Abstract: Sound strategy requires alignment of ends, ways, and means. A significant gap in ends (the objectives to be achieved) and means (the resources to be applied towards that objective) result in risk and likely policy failure. Few policies over the last decade have had a wider gap between ends and means than Syria. Declared U.S. objectives – “Assad must go” – were not matched by the resources for achieving that objective nor considered thought as to how it might realistically be achieved. This situation has worsened in the Trump administration as the declared objectives have increased but the available resources and political commitment have decreased. McGurk will discuss Syria policy across both administrations based on his own experience leading the U.S. response to ISIS. He has traveled to Syria extensively and calls for an urgent realignment of ends and means to drawn down risk to the United States. The lessons to be drawn are then applied to other foreign policy challenges and offer a ready formula for assessing the declared objectives of U.S. policy.  The talk will be based on McGurk’s recent article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

Speaker's Biography: Brett McGurk is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Center for Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

McGurk’s research interests center on national security strategy, diplomacy, and decision-making in wartime.  He is particularly interested in the lessons learned over the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump regarding the importance of process in informing presidential decisions and the alignment of ends and means in national security doctrine and strategy.  At Stanford, he will be working on a book project incorporating these themes and teaching a graduate level seminar on presidential decision-making beginning in the fall of 2019.  He is also a frequent commentator on national security events in leading publications and as an NBC News Senior Foreign Affairs Analyst. 

Before coming to Stanford, McGurk served as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at the U.S. Department of State, helping to build and then lead the coalition of seventy-five countries and four international organizations in the global campaign against the ISIS terrorist network.  McGurk was also responsible for coordinating all aspects of U.S. policy in the campaign against ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and globally.

McGurk previously served in senior positions in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, including as Special Assistant to President Bush and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan, and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and Special Presidential Envoy for the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State under Obama.

McGurk has led some of the most sensitive diplomatic missions in the Middle East over the last decade. His most recent assignment established one of the largest coalitions in history to prosecute the counter-ISIS campaign. He was a frequent visitor to the battlefields in both Iraq and Syria to help integrate military and civilian components of the war plan. He also led talks with Russia over the Syria conflict under both the Trump and Obama administrations, initiated back-channel diplomacy to reopen ties between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and facilitated the formation of the last two Iraqi governments following contested elections in 2014 and 2018.

In 2015 and 2016, McGurk led fourteen months of secret negotiations with Iran to secure the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezain, U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, and Pastor Saad Abadini, as well as three other American citizens.

During his time at the State Department, McGurk received multiple awards, including the Distinguished Honor Award and the Distinguished Service Award, the highest department awards for exceptional service in Washington and overseas assignments.

McGurk is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

McGurk received his JD from Columbia University and his BA from the University of Connecticut Honors Program.  He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Denis Jacobs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit, and Judge Gerard E. Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Seminar recording: https://youtu.be/NUJqthUIGiU

Abstract: Did the Cold War of the 1980s nearly turn hot? Much has been made of NATO’s November 1983 Able Archer 83 command post exercise, which the literature typically casts as having nearly precipitated a nuclear war. Warsaw Pact policy-makers, according to the conventional wisdom, suspected that the exercise was more than just a rehearsal of nuclear escalation and concluded that a surprise nuclear attack was imminent, nearly launching a preemptive strike of their own. This article overturns this narrative using new, international evidence from the political, military, and intelligence archives of the Eastern bloc. First, it shows that the much-touted Warsaw Pact intelligence effort to assess Western intentions and capabilities, Project RIaN, which supposedly triggered Eastern fears of a surprise attack was nowhere near operational at the time of Able Archer 83. Second, it presents an account of the East’s sanguine observations of Able Archer 83 disproving accounts which allege that the exercise nearly escalated to nuclear war. In doing so, it advances debates not only in the historiography of the late Cold War, but also pertaining to the stability of the nuclear peace and the role of perception and misperception in policy-making.

Speaker's Biography:

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Abstract: President Trump may talk about the Middle East differently than Obama did. But the two seem to share the view that the United States is too involved in the region and should devote fewer resources and less time to it. The reduced appetite for U.S. engagement in the region reflects, not an ideological predilection or an idiosyncrasy of these two presidents, but a deeper change in both regional dynamics and broader U.S. interests. Despite this, the United States exists in a kind of Middle Eastern purgatory—too distracted by regional crises to pivot to other global priorities but not invested enough to move the region in a better direction. This worst-of-both-worlds approach exacts a heavy price. It sows uncertainty among Washington’s Middle Eastern partners, which encourages them to act in risky and aggressive ways. It deepens the American public’s frustration with the region’s endless turmoil, as well as with U.S. efforts to address it. It diverts resources that could otherwise be devoted to confronting a rising China and a revanchist Russia. And all the while, by remaining unclear about the limits of its commitments, the United States risks getting dragged into yet another Middle Eastern conflict. 

