The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University is pleased to welcome Karl Eikenberry as the 2011 Payne Distinguished Lecturer. 

Eikenberry comes to Stanford from the U.S. State Department, where he served between May 2009 and July 2011 as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. In that role, he led the civilian surge directed by President Obama to reverse insurgent momentum and set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty. Earlier, he had a 35-year career in the U.S. Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of lieutenant general.

“I am delighted that he has joined us,” says Coit D. Blacker, FSI’s director and the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies. “Karl Eikenberry’s international reputation, vast experience, and on-the-ground understanding of military strategy, diplomacy, and the policy decision-making process will be an enormous contribution to FSI and Stanford and are deeply consistent with the goals of the Payne Lectureship.”

Eikenberry is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and has master’s degrees from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and from Stanford University in Political Science. He was also a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and 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. He has an Advanced Degree in Chinese History from Nanjing University in the People’s Republic of China.

"Karl Eikenberry first came to Stanford as a graduate student in the Political Science Department in the mid-1990s, and we are extraordinarily happy to have him back," says Stephen D. Krasner, deputy director at FSI and Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. "He has an exceptional, actually unique, set of experiences and talents that will greatly enrich the intellectual community at FSI and throughout the university."

Eikenberry's work in Afghanistan includes an 18-month tour as commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces. He has also served in various strategy, policy, and political-military positions, including deputy chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military committee in Brussels, and director for strategic planning and policy for U.S. Pacific Command.

His military operational posts included service as commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental United States, Hawaii, Korea, and Italy. His military awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished and Superior Service Medals, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Ranger Tab, Combat and Expert Infantryman badges, and master parachutist wings.

Eikenberry has also published numerous articles on U.S. military training, tactics, and strategy, on Chinese ancient military history, and on Asia-Pacific security issues. He was previously the president of the Foreign Area Officers Association and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

At Stanford, Eikenberry will also be an affiliated faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

He will deliver this year's inaugural Payne Distinguished Lecture on Oct. 3 at the Cemex Auditorium at the Knight Management Center. The public address will be given in conjunction with a private, two-day conference that will bring to Stanford an international group of political scientists, economists, lawyers, policy-makers, and military experts to examine from a comparative perspective problems of violence, organized crime, and governance in Mexico.

On September 1, 2011, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a lawyer, scholar, and former official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, assumed the position of co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

An expert in administrative law, international security, and public health and safety, Cuéllar is Professor and the Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School, and is also professor (by courtesy) of political science. He is a longtime affiliated faculty member at CISAC and CISAC executive committee member. He has collaborated with or served on the boards of several civil society organizations, including the Haas Center for Public Service, Asylum Access, and the American Constitution Society.

Cuéllar has had an extensive record of public service since joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2001. Recently, he served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy. In that role, he led the Domestic Policy Council’s work on criminal justice and drug policy, public health and food safety, regulatory reform, borders and immigration, civil rights, and rural and agricultural policy. Among other responsibilities, he represented the Domestic Policy Council in the development of the first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, and coordinated the President’s Food Safety Working Group.

Before joining the White House staff, Cuéllar co-chaired the Obama-Biden Transition’s Immigration Policy Working Group. Earlier in his career, during the second term of the Clinton Administration, Cuéllar worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement, focusing on countering financial crime, improving border coordination, and enhancing anti-corruption measures.

In July 2010, when Cuéllar left the Obama administration to return to Stanford, he also accepted an appointment from the President to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a non-partisan agency charged with recommending improvements in the efficiency and fairness of federal regulatory programs. In 2011, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appointed Cuéllar to the Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission, which will examine the impact of school finance on educational opportunity and recommend ways school finance can be improved to increase equity and achievement.

Cuéllar graduated from Calexico High School in rural Southern California, going on to receive a BA magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1993, a JD from Yale Law School in 1997, and a PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2000. Cuéllar clerked for Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2000 to 2001.

Cuéllar joins current CISAC co-director Siegfried S. Hecker, professor (research) of management science and engineering and FSI senior fellow, in leading one of the country’s preeminent university-based research centers on international security and cooperation.

He succeeds longtime co-director Scott D. Sagan, who has led the Center since 1998. Sagan, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science and FSI senior fellow, will continue as an important presence at CISAC and FSI, with plans to focus on policy-related research for the American Academy of Arts and Science's Global Nuclear Future Initiative, where he serves as the co-chair with Harvard’s Steven Miller. Sagan has been instrumental in building CISAC’s capacity as an international leader in interdisciplinary university-based research and training aimed at tackling some of the world's most difficult security problems.

