Stanford University

Russia expert appointed to national security posts

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Stanford political science Professor Michael McFaul has been tapped by President Barack Obama to serve as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council.

McFaul, who has been deputy director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and director of its Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, was a senior adviser on Russia and Eurasia during Obama's campaign, and he continued to advise on foreign policy issues during the transition. He now joins the National Security Council headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones.

"President-elect Obama was fortunate to have the benefit of Mike's counsel on a range of vital issues during the campaign—including dealing with a resurgent Russia," said Freeman Spogli Institute Director Coit D. Blacker, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies. "Now, from the White House, the president can call on Mike's expertise and experience in the region to build more constructive relationships with Russia, Eurasia and our allies across a broad strategic front."

McFaul is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-Russian relations, political and economic reform in the post-communist world and democracy promotion. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough, which he co-edited with Anders Aslund; Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Postcommunist Political Reform, which he wrote with Nikolai Petrov and Andrei Ryabov; and After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions, which he edited with Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

McFaul is a non-resident senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He serves on the editorial boards of Current History, Journal of Democracy, Demokratizatsiya, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Post Soviet Affairs and the Washington Quarterly. He has served as a consultant for numerous companies and government agencies and has testified before Congress on U.S.-Russian relations.

McFaul, the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a frequent commentator on international politics and American foreign policy in the national and international media. He has appeared on all major television and radio networks, and his opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New Republic, International Herald Tribune and Moscow Times.

McFaul earned bachelor's degrees in international relations and Slavic languages and literatures and a master's degree in Russian and East European studies from Stanford in 1986. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and completed a doctorate in international relations at Oxford in 1991.

All News button
1

Learning not to love the bomb

Authors
Philip Taubman
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

The Obama administration seems ready to resuscitate relations with Russia, including by renewing nuclear-arms-reduction talks. Even before the inaugural parade wound down, the White House Web site offered up a list of ambitious nuclear policy goals, with everything from making bomb-making materials more secure to the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons.

That's welcome news, but for such goals to be realized, the White House will need to be prepared to reimagine and reshape the nuclear era and, against strong opposition, break free from cold war thinking and better address the threats America faces today.

George W. Bush actually started down this road. He reached an agreement with the Kremlin in 2002 to cut the number of operational strategic warheads on each side to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012, a two-thirds reduction. Washington is likely to reach that goal ahead of schedule. President Bush's efforts were propelled by the Nuclear Posture Review - a periodic reassessment of nuclear forces and policies - in December 2001. While still grounded in the belief that nuclear weapons are the silver bullets of American defense, the review let a little daylight into the nuclear bunker by acknowledging that nuclear-weapons policy had to be readjusted to deal with rapidly changing threats. Soon, however, the president's initiatives were overshadowed by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, his administration's absorption with the threat of terrorism and the gradual breakdown in relations with Russia.

President Bush's agreement with Moscow, which was built upon weapons reductions made by Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, is President Obama's starting point. But rather than settle for the next level - 1,000 active weapons seems to be the likely goal - the White House should reconsider the entire superstructure of nuclear-weapons strategy. This won't be easy. The mandarins of the nuclear establishment remain enthralled by elaborate deterrence theories premised on the notion that the ultimate defense against a variety of military threats is a bristling nuclear arsenal.

It's true that America's nuclear weapons still offer the hope of deterring attacks from countries like North Korea and, if it soon goes nuclear, Iran. But it is hard to imagine how they would dissuade a band of elusive, stateless terrorists from making a nuclear bomb and detonating it in New York, Washington or Los Angeles.

One provocative road map for moving away from nuclear deterrence comes from a quartet of cold war leaders - Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former secretaries of state; William Perry, a former secretary of defense; and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Two years ago, they bridged their ideological differences to call, improbably, for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and they proposed a series of interim steps to reduce nuclear dangers, stop the spread of bomb-making materials and lay the groundwork for a nuclear-free world.

Even the quartet recognizes that "getting to zero" will be exceedingly difficult. But the issue today isn't whether the elimination of nuclear weapons is feasible. That's a distant goal.

An achievable immediate goal should be to cut the United States' and Russia's nuclear stockpiles down to the bare minimum of operational warheads needed to backstop conventional forces. As long as these two countries have far and away the most nuclear weapons, Washington looks hypocritical when it lectures other nations about the size of their arsenals or their efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

There's reasonable disagreement among experts about the minimum number of nuclear weapons the United States and Russia should maintain. The more emphasis you put on nuclear deterrence, the more potent you think the arsenal should be. And the more you want to engage the world in arms reduction and prevent proliferation, the more you consider radical cuts. To bring the number down below 1,000 would require determined presidential leadership.

The president's determination will be measured by how effectively he makes the case for Senate ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Leading scientists say that technological advances over the past decade have erased doubts about whether an international monitoring system can detect and locate underground tests outlawed by the treaty. The scientists also say that the United States has the technical expertise and tools to maintain the effectiveness of its nuclear weapons without underground testing, as has been successfully demonstrated since the United States stopped testing in 1992.

