* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/UOHyKJR5d1w

About the Event: 

In 2017, former diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford wrote a pointed resignation letter to her then boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She had watched as the State Department was gutted, and now she urged him to stem the bleeding by showing leadership and commitment to his diplomats and the country. If he couldn’t do that, she said, “I humbly recommend that you follow me out the door.” In The Dissent Channel, Shackelford chronicles how the challenges facing the State Department under the current administration, while extreme, are not new. In this live-streamed conversation, Shackelford will discuss the costs of a government unwilling to face mistakes or correct its course. She will also discuss how to build a more accountable foreign policy, through greater public engagement, more effective congressional oversight, and a State Department culture more open to dissent. In her book, The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age, she shares her personal experience as a diplomat trying to push back against the status quo and offers insight into the State Department’s long history of overlooking others who have tried to do the same. 

Moderating the discussion will be Rose Gottemoeller, Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and CISAC. Gottemoeller served as Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019 and prior to that as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State for nearly five years. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Book Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Dissent-Channel-American-Diplomacy-Dishonest/dp/1541724488

About the Speakers: 

Elizabeth Shackelford was a career diplomat in the U.S. State Department until December 2017, when she resigned in protest of the Trump administration. During her tenure with the Foreign Service, Shackelford served in the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Poland, and Juba, South Sudan; the U.S. Mission to Somalia; and Washington, D.C. For her work in South Sudan during the outbreak of civil war, Shackelford received the Barbara Watson Award for Consular Excellence, the State Department's highest honor for consular work. Shackelford is a non-resident fellow with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Moderated by: Rose Gottemoeller is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. Gottemoeller was Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. Gottemoeller was also the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation in 2009 and 2010.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/ryBtzvLI0QQ

About the Event: Despite the importance of understanding how refugee crises end, we know little about when and why refugees, who were forced to emigrate, return home. We study the drivers of refugees’ decision-making using original observational and experimental survey data from a representative sample of approximately 3,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We find that conditions in a refugee’s home country are much more important than the situation in the host country in shaping return intentions. Specifically, our findings suggest that refugees’ decisions are influenced primarily by safety and security in their place of origin, their economic prospects, the availability of public services, and their personal networks. Confidence in information is also important: we find that several drivers of return---safety, services, and networks---only impact intentions among people who have high confidence in their information. By contrast, the conditions in hosting countries–so-called “push'” factors–play a negligible role in the process of refugee return. Even in the face of outright hostility and poor living conditions, refugees are unlikely to return unless the situation at home improves significantly.

About the Speakers: 

Ala’ Alrababa’h is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Stanford University, a graduate fellow at the Immigration Policy Lab, and a junior scholar at the International Policy Scholars Consortium and Network. His research combines fieldwork, machine learning, and experimental methods to study issues related to authoritarian media, political violence, and migration and refugees. His research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Research and Methods, and International Studies Quarterly. Prior to arriving at Stanford University, Ala’ was a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Jeremy Weinstein is Professor of Political Science, Fisher Family Director of Stanford Global Studies, and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He also is faculty co-director of the Immigration Policy Lab and the Data for Development Initiative. In addition, he is a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.

His research focuses on civil wars and political violence; ethnic politics; the political economy of development; democracy and accountability; and migration. He is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge University Press), which received the William Riker Prize for the best book on political economy. He is also the co-author of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (Russell Sage Foundation), which received the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/4X0CfpgDSoQ

About the Event: This ambitious and incisive book presents a new vision for American foreign policy and international order at a time of historic upheaval. The United States global leadership crisis is not a passing shock created by the Trump presidency or COVID-19, but the product of forces that will endure for decades. Amidst political polarization, technological transformation, and major global power shifts, Lissner and Rapp-Hooper convincingly argue, only a grand strategy of openness can protect American security and prosperity despite diminished national strength. Disciplined and forward-looking, an openness strategy would counter authoritarian competitors by preventing the emergence of closed spheres of influence, maintaining access to the global commons, supporting democracies without promoting regime change, and preserving economic interdependence. The authors provide a roadmap for the next president, who must rebuild strength at home while preparing for novel forms of international competition. Lucid, trenchant, and practical,An Open World is an essential guide to the future of geopolitics.

