The Kremlin Paints Itself into a Corner
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As the crisis between Russia and NATO and Ukraine has developed over the past three months, the Kremlin increasingly has painted itself into a corner. Continuing its military build-up around Ukraine while rejecting U.S. and NATO offers of a diplomatic path to ease tensions, Moscow appears to be limiting itself to two choices: war or an embarrassing climb-down.
The size of the Russian military arrayed near Ukraine has grown steadily and now numbers some 130,000 troops. Large Russian formations have positioned themselves near the Russia-Ukraine border, in occupied Crimea and in Belarus, providing multiple potential attack vectors.
On February 11, National Security Advisor Sullivan warned of the possibility of a Russian assault and urged American citizens to leave Ukraine. The same day, the Pentagon ordered 3000 U.S. soldiers to Poland. They will augment 1700 troops already deployed there, and the U.S. military has moved 1000 other troops from Germany to Romania. These will not enter Ukraine but will bolster NATO’s defense on its eastern flank (other allies are taking similar steps).
The Kremlin has framed the crisis as one between Russia and NATO, citing NATO enlargement as bringing the alliance closer to Russia. However, the last ally to join NATO that borders on Russian territory joined in 2004. So, why the crisis now? Moreover, if Moscow’s beef is with NATO, why is it posturing its military to threaten Ukraine?
This Kremlin-manufactured crisis is as much if not more about Ukraine. Moscow fears Ukraine is falling irretrievably out of its orbit, though nothing has done more than Kremlin policy to push Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West. It should surprise no one that Russia’s military seizure of Crimea in 2014 followed by its instigation of and support for a conflict in Donbas that has taken 14,000 lives would affect Ukrainian attitudes toward Moscow.
This crisis is not about Ukraine’s entry into NATO. Alliance members show little enthusiasm for putting Ukraine on a membership track. Moscow knows that but wants more: Ukraine in a Russian sphere of influence, denying Kyiv the right to choose its own foreign policy course.
In December, the Russian government gave U.S. officials a draft U.S.-Russia treaty and draft NATO-Russia agreement, then promptly made them public—hardly a sign of serious negotiating intent. U.S. and NATO officials responded in January meetings with their Russian counterparts and subsequently in writing.
Washington and NATO rejected Kremlin demands that NATO foreswear further enlargement and withdraw forces from the territory of allies who joined the alliance after 1997. However, their responses picked up on some ideas in the Russian drafts, proposing discussions and possible negotiations on arms control, risk reduction and confidence-building measures that could make genuine contributions to European security, including Russia’s.
Moscow replied that the responses addressed only questions of secondary concern and ignored the key Russian demands regarding NATO. Oddly, in addition to demands on no further enlargement and withdrawing forces, Russian President Putin claimed the West ignored his demand regarding offensive missiles near Russia. In fact, both Washington and NATO indicated a readiness to negotiate the question of missiles.
While offering Russia a diplomatic “off-ramp” from the crisis, the United States, NATO and European Union have sought to deter a military assault by specifying costs they would impose on Moscow. Those costs include substantially more painful sanctions, increased military assistance to Kyiv and a bolstering of NATO force presence on its eastern flank.
Washington has consulted intensively with its NATO allies, the European Union and Ukraine on how to manage the crisis. The West seems relatively unified in its reaction to the Russian proposals and support for Ukraine—perhaps more so than the Kremlin expected.
French President Macron visited Moscow on February 7. Following a five-hour meeting with Putin, he reported an agreement not to escalate the crisis. The Kremlin spokesperson the next day refuted that claim, saying “Moscow and Paris could not have struck any deals. It is simply impossible… France is a NATO member, where it doesn’t hold leadership—another country holds this bloc’s leadership. So, what kind of deals can you talk about?”
On February 10, British Foreign Secretary Truss made no headway during a frosty meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. Lavrov played a game of gotcha and treated Truss brusquely at their joint press briefing.
On February 12, President Biden spoke to Putin, their third conversation in two months. No breakthroughs resulted. On February 15, German Chancellor Scholz will meet Putin in Moscow.
The current situation offers few grounds for optimism. Moscow denies any intent to attack, but the Russian military build-up continues and has brought more troops and equipment close to Ukraine. While Russian military capabilities may overmatch Ukrainian armed forces, the latter would fight, and Ukrainian civilians are arming up to resist as well. (Above and beyond the penalties imposed by the West, the main costs to Russia of an assault would be inflicted by the Ukrainian military and partisan operations against an invading Russian force, particularly if the Russians got bogged down in a quagmire.)
Moscow thus far has turned aside Western attempts to engage in dialogue on de-escalating the crisis, insisting on demands it knows will not be met while not engaging on offers that could enhance the security of both sides. The rude treatment accorded to Macron and Truss in Moscow does not bode well for diplomacy.
Putin may not yet have made a final decision, and Moscow has left the door ajar for negotiation. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Kremlin is painting itself ever tighter into a corner. It can launch an attack on Ukraine, one that would be viewed by the world as an act of outright aggression, or it can back down and accept offers that have been on the table for weeks. The latter could prove embarrassing. It could appear that Russia’s military build-up was a bluff that had been called. Putin does not seem one who wants others to think that he bluffs.
If the Kremlin chooses war, that will be a calamity for Ukraine—and it could well prove the same for Russia. