An American of Indian descent is focused on the economic impasse between New Delhi and Islamabad and a Polish immigrant is fascinated by the Soviet-era biological weapons program. A young woman from Taiwan wonders whether historical memory is fueling nationalism in China, and a Bahraini is investigating the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in his part of the world. Yet another intends to run for public office. 

All this – and they’ve yet to graduate. 

This year’s 12 honors students at the Center for International Security and Cooperation – Stanford seniors drawn to public policy and international affairs – represent the best of what the university offers: diversity, a passion for learning outside the classroom and a determination to make an impact once they venture out into the world. 

Even two weeks in Washington, D.C., did little to dissuade them from potential careers in public policy. They met with dozens of politicians, journalists, military analysts, lobbyists and experts from the leading private organizations and government agencies in the nation’s capital. While congratulated on their ambitions, the students were cautioned that Washington has become a brutal and highly divisive place to work. 

“You gravitate toward public policy and you’re likely to become a leader,” former U.S. Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Virginia, told the students at a meeting in the Beaux Art landmark that has housed the American Red Cross since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

 Robb listened to their thesis topics, offered advice and contacts, and took questions about world policy and events. He then joined the chorus of others inside the beltway lamenting the poisonous partisan politics of Capitol Hill. 

“It’s just toxic,” said Robb, who now promotes common ground between Democrats and Republicans as a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center. “You just can’t get anything done. I think we’ll have a lame duck session in Congress and nothing will happen until March. Then, a full-scale depression next spring – and I think the markets will crash.” 

The students had heard likeminded pessimism earlier that day from Walter Pincus, who covers intelligence, security and foreign policy for The Washington Post. He said PR and TV now run Congress because candidates consistently worry about how their comments on camera will be used against them in their next re-election campaign. 

“Politics are totally polarized in a way I’ve never seen before,” said Pincus, who teaches a seminar about government and the media in the Stanford-in-Washington program. Compounding the misery, he said, is the nearly $1 billion spent on political ads trashing opposing candidates in the exhaustive presidential campaign. 

“We go off and tell the rest of the world they ought to have elections, but our elections have become a PR operation,” Pincus said. “So – that’s my happy view of the world.” 

The students laughed nervously. That evening, they chatted in front of the White House about all the negativity they had heard that day. Some seemed spooked. Others made that clarion call of each new generation: It’s our turn to make things right. 

“I believe that each of us has a duty and responsibility to do what is right, what is just, and to move the world – our country and our community – at least one step forward to make each day brighter than the last,” said David Hoyt, an international relations major who aspires to public office. “And I believe that students in CISAC, by coming together and addressing these … pressing issues of our time, are starting that process.” 

The Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies at CISAC is a competitive program in which 12 seniors are chosen from among all Stanford majors to spend their final year investigating a global security issue. They are mentored and attend seminars and classes taught by CISAC faculty and researchers and present a thesis at the end of the year. They come to think of Encina Hall as a place where their ideas count.

“I always thought of CISAC as my intellectual home at Stanford,” said Jane Esberg, an honors student from the class of 2009 who is now at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and intends to pursue her Ph.D. in political science. “It was the first place where I felt like everybody thought about things that I really cared about. They never really treated me like a student – they always treated me like a colleague.”

Martha Crenshaw, a Senior Fellow at CISAC and its umbrella, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is an expert on political terrorism and has directed the Honors Program for three years. She co-teaches s weekly honors seminar with Joe Felter, a senior research scholar at CISAC and retired U.S. Army colonel and Special Forces officer.  

“It’s a special pleasure to work with a small group of very talented and imaginative students who have such diverse interests,” Crenshaw said. 

The Washington leg of the program, known as Honors College, takes place in the two weeks before the academic year begins. The students also visit national battlefields to reconstruct war policy; a private tour of the National Portrait Gallery allows them to recount U.S. history through the individuals who shaped the great American story. 

The two weeks also helps them bond and unveil their thesis topics. 

“The secret of the honors program is the interaction,” Tom Fingar, the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at FSI, told the students on their first night. They had gathered in a hotel conference room for the inaugural hashing out of their theses – some of which would change dramatically after two weeks of feedback in Washington. 

“You are going to be one another's most valuable critics,” said Fingar, an East Asia expert and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council who spent 23 years in the U.S. government. “In the end, this is your product, but your product that is informed by a collaborative process.” 

Fingar has been escorting the students around Washington since the program's inception in 2000. His years in intelligence and at the White House and State Department opened doors to counterterrorism and intelligence officials at State, the National Security Council, Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. The students also met those who strive for public policy toward peace and reconciliation, at the Eurasia Group, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Amnesty International and the Stimson Center. 

The students got an earful on how to operate if they gravitate toward capital careers and were encouraged to take time before determining what they wanted to do with their professional lives. 

“I quickly realized that I don’t like doing law,” said Matthew Rojansky, a Stanford Law School grad who is deputy director of the Russia-Eurasia Program at Carnegie, when asked about the benefits of law school. “Don’t jump into it with any uncertainty or reservations. Take time after school. You guys have a lot of options in your lives.” 

The next day, the students met national security and terrorism correspondents at The New York Times. They asked the reporters about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, the covert use drones, and whether cyberwarfare is the next big security challenge. 

“The CISAC honors students are an amazingly talented group that we look forward to meeting every year,” said Eric Schmitt, who covers terrorism and national security for the Times and was a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford. “As journalists working in Washington, we’re able to give them insights from the front lines on the policies and politics of their research topics.”