Book Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Open-World-America-Contest-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0300250320/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=an+open+world&qid=1588687676&sr=8-4

About the Speaker: Rebecca Lissner is an Assistant Professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College and a Non-Resident Scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies. Previously, Dr. Lissner held research fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, the Council on Foreign Relations, and International Security Studies at Yale University. Dr. Lissner’s research and writing focuses on international security and American foreign policy. She is the co-author of An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First-Century Order (Yale University Press, 2020) and is working on a second book examining the effects of military interventions on American grand strategy. Her scholarship has been published in Political Science Quarterly, the Texas National Security Review, Survival, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and International Peacekeeping. Her policy writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and The Washington Quarterly, among other publications. Dr. Lissner received an AB in Social Studies from Harvard University and an MA and PhD in Government from Georgetown University.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/bUXHbUj5uxE

About the Event: While most civil wars today are fought within Muslim-majority states and, frequently, by armed groups that self-identify as Islamic, we know little about the relationships between and amongst Islamic humanitarian law, Western (treaty-based) humanitarian law, and the rhetoric and behavior of Islamic armed groups. Our legal analysis suggests that, while there is a great deal of overlap between Western and Islamic humanitarian law, this overlap is not perfect. Our empirical analysis, which focuses on both the words and behaviors of Islamic armed groups, suggests similarly mixed results. Specifically, we find that, on average, Islamic armed groups do not appear to be more or less compliant with Western or Islamic humanitarian law than non-Islamic armed groups when it comes to civilian targeting and child soldiering. While they often appeal to Islamic humanitarian law, Islamic armed groups appear to be bound by similar political and military – rather than religious or legal – constraints to non-Islamic armed groups.

About the Speaker: Tanisha Fazal is Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Her scholarship focuses on sovereignty, international law, and armed conflict.  Fazal’s current book project analyzes the effect of improvements in medical care in conflict zones on the long-term costs of war.  She is the author of State Death: The Politics and Geography of Conquest, Occupation, and Annexation (Princeton University Press, 2007), and Wars of Law: Unintended Consequences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict (Cornell University Press, 2018.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/C6FVf4CoowM

About the Event: U.S. Strategy in the Asian Century presents a new vision for the United States to navigate a region of immense consequence that is in the midst of profound change. As competition between China and the United States intensifies and questions about the sustainability and reliability of American power deepen, Washington must adapt its approach in order revitalize its power, reestablish its leadership, and rebuild the liberal order for the 21st century.

Book Purchase:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231197659/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_9sClFb5GYPYCM

About the Speaker: Abraham M. Denmark is Director of the Asia Program and a Senior Fellow at the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Denmark previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, for which he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. He has been named as an Honorary Rear Admiral in the Navy of the Republic of Korea and received the Order of the Resplendent Banner from the Republic of China (Taiwan).

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Livestream: Please click here to join the livestream webinar via Zoom or log-in with webinar ID 924 4971 4330.

About the Event: International statebuilding aims to transform weak, conflict-affected states into stable modern states, grounded in rule of law, market economies, and liberal democracies (Barnett 2006, Mann 2012). International organizations (IOs) play a central role in this effort. By deploying country-level statebuilding missions in conflict-affected states, IOs aim to co-govern with the conflict-affected state for a defined period of time, helping to strengthen the capacity of the state to govern itself. International relations scholarship assumes that once IOs exercise, possess, and assert their authority to intervene on a country’s domestic territory they do not have to renegotiate this authority. We argue, in contrast, that most agreements between IOs and the host government are incomplete contracts that give weak states substantial authority over the intervening IO. We demonstrate that in a context of changing sovereignty norms, weak states have consistently used their authority to resist the influence of IOs and reduce the effectiveness of international statebuilding efforts. To test the observable implications of these claims, we employ a mixed method research design that integrates text-as-data analysis with in-depth case studies.

About the Speakers:

Susanna P. Campbell is an Assistant Professor at the School of International Service and Director of the Research on International Policy Implementation Lab (RIPIL) at American University. Her research examines the sub-national behavior of international actors in fragile and conflict-affected states, addressing debates in the statebuilding, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, international aid, and global governance literatures. She uses mixed-method research designs and has conducted extensive fieldwork in conflict-affected countries, including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Sudan, South Sudan, and East Timor. She has received grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Network for International Studies, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Swedish and Dutch governments, among others. In 2018, she won the School of International Service Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award and the Excellence in PhD Mentoring Award.

Prof. Campbell’s first book, Global Governance and Local Peace (Cambridge University Press, 2018), argues that because global governance actors are accountable to external stakeholders, seemingly “bad behavior” by country-based staff is necessary for local peacebuilding performance. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Conflict Research Society Book of the Year Prize and featured as one of the 2018 top picks for engaged scholarship by Political Violence @ a Glance. She is finishing a co-authored second book, Aid in Conflict, that explains the aid allocation behavior of international donors in war-torn countries. Her work has also been published by Columbia University Press, International Studies Review, International Peacekeeping, Journal of Global Security Studies, and Political Research Quarterly, among others. Prior to graduate school, she worked for the United Nations, International Crisis Group, and the Council on Foreign Relations and recently served as a senior advisor for the Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States, mandated by the US Congress. She received her PhD from Tufts University and was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and The Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Aila M. Matanock is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research addresses the ways in which international and other outside actors engage in fragile states. She uses case studies, survey experiments, and cross-national data in this work. She has conducted fieldwork in Colombia, Central America, Europe, Melanesia, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. She has received funding for these projects from many sources, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Minerva Research Initiative, the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START), and the Center for Global Development (CGD). Her 2017 book, Electing Peace: From Civil Conflict to Political Participation, was published by Cambridge University Press. It won the 2018 Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize and was a runner up for the 2018 Conflict Research Society Book of the Year Prize. It is based on her dissertation research at Stanford University, which won the 2013 Helen Dwight Reid award from the American Political Science Association. Her work has also been published by the Annual Review of Political Science, Governance, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and elsewhere. She worked at the RAND Corporation before graduate school, and, since then, she has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UCSD. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and her A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard University.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone

Livestream: Please click here to join the livestream webinar via Zoom or log-in with webinar ID 913 4480 9317.

About the Event: How do states build lasting international order? Existing explanations of order formation argue that leading states are incentivized to create binding institutions with robust rules and strong enforcement mechanisms. The stability resulting from such institutionalized orders, scholars argue, allows leading states to geopolitically punch above their weight after they have declined in power. I argue, however, that such explanations overlook the trade-off between stability and flexibility, that leading states are faced with. Flexibility calls for short-term agreements that can be renegotiated when the strategic situation changes. And it allows the leading state to take advantage of relative power increases.Whereas states face significant incentives to err on the side of stability if they predict irreversible decline in power, states face incentives to err on the side of flexibility if they predict relative rise in power.  

About the Speaker: Mariya Grinberg is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago in 2019. Her primary research examines why states trade with their enemies, investigating the product level and temporal variation in wartime commercial policies of states vis-a-vis enemy belligerents. Her broader research interests include international relations theory focusing on order formation and questions of state sovereignty. Prior to coming to CISAC, she was a predoctoral fellow at the Belfer Center’s International Security Program. She holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago's Committee on International Relations and a B.A. from the University of Southern California.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone

Seminar Recordings: https://youtu.be/fwiKw1WIeZo

About the Event: If Russia’s 2020 energy activities have appeared chaotic, there is good reason. The Kremlin has taken actions that appear to upend Western expectations, forged over the past decade, that Moscow uses its oil reserves to generate state revenues, and gas exports for political leverage, malign influence, and elite capture. For years, U.S. and European policymakers braced for what appeared to be an inevitable gas crisis in Europe at the outset of 2020, that would be precipitated by a Russian cutoff of the Ukrainian gas transmission system facilitated by Gazprom’s diversionary pipeline proposals: Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream. Instead, EU regulatory action and U.S. sanctions legislation mitigated the immediate threat of an encore performance of the 2009 Russian gas cutoff of Ukraine. Nevertheless, with the global COVID-19 crisis raging, Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken actions in the energy sector toward Belarus, the Balkan region, Ukraine, global oil producers, and even off the Antarctic coastline that fundamentally challenge the assumptions of the previous decade, and are destined to shape thinking about Russia’s energy challenges to Transatlantic strategic security interests for years to come. 

