilize contested Afghan communities, 2) A review of U.S. efforts to build credible and transparent Afghan electoral institutions, and 3) the agency’s 20th anniversary report, What We Need to Learn. He was a civilian advisor to ISAF in Nuristan and Laghman provinces during the Afghanistan surge and subsequently served as a governance advisor to the World Bank, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Afghanistan's Independent Directorate of Local Governance. His writing and commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, and the Daily Beast, among others.

Virtual Only. This event will not be held in person.

David Young Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
Seminars
Research Seminar Series

Understanding the Global Rise of Authoritarianism

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Melissa Morgan
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According to the Freedom House project’s 2021 Freedom in the World assessment, 2020 saw a sharp acceleration in the global decline of democracy. By their measure, fewer than a fifth of the world’s population now live in fully free countries. This is part of a longer trend of democratic decline and rising authoritarianism that’s been underway across the globe for the last 30 years.

Why is this happening? That’s the question Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama, tries to tackle in his new book, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made.

Rhodes joined FSI Director Michael McFaul on the new season of the World Class Podcast to discuss the book and the stories it tells of incredible individuals pushing back against autocratic regimes around the world.

Click here for a transcript of "Understanding the Global Rise of Authoritarianism."

On the inspiration for the book:


I wanted to investigate this trend of nationalist authoritarianism through the prism of people, particularly [people] in opposition who are living it. I ended up looking at Hungary, Russia, China, and the U.S., all of which I think are representative of a kind of a different flavor of the same authoritarian trend that we're getting. That's really what the whole book is: me pulling on this thread of what is the interconnection between why this is happening, and how are people thinking about it? How can I approach it not as just pure analysis, but through the stories of these human beings?

On why nationalism and authoritarianism is spreading globally:


The first was the excess of globalization, the excess of capitalism, and the creation of exploding inequality happening at the same time that globalization is kind of encroaching on people's national identity or tribal identity

Another trend through line was the post-9/11 securitization of the American superpower. When we turn our national purpose into this war on terror, not only do we militarize our engagement with the world, which I think was generally bad for democracy, but we also provide a template and a justification for autocrats to expropriate that for their own purposes.

Then lastly, technology is big difference maker in the sense that these platforms that at first were connecting people became the perfect vehicles for disinformation and surveillance

On China:


China may look different [from regimes like Russia or Hungary], but I don't think they're nearly as different as people think. Right? You have to look at Xi Jinping, first and foremost, as a nationalist Chinese leader, not a communist Chinese leader. And in his brand of nationalism, he's very similar to Putin, and Orban, and Trump, and all the other leaders I could have done in this book.

How did [the Chinese Communist Party] survive post-Tiananmen? They reestablished who they were as a Chinese Nationalist Party. They had been a revolutionary communist party, then they give up a big chunk of the communism to move to capitalism

On authoritarianism in America:


In this country, you have a major political party, that has completely gone off the deep end. They're literally setting up a playbook where they can overturn the results of an election through the laws they’re are passing at the state level. And if Trump does come back, which is a 50-50 proposition, he's clearly going to run and it will be another 50-50 election, right? And even if he loses, maybe they'll succeed this time overturning the result. They will start from such a more advanced authoritarian position than even in 2016 when he was elected.

On the future:


There's a lot of reason to be concerned that the overall trajectory of society globally is still moving in the wrong direction. What makes me optimistic, though, is that I don't believe that that's how most people want to live. And I also find, in most places – not all places, but most places – generationally, there's an overwhelming preference to not live like that. If we can hold the line and weather the storm for the next few years, and begin to figure out some structural things like, I do think we can come through in the backend to a place where the pendulum starts swinging pretty hard in the other direction.

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National security analyst and veteran podcaster Ben Rhodes joins Michael McFaul on World Class to discuss his new book, After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made, and the reasons nationalism and authoritarianism are on the rise across the globe.

Imagining the Unimaginable: War, Weapons, and Procurement Politics

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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. 

SESSION RECORDING

For a recording of this seminar, please contact Dr. Verschuren at sverschu@stanford.edu.