President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third debate to discuss foreign policy on Monday, when moderator Bob Schieffer is sure to ask them about last month's terrorist attack in Libya and the nuclear capabilities of Iran.

In anticipation of the final match between the presidential candidates, researchers from five centers at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ask the additional questions they want answered and explain what voters should keep in mind.

What can we learn from the Arab Spring about how to balance our values and our interests when people in authoritarian regimes rise up to demand freedom?  

What to listen for: First, the candidates should address whether they believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to support other peoples’ aspirations for freedom and democracy. Second, they need to say how we should respond when longtime allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak confront movements for democratic change.

And that leads to more specific questions pertaining to Arab states that the candidates need to answer: What price have we paid in terms of our moral standing in the region by tacitly accepting the savage repression by the monarchy in Bahrain of that country's movement for democracy and human rights?  How much would they risk in terms of our strategic relationship with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by denouncing and seeking to restrain this repression? What human rights and humanitarian obligations do we have in the Syrian crisis?  And do we have a national interest in taking more concrete steps to assist the Syrian resistance?  On the other hand, how can we assist the resistance in a way that does not empower Islamist extremists or draw us into another regional war?  

Look for how the candidates will wrestle with difficult trade-offs, and whether either will rise above the partisan debate to recognize the enduring bipartisan commitment in the Congress to supporting democratic development abroad.  And watch for some sign of where they stand on the spectrum between “idealism” and “realism” in American foreign policy.  Will they see that pressing Arab states to move in the direction of democracy, and supporting other efforts around the world to build and sustain democracy, is positioning the United States on “the right side of history”?

~Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

What do you consider to be the greatest threats our country faces, and how would you address them in an environment of profound partisan divisions and tightly constrained budgets? 

What to listen for: History teaches that some of the most effective presidential administrations understand America's external challenges but also recognize the interdependence between America's place in the world and its domestic situation.

Accordingly, Americans should expect their president to be deeply knowledgeable about the United States and its larger global context, but also possessed of the vision and determination to build the country's domestic strength.

The president should understand the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorist organizations. The president should be ready to lead in managing the complex risks Americans face from potential pandemics, global warming, possible cyber attacks on a vulnerable infrastructure, and failing states.

Just as important, the president needs to be capable of leading an often-polarized legislative process and effectively addressing fiscal challenges such as the looming sequestration of budgets for the Department of Defense and other key agencies. The president needs to recognize that America's place in the world is at risk when the vast bulk of middle class students are performing at levels comparable to students in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria, and needs to be capable of engaging American citizens fully in addressing these shared domestic and international challenges.

~Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Should our government help American farmers cope with climate impacts on food production, and should this assistance be extended to other countries – particularly poor countries – whose food production is also threatened by climate variability and climate change?

What to listen for: Most representatives in Congress would like to eliminate government handouts, and many would also like to turn away from any discussion of climate change. Yet this year, U.S. taxpayers are set to pay up to $20 billion to farmers for crop insurance after extreme drought and heat conditions damaged yields in the Midwest.

With the 2012 farm bill stalled in Congress, the candidates need to be clear about whether they support government subsidized crop insurance for American farmers. They should also articulate their views on climate threats to food production in the U.S. and abroad.

Without a substantial crop insurance program, American farmers will face serious risks of income losses and loan defaults. And without foreign assistance for climate adaptation, the number of people going hungry could well exceed 15 percent of the world's population. 

~Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment

What is your vision for the United States’ future relationship with Europe? 

What to listen for: Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it was the United States and Europe that ensured world peace. But in recent years, it seems that “Europe” and “European” have become pejoratives in American political discourse. There’s been an uneasiness over whether we’re still friends and whether we still need each other. But of course we do.

Europe and the European Union share with the United States of America the most fundamental values, such as individual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to live and work where you choose. There’s a shared respect of basic human rights. There are big differences with the Chinese, and big differences with the Russians. When you look around, it’s really the U.S. and Europe together with robust democracies such as Canada and Australia that have the strongest sense of shared values.

So the candidates should talk about what they would do as president to make sure those values are preserved and protected and how they would make the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe more effective and substantive as the world is confronting so many challenges like international terrorism, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, underdevelopment and bad governance.

~Amir Eshel, director of The Europe Center

Historical and territorial issues are bedeviling relations in East Asia, particularly among Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries. What should the United States do to try to reduce tensions and resolve these issues?

What to listen for: Far from easing as time passes, unresolved historical, territorial, and maritime issues in East Asia have worsened over the past few years. There have been naval clashes, major demonstrations, assaults on individuals, economic boycotts, and harsh diplomatic exchanges. If the present trend continues, military clashes – possibly involving American allies – are possible.

All of the issues are rooted in history. Many stem from Imperial Japan’s aggression a century ago, and some derive from China’s more assertive behavior toward its neighbors as it continues its dramatic economic and military growth. But almost all of problems are related in some way or another to decisions that the United States took—or did not take—in its leadership of the postwar settlement with Japan.

The United States’ response to the worsening situation so far has been to declare a strategic “rebalancing” toward East Asia, aimed largely at maintaining its military presence in the region during a time of increasing fiscal constraint at home. Meanwhile, the historic roots of the controversies go unaddressed.

The United States should no longer assume that the regional tensions will ease by themselves and rely on its military presence to manage the situation. It should conduct a major policy review, aimed at using its influence creatively and to the maximum to resolve the historical issues that threaten peace in the present day.

~David Straub, associate director of the Korea Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center

Compiled by Adam Gorlick.