Ratification of the test-ban treaty would help build momentum for a 2010 review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the increasingly frail 1968 accord aimed at limiting the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually eliminating them. American leadership is essential to reinvigorating the treaty and buttressing nonproliferation efforts. The best way to avoid nuclear terrorism is to prevent terrorists from acquiring the highly enriched uranium needed to make the simplest nuclear bomb.

Listening to the discussion at a recent nuclear-weapons conference in Washington, I felt as though I had slipped back in time to the cold war and its arcane, often surreal debates about waging nuclear war and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. It's heartening to see President Obama and his national-security team promising to elevate nuclear-weapons policy and free it from the shibboleths of cold war nuclear theology. Now they must put their words into action.

All News button
1

A Political History of Nuclear Weapons, 1938-2008

-

Abstract: A political history of nuclear weapons: where they came from, the surprising ways in which the technology spread, who is likely to acquire them next and why.

Tom Reed is a former Secretary of the Air Force. He has also served as Director of National Reconnaissance, as a special Assistant to President Reagan for National Security Policy, and as a consultant to the Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Reed graduated first in his class from Cornell University with a degree in engineering and an ROTC commission into the U.S. Air Force. He began his professional career at the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in Los Angeles during the 1950s, the years of Sputnik and the missile gap. He earned his graduate degree from the University of Southern California and then moved on to Lawrence Livermore where he designed two thermonuclear devices fired over the Pacific in the Dominic test series of 1962.

On leaving Livermore, Reed started and ran a successful high-tech company making superconductors. He soon developed an interest in politics, and in 1966 became the northern California chair of Ronald Reagan's first gubernatorial race. He served as chief of personnel in the Governor's first administration and in 1970 assumed full responsibility for Governor Reagan's re-election campaign as the statewide chair and campaign director.

In 1973 Reed was recruited to manage certain intelligence projects at the Pentagon in connection with the Yom Kippur War then raging in the Mideast. Later that year he became director of information systems, developing a worldwide military command and control system, and then, in 1976, became Secretary of the Air Force. During the Reagan years Reed served as the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Policy. A principal project there was his authorship of National Security Decision Directive 32, signed by President Reagan in May 1982, which became the roadmap for prevailing and ending the Cold War.

Reed left Washington in 1983 to return to managing his business. Throughout the Soviet collapse Reed continued to advise the Joint Strategic Planning Staff (in Omaha) on policy and intelligence matters.

Reed was born in New York City. His first book, At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War (2004, Ballantine Books), delved into the lives of those who fought and ended the Cold War without a nuclear shot being fired.  His more recent book, Nuclear Express, notes that "since the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons have fallen into less well-manicured hands."  Nuclear Express was co-authored with Danny Stillman who served, for thirteen years, as director of technical intelligence at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Tom lives in the wine country, north of San Francisco, with his wife Kay. 

If you would like to be added to the email announcement list, please visit https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/stsseminar 

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Thomas Reed former Secretary of the Air Force Speaker
Seminars
Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)

Mongolia and Her Uranium Prospects

Paragraphs

The entry of Mongolia to the league of democracy took place less than two decades ago. Therefore coverage of the democratic chapter of Mongolia in the history books is very thin compared to that of the Great Mongolian Empire. However, the free society and economic freedom brought about the prospects and openness that embody the present economic and cultural globalization. Mongolia is an exotic destination that appeals to western investors for its highly educated population and its proximity to the world’s largest growing economies. The geographic location of Mongolia – landlocked, sandwiched between two giants, Russia and China – was once a drawback for business investment. As the world changes and the economic growth center (and thus the demand) shifts eastward to Asia, what was once a drawback is now an advantage. Of special importance is being next door to China’s enormously large and growing market.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Mongolian Mining Journal
Authors
Undraa Agvaanluvsan
External URL

Analysis of the New North Korean Missile Launch Complex

-

In 2006, public reports began to circulate that North Korea was constructing a large new rocket testing and launching center in a rural North-western coastal valley. A Jane's article by Bermudez nicknamed the complex Pongdong-ni and reported on some of the individual facilities. Coming in the aftermath of the 2006 Taepo-dong II launch failure from the existing Musadun-ri launch center on North Korea's East coast, there has been world-wide  speculation and ‘expert' analysis, much of it based on Google Earth images which have not been updated since 2003 (Musadun-ri) and 2006 (Pongdong-ni).  A recent government report that a rocket engine test occured during the summer of 2008 ratcheted up the media rhetoric: meanwhile little has been admitted by North Korea. In our presentation, we will examine the growth of the DPRK's rocket programs using commercial tools and satellite visible and multispectral data previously available only the government intelligence and military analysts.  In our presentation:

  1. We will assess and compare the capabilities and completion schedules of Pongdong- ni and  Musadun-ri,
  2. Present important new policy issues that are presented by these major facility investments,
  3. Show examples of how Open Source Technical Intelligence can provide an improved public understanding of foreign WMD activities independently of government and partisan policy centers.  
  4. Comment on last weeks Iranian satellite launch using North Korean developed rockets. 

Lew Franklin is a long-time CISAC Affiliate, joining CISAC in 1992 as a Visiting Scholar after retiring as a TRW vice president, and previously vice president and co-founder of ESL, a defense intelligence company.  Upon retirement he was awarded the CIA's Gold Medal for career-long contributions to foreign weapons assessment and national technical means capabilities.  At CISAC his work focused on technical intelligence related problems, including wmd proliferation, export controls, defense conversion, and especially conversion of retired ICBMs for low-cost space launches.  In 1993, he headed the launch campaign that mated the Stanford Quakesat satellite onto a retired Russian SS-19 Rokot launcher for a successful launch to orbit.  His current research into Open Source Technical Intelligence is in support of the upcoming visit to North Korea led by Lewis and Hecker.

Nick Hansen graduated with a BA in Geography from Syracuse University in 1964.  His career in national intelligence spans 43 years first as an Army imagery analyst, and then in industry with GTE-EDL, ESL/TRW, Tera Research as a cofounder Vice Pres. and then again at ESL (now TRW/Northrop-Grumman) as a Director. Currently he is in an SES position at the Navy's NIOC-Suitland, MD, as an image technology expert associated with Pennsylvania State University.  He has been twice nominated for the NRO's Pioneer award for innovative imagery uses and techniques development and is an expert in foreign weapons systems and test ranges. Currently Nick is supporting John Lewis' North Korea project.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Lewis Franklin CISAC Affiliate Speaker
Nick Hansen Retired Expert on Imagery Technology, Electronic Systems Laboratory; Senior Engineer, Penn State University Speaker
Seminars
Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)
Ballistic Missile Defense Technology and Policy

Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea

Paragraphs

It possesses nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them, and despite some progress, it is by no means clear that the ongoing six-party talks will be able to reveal the full extent of the country's nuclear activities, much less persuade Pyongyang to give them up.

The United States maintains tens of thousands of forces on the Korean peninsula in support of its commitments to the Republic of Korea (South Korea), a country with which the North is still technically at war. And the peninsula sits in a strategically vital region, where the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea all have important interests at stake.

All of this puts a premium on close attention to and knowledge of developments in North Korea. Unfortunately, Kim Jong-Il's government is perhaps the world's most difficult to read or even see. This Council Special Report, commissioned by CFR's Center for Preventive Action and authored by former CISAC co-director Paul B. Stares and Joel S. Wit, focuses on how to manage one of the central unknowns: the prospect of a change in North Korea's leadership. The report examines three scenarios: managed succession, in which the top post transitions smoothly; contested succession, in which government officials or factions fight for power after Kim's demise; and failed succession, in which a new government cannot cement its legitimacy, possibly leading to North Korea's collapse. The authors consider the challenges that these scenarios would pose-ranging from securing Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal to providing humanitarian assistance-and analyze the interests of the United States and others. They then provide recommendations for U.S. policy. In particular, they urge Washington to bolster its contingency planning and capabilities in cooperation with South Korea, Japan, and others, and to build a dialogue with China that could address each side's concerns.

With Kim Jong-Il's health uncertain and with a new president in the United States, this report could not be more timely. And with all the issues at stake on the Korean peninsula, the subject could not be more important. Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea is a thoughtful work that provides valuable insights for managing a scenario sure to arise in the coming months or years.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Policy Briefs
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Council on Foreign Relations Press
Authors
Number
978-0-87609-426-6

Nuclear Warfare

Paragraphs

Technology has always had a profound influence on the character of war. In the past century alone the industrial revolution, culminating in the development of modern aircraft, tanks, artillery, and naval vessels increased the lethality of war manifold. However, the advent of nuclear weapons in 1945 represented a quantum jump in the lethality of war. Looking ahead, one wonders how emerging information technologies and bio-technologies might revolutionize warfare in the future.

The history of the Cold War can be attributed to the confluence of two factors: the development of nuclear weapons and the rise of the former Soviet Union and the United States as the two dominant military powers after World War II. It may seem paradoxical that the development of the most destructive form of warfare, nuclear warfare, led to a period of relative peace, the Cold War. In fact, nuclear weapons have been used only twice in war-the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. This is not to say that wars on the periphery of U.S. and Soviet interests did not occur, but simply that war between the major powers was absent. This article discusses the development of nuclear weapons, their effects, and the impact they have had on the character of war and military strategy. The ascendance of deterrence as the central strategic concept for nuclear warfare helps explain the apparent paradox mentioned above.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Books
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Academic Press in "Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict", 2nd edition
Authors

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

Paragraphs

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."

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Policy Briefs
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Authors
Pavel Podvig

1989 & the Architecture of Order: The Competition to Lead the Post-Cold War World

-

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. 

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Mary Sarotte Associate Professor of International Relations, USC Speaker

Norman M. Naimark

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C235
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-6927 (650) 725-0597
0
Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies
Professor of History
Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Naimark,_Norman.jpg MS, PhD

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
Hide publication sections
Off
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
Seminars
Subscribe to Russia