Donald Trump did not have to withdraw from the INF Treaty. But now that he has set the wheels in motion, what does that mean for America's national security? Steven Pifer, William  J. Perry Fellow at CISAC, explores this question in this piece, which originally appeared in The National Interest.

President Donald Trump announced at a campaign rally on October 20 that the United States would withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. During his October 22–23 visit to Moscow, National Security Advisor John Bolton confirmed that the president intended to withdraw from the treaty.

Keeping the treaty in place presumably would require that Trump change his mind, which at a minimum would require that the Kremlin agree to take corrective action to come back into compliance. That’s not going to happen.

The treaty was already on life support. Trump is pulling the plug, and the United States will exit the agreement six months after it gives formal notification. Russia bears primary responsibility for the treaty’s demise, but both Europe and the United States could have done more to try to save it.

The INF Treaty

Soviet deployment of SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the mid-1970s gave rise to concern in Europe about a gap between U.S. and Soviet INF capabilities. In 1979, NATO adopted the “dual-track” decision: the Alliance agreed to deploy U.S. intermediate-range missiles in Europe while the United States sought to negotiate limits on such missiles with the Soviets.

Early rounds of the INF negotiations yielded little progress. The Soviets walked out in 1983 after the first U.S. missiles arrived in Britain and West Germany. The talks resumed in 1985. This time, they produced agreement. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in December 1987.

The INF Treaty banned all U.S. and Soviet land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. It entered into force in summer 1988. Three years later, the United States and Soviet Union had destroyed almost 2,700 missiles as well as their launchers, all under the most intrusive verification measures ever agreed, including on-site inspections. It was rightly called a landmark agreement.

Moscow’s Responsibility

Moscow appeared satisfied with the treaty’s performance up until the early 2000s. Senior Russian officials then began to express concern that, while the United States and Russia could not have intermediate-range missiles, third countries could. (The exceptions were Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, which, like Russia, remained party to the INF Treaty after the Soviet Union’s collapse.)

Third countries such as South Korea, North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel have developed and deployed intermediate-range missiles, with China producing hundreds. Each of these countries is geographically much closer to Russia than it is to the United States.

So one can understand the Russian concern . . . up to a point. Moscow today has a large and improving military in addition to fifteen times as many nuclear weapons as any country other than the United States. It does not need to match third countries in intermediate-range missiles.

Even if the Kremlin leadership found the situation intolerable, it had an honest way forward. It could have invoked Article XV of the INF Treaty, which allows a party to withdraw with six months notice.

Moscow, however, choose a different path. It developed and deployed a land-based cruise missile of intermediate-range, identified in 2017 as the 9M729 (NATO designator: SSC-8). That violated the treaty’s central provision. When the U.S. government charged that Russia had committed a violation, the Russians stubbornly denied those allegation and accused the United States of three treaty violations (one Russian charge, involving the Aegis Ashore missile defense site in Romania may have some merit, but the other two have no basis).

Moscow professed fidelity to the treaty, in effect laying a trap into which Trump has now clumsily stumbled. By announcing the U.S. intention to withdraw, he has set in motion a train that will leave Washington and be seen as responsible for killing the treaty. In addition, withdrawal from the treaty will allow the Russians to deploy land-based intermediate-range missiles without constraint, missiles for which the U.S. military currently has no land-based counterpart. It will be a win-win for Moscow.

Europe’s Silence

Russia thus bears the major blame for the treaty’s demise: it cheated. But U.S. allies in Europe and Washington itself could have taken more robust measures to steer Moscow back toward compliance and perhaps save the agreement.

U.S. officials first briefed their NATO counterparts about the Russian violation in 2014. From the public evidence, however, the leaders of NATO European members had little concern about that violation. None of them publicly complained about the treaty violation during or after their exchanges with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Nothing suggests that European leaders raised the violation in private either. In spring 2017, after Russia had begun deploying the 9M729, I asked a senior official of a major European ally if his leader would raise the violation when meeting with Putin a week later. He said no with a shrug.

That silence sent a message—unintended, but a message nevertheless—to the Russians: Europeans didn’t worry much about the treaty violation or the 9M729.

Some analysts point to the concern expressed in NATO communiqués. That does not absolve European leaders from not speaking out individually about the Russian violation. Moreover, take take a look at the communiqué language.

In the September 2014 summit communiqué, two months after the U.S. government charged Russia with violating the treaty, NATO leaders said that “it is of paramount importance that disarmament and non-proliferation commitments under existing treaties are honored, including the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which is a crucial element of Euro- Atlantic security. In that regard, Allies call on Russia to preserve the viability of the INF Treaty through ensuring full and verifiable compliance.”

The communiqué from the last NATO summit in July 2018 had tougher language: “Full compliance with the INF Treaty is essential. . . . Allies have identified a Russian missile system, the 9M729, which raises serious concerns. . . . A pattern of behavior and information over many years has led to widespread doubts about Russian compliance. Allies believe that,

in the absence of any credible answer from Russia on this new missile, the most plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the treaty. NATO urges Russia to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and actively engage in a technical dialogue with the United States.”

That language was better, but it hardly amounted to a robust denunciation, and it was buried in paragraph forty-six of a seventy-nine-paragraph communiqué.

Although the INF Treaty applied limits globally, it focused on Europe. European leaders should have pressed Putin hard on the violation, publicly condemned it, and raised political heat on the Kremlin. Their silence contrasts oddly with the public criticism of Trump’s decision voiced in Berlin, Rome and Paris and undermines the credibility of pleas for Washington to remain in the treaty. To put it bluntly, if they didn’t care enough to call out the Russian violation, then why care so much if the United States leaves the treaty?

An Ineffective U.S. Response

The U.S. response to the Russian violation could—and should—have been more forceful. The Obama administration sought to bring Moscow back into compliance, a worthy goal, but it applied little real pressure. Washington convened a meeting of the Special Verification Commission, the body established by the INF Treaty to address, among other things, compliance, only in November 2016—two years after charging a violation.

Pentagon officials described a range of military responses, including efforts to develop better defenses against cruise missiles, the European Reassurance Initiative to boost the U.S. military presence in Central Europe and the Baltics, and investments in new technologies to offset the Russian violation. These measures, however, were largely actions that the Pentagon would take in any case and which would continue even if Moscow corrected its violation. They did not create much incentive for a change in Russian policy.

The Trump administration stated on December 8, 2017—the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the INF Treaty—that it also wanted to bring Russia back into compliance. It announced a three-pronged “integrated strategy” to do so: diplomatic steps, including

convening the Special Verification Commission, creating a military research and development program for a U.S. land-based intermediate-range missile, and enforcing economic sanctions on Russian entities that had been involved in development and production of the 9M729.

This strategy showed no success. The Special Verification Commission met, but by his own admission, Trump has never discussed the violation directly with Putin. The U.S. government either made no effort to stoke up approaches by Allied leaders to the Kremlin or, if it did, then that effort fizzled. Why didn’t U.S. officials use the threat of withdrawal with Allies to persuade them to engage Moscow more earnestly and at the highest level?

As for military steps, research and development on a U.S. intermediate-range missile likely caused little concern for the Russians. Fielding a missile would take years and cost a lot of money, money that the Pentagon does not have. The Russians, moreover, surely understand that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for NATO to reach a consensus on deploying new missiles in Europe. Recalling the huge anti-nuclear protests in Germany, the Netherlands and other countries in the early 1980s, some in the Kremlin might well welcome the intra-Alliance turmoil if NATO were to consider new deployments.

Pentagon officials suggested that the plan to build a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) could be suspended if Russia came back into compliance. That probably did not have much effect on Moscow’s calculations, especially if Russian officials read the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, which laid down additional conditions: “If Russia returns to compliance with its arms control obligations, reduces its non-strategic nuclear arsenal, and corrects other [unspecified] destabilizing behaviors, the United States may reconsider the pursuit of a SLCM.”

Washington could have adopted a more robust military response. The U.S. military could have moved conventionally-armed Joint Air-to-Surface Strike Missiles (JASSMs) to Europe along with B-1 bombers to serve as delivery platforms. It could have increased the number of conventionally-armed SLCMs in European waters, for example, by sending the USS Florida, a converted ballistic missile submarine that can now carry up to 154 SLCMs, on a cruise in the North and Norwegian Seas, with port calls to let everyone know it was there. Such steps could

have been done quickly with existing capabilities, would have fully complied with U.S. treaty obligations, and would have caught the attention of the Russian military.

