In this commentary in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, CISAC's Siegfried Hecker and Peter Davis argue that the United States should continue cooperating with the Russians on nuclear security despite worsening ties over Moscow's actions in Ukraine. They argue it is in the best interest of both countires to prevent the proliferation of nulcear weapons and global nuclear terrorism.
Former President George W. Bush met with Stanford students for an hourlong conversation that touched on many of the defining moments and policies of his presidency.
In a relaxed and sometimes self-deprecating exchange on May 5, Bush talked about the limits of congressional power and his relationships and personal diplomacy with other world leaders. His tone was more serious when discussing what he described as universal desires for freedom, his military strategies following 9/11, and his commitment to addressing Africa’s HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, director of the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, moderated the session. Stanford President John Hennessy and Condoleezza Rice – Bush’s secretary of state and national security adviser who has returned to teaching political science and business at Stanford – joined the conversation.
"FSI has a terrific track record of convening leaders at Stanford, from the head of the International Monetary Fund to prime ministers and presidents,” Cuéllar said. “On this occasion, we wanted our students to have an opportunity for a candid conversation with one of the key policymakers of the early 21st century, and we think such experiences will further prepare them for leadership in a complex world."
About 30 students were invited to the session at Encina Hall, but they didn’t know they were meeting Bush until the 43rd president walked into the room.
“I suspect he misses this sort of engagement,” said Gregory Schweizer, a second-year law school student who was part of the discussion that also covered immigration reform, national education policies and the Edward Snowden affair.
“The media always portrays him as being disengaged from current affairs,” Schweizer said. “But I’m impressed with how interested and engaged he still is.”
Along with representatives from Stanford Law School, other students were invited from the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies. Honors students from FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law also joined the conversation.
Bush’s visit was arranged with the help of Brad Freeman, a former university trustee and Ronald Spogli, who is currently on Stanford's board of trustees. Freeman and Spogli are longtime friends of the former president and philanthropists who donated a naming gift to FSI in 2005. Bush appointed Spogli as ambassador to Italy in 2005 and as ambassador to San Marino a year later.
Stanford has a tradition of hosting current and former heads of state, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev – both of whom visited in 2010.
CISAC Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker and a delegation of American scientists traveled to Moscow last week to revitalize nuclear cooperation with Russia, despite diplomatic tensions between the United States and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
The delegation that traveled to Russia last week included former U.S. laboratory scientists Paul White, James Toevs, and K. David Nokes, as well as CISAC research assistants Peter Davis and Alla Kassianova and CISAC fellow Jason Reinhardt.
The team traveled to Russia to host a workshop and make the case that continued scientific cooperation in reducing nuclear risks – particularly to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism – should remain a top priority for both countries, even as U.S.-Russia relations continue to deteriorate.
The White House has implemented increasingly stricter sanctions against top Russian officials and has restricted official travel and scientific cooperation. Washington accuses Moscow of trying to destabilize the new government in Ukraine by backing pro-Russian separatists in the former Soviet state.
Hecker chaired a Track II workshop at the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI) on April 24 on “Cooperation on Countering Nuclear Terrorism and Nonproliferation.” Presenters from Russian institutes and U.S. laboratories included Reinhardt, a national security systems analyst at Sandia National Laboratories who is pursuing a PhD at Stanford in Management Science & Engineering. He argued for expanded cooperation to counter nuclear terrorism and reduce the risk of global proliferation.
“It is paramount that American and Russian scientists continue to work together to deal with today’s nuclear risks despite the tension between our two nations,” says Hecker, a Stanford professor of management science and engineering. The former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory made his first trip to the Russian nuclear complex in early 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union to promote joint efforts to mitigate the threats posed by the huge Russian nuclear complex during a time of political and economic turmoil.
The threats have changed during the past 22 years, but have not gone away, Hecker says. Yet cooperation between Russian and American nuclear scientists has declined significantly during the past decade because Russia has recovered economically and has grown progressively more protective against external intervention. Now, the crisis in the Ukraine threatens to stop cooperation completely.
More than 200 students from MEPhI’s nuclear science and nonproliferation programs participated in the workshop, alongside prominent Russian scientists.
“The large audience indicates how seriously the nuclear specialists from both sides take the need to protect the world from the spread of nuclear weapons and materials to other states and non-state actors,” says Hecker, whose workshop grew from his Nuclear Risk Reduction Project (NRR), which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the MacArthur Foundation.
Hecker is also working with his former Russian counterparts at the Russian nuclear weapons laboratories on a book about the history of U.S.-Russia national laboratory cooperation, which is due out later this year. That book will tell the story of how the scientists worked together during difficult times to make the world a safer place.
Russian and American scientists discuss nuclear collaboration as students from the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute look on. Photo Credit: Peter Davis
We asked Hecker to answer several questions related to his trip to Moscow.