Wittes is a co-host of Rational Security, a weekly podcast on foreign policy and national security issues. She writes on U.S. Middle East policy, regional conflict and conflict resolution, the challenges of global democracy, and the future of Arab governance. Her current research is for a forthcoming book, Our SOBs, on the tangled history of America’s ties to autocratic allies.

Wittes joined Brookings in December of 2003. Previously, she served as a Middle East specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace and director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in international relations and security studies at Georgetown University. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Wittes is the author of "Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy" (Brookings Institution Press, 2008) and the editor of "How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process" (USIP, 2005). She holds a bachelor's in Judaic and Near Eastern studies from Oberlin College, and a master's and doctorate in government from Georgetown University. She serves on the board of the National Democratic Institute, as well as the advisory board of the Israel Institute, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Women in International Security.

Mara Karlin's Biography: Mara Karlin, PhD, is Director of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She is also an Associate Professor at SAIS and a nonresident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. Karlin has served in national security roles for five U.S. secretaries of defense, advising on policies spanning strategic planning, defense budgeting, future wars and the evolving security environment, and regional affairs involving the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Most recently, she served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development.  Karlin has been awarded Department of Defense Medals for Meritorious and Outstanding Public Service, among others. She is the author of Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States (University of Pennsylvania Press; 2018).

Abstract: In efforts to halt the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons (CW) in that country’s civil war the United States and other outside powers applied coercive strategies, in both a deterrent and compellent mode. Outcomes varied: compellence achieved a partial success in getting Syria to give up much of its chemical stockpile, but there were multiple deterrence failures. This paper examines this record to draw lessons about factors associated with the effectiveness of coercion. Its analysis points to the interplay of three factors: credibility, motivation, and assurance. Regarding credibility, the case demonstrates that threats fulfilling many of the traditional criteria for establishing credibility can still fail. In Syria, this is partly because there were ambiguities in the scope of what was covered by deterrent warnings and partly because other factors also affect coercive outcomes. In the Syria case two additional factors were especially important. First, the domestic political motivations of the target affect whether external threats provide coercive leverage. In this case Syrian President Assad’s concern with regime survival led him to perceive the value of CW use as outweighing the likely costs even if outside powers followed through on retaliatory threats. Second, where regime survival is a concern, it is vital to pair coercive threats with appropriate assurances. Here, the case suggests that it is possible not only to provide too little assurance, but also too much. Whereas the Obama administration found it hard to offer credible assurances to Assad, the Trump administration initially conveyed assurances that were too robust, creating a sense that Syria could use CW with impunity. This analysis suggests there may have been a potentially viable path to effective coercion of the Assad regime, but the path would have involved intense tradeoffs that largely prevented decision makers from embracing it. Decision makers and outside commentators alike turned instead to a familiar schema that implies credibility is established by demonstrating a willingness to impose costs using airpower – a script that can be labeled the “resolve plus bombs” formula. Despite the frequent tendency to equate coercion with the threat or limited use of air strikes, this approach was not sufficient to change Syria’s calculations regarding chemical arms.

Speaker's Biography: Jeff Knopf is a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, California, where he serves as chair of the M.A. program in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies and a senior research associate with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). He is on sabbatical for the 2018-19 academic year and is spending the year as a visiting scholar at CISAC. This is his second stint at CISAC. Dr. Knopf received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford and was previously a pre-doctoral fellow at CISAC in the days when it was still located in the old Galvez House. His most recently completed project is a forthcoming book volume he co-edited on Behavioral Economics and Nuclear Weapons. While at CISAC, Dr. Knopf will primarily be working on a project titled “Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons.” This project examines efforts by the United States and other countries to apply deterrent and compellent strategies in attempts to stop the Syrian government from using chemical weapons and to dismantle its chemical arsenal. Dr. Knopf will also be working on a paper that explores cognitive aspects of the nuclear taboo.

Abstract: To drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and expand energy access, nuclear energy may play a significant role in decarbonizing electrical grids. To the extent that this expansion involves developing new and advanced nuclear fuel cycle technologies, concerns about nonproliferation concurrently grow. To address at least one nonproliferation concern, a safeguards assessment was conducted on a conceptual nuclear waste processing technology, called pyroprocessing, using a traditional safeguards technique, called the neutron balance method. The safeguards assessment revealed that the fundamental requirements needed for the neutron balance method to work were not always observed. The diversion scenario modeled resulted in the undetected diversion of several kilograms of plutonium. The assessment found that traditional safeguards assumptions and techniques might not be adequate to meet nuclear material accountancy requirements. New approaches developed from fundamental research are needed to ensure new facilities are only being used for peaceful purposes.

Speaker's Biography: Chantell Murphy is a Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. Chantell Murphy earned her PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of New Mexico in 2018 and holds a MS in health physics from Georgetown University and a BS in physics from Florida State University.

