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Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

In Florida, Dark Clouds Cover the Abe-Trump Summit

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When Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and President Donald Trump meet again in the familiar surroundings of the President’s Mar-a-Lago estate, every effort will be made to convey the impression of a gathering of two old friends, united in common purpose.

But since their previous meetings, cracks have opened up over key issues, beginning with trade but including foreign policy problems from North Korea to Russia and Iran.

For Abe, desperately trying to keep his own premiership alive, the goal is simple – to look like a leader who must be kept in place for the benefit of Japan.

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From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia

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Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia and director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, shares an inside account of U.S.-Russia relations. In 2008, when he was asked to step away from Stanford and join an unlikely presidential campaign, Professor McFaul had no idea that he would find himself at the beating heart of one of today’s most contentious and consequential international relationships. Marking the publication of his new book, From Cold War to Hot Peace, this talk combines history and memoir to tell the full story of U.S.-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of Vladimir Putin.

 

 

Michael McFaul, MA '86, is a professor of political science, director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has served the Obama administration as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House, and most recently as the U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation. Professor McFaul has written and edited several books on international relations and foreign policy and his op-ed writings have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. His latest book is From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia. As a NBC News analyst, he provides expertise on foreign affairs and national security coverage.

 

This event is co-sponsored by The European Security Initiative & Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University. It is free and open to the public.

 

CEMEX Auditorium

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Michael A. McFaul

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

McFaul 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).

McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. 

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
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Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Nick Clegg: Brexit and Europe - what happens now?

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With the UK on the brink of exiting the European Union, prominent British voices are calling for the country to reconsider its decision to leave. A crucial parliamentary vote later this year will be the key moment, heralding either a last stand in favour of Britain's place in Europe or the unravelling of the country's forty-year membership of the world's most sophisticated supranational entity. In this lecture the former British deputy Prime Minister explores the origins of the UK’s troubled relationship with the EU, explains the current deep divisions in British politics, and charts an alternative course for the UK within a reformed Europe.

Photo of The Rt Hon Sir Nick Clegg

The Rt Hon Sir Nick Clegg served as Deputy Prime Minister in Britain’s first post war Coalition Government from 2010 to 2015. He was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015 and was a Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam for 12 years.

Prior to his entry into British politics, he served as a leading Member of the European Parliament on trade and industry affairs and as an international trade negotiator in the European Commission dealing with the accession of China and Russia into the World Trade Organization.

As Deputy Prime Minister, Sir Nick occupied the second highest office in the country at a time when the United Kingdom was recovering from a deep recession following the banking crisis of 2008, and hugely controversial decisions were needed to restore stability to the public finances. During that time, he oversaw referenda on electoral reform and Scottish independence, and extensive reforms to the education, health and pensions systems. He was particularly associated with landmark changes to the funding of schools, early years’ education and the treatment of mental health within the NHS. His book, ‘Politics: Between the Extremes’, is a reflection on his time in Government and the place of liberalism in the current political landscape.

Sir Nick is one of the most high-profile pro-European voices in British politics, and has played an influential role in the debate leading up to and since the EU referendum in June 2016. His insight into the most senior levels of UK government, combined with an integral understanding and experience of European politics, contacts at the highest levels of government across the EU, and fluency in five European languages, mean that his views and analysis on the current Government’s Brexit negotiations continue to be in high demand. He published his second best-selling book - ‘How to Stop Brexit - and Make Britain Great Again’ - in October 2017.

As well as leading his small think tank, Open Reason, Sir Nick is a Global Commissioner for the Global Commission on Drugs Policy, Chairman of the Social Mobility Foundation and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE’s School of Public Policy. He remains an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and center ground politics, of radical measures to boost social mobility, and of an internationalist approach to world affairs. He received a knighthood in the 2018 New Years Honours list, for his political and public service.

Koret-Taube Conference Center
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building
366 Galvez Street

Sir Nick Clegg Former Deputy Prime Minister, United Kingdom speaker
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Hate Spin: Disinformation Campaigns and Identity Politics in Asia

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Hate propaganda has been a feature of politics in India, Indonesia, and other Asian democracies long before the recent surge in interest in so-called “fake news” and intolerant populism in the West. This presentation dissects the political strategy of “hate spin,” which includes not only the use of hate speech or incitement, but also the creative manufacture of righteous indignation and popular mobilization framed as responses to victimhood. Examples include the “love jihad” conspiracy theory in India and blasphemy allegations in Indonesia, which have been used to devastating effect by religious nationalists. Existing religious-offense laws have backfired, while incitement laws, though necessary, are systemically incapable of dealing with hate propagandists’ highly sophisticated and distributed disinformation campaigns.  The speaker's book on this topic, Hate Spin, will be available for sale at his talk.

