Stanford University

Russian and Chinese Responses to U.S. Military Plans in Space

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In recent years, Russia and China have urged the negotiation of an international treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space. The United States has responded by insisting that existing treaties and rules governing the use of space are sufficient. The standoff has produced a six-year deadlock in Geneva at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, but the parties have not been inactive. Russia and China have much to lose if the United States were to pursue the space weapons programs laid out in its military planning documents. This makes probable the eventual formulation of responses that are adverse to a broad range of U.S. interests in space. The Chinese anti-satellite test in January 2007 was prelude to an unfolding drama in which the main act is still subject to revision. If the United States continues to pursue the weaponization of space, how will China and Russia respond, and what will the broader implications for international security be?

The American Academy called upon two scholars to further elucidate answers to these questions and to discuss the consequences of U.S. military plans for space. Pavel Podvig, a research associate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and former researcher at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, discusses possible Russian responses, given their current capabilities and strategic outlook.  Hui Zhang, a research associate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, considers Chinese responses.

Each scholar suggests that introducing weapons into space will have negative consequences for nuclear proliferation and international security. As Podvig points out, Russia's main concern is likely to be maintaining strategic parity with the United States. This parity will be destroyed by the deployment of weapons in space, making a response from Russia likely. Podvig suggests that Russia does not have many options for the development of its own weapon systems in space but is likely to react to U.S. development of space weapons through other countermeasures, such as extending the life of its ballistic missiles. Podvig describes such measures as "the most significant and dangerous global effects of new military developments, whether missile defense or space-based weapons."

Zhang arrives at similar conclusions. He describes how U.S. military plans for space will negatively affect peaceful uses of outer space, disrupting civilian and commercial initiatives, but he focuses his discussion on a much greater concern among Chinese officials — that actions by the United States in space will result in a loss of strategic nuclear parity. China's options for response, as detailed by Zhang, include building more ICBMs, adopting countermeasures against missile defense, developing ASAT weapons, and reconsidering China's commitments on arms control. Thus, a U.S. decision to introduce weapons into space would destabilize the already vulnerable international nonproliferation regime. Zhang concludes, "U.S. space weaponization plans would have potentially disastrous effects on international security and the peaceful use of outer space. This would not benefit any country's security interests."

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Pavel Podvig

Co-ordinating Counterterrorism: Organizational Routines in the United States, France and Britain

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Frank Foley, a 2008-09 Zukerman Fellow, is a postdoctoral student in international security at CISAC. His research concerns counterterrorist policy and operations, the reform of intelligence and police agencies and the increasing role of judicial and prosecutorial actors in the field of security. His PhD dissertation, currently under revision for publication, is a comparative analysis of British and French counterterrorist policies, which argues that western states' different institutional characteristics and norms in the field of security are shaping their responses to Islamist terrorism, leading to divergent approaches to a common problem. At CISAC, Frank is analyzing the co-ordination of counterterrorist agencies within the United States, France and Britain, drawing on organization theory to explain why some countries achieve higher levels of inter-agency co-operation than others. He has also written on European Union security policy and on terrorism and community conflict in Northern Ireland. Upcoming projects include a review of the terrorism and counterterrorism literature for the International Studies Association's Compendium Project and an analysis of the forces shaping international co-operation on counterterrorism at both the diplomatic and operational levels.

Frank received his PhD from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and is a graduate of the University of Cambridge (MPhil) and University College Cork (BA, MA). He worked as a journalist in Brussels and as a researcher in Northern Ireland between 2001 and 2004.

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI and a professor of political science by courtesy. She was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., from 1974 to 2007. Her current research focuses on innovation in terrorist campaigns, the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, why the United States is the target of terrorism, and the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies.

She has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. Her recent work includes "Terrorism, Strategies, and Grand Strategies," in Attacking Terrorism (Georgetown University Press), "Terrorism and Global Security," in Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (United States Institute of Peace Press), and "Explaining Suicide Terrorism: A Review Essay," in the journal Security Studies. She is also the editor of a projected volume, The Consequences of Counterterrorist Policies in Democracies, for the Russell Sage Foundation in New York.