Why did you still travel to Moscow given the recent events in Ukraine?
I had to discuss the book with my Russian collaborators in order to meet our fall deadline for publication. We also wanted to reinforce the belief of scientists on both sides that we must continue to cooperate even, or perhaps especially, when our governments are at odds. That is why we organized the educational conference on nuclear cooperation.
Did the U.S. government try to stop you?
Since I went as a Stanford University professor, I did not need official approval. Key individuals in the government knew that I was going and did not try to stop me. However, colleagues from the Department of Energy’s nuclear laboratories were prohibited from attending a related conference and Washington canceled several official bilateral meetings and visits.
Were the Russians allowed to meet with your delegation?
Yes, we met with the key individuals on the Russian side and MEPhI organized a great conference. We did have to switch the venue of one of our side meetings from one of the Russian nuclear weapons laboratories to neutral ground. I think the Russian government did not want these meetings to look official after the U.S. government has canceled most interactions for the foreseeable future.
How do your Russian collaborators view the recent events in Ukraine?
Without exception, they viewed it with alarm and laid the blame squarely on the “fascists” who took over Kiev’s government illegally. They could not understand how the Americans could support what they see as an illegitimate regime. We got quite a lesson on the intertwined history of Russia and the Ukraine. They believe the Americans simply don’t understand the deep relations and commitment all Russians have for Ukraine. When we tried to give a Western point of view, some Russian colleagues told us that we have been brainwashed by Washington and the media.
How does the downturn in relations affect your views on the need for cooperation?
Despite their views on Ukraine, our Russian colleagues all said we must continue to work the nuclear issues together. So while we couldn’t agree on Ukraine, we agreed for the need to keep up our work – which for me has now spanned 49 visits to Russia during the past 22 years.
What role has CISAC’s collaboration with the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI) played in your work on nuclear cooperation?
MEPhI is a great counterpart for CISAC and a number of other American universities. It educates about one-third of the scientists and engineers that make up the Russian nuclear complex. It is with the next generation that we have the best chance of reducing the global nuclear risks that we face now and in the future.
Michael McFaul is the former director of CDDRL and deputy director of FSI at Stanford University. He recently returned to FSI after serving as U.S. ambassador to Russia. Prior to his nomination to the ambassadorial position, McFaul worked for the U.S. National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs. McFaul is also the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he co-directs the Iran Democracy Project, as well as Professor of Political Science, and CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member at Stanford University. He is a non-resident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. McFaul also serves on the Board of Directors of the Eurasia Foundation, the Firebird Fund, Freedom House, the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX).
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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.
McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).
He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.
McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.
International Working Group on Russian Sanctions
The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
From the November 2013 public protests in Kiev to Russia’s military intervention in Crimea, FSI scholars have been monitoring developments throughout the region. Since stepping down last month as Washington’s ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul has returned to Stanford where he continues to analyze the unfolding crisis. Follow McFaul, Kathryn Stoner,Norman Naimark and Gail Lapidus as the FSI senior fellows share their expertise and insights into the situation.
An anti-government protester waves the national flag from the top of a statue during clashes with riot police in the Independence Square in Kiev February 20, 2014.
In a piece for Foreign Affairs, FSI Senior Fellow Kathryn Stoner discusses Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a show of force by Russian President Vladimir Putin to re-establish the country as a superpower for a domestic and international audience. Stoner argues that there is little the West can do about the annex of Crimea without risking a third World War.
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A float with a caricature of Putin in the Rose Monday parade in Duesseldorf, March 3, 2014.
When some 140 Stanford students and faculty recently gathered to simulate an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, they had some real-world data that had never been used before: satellite images of Iran’s Arak nuclear facility.
Students at the two-day simulation for CISAC’s signature class, “International Security in a Changing World,” were given this hypothetical allegation: Iran has violated the conditions of the November 2013 deal on its nuclear program by moving material between its nuclear facilities.
As the students were debating how to handle the allegation – purposely injected into the simulation in the form of a leak to heighten tensions – mock representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency provided the delegations with satellite images that indicated no movement at the nuclear facility in question.
While the emergency was phony, the premise was very real. As were many of the documents, reports and satellite images used by the students and faculty to craft their stands and trip up their opponents as they played out their roles.
Skybox Imaging, a 5-year-old Silicon Valley firm started by four Stanford grads, provided the satellite images taken just days before the simulation in early February. The co-founders of Skybox established the information and analytics firm in 2009 using a business plan they developed as students in the class, “Technology Venture Formation.”
One of those co-founders, Dan Berkenstock, had also taken “International Security in a Changing World” as well as another popular class, “Technology and National Security,” co-taught by CISAC faculty member and former Secretary of Defense William Perry and Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker.
