About the event: The battlefield of Ukraine has been a laboratory for understanding what 21st-century conflict will look like. Having provided many of the capabilities that Ukraine has used and depended on—from Abrams tanks to Patriot missiles—the U.S. Army is now at the forefront of keeping Ukraine in the fight, while learning important lessons about how the Army must transform itself for the future. The Honorable Gabe Camarillo serves as the 35th Under Secretary of the Army, responsible for building and executing a $187 billion annual budget and overseeing the training and equipping of more than 970,000 Army Soldiers. His conversation with former NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller will illuminate key insights from Ukraine as the Army thinks through its future strategies, technologies, and capabilities.

About the speaker: The Honorable Gabe Camarillo was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 3, 2022 and sworn in as the 35th Under Secretary of the Army on February 8, 2022. As the Under Secretary of the Army, Mr. Camarillo serves as the Army’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Management Officer, helping oversee a budget of more than $170 billion and sharing responsibility for the manning, training, and equipping of more than 970,000 Soldiers across the active, Guard, and Reserve components. Mr. Camarillo is also responsible for the Army’s enterprise management and business operations as well as budget development and execution.

Mr. Camarillo’s prior career includes significant experience in law, government, national security and private industry. Mr. Camarillo previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Manpower & Reserve Affairs) where he was responsible for military and civilian personnel and reserve component matters for the Air Force. He previously also served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics & Technology), helping to lead and supervise Army modernization programs, procurement, logistics and R&D investment.

His private sector experience includes legal practice at several law firms with emphasis in the areas of commercial litigation, campaign finance law and government ethics. Mr. Camarillo also taught campaign finance law as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Recently, Mr. Camarillo served as Senior Vice President at SAIC, where he led two business units for an engineering and IT services company.

Mr. Camarillo received a Bachelor of Arts in Government at Georgetown University and a law degree from Stanford University.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

About the Event: The civilian role in managing the military has never been more important. Today, civilian leadership of defense policy is challenged by the blurring line between war and competition and the speed of machine decision-making on the battlefield. Moreover, the legitimacy of political leaders and civil servants has been undermined by a succession of foreign policy failures and by imbalances of public faith in the military on the one hand and disapproval of civilian institutions on the other. A central question emerges: What does appropriate and effective civilian control of the military look like?

In this book talk, Dr. Alice Friend will combine scholarly expertise with firsthand civilian experience in the Department of Defense to argue that civilians combine authoritative status, institutional functions, and political expertise to ensure that democratic preferences over the use of force prevail. Friend focuses on the ways political context shapes whether and how civilian controllers—the civilians in professional and institutional positions with the responsibility for defense matters—exercise control over the military and each other.

About the Speaker: Alice Friend is a foreign and tech policy expert, with experience in the U.S. federal government, NGOs, the UN system, and academia. She has a PhD in International Relations and was previously the vice president for research and analysis at the Institute for Security and Technology. Her other experience includes performing research at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, roles as a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington DC, and adjunct professorships at Georgetown University and American University. She served in several positions in the U.S. Department of Defense across two presidential administrations and is the author of Mightier than the Sword: Civilian Control of the Military and the Revitalization of Democracy published by Stanford University Press. Alice has published articles in the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, and Just Security. Her work at Google focuses on national and international artificial intelligence policies and governance.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Join us for an engaging conversation with Ambassador of Lithuania to the United States Audra Plepytė and Director of the Freeman-Spogli Institute Michael McFaul on Russia’s war against Ukraine, its global implications, and transatlantic support to Ukraine

As we are nearing 1,000 days of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the debate in Washington, D.C., and European capitals remains on what Ukraine can and cannot do to defend itself, its territory, and the whole democratic world. Lithuania has been among the most vocal supporters of Ukraine advocating that instead of Western commitments to stand with Ukraine as long as it takes, commitment to Ukraine’s victory is needed.

The event will feature a discussion on what is at stake in Russia’s war on Ukraine and why it matters beyond Ukraine and Europe. Ambassador Plepytė and Professor McFaul will discuss security on NATO’s Eastern flank, Western strategy for Ukraine, and the U.S. role in standing up to the new ‘axis of evil’ in defense of democracy and the free world.

Opening remarks will be delivered by Michael Keller, Vice Provost and University Librarian.

This in-person event is free and open to the public. RSVP is requested.

Ambassador Audra Plepytė was appointed as Lithuania’s Ambassador to the United States of America and to the United Mexican States in 2021. Before this she was a Lithuanian Permanent Representative to the United Nations where she facilitated several negotiations, led the Group of Friends, and was elected to executive bodies of UN instruments and institutions, including being elected as the President of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2021. As a career diplomat for over 30 years, she has held numerous positions within the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dealing with bilateral and multilateral issues, heading the European Union Department (2014–2017), the Personnel Department, and International Missions and Conflict Prevention Division. She was also Lithuania’s ambassador to Spain, World Tourism Organization from 2010 till 2014.
 

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

This event is part of Global Conversations, a series of talks, lectures, and seminars hosted by Stanford University Libraries and Vabamu with the goal of educating scholars, students, leaders, and the public on the benefits of but also challenges related to sustaining freedom.

About the event: Governments often impose oversight of the police. Proponents argue that oversight curbs bad behavior, while critics counter that it sparks harmful backlash. We provide evidence from the staged rollout of a new code of criminal procedure in Colombia, which introduced judicial oversight of arrests. Judicial oversight caused a 40% drop in the number of arrests, we find, and a simultaneous improvement in arrest quality. Arrests for low-level crimes like vandalism plummeted, while arrests for serious crimes (like homicide) did not decline. Colombia thus reversed the hemisphere-wide run-up in policing of minor offenses, without police backlash and likely without causing a major crime wave.

About the speaker: Dorothy Kronick is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, U.C. Berkeley. She is a political scientist studying crime, policing, and democracy in contemporary Latin America. Her research on these topics has been published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, and Science, among other outlets. Prior to joining GSPP, she was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania; prior to that, she received her PhD from Stanford University.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Reception to follow from 5:00pm - 6:30pm in the lobby in front of the William J. Perry Conference Room

About the event: Thirty years ago, the idea that China could challenge the United States economically, globally, and militarily seemed unfathomable. Yet today, China is considered a great power. How did China manage to build power in international system that was largely dominated by the United States? What factors determined the strategies Beijing pursued to achieve this feat? Using authoritative Chinese sources and granular data, this book demonstrates that China was able to climb to great power status through a careful mix of emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship on the international stage. This “upstart” strategy—determined by where and how China chose to compete—allowed China to rise economically, politically, and militarily without triggering a catastrophic international backlash that would stem its rise. China emulated the United States (pursued similar strategies in similar areas) when its leaders thought doing so would build power while reassuring the United States of its intentions. China exploited (adopted similar approaches in new areas of competition) when it felt that the overall US strategy was effective but didn’t want to risk direct confrontation. China pursued entrepreneurial actions (innovative approaches to new and existing areas of competition) when it believed a more effective approach was available that would better enable Communist Party control. Beyond explaining the unique nature of China’s rise, this book provides insights into the next twenty-five years of Chinese power as well as policy guidance on how the United States can maintain a competitive edge in this new era of great power competition.

About the speaker: Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a Non-Resident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve China Global Strategy. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016 (CGO) and 2022 (FGO). She has published widely, including in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, the Economist and the New York Times. Her most recent book, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power (Oxford University Press, 2024), evaluates China’s approach to competition. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. Her publications and other commentary can be found at www.orianaskylarmastro.com and on twitter @osmastro.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.