                                                                                           

 

About the Event: Rather than assuming convergence in countries' military capabilities, this seminar examines why and how countries decide to develop different weapon capabilities within similar domains of warfare. To answer these questions, this seminar will explore the role of ideas and institutional bargaining in shaping decisions about military technology. This talk will subsequently apply the theory to the development of missile defense from the 1980s until today.

 

About the Speaker: Sanne Verschuren is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. Her research interests include the development of military technology, shifts in military strategy and tactics, and the role of ideas and norms therein. Her book project examines why and how countries decide to procure different weapon capabilities within similar military domains, particularly the development of missile defense (1980s-today), air power (1920s-1930s), and aircraft carriers (1950s-1960s). At CISAC, Sanne conducts research on the intersection between nuclear and conventional weapons. Sanne received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University in August 2021.

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. 

Seminars
Governance
Research Seminar Series

The Role Of Intelligence Agencies In Public Attribution Of Offensive Cyber Operations

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About the Event: Cyber operations have been traditionally considered covert actions, with incentives for both attacker and victim to remain silent and conceal the attack. Attribution is often a technically complex process that requires extensive work on the part of intelligence agencies. Although their work usually takes place ‘behind the scenes’, recent cases show intelligence agencies are playing an increasingly visible role in the public attribution processes.

With cyberattacks and intrusions becoming an integral component of both warfare and diplomacy, attribution – and its mechanisms and consequences – also play a growing role. Governments are increasingly required to balance expectations, credibility and transparency of high-stake attribution processes with the need to minimize exposure of their intelligence agencies and technological capabilities.

Combining original data on intelligence agencies’ involvement in public attribution cases and an analysis of the SolarWinds hack and the DNC intrusion as an illustrative case-studies, this research offers a broader understanding of the emerging changes in the role of intelligence agencies in the cyber domain, including its more public components. The implications of this research will serve scholars working on the intersection between cyber operations, intelligence and decision-making, and will also serve practitioners and decision-makers facing the need to decide how to respond after an offensive cyber operation took place.

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Gil Baram is a cybersecurity post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She received her Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University’s School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, and was the recipient of the Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship. Her postdoctoral research at CISAC focuses on national decision-making during cyber conflict.

Previously, Dr. Baram has held fellow positions with the Centre of Excellence for National Security at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and served as the Head of cyber and space research team at the Israeli think tank Yuval Ne'eman workshop for Science, Technology and Security.  

This event is virtual only. This event will not be held in person.

Seminars
Research Seminar Series

Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons

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For fall quarter 2021, 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. 

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In Person

(Stanford faculty, visiting scholars, staff, fellows, and students only)

                                                                                           

 

Seminar Recording

About the Event: The technology controlling United States nuclear weapons predates the Internet. Updating the technology for the digital era is necessary, but it comes with the risk that anything digital can be hacked. Moreover, using new systems for both nuclear and non-nuclear operations will lead to levels of nuclear risk hardly imagined before. This book is the first to confront these risks comprehensively.

With Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons, Herbert Lin provides a clear-eyed breakdown of the cyber risks to the U.S. nuclear enterprise. Featuring a series of scenarios that clarify the intersection of cyber and nuclear risk, this book guides readers through a little-understood element of the risk profile that government decision-makers should be anticipating. What might have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis took place in the age of Twitter, with unvetted information swirling around? What if an adversary announced that malware had compromised nuclear systems, clouding the confidence of nuclear decision-makers?

Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons, the first book to consider cyber risks across the entire nuclear enterprise, concludes with crucial advice on how government can manage the tensions between new nuclear capabilities and increasing cyber risk. This is an invaluable handbook for those ready to confront the unique challenges of cyber nuclear risk.

Purchase Book

 

About the Speaker: Since 2014, Herb Lin has been senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  He also served as a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

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. 

Herbert Lin

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C236
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

650-497-8600
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Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security, Hoover Institution
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Dr. Herb Lin is senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  His research interests relate broadly to the impact of emerging technologies on national security, especially in the digital domain (cyber, artificial intelligence, information warfare and operations), and has written extensively on the role of offensive operations in cyberspace as instruments of national policy.  In addition to his positions at Stanford University, he is Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he served from 1990 through 2014 as study director of major projects on public policy and information technology.  From 2016 to 2025, he was a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In 2016, he served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity and in  2021 on the Aspen Commission on Information Disorder.  Prior to his NRC service, he was a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Avocationally, he is a longtime folk and swing dancer and a lousy magician. Apart from his work on cyberspace and cybersecurity, he is published in cognitive science, science education, biophysics, and arms control and defense policy. He also consults on K-12 math and science education.

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Research Seminar Series

Natural Gas in Europe, Nord Stream 2 and Russia

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*For fall quarter 2021, 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.

 

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About the Event: Natural gas prices in Europe have spiked in recent weeks. In the meantime, Russia is pressing for early certification of the newly-completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which would increase capacity for moving gas from Russia to Europe. How serious is the gas situation in Europe, and how might Nord Stream 2 affect it? What motivates Moscow's push to get the new pipeline in operation? What policy should the U.S. government pursue on these questions? Ambassador Daniel Fried of the Atlantic Council and Edward Chow of Center for Strategic and International Studies will address these issues on November 17.

 

About the Speakers: In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. As special assistant and NSC senior director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, ambassador to Poland, and assistant secretary of state for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried crafted the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thus advancing the goal of Europe whole, free, and at peace. During those years, the West’s community of democracy and security grew in Europe. Ambassador Fried helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine starting in 2014: as State Department coordinator for sanctions policy, he crafted US sanctions against Russia, the largest US sanctions program to date, and negotiated the imposition of similar sanctions by Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia.   

 

Edward C. Chow is an international energy expert with 45 years of industry experience working in Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America, Europe, Russia, Black Sea and Caspian regions. He negotiated successfully multibillion-dollar oil and gas agreements and specializes in investments in emerging economies. He developed government policy and business strategy while advising governments, international financial institutions, major oil companies, and leading multinational corporations. He worked for more than 20 years at Chevron Corporation in headquarter and overseas assignments. He taught at Georgetown and George Washington universities and served as visiting professor at Ohio University and Fudan University in Shanghai. He is a senior associate in the Center for Strategic and International Studies and affiliate faculty at George Mason University.

Virtual Only. This event will not be held in person.

Daniel Fried ormer US Ambassador to Poland; Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow Atlantic Council
Edward C. Chow Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Seminars
European Security Initiative

The World House Global Network presents Andre Kamenshikov

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On Friday, October 22, 2021 from 10:00-11:00 am PT, The World House Global Network is honored to have Andre Kamenshikov as our guest speaker. We will be discussing current challenges for civil society in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Register Now


Andre Kamenshikov
Andre Kamenshikov is a civil society activist in the field of peacebuilding, with both a US and Russian background. He graduated Moscow State University majoring in sociology in 1991 as well as studied various subjects in Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin and undertook courses in human rights and other relevant topics. He is the representative of a US-based NGO Nonviolence International and the regional coordinator of an international civil society network - the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) in the Eastern Europe region. He has over 28 years of experience as a civil peacebuilding activist in conflict areas of the ex-USSR. He was the founder of Nonviolence International–CIS, a civil society organization that was based in Moscow and operated in the post-soviet states for 22 years until it had to be closed due to the current political climate in Russia. Since 2015 he has been based in Kyiv, Ukraine, working primarily with the local civil society sector on enhancing its capacities to contribute to peace and democratic development of the country. He is an author of a number of publications about the role of civil society in post-soviet conflicts, including “International experience of civilian peacebuilding in the post-soviet space” (2016), the “Strategic framework for the development of civil peacebuilding activities in Ukraine” (2017).

Online via Zoom. Register Now

Andre Kamenshikov
Lectures

The Russia Challenge: Limited or Resurrected?

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*For fall quarter 2021, 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.

 

REGISTRATION

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Seminar Recording

About the Event: As relations between the West and Russia plunge to a post-Cold War nadir, how strong a competitor will the Kremlin prove? Will constraints on Putin's autocracy hinder his ability to have Russia play a great power role, or has Russia alrealdy successfully resurrected itself and is now able to exercise significant influence on the global stage? On November 10, Timothy Frye (author of Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia) and Kathryn Stoner (author of Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order) will discuss the nature and depth of the Russian challenge to the West.

