Abstract
Islamist militants based in Pakistan pose a major threat to regional and international security. Although this problem has only recently received widespread attention, Pakistan has long used militants as strategic tools to compensate for its severe political and material weakness. This use of Islamist militancy has constituted nothing less than a central component of Pakistani grand strategy; supporting jihad has been one of the principal means by which the Pakistani state has sought to produce security for itself. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the strategy has not been wholly disastrous. Rather, it has achieved important domestic and international successes. Recently, however, Pakistan has begun to suffer from a “jihad paradox”: the very conditions that previously made Pakistan's militant policy useful now make it extremely dangerous. Thus, despite its past benefits, the strategy has outlived its utility, and Pakistan will have to abandon it to avoid catastrophe. Other weak states, which may also be tempted to use nonstate actors as strategic tools, should take the Pakistani case as a cautionary lesson.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry has been awarded a William J. Perry Fellowship in International Security at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), where he will continue to address emerging security challenges facing the United States.
Ambassador Eikenberry has an ambitious agenda for the coming academic year, which includes teaching and mentoring students, public speaking and working closely with former Secretary of Defense William Perry. He also will take part in activities at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), such as the new China and the World research initiative.
“It’s a lifetime honor to receive the Perry Fellowship,” says Eikenberry. “I can’t think of an American in modern times who has better exemplified inspirational commitment to public service than Dr. William Perry. And I can’t think of a better institute of higher learning to be associated with than Stanford University.”
Ambassador Eikenberry has been at Stanford since September 2011 as the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer and is an affiliated faculty member for CISAC, APARC and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), as well as research affiliate at the Europe Center – all policy research centers within Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies.
Before coming to Stanford, Ambassador Eikenberry led the civilian surge directed by President Obama from 2009 to 2011 in an effort to reverse the momentum gained by insurgents, and set the conditions for a transition to Afghanistan sovereignty. He retired from his 35-year military career in April 2009 with the rank of U.S. Army Lieutenant General after posts including commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne and ranger infantry units in the United States, as well as Korea, Italy and as the Commander of the American-led Coalition Forces from 2005-2007.
"Karl Eikenberry's record of public service amply demonstrates his unique qualities, not only as a leader of the American military at a challenging time, but as a strategic thinker and an insightful diplomat,” says CISAC Co-Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. “He has a rare understanding of the profound challenges facing our world, and has been a tremendous asset to CISAC and Stanford.”
Ambassador Eikenberry’s research areas include U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific region; China’s evolving security strategy; the United States and NATO; the future of the U.S. military; Washington’s policies in Central and South Asia; and assessing the risks of military intervention.
The fellowship was established to honor Perry, the 19th U.S. secretary of defense and former CISAC co-director, and to recognize his leadership in the cause of peace. Perry is co-director of the Preventive Defense Project and the Nuclear Risk Reduction Initiative at CISAC and is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, national security and arms control. Perry Fellows spend a year at CISAC conducting policy-relevant research on international security issues. They join other distinguished scientists, social and political scientists and engineers who work together on problems that cannot be solved within a single field of study.
Ambassador Eikenberry is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, has master’s degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and Stanford University in Political Science, and was a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He earned an Interpreter’s Certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign Commonwealth Office while studying at the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense Chinese Language School in Hong Kong, and has an Advanced Degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University in the People’s Republic of China.
Xiaojun Li
Xiaojun Li, a Stanford predoctoral candidate in political science, is the inaugural recipient of a grant from the John and Jackie Lewis Fund to Support Research on Asia.
Xiaojun, whose Ph.D. dissertation chair is Jean Oi, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and director of the Stanford China Program, will use the $1,000 travel grant to present a paper on trade protection in China at a conference in Hong Kong, and a second paper on environmental controls and clean technology at private and state-run companies at a conference in Beijing.
The John and Jackie Lewis Fund was established to recognize the intellectual and moral support they have provided to students from Asia. John Lewis is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, emeritus, an FSI senior fellow by courtesy, as well as the co-founder of the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is considered one of the world’s foremost experts on Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations.
This presentation provided a history of efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons beginning with the discovery of nuclear fission continuing through the development of the bomb and the cold war and up to the present time. The current cases of Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea were reviewed.
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Leonard Weiss is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.
For a comprehensive list of Dr. Weiss's publications, click here.
About the Topic: As fiscal year 2001 came to an end, the Hart-Rudman Commission and its recommendations for a post-Cold War national security structure were still on the agenda of Washington decision-makers. After the attacks of September 11, the comprehensive approach envisioned in Hart-Rudman was abandoned in favor of a piecemeal approach, resulting in such legislation as the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. As we enter what could be described as a "post-post-9/11 environment," it is worth asking whether the U.S. needs to consider a more comprehensive review, with Hart-Rudman as a starting point.
About the Speaker: William Nolte is research professor and director, Center for Intelligence Research and Education, at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland. He retired from federal service in 2006 as the chancellor of the National Intelligence University system within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. A career National Security Agency officer, he served in a range of positions as senior intelligence authority, director of education and training, and chief of legislative affairs at NSA; as deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia and later director of strategic planning at the National Intelligence Council; and as assistant deputy DCI for analysis. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, and has taught at Georgetown and George Washington universities.
CISAC Conference Room
Robert Rakove is a historian who studies U.S. foreign relations, focusing particularly on the Cold War era. He is a lecturer in Stanford University's Program in International Relations, and has previously taught at Colgate University and Old Dominion University. His first book, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012. He completed his second book, Days of Opportunity: The United States and Afghanistan before the Soviet Invasion, a study of the U.S.-Afghan relationship and the Cold War in the Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion and was published by Columbia University Press in 2023. He received his doctorate in History in 2008 from the University of Virginia, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University, at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre, and at the Hoover Institution.