She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chaired the American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism. She has also served on the Council of the APSA and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. She is a lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005-2006. She served on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. She was a senior fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City for 2006-2007.

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Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow emerita at CISAC and FSI. She taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1974 to 2007.  She has published extensively on the subject of terrorism.  In 2011 Routledge published Explaining Terrorism, a collection of her previously published work.  A book co-authored with Gary LaFree titled Countering Terrorism was published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2017. She recently authored a report for the U.S. Institute of Peace, “Rethinking Transnational Terrorism:  An Integrated Approach”.

 

 She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2005-2006 she was a Guggenheim Fellow. She was a lead investigator with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland from 2005 to 2017.  She is currently affiliated with the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center, also a Center of Excellence for the Department of Homeland Security.  In 2009 the National Science Foundation/Department of Defense Minerva Initiative awarded her a grant for a research project on "mapping terrorist organizations," which is ongoing.  She has served on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences.  In 2015 she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.  She is the recipient of the International Studies Association International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award for 2016. Also in 2016 Ghent University awarded her an honorary doctorate.  She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Security Studies, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, Orbis, and Terrorism and Political Violence.

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Making Sense of Domestic Intelligence

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Gregory Treverton is director of the RAND Corporation's Center for Global Risk and Security.  Earlier, he directed RAND's Intelligence Policy Center and its International Security and Defense Policy Center, and he was associate dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School.    His recent work has examined at terrorism, intelligence and law enforcement, with a special interest in new forms of public-private partnership.  He has served in government for the first Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, handling Europe for the National Security Council and, most recently as vice chair of the National Intelligence Council, overseeing the writing of America's National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs).  He holds an A. B. summa cum laude from Princeton University and an M.P.P (Master's in Public Policy) and Ph.D. in economics and politics from Harvard.  His latest books are Intelligence for an Era of Terror, forthcoming; Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information, Cambridge University Press, 2001; and New Challenges, New Tools for Defense Decisionmaking, (edited,), RAND, 2003.

Frank Foley, a 2008-09 Zukerman Fellow, is a postdoctoral student in international security at CISAC. His research concerns counterterrorist policy and operations, the reform of intelligence and police agencies and the increasing role of judicial and prosecutorial actors in the field of security. His PhD dissertation, currently under revision for publication, is a comparative analysis of British and French counterterrorist policies, which argues that western states' different institutional characteristics and norms in the field of security are shaping their responses to Islamist terrorism, leading to divergent approaches to a common problem. At CISAC, Frank is analyzing the co-ordination of counterterrorist agencies within the United States, France and Britain, drawing on organization theory to explain why some countries achieve higher levels of inter-agency co-operation than others. He has also written on European Union security policy and on terrorism and community conflict in Northern Ireland. Upcoming projects include a review of the terrorism and counterterrorism literature for the International Studies Association's Compendium Project and an analysis of the forces shaping international co-operation on counterterrorism at both the diplomatic and operational levels.

Frank received his PhD from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and is a graduate of the University of Cambridge (MPhil) and University College Cork (BA, MA). He worked as a journalist in Brussels and as a researcher in Northern Ireland between 2001 and 2004.

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Network Analysis for International Relations

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Alexander Montgomery, a visiting assistant professor in 2008-09, was a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC in 2005-2006 and is an assistant professor of political science at Reed College. He has published articles on dismantling proliferation networks and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. His current book project is on post-Cold War U.S. counterproliferation policy, evaluating the efficacy of policies towards North Korea, Iran, and proliferation networks.

He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, an MA in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in sociology and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

Emilie Hafner-Burton is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Politics at Princeton University and an affiliate at CISAC, as well as a visiting fellow at Stanford Law School. Formerly she was a predoctoral fellow at CISAC and an associated fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She was at Oxford University as a Postdoctoral Research Prize Fellow, Nuffield College, and Senior Associate, Global Economic Governance Programme. She writes and teaches on international organization, international political economy, the global governance of gender, social network analysis, design and selection of international regimes, international human rights law and policy, war and economic sanctions, non-proliferation policy, and quantitative and qualitative research design. Her dissertation, Globalizing Human Rights? How Preferential Trade Agreements Shape Government Repression, 1972-2000, won the American Political Science Association Helen Dwight Reid Award for Best Dissertation in International Relations, Law and Politics for 2004-2005, as well as the Best Dissertation in Human Rights Prize for 2003-2004. Her articles are published or forthcoming in International Organization, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Feminist Legal Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of European Public Policy, and Journal of Peace Research. PhD. Wisconsin.