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Cherian George is a professor of media studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is the author of Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and its Threat to Democracy (2016), which was named on Publishers Weekly’s list of the 100 best books of 2016. Prof. George’s PhD is from Stanford University’s Department of Communication (2003). He was previously a journalist with The Straits Times in his native Singapore. His latest book on Singapore is the self-published Singapore, Incomplete: Reflections on a First World Nation’s Arrested Political Development (2017).

Cherian George Professor of Media Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University
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Research into impact of gun violence on public health highlighted as issue becomes part of national dialogue

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As millions marched against gun violence across the country on Saturday, research by Stanford Health Policy experts about the impact of gun ownership on public health was also in the spotlight.

The Washington Post published an in-depth story about how the work of gun researchers is finally getting attention — an unfortunate consequence of the recent mass shootings in the United States.

David Studdert — a professor of medicine and law — and Yifan Zhang, a biostatics and data analyst with Stanford Health Policy, along with seasoned gun researcher Garen Wintemute of UC Davis’s Violence Prevention Research Program, are trying to answer the question: Are you more or less likely to die if you own a firearm?

“The explosion of national interest in the problem of gun violence since the Parkland shooting has been remarkable,” said Studdert, who is also a core faculty member at Stanford Health Policy.  “And it is inspiring to hear students’ voices — that is definitely a new twist in the politics around this issue. I think there is momentum for change, but I remain pessimistic that we will see the enactment of any substantial reforms at the federal level.”

The Post wrote:

Studdert’s group is using a data set unique to California because of the state’s strict gun laws. Every time a gun is sold in California, a background check logs the purchase and purchaser with California authorities, who also have been unique in their willingness to share such politically fraught data with academic researchers.

 

Using a sample of 25 million people (taken from California’s voter registration records), Studdert’s team plans to identify handgun owners with the firearm sales records, then compare that against state death records.

 

The resulting data in theory will help them determine the relationship — whether good or bad — between gun ownership and death.

 

They call the project LongSHOT, a nod to the project’s scale and ambition.

 

Academic researchers who were studying the impact of gun violence on public health were dealt a huge financial and political blow in 1996, when the so-called Dickey Amendment was passed by Congress under pressure from gun lobbyists. The law forbids the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund research that might be seen as advocating for gun control. This choked off federal grant money and essential data-gathering on gun violence.

But tucked into the government spending bill in Congress last week was language that indicates the CDC now has the authority to conduct research on the causes and effects of gun violence. Though gun researchers are skeptical that the change in tone will lead to any significant support or funding, some believe that it’s a start. The $1.3 trillion government funding measure also includes efforts to improve state compliance with the national background check system, as well as funding for school counseling and safety programs.

Again, from The Post story:

Yifan Zhang was finishing her PhD in biostatistics at Harvard five years ago when news broke of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

 

As a graduate student from China, specializing in highly technical design of clinical drug trials, she had little connection to America’s long-running debate over gun violence. But even now, she said, the anguished faces of those parents she saw on television remain seared in her memory.

 

So when she heard about a gun-violence research project at Stanford University that could use the statistical skills she had honed on pharmaceuticals, she jumped at the chance.

 

“I have a son who just turned 1,” said Zhang, 31. “When I think about what I will need to teach him about protecting himself, I think about that school shooting.”

 

Zhang hopes the Stanford team can one day have an impact.

“I think there are going to be some big decisions that the whole country has to make together, and I’m hoping that our research can help provide evidence and information for the decision making,” she said.

 

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A Brief History of Security

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Speaker(s) Bio:

Dr. Stephen J. Stedman
Stephen Stedman is a Freeman Spogli senior fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and FSI, an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

 

 

algee hewitt
Mark Algee-Hewitt is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Literary Lab at Stanford, where he currently holds an Annenberg Faculty Fellowship. His research, which has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, focuses on the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in England and Germany and seeks to combine literary criticism with digital and quantitative analyses of literary texts. Professor Algee-Hewitt directs the Literary Text Mining cluster of the Digital Humanities Minor.

 

 

whitney
Whitney McIntosh is a Research Assistant for the Stanford Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective, within the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. She is a recent graduate from Stanford University, where she studied both International Relations and English, and received interdisciplinary honors through CDDRL. Her honors thesis explored the evolution and internationalization of the concept of security during the interwar period in France, from 1919-1933. Her research interests currently include global populism, post-truth democracy, and the conceptual evolution of security.