Chantell Murphy worked as a graduate research assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory supporting the nuclear engineering and nonproliferation division (NEN-5) and worked in the national security office (NSO). During her time at LANL Ms. Murphy investigated safeguards approaches for pyroprocessing facilities and helped develop an acquisition path analysis software tool called APAT for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Ms. Murphy worked on safeguards approaches for advanced reactor designs like thorium fueled reactors, worked on knowledge retention issues for future warhead verification campaigns, and participated in and gave talks at several international safeguards and nuclear policy related workshops around the US and in Europe. Ms. Murphy also worked as a visiting scientist at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany for three months developing the IAEA’s state level approach and acquisition path analysis with the Nuclear Waste Management and Reactor Safety group in the Institute of Energy and Climate Research.

Chantell Murphy’s previous experience also includes an internship at the Managing the Atom project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and work for the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.

Abstract: Successful use of bots and trolls as tools of its expansionist foreign policy demonstrated the Russian government's superior capability in computational propaganda. Yet the main area of application for these tools remains inside Russia: to prop up Vladimir Putin's approval ratings and deny his opponents an opportunity to reach potential voters. In this paper, we use supervised machine learning algorithms for bot detection and sentiment analysis to do a first systematic survey of bot activity in the Russian segment of Twitter. We discover a high yet fluctuating volume of bot communication and presence of both pro- and anti-government as well as neutral bots. We also identify sources of information they spread and formulate testable hypotheses about the political strategy behind bots deployment. Finally, we discuss the implications of autocrats' reliance on domestic computational propaganda for the response to their activities abroad.

Speaker's Biography: Sergey Sanovich received his Ph.D. in Politics at NYU. He studies how autocrats use the power of persuasion to come to, and stay in, office. His ongoing research is focused on online censorship and propaganda by authoritarian regimes; elections and partisanship in electoral autocracies; and personalization of politics in both autocratic and democratic countries. To conduct his research, Sergey collects big data from social media, digitalizes archival documents, and runs field and survey experiments both online and offline.

Abstract: My research investigates the formal institutionalization of inter-governmental cooperation among the three major Northeast Asian powers – China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea—in the face of a continued North Korean threat. How much of a shadow, if any, has North Korea’s nuclear weapons cast over the development of multilateralism in the region? Since 1999, the Northeast Asian region has seen intensifying institutionalization of cooperation among its major powers. In a region where the realist logic of state-centric nationalism, sovereignty, and balance of power still prevails, this new development of trilateral cooperation among the former and potential adversaries deserves serious scholarly investigation. What started as economic and functional cooperation, trilateral cooperation has since been substantially expanded to include political and security agendas at the highest level of government. What explains the emergence and endurance of trilateral cooperation and to what extent has containing the North Korean nuclear crisis shaped its institutional trajectory and outcomes? By examining the evolution of trilateral cooperation, I address some critical gaps in our understanding of formal institution building and the economic-security nexus in one of the most dynamic regions in the world.

Speaker's Biography: Yeajin Yoon is a 2018-2019 MacArthur Nuclear Security Pre-doctoral Fellow at CISAC and a doctoral candidate in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. Her dissertation examines the evolution of trilateral cooperation among the most militarily and economically dominant states in Northeast Asia, namely, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, and considers when and how their relations become implicated in the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Prior to entering academia, Yeajin travelled extensively across Asia and worked with national governments, international organisations, and NGOs in the region. She led the development of the inaugural issue of the 'Oxford Government Review’ and helped facilitate a Track II dialogue on wartime history issues in Asia at Stanford University. Previously, she worked as a founding member of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat, the official intergovernmental organisation for China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea and managed a development fund focused on the ASEAN region at the Korean Foreign Ministry.

Yeajin received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with Honors from Stanford University and a Master of Public Policy degree from Oxford University.

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Abstract:  As Russian President Vladimir Putin pursues a more assertive policy toward the West, one of his primary grievances is that NATO enlarged despite 1990 assurances to the contrary.  At the end of the Cold War, did Washington in fact promise Moscow that it would refrain from expanding NATO eastward?  Russia says yes; the US says no; what does the evidence say?  Professor Sarotte, a historian, has conducted archival research and interviews on this topic in the US, Russia, Germany, Britain, and France. In this lecture, she will draw on both her previous publications and on newer declassifications to re-examine this controversy and its legacy for NATO expansion – even as President Donald Trump raises the possibility of a NATO contraction through US withdrawal.

Speaker's Biography:  Mary Elise Sarotte is the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC.  Her five books include The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall and 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, both of which were named Financial Times Books of the Year, along with receiving other awards and commendations.  Sarotte earned her AB in History and Science at Harvard University and her PhD in History at Yale University.  After graduate school, she served as a White House Fellow and subsequently joined the faculty of the University of Cambridge.  Sarotte received tenure at Cambridge in 2004 and returned to the United States to teach at University of Southern California as the Dean's Professor of History before moving to Hopkins.  Sarotte is a former Humboldt Scholar, a former member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a research associate of Harvard's Center for European Studies, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  She is currently writing a book on NATO expansion; it is based (among other sources) on formerly secret Defense Department, State Department, and White House documents which she has declassified though Freedom of Information appeals.