The U.S. government also could have treated with greater seriousness the Russian charge that the Aegis Ashore deployment in Romania of an Mk-41 launcher system for SM-3 missile interceptors was inconsistent with the treaty. An Mk-41 launcher on a U.S. warship can carry lots of other weapons, including cruise missiles; Russian officials contended that it was a prohibited launcher of land-based intermediate-range missiles. U.S. officials should have made clear to their counterparts that, if they would seriously address U.S. concern about the 9M729, then the U.S. side would deal with the Russian concern about the Mk-41.

Would these political and military steps have succeeded? We will not know, because Washington did not try. If Trump administration officials had a serious game plan for implementing the December “integrated strategy” to bring Russia back into compliance, then that plan was not apparent. That may be explained by John Bolton becoming National Security Advisor in April. A long-time critic of arms control in general, and of the INF Treaty in particular, Bolton probably was just as happy abandoning the treaty.

One other issue has arisen: Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The need to balance against those missiles has been cited as a reason for why the United States is leaving the treaty, but it is unclear if the Pentagon has even decided that it has a requirement for land-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia. In 2017, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a Senate panel that the United States could counter China with air- and sea-based weapons.

R.I.P. INF Treaty

To be sure, Russia committed an egregious violation. The United States could not be expected to remain in the treaty indefinitely under those circumstances. Those who support withdrawal are correct on that point.

However, Trump did not have to withdraw from the treaty at this time, especially when there were political and military measures to apply pressure on Moscow—measures that might have persuaded Russia to come back into compliance. Unfortunately, now we will not know if that tactic would have worked. Instead, the president has delivered a gift to the Russians, who will soon be able to deploy, without constraint, intermediate-range missiles for which the U.S. military has no land-based counterpart. As a bonus for Moscow, Washington will catch the international political flack for the treaty’s demise.

Steven Pifer, a William J. Perry fellow at Stanford and nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, worked extensively on intermediate-range nuclear forces issues in the 1980s in Washington, Geneva and Moscow.

Evolving drone technology will enable countries to make low-cost but highly credible threats against states and groups that do not possess drones, Stanford political scientist Amy Zegart found in new research.

Could the mere threat of using an armed drone ever coerce an enemy to change their behavior – without attacking them?

Yes, says Stanford political scientist Amy Zegart, who argues in a new research paper that countries that simply possess deadly, armed drones could change an adversary’s behavior without even striking them. Zegart is the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“Armed drones are likely to offer coercion ‘windows of opportunity’ in at least one important circumstance: states that have armed drones confronting states that do not,” she said. “As wars grow longer and less conclusive, armed drones enable states to sustain combat operations, making threats to ‘stay the course’ more believable.”

Zegart believes that drone technology is becoming a more effective instrument to change a state’s behavior than yesteryear’s more costly option of using ground troops or large-scale military movements in war or conflict.

“Drones may be turning deterrence theory on its head,” said Zegart, referring to the cost-benefit calculation a potential aggressor makes when assessing an attack.

Zegart’s focus is on next-generation drones, which are essentially unmanned fighter jets and are currently in development. She is not examining the use of existing drones like quadcopters and Reaper and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles.

Foreign military officers surveyed

Zegart’s research is based on surveys of 259 foreign military officers conducted between 2015 and 2017. Participants were highly experienced foreign military officers who were attending classes at the National Defense University and Naval War College.

A drone is an unmanned aircraft that can be piloted remotely to deliver a lethal payload to a specific target.

Today, Zegart said, many scholars are studying whether drone proliferation across the world could change the future of warfare.

“But even here the focus has been the implications for the use of force, not the threat of force,” she said.

New drones are more lethal than ever, offering greater speeds, ranges, stealth and agility, according to Zegart. The U.S. is ahead, but not alone, in using drones. Nine countries have already used armed drones in combat, and at least 20 more are developing lethal drone programs – including Russia and China.

“It is time for a rethink” about drones, Zegart said. Technological advances will soon enable drones to function in hostile environments better than ever before.