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
Stedman_Steve.jpg PhD

Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Director, Program in International Relations
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Deputy Director, Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Mark Algee-Hewitt Assistant Professor, Department of English
Research Assistant for the Stanford Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective
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The U.S.-Indian Partnership: A Linchpin for Asian Peace and Prosperity

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No longer "estranged democracies," relations between the United States and India have been on a steady upward trajectory in recent years, though at times have fallen short of the lofty expectations set by others.  As we look ahead, the significance of a true U.S.-India security and economic partnership is just now coming into focus, and it is clear the potential is enormous.  Indeed, the positive ripple effects of a convergence between the world's two largest democracies would reverberate across Asia.  This opportunity, however, comes amid uncertain times in Asia.  China's march for primacy continues. Dangers from nuclear proliferation and rogue regimes loom large. The fractionalization of states and humanitarian crises are all too common.  We must then ask – what role can the United States and India play together to promote peace and stability, uphold and reinforce the post-World War II order, and shape and build new institutions across Asia and beyond? These are some of the questions Ambassador Verma will tackle in his remarks, while also providing historical context on the issues that have limited U.S.-India ties to-date. He will also provide insight on the future trajectory of the relationship, looking at how the United States and India -- two non-allies -- can work together to promote peace, economic growth, and democratic values during these uncertain times.

 

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Richard Verma is Vice Chairman and Partner at The Asia Group.  He previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to India from 2014 to 2017, where he led one of the largest U.S. diplomatic missions and championed historic progress in bilateral cooperation on defense, trade, and clean energy. Ambassador Verma also oversaw an unprecedented nine meetings between President Obama and Prime Minister Modi – leading to over 100 new initiatives and more than 40 government-to-government dialogues.

Ambassador Verma was previously the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, and also served for many years as the Senior National Security Advisor to the Senate Majority Leader.  He was a member of the WMD and Terrorism Commission and a co-author of their landmark report, “World at Risk.” He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and his military decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal and Air Force Commendation Medal.

In addition to his role at The Asia Group, Ambassador Verma is a Centennial Fellow at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, and he co-chairs the Center for American Progress’ U.S.-India Task Force.  Ambassador Verma is the recipient of the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award, the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship, and was ranked by India Abroad as one of the 50 most influential Indian Americans. He holds degrees from the Georgetown University Law Center (LLM), American University’s Washington College of Law (JD), and Lehigh University (BS).

This colloquia is co-sponsored with the Stanford Center for South Asia

Richard Verma Vice Chair and Partner, The Asia Group, Former U.S. Ambassador to India (2014-2017)
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South Asia Colloquia

Members of U.S. Congress Meet with Stanford Scholars to Discuss North Korea

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Under the guidance of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, thirteen members of Congress convened at Stanford University from March 2-5 to discuss policy options regarding the current North Korea crisis. The representatives deliberated with scholars and practitioners to acquire a better understanding of North Korea and its ruling regime, review the regional actors and their interests, assess the range of potential solutions to the crisis, and determine the role of Congress on this issue.

A report summarizing the program’s dialogue is now available for download. In addition to providing non-attributed comments from the proceedings, the document also includes the itinerary for the three days, the names of participants, as well as a collection of relevant publications.

The Aspen Institute Congressional Program was established in 1983 by former U.S. Senator Dick Clark. The program is for members of the United States Congress, and is both nongovernmental and nonpartisan in design. The program gives senators and representatives the opportunity to delve into complex and critical public policy issues with internationally recognized experts. Lawmakers are given the opportunity to explore policy alternatives in off-the-record settings, while simultaneously building relationships crucial to finding solutions.

 

 

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A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg on ‘The Doomsday Machine’

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Abstract: Must we, should we, possess a Doomsday Machine?  For over half a century there have been two of these in the world: the U.S. and the Russian strategic nuclear systems, tightly coupled together with their respective warning systems, each poised to escalate armed conflict with the other or to preemptively launch a first strike based on strategic or tactical warning that may be a false alarm such as has occurred repeatedly.  Environmental scientists in the last decade have strongly confirmed what was first warned in 1983, that each of these alert systems, aimed as they are at hundreds of targets in or near cities, constitutes a Doomsday Machine.  Firestorms in the burning cities would loft hundreds of millions of tons of smoke and black soot into the global stratosphere--where it would not rain out and would remain for more than a decade--blocking 70% of sunlight, creating ice age conditions on earth and killing all harvest worldwide, starving nearly humans to death.  Neither the Defense Department nor the National Academy of Sciences has ever studied the actual effects, including smoke and resulting famine, to be expected from the existing plans of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for general nuclear war.  Such a study would almost surely show that China's "minimum deterrence" and no-first-use policy is dramatically less dangerous to the future of humanity, on the way to the more distant goal of universal abolition of nuclear weapons. 

Speaker bio: Daniel Ellsberg is the author of three books: The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017), Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers(2002) Risk, Ambiguity and Decision (2001) and Papers on the War (1971). Ellsberg first specialized in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making in the 1950s. As a high-level defense analyst,Ellsberg participated in developing operational guidance for U.S. nuclear war planning during the Kennedy administration. Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has been a lecturer, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful U.S. interventions abroad and the urgent need for patriotic whistleblowing. In December 2006, Ellsberg was awarded the 2006 Right Livelihood Award, in Stockholm, Sweden, “. . .  for putting peace and truth first, at considerable personal risk, and dedicating his life to inspiring others to follow his example.” He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1962.

Daniel Ellsberg Author
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