About the Speaker: Benjamin L. Schmitt, is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Project Development Scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he focuses on the development of instrumentation and infrastructure for next-generation Antarctic experimental cosmology facilities at the South Pole. From 2015-2019 Benjamin served as European Energy Security Advisor at the U.S. Department of State where he advanced diplomatic engagement vital to the energy and national security interests of the Transatlantic community, with a focus on supporting Ukraine and other nations along NATO’s Eastern Flank facing Russian malign energy activities. Benjamin has been an invited lecturer on European energy security and horizonal energy technologies, most recently with the Harvard Ukraine Research Institute, Harvard Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and National Defense University. He continues to publish energy security analysis, including with the Atlantic Council, Harvard International Review, and Center for European Policy Analysis. Schmitt regularly provides expert transatlantic security policy commentary for both print and television media, including with the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Daily Beast, Voice of America, Germany’s Bild Zeitung, and Ukraine’s Kyiv Post. Benjamin is the current Amicus Poloniae Award laureate, a recognition by the Government of the Republic of Poland for outstanding efforts to promote development of cooperation between the Republic of Poland and the United States of America, and has received both Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards from the U.S. Department of State. Before entering government, Schmitt served as a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow while pursuing doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on direct imaging of the Cosmic Microwave Background, for which he received both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in experimental physics. Schmitt has also previously served as a U.S. Fulbright Research Fellow to the Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. 

This event is co-sponsored with the Cyber Policy Center and the Center for a New American Security.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/KaydMdIVtGc

About the Event: The United States is steadily losing ground in the race against China to pioneer the most important technologies of the 21st century. With technology a critical determinant of future military advantage, a key driver of economic prosperity, and a potent tool for the promotion of different models of governance, the stakes could not be higher. To compete, China is leveraging its formidable scale—whether measured in terms of research and development expenditures, data sets, scientists and engineers, venture capital, or the reach of its leading technology companies. The only way for the United States to tip the scale back in its favor is to deepen cooperation with allies. The global diffusion of innovation also places a premium on aligning U.S. and ally efforts to protect technology. Unless coordinated with allies, tougher U.S. investment screening and export control policies will feature major seams that Beijing can exploit.

On early June, join Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) for a unique virtual event that will feature three policy experts advancing concrete ideas for how the United States can enhance cooperation with allies around technology innovation and protection.

This webinar will be on-the-record, and include time for audience Q&A.

About the Speakers: 

Anja Manuel, Stanford Research Affiliate, CNAS Adjunct Senior Fellow, Partner at Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, and author with Pav Singh of Compete, Contest and Collaborate: How to Win the Technology Race with China.

Daniel Kliman, Senior Fellow and Director, CNAS Asia-Pacific Security Program, and co-author of a recent report, Forging an Alliance Innovation Base.

Martijn Rasser, Senior Fellow, CNAS Technology and National Security Program, and lead researcher on the Technology Alliance Project

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/wV3Jvqri5Ds

About the Event: Throughout America’s atomic history, the president has solely held the power to end the world in minutes. This won’t stop . . . unless we do something. Now. America is one “push of a button” away from nuclear war—a decision that rests solely in the hands of the president. Without waiting for approval from Congress or even the secretary of defense, the president can unleash America’s nuclear arsenal, ending civilization as we know it. For decades, glitches and slipups have threat-ened to trigger nuclear winter: misinformation, false alarms, unstable presidents, and now cyber- attacks. And a new nuclear arms race has begun, threatening us all. From authors William J. Perry, who served as secretary of defense in the Clinton administration and undersecretary of defense for research and engineering in the Carter administration, and Tom Z. Collina, the director of policy at Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation in Washington, DC, The Button recounts the terrifying history of nuclear launch authority, from the faulty 46-cent microchip that nearly caused World War III to President Trump’s tweet about his “much bigger & more powerful” button. Perry and Collina share their firsthand experience on the front lines of the nation’s nuclear history and provide illuminating interviews with former president Bill Clinton, for-mer secretary of defense Jim Mattis, congressman Adam Smith, Nobel Peace Prize winner Beatrice Fihn, senior Obama administration officials, and many others.Written in an accessible and authoritative voice, The Button delivers a powerful condemnation against leaving explosive power this devastating under any one person’s thumb and outlines a prescription for a safer and saner future.

Video preview: https://ploughshares.org/thebutton 
Book purchase: https://www.benbellabooks.com/shop/the-button/ 
Discount code: BUTTON30

About the Authors: 

William J. Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) at Stanford University. He is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution, and serves as director of the Preventive Defense Project. He is an expert in U.S. foreign policy, national security and arms control. He was the co-director of CISAC from 1988 to 1993, during which time he was also a part-time professor at Stanford. He was a part-time lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at Santa Clara University from 1971 to 1977.