Berkenstock, who was working on his Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics, became fascinated by ways technology might aid international security.
“The class became a major inspiration in starting Skybox,” Berkenstock said. “I was interested in satellites and the kind of data that they could create on the technical side, but I was really interested in much more of the analyses of those images and the stories that were locked within them.”
He said he realized that they could take the value of satellite imagery and “help people make better and safer decisions.”
Skybox, based in Mountain View, designed, built and then launched its first satellite, SkySat-1, from Russia last November. Two more satellites are scheduled to launch later this year; another six next year. The firm intends to eventually have 24 satellites in orbit to see any spot on earth multiple times a day. They also have produced the first high-resolution video from space.
“It’s about being able to monitor the ebb and flow of natural resources, the production of commodities, the activities of new construction and damage to old infrastructure and transportation,” Berkenstock said. “All those things, they define not just security; they really define our global economy. How many cars were there in the Walmart parking lot before the storm? How many tanks were there in a military base in Syria?”
Students were given two images that showed Iran's Arak nuclear facility on two different dates.
Students were given two images that showed Iran's Arak nuclear facility on two different dates. Photo Credit: Skybox Imaging
CISAC co-director, Amy Zegart, who co-teaches “International Security in a Changing World” with CISAC’s terrorism expert, Martha Crenshaw, said the Skybox images injected a dose of reality to the simulation.
“Students could see up close and personal just what satellite imagery of one of Iran's nuclear facilities looks like, what it shows, what it can't, what questions it raises,” she said. “Typically, students in international security classes see grainy satellite images from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. It's important history, but it's distant. Skybox gave us fresh images from Iran's Arak reactor. The imagery was real, important, immediate, and cool.”
Zegart, one of the country’s leading intelligence experts, said Skybox is at the forefront of a “tectonic shift in intelligence.”
“It used to be that all the most important sources and methods of detecting threats like nuclear weapons programs rested in the hands of governments,” she said. “Not anymore. Enterprising companies, NGOs, and even individuals are producing and assessing information like never before – using commercial satellite images, smart phones, Google, you name it.”
Policymakers don’t control information like they used to, Zegart said. They have to find creative ways to harness new tools to understand security threats.
“Real world leaders are grappling with this new information universe, and we wanted Stanford students to grapple with it, too,” she said.
Keshav Dimri, a CISAC honors student who played the role of the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, said the students did indeed grapple with the rapidly changing data they were given during the simulation.
“The use of satellite images was definitely a challenge because it forced us to back up our political rhetoric with technical data,” said Dimri, a history major. “The use of satellite imagery required many of us to leave our political science comfort zones and examine, analyze and quickly react to new data – the sort of spontaneous thinking we might need in a real negotiation.”
In the end, Dimri persuaded the class the allegations about movement at Iran’s nuclear plant were unfounded. While not resolving all of the outstanding historical issues, the students passed a resolution that allowed Tehran and the rest of the world to move forward.
Stanford Law School Professor Allen Weiner plays the UN Secretary-General.
Stanford Law School Professor Allen Weiner plays the UN Secretary-General. Photo Credit: Rod Searcey
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CISAC Honors Student Keshav Dimri takes on the role of the Iranian ambassador to the UN.
CISAC and FSI Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker has been awarded the prestigious Science Diplomacy Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his dedication to building bridges through science.
Hecker, director emeritus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and CISAC co-director from 2007-2012, was honored at the AAAS’s annual conference in Chicago for his “lifetime commitment to using the tools of science to address the challenges of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism and his dedication to building bridges through science during the period following the end of the Cold War."
In nominating Hecker for the 2013 award, Glenn E. Schweitzer, director of the Office for Central Europe and Eurasia at the National Academies, noted that Hecker has been particularly effective in working with government officials and scientific colleagues in Russia, Kazakhstan and North Korea.
"For over two decades, Dr. Hecker has worked on international nuclear security activities and fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials," said AAAS Chief International Officer Vaughan Turekian.
Schweitzer wrote in his nomination that Hecker's activities can be judged on two outcomes: responsible handling of nuclear materials and prevention of dangerous materials from falling into the wrong hands. "On both counts, he scores very high on anyone's ledger," Schweitzer wrote. "In addition, his openness and respect for the views of others have won important friends for the United States around the world."
More details about the award and Hecker's work can be read here.
Please join CISAC in congratulating Hecker for this honor.
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Siegfried Hecker, (left) with his former research assistant Niko Milonopoulos (center) and CISAC consulting professor Chaim Brun at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in Kazakhstan, Sept. 19, 2012.
Students were given two images that showed Iran's Arak nuclear facility on two different dates.
Stanford Law School Professor Allen Weiner plays the UN Secretary-General.