 

About the Speakers: 

Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University. Professor Frye received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College, an M.A. from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy with a focus on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His most recent book is Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia (Princeton University Press, 2021). He co-directs the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and edits Post-Soviet Affairs.

Kathryn Stoner is the Deputy Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and at the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. She teaches in the Department of Political Science at Stanford, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997). Her most recent book is Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021). She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Virtual Only. This event will not be held in person.

Timothy Frye

Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996
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Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton, she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship, awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World, co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006); After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997); and Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ilia State University in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
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European Security Initiative

Ukraine vs Russia: War for Democracy

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There is an ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. It is not a war solely for territories, resources, or people — it's an ideological war, indicative of the battle between authoritarianism and democracy. What is the real nature of this conflict and who are the parties involved? What tools does the Kremlin use to control the narrative and what can be done to stop it? And why is Ukraine the cornerstone of democracy in the region? Join former Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk, the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at FSI, to discuss.

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The Liautaud Fellowship was established to bring former heads of state or senior policymakers to Stanford, with the goal of promoting meaningful dialogue on the challenges world leaders face in crafting policy solutions for pressing global problems. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former President of Estonia, was the inaugural Liautaud Fellow in 2017, followed by H.R. McMaster in 2018.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Oleksiy Honchaurk

Oleksiy Honchaurk was Ukraine’s 17th Prime Minister (August 2019 – March 2020). In just 5 months Mr. Honcharuk initiated important changes that other Ukrainian politicians had not dared to do for years (launched of large and small privatization processes, started of land market implementation, conducted Naftogaz unbundling, started combating shade markets – illegal gambling houses and petrol stations were closed, launched of Anti-Raider (illegal seizure of business or property) Office that would react within just 24 hours to any cases of such illegal seizure, etc).

Before he served as a Deputy Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine and was a member of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine. Previously for more than ten years, Mr. Honcharuk has been working in the legal sphere. He has established a reputation as a strong professional and qualified specialist. Mr. Honcharuk is also known as a strong fighter for business community rights. 2005-2008, he worked as a lawyer at PRIOR-Invest investment company and later on headed its legal department. 2008-2015, he worked as an arbitration manager and managing partner at Constructive Lawyers, a law firm he had founded, which provided legal services in the field of investment and financing real estate construction.

From 2015-2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk headed Better Regulation Delivery Office non-governmental organization (BRDO). Among his achievements as the head of the BRDO was the cancellation of around 1000 Government acts and adoption of more than 50 decisions, facilitating activity of business in Ukraine. Oleksiy Honcharuk also served as an external advisor to the First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. He has a degree in law from Interregional Academy of Personal Management and in Public Administration from National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. He was born on July 7, 1984, in Zhmerynka, Vinnytsia region.

Hybrid event: Online via Zoom, and in-person in Bechtel Conference Center

Oleksiy Honcharuk

616 Jane Stanford Way,

Encina Hall,

Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow, 2021
rsd21_038_1181a.jpg

Ukraine’s 17th Prime Minister (August 2019 – March 2020). In just 5 months Mr. Honcharuk initiated important changes that other Ukrainian politicians had not dared to do for years (launched of large and small privatization processes, started of land market implementation, conducted Naftogaz unbundling, started combating shade markets –– illegal gambling houses and petrol stations were closed, launched of Anti-Raider (illegal seizure of business or property) Office that would react within just 24 hours to any cases of such illegal seizure, etc).

Before he served as a Deputy Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine and was a member of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine. Previously for more than ten years, Mr. Honcharuk has been working in the legal sphere. He has established a reputation as a strong professional and qualified specialist. Mr. Honcharuk is also known as a strong fighter for business community rights. 2005-2008, he worked as a lawyer at PRIOR-Invest investment company and later on headed its legal department. During 2008-2015, he worked as an arbitration manager and managing partner at Constructive Lawyers, a law firm he had founded, which provided legal services in the field of investment and financing real estate construction.

From 2015-2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk headed Better Regulation Delivery Office non-governmental organization (BRDO). Among his achievements as the head of the BRDO was the cancellation of around 1000 Government acts and adoption of more than 50 decisions, facilitating activity of business in Ukraine. Oleksiy Honcharuk also served as an external advisor to the First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.