“Drones offer three unique coercion advantages that theorists did not foresee: sustainability in long duration conflicts; certainty of precision punishment, which can change the psychology of adversaries; and changes in the relative costs of war,” she said.

Threats involving a high cost may be actually less credible than assumed, said Zegart. Her findings challenge the belief of “cost signals,” a military strategy where a country threatens another with a high-cost option, such as ground troops, which is intended to show resolve.

Drones may actually signal a nation’s resolve more effectively because – as a low-cost option – they can be part of an enduring offensive campaign against an enemy.

“The advent of armed drones suggests that costly signals may no longer be the best or only path to threat credibility,” she said. As wars grow longer and less conclusive, a particular country’s test of resolve becomes “more about sustaining than initiating action.”

“In situations where a coercing state has armed drones but a target state does not, drones make it possible to implement threats in ways that impose vanishingly low costs on the coercer but disproportionately high costs on the target,” Zegart said.

Combat, coercion

Zegart said that throughout history, whenever a new military technology emerges, adversaries have basically faced two choices – either concede or innovate to overcome the other side’s advantage.

“There is no reason to expect drones will be any different. The more that drones are used for combat and coercion, the more likely it will be that others will develop drone countermeasures,” she said.

New weapons often evolve technologically before “game-changing ideas” occur about how to use them, Zegart added. This was true of submarines before World War I, tanks after World War I, airplanes (which originally replaced surveillance balloons and were not used to drop bombs until 1911), and nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

“While physicists in the Manhattan Project developed the first atom bomb in just three years, it took much longer to develop the conceptual underpinnings of deterrence that kept the Cold War cold,” she said.

Drones raise important questions about the role of machines in decision-making during conflict, Zegart said. For example, much has been debated and written about the ethical and legal issues raised by U.S. drone strikes, the usefulness of drone operations against terrorist groups and whether the Pentagon or CIA should control and operate the drones.

Such questions are likely to grow more “numerous and knotty” as drones and other technologies evolve, she said.

Media Contacts

Amy Zegart, Hoover Institution and Center for International Security and Cooperation: zegart@stanford.edu

Clifton B. Parker, Hoover Institution: (650) 498-5205, cbparker@stanford.edu

John W. Lewis, a Stanford political scientist who pioneered new ways of thinking about U.S.-China relations and launched some of the first Asian study programs in higher education, died Monday at his home on the Stanford campus. He was 86.

 

 

Lewis was a prolific scholar and one of the preeminent China specialists of his generation. His deep commitment to using insights from academic research to inform policy deliberations and solve important problems related to international relations and security led him to establish several centers and institutes at Stanford. These institutions supported collective undertakings involving scholars and officials from all over the globe and inspired dozens of graduate students to follow Lewis’ lead to make a tangible difference toward a more peaceful world.

He founded and directed the Center for East Asian Studies from 1969 to 1970, the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy (now the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center), from 1983 to 1990, and, along with theoretical physicist Sidney Drell, co-founded Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) in 1983, serving as a co-director until 1991. Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, CISAC’s precursor, was founded by Lewis and Drell in 1970. Lewis also led CISAC’s Project on Peace and Cooperation in the Asian-Pacific Region.

Expert on Asia

Lewis, the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, Emeritus, and a senior fellow at CISAC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), joined the Stanford faculty in 1968 after teaching for seven years at Cornell University, coming to campus as an expert on China at the apex of public unrest regarding the Vietnam War. As a teacher, he helped lead an interdisciplinary course on nuclear arms and disarmament and engaged in simulated arms control talks with students.

In addition to his work on China, Lewis was a pioneer in dealing with North Korea. He visited the North in 1986 and numerous times thereafter, always with the deep conviction that it was vitally important to listen and learn.  He opened doors long closed by inviting North Korean, South Korean and U.S. officials to meet at Stanford in the early 1990s, and afterwards hosted official North Korean delegations.

He was invited to visit the North Korean nuclear center at Yongbyon after the collapse of the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework in 2002.  This and subsequent visits with Stanford colleagues provided virtually the only direct information on developments at the site, said Thomas Fingar, a Shorenstein APARC Fellow at FSI.

Sig Hecker, a CISAC senior fellow and the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, recalls traveling to North Korea with Lewis in January 2004, a significant time in the country’s nuclear program.

“I would never have gone to North Korea without John,” Hecker said. “He had developed a relationship that allowed us to establish an effective means of communication during the times our governments were not talking. I had worked closely with John on North Korea ever since. He was incredibly knowledgeable and had an intensity that motivated everyone around him.”

Passion for peace

Lewis was extremely active in his retirement, visiting his CISAC office in Encina Hall daily, writing books, giving lectures and archiving his materials. While recovering from a recent fall, Lewis was constantly on the phone with colleagues and continued to collaborate until he lost his ability to speak, said his daughter, Amy Tich, BA ’85.

Above all, he was an advocate of peace, education and talking with – and learning about – the nature of one’s perceived rivals, such as China and North Korea, instead of allowing misinformation and misunderstandings to spread. The word “cooperation” in the title of CISAC emanates from this belief.

How ironic, said Tich, that her father’s death came at a time when relations between the U.S. and North Korea over the North’s nuclear tests are filled with tension.

“He had amazing relationships all across Asia,” Tich said. “He believed in what he was doing to the core of his being. He wanted world peace, to save the world from nuclear war.”

John’s son, Stephen Lewis, AB ’80, MS ’80, MBA ’84, said, “He lived a remarkable life. He made enormous strides in Korean relations and Chinese relations. And he did it with a sense of humor and humility that earned him the right to push because only from pushing through issues do you get answers.”

A Renaissance scholar

Lewis was the Renaissance scholar who bridged the gap between the academic and policy worlds. In the 1970s, he was a major player in the restoration of academic exchanges with China and established ties between U.S. and Chinese academic and governmental institutions that continue today.

In the 1980s, he built enduring ties with the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Moscow that enhanced understanding and collaboration among Americans, Russians, and Chinese.  He launched a project to gather medical expertise at Stanford to deal with North Korea’s severe drug-resistant tuberculosis problem, a project that took him twice to Mongolia to explore the possibility of a regional effort against TB.

Lewis was never satisfied with simply having a problem discussed, said Fingar. He ended every meeting with assembled experts on North Korean issues with a prodding, “A useful discussion. Now, what can we do?”

Lewis helped American business executives, academics, government officials and military officers establish contacts and networks in China. He also led two congressional delegations to Asia. In recognition of his impact, Lewis was invited to serve on the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences; the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the Social Science Research Council; and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

The Stanford scholar also did consulting work for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress.

Born in King County, Washington, in 1930, Lewis gained his first exposure to international issues and institutions as a teenage page at the San Francisco meeting that established the United Nations. His interest in China was inspired by the stories and achievements of missionary relatives who built schools for Chinese girls. After graduating from Deep Springs College (California) in 1949, Lewis earned  his bachelor’s degree (1953), master’s degree (1958) and doctorate (1962) at UCLA. His service as a gunnery officer in the U.S. Navy (1954-1957) kindled his interest in security issues and Korea.

Publications, research

Lewis wrote and co-authored numerous influential books on Asia and international security, including Leadership in Communist China (1963); and  The United States in Vietnam (1967) (with George Kahin); and China Builds the Bomb (1988).

“John’s numerous books about Chinese decision-making regarding nuclear weapons and the Korean War were path-breaking,” said Scott Sagan, a professor of political science and senior fellow at CISAC and FSI. “His work permitted us to see behind ‘the bamboo curtain’ and understand Mao [Zedong] and his successors with more clarity than was possible before.”

Lewis received numerous letters from colleagues and former students in his final days and Tich read all of them to him. Among the praise bestowed on Lewis was his “ability to inspire in me and others profound curiosity and dedication to scholarship,” that he provided “a model of how to bring values to bear on scholarship and global citizenship,” and “[He] represented the perfect mix of academic research and real-time involvement with the world.”

CISAC co-director and FSI Senior Fellow Amy Zegart remembers Lewis’ generosity and enthusiasm.

“I can still remember knocking on John’s door as a young grad student 20 years ago and sheepishly asking if he might be willing to conduct a directed reading course with me about China’s foreign policy,” Zegart said. “He said ‘yes’ immediately. His generosity of spirit and commitment to teaching still infuse CISAC today, and will shape Stanford students for generations to come. It is a true honor to co-direct the center that John and Sid Drell created.”

Lewis is survived by Jacquelyn Lewis, his wife of 63 years; his children Stephen Lewis, Amy Tich and Cynthia Westby; and five grandchildren, Brian, BA ’15, Taryn, Kylie, Katie and Rhys.

In keeping with his life-long commitment to teaching students and training successors, the family requests that anyone wishing to honor Professor Lewis do so by contributing to the John and Jackie Lewis Fund at Stanford University, which supports funding for Stanford graduate students and postdoctoral fellows  doing research on matters related to Asia. Donations to the fund should be made out to Stanford University and sent to the John and Jackie Lewis Fund, in care of Scott Nelson, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, 616 Serra Street, Stanford, California, 94305.

In an oral history interview with the Stanford Historical Society, Lewis recounts his earlier days on campus and the impact of his career. Videos of an 80th birthday celebration for Lewis can be found here.

An anti-poverty aid program that’s been implemented in the Philippines for nearly a decade is gaining attention for the progress it has made in not only helping the poor, but also for its role in decreasing political violence and insurgency.

Joe Felter, senior research scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and research fellow at the Hoover Institution, presented the results of his joint research on the program before senior political figures at a conference in the Philippine capital of Manila in January.

CISAC senior research scholar Joe Felter (left) joins Philippine President Benigno Aquino (right) and the Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development Corazon “Dinky” Soliman (center) onstage at a conference on sustaining the gains of the conditional cash transfer program held in Manila in January, 2016.

“We worked for several years on this study and it was a privilege to provide these findings and results to senior officials in the Philippine government who are in a position to act on them,” said Felter. “It’s really gratifying to know that academic research can contribute to actual improvements in the conditions, livelihood and safety of those in need.”

The focus of the conference was on the conditional cash-transfer (CCT) anti-poverty aid program called Pantawid Pamilya. Administered by Soliman’s Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Philippines began deploying the program in 2007. It is similar to other CCT programs used in Brazil, Columbia, India, Indonesia and Mexico where households must meet certain income thresholds and basic health and education requirements to qualify for its benefits. CCT programs distribute cash payments to targeted poor households and are proving to be an increasingly popular tool for reducing poverty and improving livelihoods in poverty-affected areas.

The effect of aid on conflict

Felter and his colleagues conducted an analysis of the impact of aid on civil conflict that takes advantage of a randomized control trial (RCT) initiated in the Philippines by the World Bank in 2009 as part of an impact evaluation of the Pantawid Pamilya CCT program. Impact evaluations of CCT programs to date limit their findings to those areas the program was intended to address such as health, education, and employment. Published in the January 2016 Journal of Development Economics, the study estimates the effect of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs on two other critical outcomes- civil conflict and insurgent influence.

CISAC senior research scholar Joe Felter shakes hands with Philippine President Benigno Aquino onstage at a conference in the Philippine capital of Manila.

“Considering the types of conflicts taking place around the globe, it is both timely and important to study how aid can be delivered in a manner that reduces poverty without exacerbating conflict,” said Felter. “Development aid can sometimes have the unintended effect of increasing conflict in civil wars when insurgents believe the successful implementation of government-sponsored development projects will boost support for the government and undermine their position.” 

Felter himself is no stranger to international conflict. He retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel in 2012 following a career as a Special Forces and foreign area officer that took him on missions to Central America, Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  Now in academia, he uses data and rigorous quantitative methods to help those in the field better understand and more effectively and efficiently approach the challenges of stabilizing conflict areas through development aid and economic assistance. 

Despite the growing popularity of CCTs, and assessments of their effectiveness at reducing poverty and improving livelihood, there is limited evidence on how the payment programs affect the civil conflict often present in these poverty stricken areas. Felter, along with his coauthors Benjamin Crost of the University of Illinois, and Patrick Johnston of RAND Corporation, took advantage of the World Bank’s randomized experiment to identify the effect CCT programs had on conflict-related incidents and the influence of insurgent groups, even though the experiment was not originally designed to study the effect of Pantawid Pamilya on these outcomes. Their research compared these aspects of the CCT program’s impact in treatment villages to control villages in the Philippines from 2009-2011.