Ten years after the terrorist attacks, five leading experts weigh in on the state of the jihadist movement, U.S. intelligence, and the cost of safety.

Martha Crenshaw It depends on what we mean by safer. If we're asking how likely it is that we'll experience an attack of the magnitude of 9/11, I don't that it's likely. Our awareness of the possibility is so much greater. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attack, is in custody. Other major players are dead or under arrest. Osama Bin Laden is gone. The drone strikes in Pakistan have been very effective. However, we're not entirely safe from the threat of terrorism against U.S. interests and citizens abroad. We're still vulnerable in many ways. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are still threats. They've inherited anti-Americanism from the original Al-Qaeda, and while Al-Qaeda central is weakened, these affiliated groups will likely become stronger because of the power vacuum that's left in the jihadist movement. These different factions could unite. Al Qaeda itself was a merger of different national movements. This could happen again -- they could reconstitute themselves into a very powerful organization.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar We are safer -- up to a point. In 2003 I wrote that there was little reason to think we were safer than we were on Sept. 11, 2001, and that in order to improve our security we would need to invest in meaningful long-term changes rather than focusing on quick fixes. Much has changed today. American attacks have been devastating to al-Qaeda, showing how 9/11 was perhaps a tactical success for the group but almost certainly a strategic miscalculation. Americans have forged alliances with countries throughout the world, sharing financial intelligence and pooling efforts to disrupt terrorist mobility. Many communities have made important strides in safeguarding airports and chemical plants. Federal lawmakers enacted landmark, bipartisan food safety legislation to bolster the safety of the food supply, and doctors working with public health authorities have enhanced their capacity to respond to infections and biosecurity threats such as the H1N1 virus. Meanwhile, pressing issues like cyber-security and emergency preparedness are starting to receive much-needed attention.

But Americans continue to face profound challenges, too. We must work to enhance the infrastructure that protects our public health, cyber-security, and emergency response.  The Sept. 11 attacks starkly show the need to reconcile security goals with laws and constitutional principles. Policy makers and the public must focus attention on strengthening the economic and social foundations supporting America’s long-term position in the world. At the same time, the nation must remain determined, creative, and vigilant in confronting the continuing threats posed by non-state actors and failed states.

Karl Eikenberry If we talk about the defense of the homeland, we are clearly safer against the international terrorist threat. Our level of awareness is much higher. We were asleep when we got hit. And the systems that we've established, I think have made us safer. Now, that's very specifically against the terrorist threat. Is the United States of America stronger on a relative basis than on 9/11/2001 -- are we a stronger nation? I think the answer is no. I think that our economic strength has declined. And I think there's been a degree of militarization of our foreign policy over the last decade that’s made us less attractive globally.

Thomas Fingar We are safer with respect to the danger of a major terrorist attack than we were 10 years ago but not with respect to other risks that endanger more of our citizens and are more likely to occur. We have spent billions of dollars to detect, prevent, and respond to terrorist threats from abroad and we have reduced the already low probability of death or injury from terrorist attacks to even lower levels. These gains have had a high opportunity cost because achieving them was at the expense of efforts to reduce other dangers. Far more Americans continue to die from inadequate hospital procedures, unsafe food, drunk drivers, and other well-known dangers than have died in terrorist attacks. We will not be much safer until we address these and similar problems, repair and replace our aging infrastructure, and do more to prepare for the more severe weather that will result from climate change. 

Amy Zegart Osama bin Laden is dead. Yet 10 years after 9/11, it would be dangerous and wrong to think that the terrorist threat is behind us. Violent Islamist extremism comes from many places, not just the 50 to 100 core al Qaeda fighters holed up along the Af/Pak border. The years 2009 and 2010 have seen a spike in plots against the U.S. homeland. Nearly all of them have come from radicalized homegrown terrorists or “franchise” groups with loose and murky ties to the core al Qaeda organization.

In addition, WMD terrorism remains a haunting future possibility. And the FBI has not made the leap from crime fighting to intelligence. FBI analysts, whose work is vital to connect dots and protect lives, are still treated like second class citizens -- labeled “support staff” alongside janitors and secretaries, and relegated to middle and lower rungs of the bureaucracy. So long as FBI analysts are treated like second-class citizens, Americans will get second-class security. These three factors -- diversification of the terrorist threat, the potential to combine destructive motives with devastating weapons, and the FBI's continued weaknesses -- suggest that the future may not be any safer than the past.