Karl Eikenberry has spent the better part of the last 40 years in uniform, and much of it in combat zones. Then as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, he continued a mission of service to his country.
Now he's offering his thoughts on the future of the military, and even turning a critical eye on the institution he has long served.
But, he told an audience during his second Payne Lecture, hosted by Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, "We must not confuse dissent for disloyalty."
Eikenberry, who left the Army in 2009 when he became ambassador, said he has been disturbed in recent years by how political leaders have been using the military and by what he characterized as the military's outsized role in determining national security and foreign policy.
"These are problems that have to be acknowledged and debated publicly for the good of the nation and, I believe, our Armed Forces," he said during the May 3 lecture.
He said the dissolution of the draft after the Vietnam War led to the creation of an incredibly competent and capable military, but one that elected officials are more willing to deploy.
"Question No. 1," Eikenberry asked the audience, "If we had a conscript Armed Forces in 2003 and that conscript Armed Forces then are the sons and daughters, drafted, of constituents of our members of Congress, I want you to raise your hand if you think in 2003 we would have invaded Iraq."
Eikenberry questioned, as well, whether Congress would have held hearings – which it hasn't done – into the killings of Americans and allied servicemen by Afghan soldiers and police if the victims had been draftees rather than enlistees.
After only a few hands went up, Eikenberry said, "When you see those results, is there something wrong with the system?"
The former lieutenant general, who did not endorse a draft, urged a debate on ownership of the military: Does it belong to the American people or politicians?
He warned that the separation between soldiers and civilians – in daily life on bases, for example – also leads to ignorance of how the other lives. The separation can mean less judiciousness by lawmakers when determining whether to send service members into war, he said.
He also criticized the lack of oversight of the military by Congress and the media.
"I witnessed this up close and personal in Afghanistan when I transitioned from general to the top diplomat," he said. "Formerly treated with great deference by members of Congress, both I and my embassy team were now constantly on the witness stand."
He said lawmakers were right to challenge them: "We're spending a good deal of taxpayers' money."
He said as a member of the military, he never experienced that kind of scrutiny, as lawmakers are reluctant to be seen as less than fully supportive of troops.
"But by not subjecting the military to the same rigorous standards of scrutiny, they were applying a double standard and I don't think they were doing their complete jobs," he said.
He also said the media have failed to provide critical analysis of military engagements because of relentless pressure to file stories and fear they'll lose authoritative sources if they question actions.
Eikenberry spoke about responsibility and accountability within the military itself, as well.
Regarding the second Iraq war, he said the failure to anticipate the post-invasion environment was a massive failure of military command and planning, not just civilian.
"The costs of this failure have been enormous," he said. "And yet, there has been no accounting."
He also talked about the "strategic corporal," a term coined by then-Marine Corps Commandant General Charles Krulak in 1999. The strategic corporal refers to the serviceman whose missteps, wittingly or unwittingly, can have a strategic impact on the outcome of a military campaign.
He said in World War II there were no strategic corporals, only strategic commanders. A corporal's missteps would likely not affect military advancement in a battle.
"In the 21st century, however, in an era of instantaneous global communications and decentralized combat fought across very complex political, ethnic and religious mosaics, the strategic corporal does decidedly exist," he said, mentioning Abu Ghraib, the recent Koran burnings and the suspected murder of 17 Afghan civilians by an Army soldier.
"When the president of the United States has to apologize frequently for the misdeeds of members of our Armed Forces on the global stage as he's had to do in recent months, I have to say, I don't think that he or the American people are being well served," Eikenberry said.
He said in those cases of misdeeds, the mission may be too risky or the strategy not well planned out, and policy should possibly be reconsidered.
As the war in Afghanistan winds down and the military's mission is refocused, Eikenberry said the biggest security threat to the U.S. is a faltering economy. He echoed the sentiments of former Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, who said in 2010 that he considered the country's growing debt to be its No. 1 security threat.
"With a broken economy, our country cannot make the foundational investments in education, research and development, and infrastructure that are absolutely essential to sustaining a strong defense," Eikenberry said.
Eikenberry said retirement and health care costs in the Defense Department also are ballooning.
Eikenberry said it is important to keep our research and development lead, invest in education, ensure we have systems in place to defend U.S. borders against terrorism and invest more in alliances and partnerships as the world becomes more multi-polar.
He also said the military needs to know what it's after.
"With the end of the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, and our current fiscal crisis, our military leaders and our civilian leaders, they need to better define threats and they must be ready to address today and tomorrow these threats," he said.
About the Topic: Japan’s March 2011 Great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami led to core damage in three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station. This presentation will describe both the short-term and long-term actions of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to implement lessons learned from the Fukushima accident and will highlight Commissioner Apostolakis’ views on the accident. The presentation will also describe the findings of the Commissioner’s Risk Management Task Force chartered to develop a strategic vision and options for adopting a more comprehensive and holistic risk-informed, performance-based regulatory approach for the NRC.
About the Speaker: George Apostolakis was sworn in as a Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on April 23, 2010, to a term ending on June 30, 2014.
Dr. Apostolakis has had a distinguished career as an engineer, professor and risk analyst. Before joining the NRC, he was a professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and a professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also a member and former Chairman of the statutory Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards of the NRC. In 2007, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for "innovations in the theory and practice of probabilistic risk assessment and risk management." He received the Tommy Thompson Award for his contributions to improvement of reactor safety in 1999 and the Arthur Holly Compton Award in Education in 2005 from the American Nuclear Society.
CISAC Conference Room