The Philippines is home to some of the world’s most protracted civil conflicts, including a separatist insurgency in Mindanao island with roots dating back to Spanish colonial times, and a decades long communist insurgency affecting nearly all of the country’s provinces across this archipelago.

“Studying the impact of conditional cash transfers on political violence and insurgent influence in the Philippines is especially instructive and generalizable because you have multiple, long-running insurgencies, each with distinct characteristics, and with an array of government sponsored aid programs implemented in these areas over time,” said Felter.

Two key findings resulted from the team’s analysis. First, the CCT program caused a substantial reduction in the number of conflict-related incidents in the villages where it was administered. Second, the program was effective at reducing insurgent influence in the treated villages. Significantly, their findings provide evidence that the effects of CCTs can differ from other types of aid interventions based on the type of aid provided and how it is implemented.

“That Pantawid Pamilya helped reduce the presence of rebel groups in the targeted villages is especially consequential.” Felter said. “A program that reduces violence by weakening insurgent influence is likely to have more beneficial long-term effects since insurgent influence can still undermine the rule of law and oppress citizens even without violence.”

Not all aid programs created equal

An effective aid program such as this can result in more than an economic boost for a village or community and a reduction in violence. It can also provide a psychological victory that enables the government to gain increased support from the local population – effectively “winning hearts and minds” – thus potentially enabling the government to gain better security through increased cooperation and information sharing about insurgents from the population. This is a win-win result, especially in regions where insurgents often gain support by exposing weaknesses of the government, not just through fear and coercion. Insurgents win when they are able to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of a local population whose own government is unable to provide for their basic needs.

However, a “winning hearts and minds” strategy for disbursing government aid can sometimes backfire depending on how these programs are carried out. For example, KALAHI-CIDSS, a large-scale community-driven development (CDD) infrastructure program took place in similar regions in the Philippines during the same time period as the Pantawid Pamilya experiment period. This aid program was also implemented by the DSWD, but in some cases led to different and unintended results. The CDD program was designed to empower the poorest Filipino municipalities through enhanced participation in community projects and training, but the way in which the projects were determined and the mechanisms they were delivered created incentives and opportunities for insurgents to attack the projects, resulting in increased local conflict in some cases where the program was implemented. CDD programs involve a series of public meetings and result in the implementation of widely publicized and often highly visible infrastructure projects. As a result, insurgents often attack these government “hearts and minds” initiatives that, if successful, threaten to shift popular support away from their rebel groups and towards the government.

In contrast to CDD programs, CCT programs disburse aid directly to its beneficiaries’ bank accounts, making it difficult for insurgents to anticipate when and where the transfers are occurring and inhibiting their capacity to disrupt and dismantle the program. The findings in Felter’s study provide preliminary evidence that the type of aid and mechanism in which it is delivered can be a major factor in determining its impact on civil conflict.

“The stakes are high in human and economic terms when it comes to stabilizing conflict areas and preventing a return of the deadly violence associated with civil wars and insurgency,” said Felter.

The results of this study provide rare empirical evidence that some forms of aid, and how it is implemented can reduce the intensity of civil conflict and the influence of the groups responsible for it. This evidence can help governments determine what type of aid to invest in to achieve their desired results.

“Distributing aid effectively and achieving maximum benefits from these investments is definitely a challenge and an area where more research is needed to better appreciate the many nuances and complexities of these efforts,” said Felter.

During the two-day conference in Manila, President Aquino noted how his administration had increased the CCT budget to cover close to 4.4 million poor households, up from 786,000 five years ago.

You can read Felter’s full paper in the January issue of the Journal of Development Economics.

CISAC's Honors Program in International Studies recently awarded three prizes to some of its students, instead of the traditional two. “At the end of the year we award prizes to three of the thesis writers. It’s always a hard decision to make because they are all really good,” said FSI Senior Fellow and Honors Co-director Martha Crenshaw.

Taylor Grossman, Patrick Cirenza, and Teo Lamiot were awarded the Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, the William J. Perry Prize, and the John Holland Slusser World Peace Prize, respectively. They presented their work in front of faculty, advisors, and friends at a packed seminar in early June.