Walter W. Powell is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology, Organizational Behavior, Management Science and Engineering, and Communication at Stanford University. He is also an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. He is co-director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He joined the Stanford faculty in July 1999, after previously teaching at the University of Arizona, MIT, and Yale. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences three times, and a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna twice. Powell has received honorary degrees from Uppsala University, the Helsinki School of Economics, and Copenhagen Business School, and is a foreign member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. He is a U.S. editor for Research Policy, and has been a member of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council since 2000.

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Emilie Hafner-Burton Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Politics at Princeton University; CISAC Affiliate; Visiting Fellow, Stanford Law School Speaker
Alexander Montgomery Visiting Assistant Professor, CISAC; Assistant Professor of Political Science, Reed College Speaker
Walter W. Powell Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Professor of Sociology, Organizational Behavior, Management Science, and Communication, Stanford University Commentator
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US Civil - Military Relations and the Implications of the Private Military Contractors

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Thomas Bruneau is a Distinguished Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He has researched and written extensively on Latin America, especially Brazil, and Portugal. Dr. Bruneau has published more than fifteen books in English and Portuguese as well as articles in journals including Latin American Research Review, Comparative Politics, Third World Quarterly, Encyclopedia of Democracy, South European Society and Politics, Journal of Democracy, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Democratization, and Military Affairs.

In addition to his position as Professor in the NSA Department, Professor Bruneau was the Academic Associate for the curriculum in International Security and Civil-Military Relations from its founding in 1996 until 2002. Between 1998 and 2001 he served as rapporteur of the Defense Policy Board that provides the Secretary of Defense and his staff with independent and informed advice on questions of national security and defense policy.

He has three recently published books. He is co-editor, with Scott Tollefson, of Who Guards the Guardians and How: Democratic Civil - Military Relations (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006). His second book, also published by University of Texas Press, with CDR Steve Boraz, is Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness. His co-edited book with Harold Trinkunas, Global Politics of Defense Reform, was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in February 2008.

A native of California, Professor Bruneau received his BA from California State University at San Jose and his MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley

Stephen Krasner is a former director of CDDRL, former deputy director of FSI, an FSI senior fellow, and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.        

He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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Thomas C. Bruneau CISAC Visiting Scholar; Distinguished Professor of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School Speaker
Stephen D. Krasner Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations and Former Director, CDDRL; Former Deputy Director, FSI; FSI Senior Fellow; Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Commentator
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Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945-1975

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Kelly Moore is Associate Professor of Sociology and Affiliate of Women's Studies at the University of Cincinnati.  She is the author of Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945-1975 (Princeton University Press, 2008), and the co-editor of The New Political Sociology of Science: Institutions, Networks, and Power (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006).   Her articles have appeared in Research in Organizational Sociology, American Journal of Sociology and other journals.  She currently serves as Chair of the American Sociological Association section on Science, Knowledge and Technology, and is writing a book about neoliberalism, food, and nutrition in U.S. from 1980 to 2005. 

Rebecca Slayton is a lecturer in the Science, Technology and Society Program at Stanford University and a CISAC affiliate. In 2004-2005 she was a CISAC science fellow. Her research examines how technical judgments are generated, taken up, and given significance in international security contexts. She is currently working on a book which uses the history of the U.S. ballistic missile defense program to study the relationships between and among technology, expertise, and the media. Portions of this work have been published in journals such as History and Technology and have been presented at academic conferences. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 2004 she completed an NSF-funded project entitled Public Science: Discourse about the Strategic Defense Initiative, 1983-1988.

As a physical chemist, she developed ultrafast laser experiments in condensed matter systems and published several articles in physics journals. She also received the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship in 2000, and has worked as a science journalist for a daily paper and for Physical Review Focus. She earned her doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University in 2002.