Oleksiy Honcharuk has a degree in law from Interregional Academy of Personal Management and in Public Administration from National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. He was born on July 7, 1984, in Zhmerynka, Vinnytsia region.

CV
Former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at FSI

Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996
0
Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton, she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship, awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World, co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006); After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997); and Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ilia State University in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia.

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Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
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Strengthen U.S. Security Through Nuclear Arms Reductions

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Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons pose a far greater threat to the safety and security of Americans than is reflected in our public discourse. While the United States must maintain a strong nuclear deterrent as an important tool of U.S. foreign and defense policy, an oversized global arsenal of nuclear weapons makes Americans equally unsafe. It is time to reinvigorate arms control discussions to seek reasonable reductions that will make us all more secure.

Too many nuclear weapons increase the risk of theft by terrorists or other nefarious actors, encourage more countries to develop nuclear arms, and raise the risk of nuclear war. Reasonable arms control measures, taken in conjunction with adversaries like Russia, make Americans safer by diminishing the large Russian nuclear arsenal, reinforcing norms against the development and use of nuclear arms, securing or eliminating nuclear material from theft or misuse by terrorists, and saving money that can be used to strengthen the United States military’s conventional deterrence against costly and destructive wars. 

In order to achieve those goals, Washington and Moscow have cut their strategic nuclear weapons since the height of the Cold War. Through the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which the U.S. and Russia recently extended, both countries each reduced their nuclear arsenals to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads arming no more than 700 deployed strategic ballistic missiles and bombers.

Yet, despite these historic cuts, the United States and Russia each still have far more nuclear weapons than either side could conceivably use in a conflict, and at least ten times more weapons than any other country in the world. This actually makes Americans less safe, rather than the other way around.

In 2013, the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that the United States could safely reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads by one-third. The Biden administration should use that study—along with the current Nuclear Posture Review– to set the United States on the path to reasonable reductions. 

The Biden administration should aim for new negotiations between the United States and Russian to limit each country’s armed forces to 1,000 deployed strategic warheads. The agreement can be executed incrementally, and the sides might informally agree once negotiations began to deploy no more than 1,400 strategic warheads, as an early confidence-building measure. This first step is an easy and safe one to take, as there have been times over the past decade when both countries already deployed fewer than 1,400 strategic warheads.

As part of a bold new vision for arms control and strategic stability, U.S. negotiators should seek an agreement that encompasses all U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads, including reserve (non-deployed) strategic warheads, and non-strategic nuclear weapons. Negotiators should work to limit all nuclear warheads to no more than 2,500 each, with an embedded sub-limit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads within the overall aggregate limit. Even with the dramatic arsenal reductions outlined here, the United States would maintain the ability to deter and, if necessary, defend against any global adversary.

Such a nuclear arms reduction agreement would have significant additional advantages for the United States:

First, it could position Washington and Moscow to press China to freeze or limit its build-up of nuclear arms as long as the United States and Russia are reducing their nuclear arsenals. 

Second, such an agreement could give the Pentagon additional resources to support wider force modernization requirements for nuclear and conventional forces alike, including new ballistic missile submarines and the B-21 bomber. If we have the forces to deter conventional conflict, we dramatically reduce the prospect of nuclear war.

Third, such an agreement would bolster America’s non-proliferation credentials and leadership. A new U.S.-Russia nuclear arms reductions treaty may not lead North Korea to abandon its nuclear program overnight, but it would increase the ability of U.S. diplomats to urge third countries to pressure and sanction outliers such as North Korea.

Right-sizing U.S. and global nuclear arsenals strengthens deterrence, reduces proliferation risks, and lowers the threat of nuclear war to the United States and our allies. The Biden administration has an opportunity to reduce that risk. It should seize it.

Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation. Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry Research Fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Originally for Defense One

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Guided missile submarine USS Ohio (SSGN 726). | Dave Fliesen/U.S. Navy via Getty Images
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Biden has an opportunity to bolster deterrence, reduce proliferation risks, and lower the risk of nuclear war.

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