The Perry Prize, named after former Defense Secretary and current FSI Senior Fellow William Perry, is awarded to a student for excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies. Cirenza’s thesis, “An Evaluation of the Analogy between Nuclear and Cyber Deterrence,” examined whether cyber weapons can be accurately understood by comparing them to nuclear weapons.

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“My thesis topic definitely evolved over time,” Cirenza said. “I really did not know that much about cyber weapons. I initially wanted to look at non-state actors in cyber space and I asked Professor Scott Sagan about that and he asked what I knew about cyber and the reality was I really did not know anything. But I still really wanted to study it and at the time I was in Condoleezza Rice’s seminar and she suggested examining the analogy between nuclear and cyber weapons, which was being used a lot at the time. I went through several different topics and ultimately landed on deterrence.”

Cirenza was advised by FSI Senior Fellow Coit Blacker, who co-directs the honors program with Crenshaw, and by consulting professor Phil Taubman. Next fall he will attend Cambridge for a one year M.Phil program in international relations. After that he hopes to join the Marine Corps infantry.

“I never wanted a desk job in my twenties and I think it’s the best way to serve my country at this time,” he said.

The newly created Slusser Prize goes to the thesis that best contributes to the development of “permanent world peace.” Lamiot’s thesis, “When Blue Helmets Do Battle: Civilian Protection in the Democratic Republic of the Congo” examined whether the use of force against rebel groups in the DRC by UN peacekeepers had any effect on atrocities committed against civilians. He was advised by FSI Senior Fellow Stephen Stedman, who formerly served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Lamiot started formulating his thesis topic when he was working in the U.S. embassy in the DRC. “I worked in the unit that is tasked with monitoring the conflict in the eastern part of the country. Part of my work was investigating a massacre that had taken place in that region about a month before I arrived in country. The massacre was of interest to the U.S. government because the Congolese and U.N. peacekeeping forces stationed nearby did not respond to the massacre despite knowing that it was going on,” he recounted.

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“This sparked my interest and, at first, I wanted to answer the question why do peacekeepers use force in some cases but not in others, but I ultimately decided on answering what happens when they do use force. I’m hoping that my argument that in some cases using force has positive effects and decreases rebel violence against civilians informs these decision-makers on the ground when they are choosing what to do.”

After graduation Lamiot will be on a Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law fellowship in Uganda doing development work. “I’ll likely be working on democratic and political development. I’m trying to learn something about how outside actors can try to bring about these development outcomes in foreign countries.”

The Firestone Medal is a Stanford-wide prize awarded to the top ten percent of all honors theses in social science, science, and engineering. Grossman, who will also graduate with a B.A. Political Science, wrote hers on homeland security and the evolution of terrorism advisory systems. She was advised by CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart.

“I really wanted to look at effectiveness of communication and intelligence sharing, but in a way that I could actually see government information. That led me to public warning systems for terrorism where there is a lot of public information available. Not a lot has been written on how effective they are, how they operate, or how they have evolved,” Grossman said.

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After graduation she plans on joining the Hoover Institution as a research assistant.

“I feel like I majored in CISAC. Ever since I took the class ‘The Face of Battle’ with Professor Scott Sagan and Colonel Joe Felter, I’ve been hooked on international security and the issues CISAC focuses on. I think the honors program has been the defining part of my undergraduate career. It was really rewarding and challenging and I’m glad I did it.”

Grossman and Cirenza were also elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in May 2015, as was Geo Saba, a political science major. Phi Beta Kappa is a nationwide society honoring students for the excellence and breadth of their undergraduate scholarly accomplishments.

Additionally, the Stanford Alumni Association (SAA) selected Cirenza, Grossman, and Akshai Baskaran, who majored in chemical engineering, to receive an Award of Excellence. 

Congratulations to all graduates of the Class of 2015: Akshai Baskaran, Patrick Cirenza, Kelsey Dayton, Taylor Grossman, Sean Hiroshima, Annie Kapnick, Sarah Kunis, Teo Lamiot, Austin Lewis, Sam Rebo, Geo Saba, Eliza Thompson, and Adrienne von Schulthess.