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Kelly Moore Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Cincinnati Speaker

Rebecca Slayton

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Slayton’s research and teaching examine the relationships between and among risk, governance, and expertise, with a focus on international security and cooperation since World War II. Slayton’s current book project, Shadowing Cybersecurity, examines the historical emergence of cybersecurity expertise. Shadowing Cybersecurity shows how efforts to establish credible expertise in corporate, governmental, and non-governmental contexts have produced varying and sometimes conflicting expert practices. Nonetheless, all cybersecurity experts wrestle with the irreducible uncertainties that characterize intelligent adversaries, and the fundamental inability to prove that systems are secure. The book shows how cybersecurity experts have paradoxically gained credibility by making threats and vulnerabilities visible, while acknowledging that more always remain in the shadows.

Slayton’s first book, Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012 (MIT Press, 2013), shows how the rise of a new field of expertise in computing reshaped public policies and perceptions about the risks of missile defense in the United States. In 2015, Arguments that Count won the Computer History Museum Prize. In 2016, Slayton was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER grant for her project “Enacting Cybersecurity Expertise.” In 2019, Slayton was also a recipient of the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, for her NSF CAREER project.

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Proliferating Markets: the Transnational Trade in Uranium from Africa

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Gabrielle Hecht is Associate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.  Her first book, The Radiance of France:  Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (MIT 1998), won awards from the American Historical Association and the Society for the History of Technology.  The French translation appeared with La Découverte in 2004, and MIT will publish a new English-language edition in 2009.  Her current project, entitled Uranium from Africa and the Power of Nuclear Things, draws on archival and field work conducted in Africa, Europe, and North America.  Focusing especially on Gabon, Madagascar, South Africa, Namibia, and Niger, this project examines uranium mining in these places and the flow of uranium from these places. It argues that the view from Africa transforms our understanding of the "nuclear" as a political, technological, and occupational category, as well as our perspective on the transnational power of nuclear things. 

Alexander Montgomery, a visiting assistant professor in 2008-09, was a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC in 2005-2006 and is an assistant professor of political science at Reed College. He has published articles on dismantling proliferation networks and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. His current book project is on post-Cold War U.S. counterproliferation policy, evaluating the efficacy of policies towards North Korea, Iran, and proliferation networks.

He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, an MA in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in sociology and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

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Gabrielle Hecht Associate Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, University of Michigan Speaker
Alexander Montgomery Visiting Assistant Professor, CISAC; Assistant Professor of Political Science, Reed College Commentator
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1989 & the Architecture of Order: The Competition to Lead the Post-Cold War World

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Professor Mary Sarotte teaches in the interdisciplinary international relations program at the University of Southern California (USC).  She earned her BA in History and Science at Harvard University and her PhD in History at Yale University.  Before becoming a historian, Sarotte worked as a journalist in Europe for Time, Die Zeit, and The Economist (where she continues to write as a book reviewer).  A former White House Fellow, Sarotte has also held a Humboldt Scholarship, an Olin National Security Fellowship, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School.  She is the author of two books and a number of scholarly articles.  Sarotte is currently finishing her third monograph, 1989 & the Architecture of Order, to be published by Princeton University Press in the series "Studies in International History and Politics" in 2009.

Norman Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies: a professor of history; core faculty member of FSI's Forum on Contemporary Europe; and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is an expert on modern East European, Balkan, and Russian history. His current research focuses on the history of genocide in the 20th century and on postwar Soviet policy in Europe. He is author of the critically acclaimed volumes: The Russians in Germany: The History of the Soviet Zone of Germany, 1945-1949 (Harvard 1995) and Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in 20th Century Europe (Harvard 2001).  Most recently, he has co-edited books on Yugoslavia and its Historians (Stanford 2003), Soviet Politics in Austria, 1945-1955: Documents from the Russian Archives (in German and Russian, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2006), and The Lost Transcripts of the Politburo (Yale 2008). 

Naimark is a senior fellow by courtesy of the Hoover Institution and Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program at Stanford. He also was chair of Stanford's Department of History and programs in International Relations and International Policy Studies. He has served on the editorial boards of a series of leading professional journals, including: The American Historical Review, The Journal of Modern History, Slavic Review, and East European Politics and Societies. He served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (1997) and as chairman of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe of the American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science Research Council (1992-1997). 