Perry was the 19th secretary of defense for the United States, serving from February 1994 to January 1997. He previously served as deputy secretary of defense (1993-1994) and as under secretary of defense for research and engineering (1977-1981). Dr. Perry currently serves on the Defense Policy Board (DPB). He is on the board of directors of Covant and several emerging high-tech companies. His previous business experience includes serving as a laboratory director for General Telephone and Electronics (1954-1964); founder and president of ESL Inc. (1964-1977); executive vice-president of Hambrecht & Quist Inc. (1981-1985); and founder and chairman of Technology Strategies & Alliances (1985-1993). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From 1946 to 1947, Perry was an enlisted man in the Army Corps of Engineers, and served in the Army of Occupation in Japan. He joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1948 and was a second lieutenant in the Army Reserves from 1950 to 1955. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1997 and the Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1998. Perry has received a number of other awards including the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal (1980 and 1981), and Outstanding Civilian Service Medals from the Army (1962 and 1997), the Air Force (1997), the Navy (1997), the Defense Intelligence Agency (1977 and 1997), NASA (1981) and the Coast Guard (1997). He received the American Electronic Association's Medal of Achievement (1980), the Eisenhower Award (1996), the Marshall Award (1997), the Forrestal Medal (1994), and the Henry Stimson Medal (1994). The National Academy of Engineering selected him for the Arthur Bueche Medal in 1996. He has received awards from the enlisted personnel of the Army, Navy, and the Air Force. He has received decorations from the governments of Albania, Bahrain, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Poland, Slovenia, and Ukraine. He received a BS and MS from Stanford University and a PhD from Pennsylvania State University, all in mathematics.

Tom Z. Collina is Director of Policy at Ploughshares Fund. He is the co-author with William J. Perry of THE BUTTON: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump, published in June 2020. Tom has thirty years of Washington, DC, experience in nuclear weapons, missile defense, and nonproliferation issues, and has held senior positions at the Arms Control Association, the Institute for Science and International Security, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has been directly involved with efforts to end U.S. nuclear testing, limit ineffective anti-missile programs, extend the Nonproliferation Treaty, and secure Senate ratification of the New START Treaty. He has published widely in major magazines and journals and has appeared frequently in the national media, including the New York Times, CNN, and NPR. He has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and regularly briefs congressional staff. Tom has a degree in International Relations from Cornell University and lives in Takoma Park, MD with his wife, three children and dog. When away from the office he does not think about nuclear war.

About the Moderators: 

Rose Gottemoeller is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Center for Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008, and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program. She is also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. 

At Stanford, Gottemoeller will teach and mentor students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program and the CISAC Honors program; contribute to policy research and outreach activities; and convene workshops, seminars and other events relating to her areas of expertise, including nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation and non-proliferation.

Colin H. Kahl is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the inaugural Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor, by courtesy, in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. He is also a Strategic Consultant to the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

From October 2014 to January 2017, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In that position, he served as a senior advisor to President Obama and Vice President Biden on all matters related to U.S. foreign policy and national security affairs, and represented the Office of the Vice President as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. From February 2009 to December 2011, Dr. Kahl was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon. In this capacity, he served as the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and six other countries in the Levant and Persian Gulf region. In June 2011, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service by Secretary Robert Gates.  

From 2007 to 2017 (when not serving in the U.S. government), Dr. Kahl was an assistant and associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From 2007 to 2009 and 2012 to 2014, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonpartisan Washington, DC-based think tank. From 2000 to 2007, he was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. In 2005-2006, Dr. Kahl took leave from the University of Minnesota to serve as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked on issues related to counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and responses to failed states. In 1997-1998, he was a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. 

Current projects include: research on the geopolitical consequences of COVID-19 and intersecting global trends; an examination of the implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning on strategic stability; and theoretical and historical analysis of American grand strategy since 9/11. 

He has published numerous articles on international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for CNAS. 

His previous research analyzed the causes and consequences of violent civil and ethnic conflict in developing countries, focusing particular attention on the demographic and natural resource dimensions of these conflicts. His book on the subject, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World, was published by Princeton University Press in 2006, and related articles and chapters have appeared in International Security, the Journal of International Affairs, and various edited volumes. 

Dr. Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).