Before joining the Stanford faculty, Naimark was a professor of history a Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3. 

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Mary Sarotte Associate Professor of International Relations, USC Speaker

Norman M. Naimark

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Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and (by courtesy) of the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Norman formerly served as the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division, the Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program, the Convener of the European Forum (predecessor to The Europe Center), Chair of the History Department, and the Director of Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Norman earned his Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in 1972 and before returning to join the faculty in 1988, he was a professor of history at Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.

Norman is interested in modern Eastern European and Russian history and his research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century. His published monographs on these topics include The History of the "Proletariat": The Emergence of Marxism in the Kingdom of Poland, 1870–1887 (1979, Columbia University Press), Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III (1983, Harvard University Press), The Russians in Germany: The History of The Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (1995, Harvard University Press), The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe (1998, Westview Press), Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing In 20th Century Europe (2001, Harvard University Press), Stalin's Genocides (2010, Princeton University Press), and Genocide: A World History (2016, Oxford University Press). Naimark’s latest book, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty (Harvard 2019), explores seven case studies that illuminate Soviet policy in Europe and European attempts to build new, independent countries after World War II.

 

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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Norman M. Naimark Robert and Florence McDonnel Professor of Eastern European Studies; Professor of History and FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy; Member, CISAC Executive Committee Commentator
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South Asian security after Mumbai

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As evidence emerges that the gunmen who caused the carnage in Mumbai were operatives of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, one question reverberates: Was the Pakistani government responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks?

This is the wrong question to ask. During the late 1980s and the 1990s, the Pakistani government created terror organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba as tools of asymmetric warfare against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In recent years, however, the jihadis, like the magic brooms in Goethe's tale, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," have taken on a life of their own; along with the government, the army and the intelligence services, such groups now comprise one of the main centers of gravity within Pakistan.

Several factors have enabled them to reach this point. The jihadis have been armed and trained by elements of the Pakistani military and security services, and are funded by a sophisticated international financial network. In addition, they enjoy street popularity, and remain a useful means of combatting India's presence in Kashmir. Consequently, the Pakistani government has balked at opportunities to shut them down.

As a result, the militants are now in a position to conduct their own policy. Like the Goethe's magic brooms, they often act against the interests of their creators, attacking security personnel, assassinating government officials and seizing territory within Pakistan, as well as launching attacks on India that could trigger a regional war. The question, then, is not whether the Pakistani government was responsible for the Mumbai attacks, but who will now play the role of sorcerer and rein in the jihadis.

In theory, either the Pakistani or the Indian government could do so. But Mumbai has shown that neither side is up to the task. The Pakistani government cannot prevent militants from using its soil to strike India. The Indians are completely unable to anticipate or repel such attacks. In addition, they lack the military capabilities needed to clear militant strongholds within Pakistani territory.

The situation requires a radical re-thinking of South Asia's security. Both sides must adopt policies that transcend their traditional comfort zones. The Pakistani government must forswear militancy, end support for the jihadis and accept international military and financial assistance in crushing them. The Pakistani government needs to recognize that the costs of supporting militancy outweigh its benefits, and that Mumbai may be the last chance to get control of the situation. If the government does not act against the militants now, then it may lose control of the state, or find itself drawn into a catastrophic conflict with India in the wake of another terrorist attack.

The Indians, for their part, must start to take their own security more seriously. In 1991, after suffering a major financial crisis, the Indian government came to terms with the failures of its socialist development model and adopted a free-market approach to economic growth. Similarly, India must use this crisis to wholly revamp its security infrastructure. If it fails to do so, the country's impressive economic expansion of recent years will be for naught. Simply put, international corporations will view the country as being too dangerous and refuse to do business there.

The road to real improvement in India will be long and complex, but the Indians can start by properly training and equipping their police and domestic security personnel, who were outgunned and outwitted for nearly three days in Mumbai by just a handful of terrorists. Simultaneously, New Delhi must address the legitimate concerns of its own Muslim community, including the long-aggrieved Kashmiri population, so that overseas terrorists do not find willing collaborators within India.

Finally, there is another player in this subcontinental drama: the United States. The United States, which has forged a strategic partnership with India, can quietly and privately nudge New Delhi to address the internal tensions in Kashmir. More important, however, the United States must use its leverage as Pakistan's largest source of bilateral assistance to press the Pakistanis to end their support for the jihadis. It cannot continue to provide Islamabad with billions of dollars to fight the war on terror while Pakistan-based militant groups conduct operations like the Mumbai attacks. If Pakistan is to continue to benefit from American largesse, it must demonstrate a tangible commitment to ending support for such organizations.

None of these steps will provide an overnight solution to the problems laid bare by the Mumbai attacks. But, in time, they can help South Asia to create its own modern-day sorcerer, and deal with the militant forces that Pakistan has unleashed over decades. If the region fails to do so, its story, unlike Goethe's, will not have a happy ending.

Sumit Ganguly is the director of research of the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington, and an adjunct senior fellow of the Pacific Council on International Policy. S. Paul Kapur is associate professor at U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; the views he expresses in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government.

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Opinion: U.S. should stay out of Pakistan-India dispute over Kashmir

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The Mumbai terror attacks, apparently carried out by Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups, highlight one of the most pressing challenges facing the new Obama administration. Though it is officially a key ally in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, the Pakistani government has been unable or unwilling to control Islamist militancy within its borders. Large swaths of the country are now in the hands of the jihadis, including reconstituted elements of the Taliban. These groups are wreaking havoc both in Pakistan and abroad. Combined with Pakistan's collapsing economy and arsenal of at least several dozen nuclear weapons, this is the recipe for disaster.

Observers have suggested that, to ameliorate this situation, the United States should lead a renewed effort to solve Pakistan's dispute with India over the territory of Kashmir. The resolution, according to this reasoning, will significantly reduce the militants' incentives for violence. There is even talk of appointing former President Bill Clinton as special envoy to lead such a project.

Not a good idea

Despite its intuitive appeal, this would be an unfortunate South Asia policy for the United States. American efforts to mediate the Kashmir dispute would be ill advised for three reasons:

First, Islamist militants seek nothing less than complete Pakistani possession of Kashmir. Such a solution is out of the question. To allow Muslim-majority Kashmir to secede from the Indian Union on the basis of religion would badly undermine India's efforts to build a cohesive state out of the multiplicity of ethnic and religious groups within its borders. India has flatly rejected such an approach for more than 60 years and will not agree to it now. Thus, American efforts to devise a solution acceptable to both New Delhi and the militants would, at best, be wasted.
At worst, such a policy could convince the militants that violence has been effective, coercing the United States into bringing India to the bargaining table. This could embolden the jihadis further, resulting in even more terrorism in Pakistan and abroad.
Second, American intervention in the Kashmir dispute would greatly annoy India. After decades of mutual indifference, Washington and New Delhi now view each other as strategic partners, with a host of common economic and security interests. The Indian government has made clear that it considers Kashmir a bilateral issue to be resolved solely with Pakistan. U.S. interference would demonstrate callousness toward Indian concerns on this sensitive issue and could squander much hard-earned good will.

Kashmir improving

Third, proponents of American intervention ignore recent improvements in Kashmir. Left to their own devices, India and Pakistan have launched a peace process and implemented a series of confidence-building measures. As a result, violence has declined, and Indian forces have adopted a less aggressive posture in the region.

Of course, such improvements are tenuous. They could fall victim to events such as the Mumbai attacks, which were undoubtedly intended to undermine the improved security situation and increase regional tensions. Nonetheless, given recent progress, it would be inadvisable to jettison Indo-Pakistani bilateralism in favor of third-party diplomatic intervention.

Observers are correct to note the dangers emanating from Pakistan and the importance of South Asian stability to United States security. South Asia is no longer a strategic backwater; it is a region to which the Obama administration will have to pay close attention, as events in Mumbai have dramatically demonstrated. In crafting its South Asia policy, however, the administration should remember that less can be more, particularly regarding Kashmir.

S. Paul Kapur is associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and a faculty affiliate at Stanford University"s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government. Sumit Ganguly is professor of political science at Indiana University-Bloomington and an adjunct senior fellow of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. They wrote this article for the Mercury News.

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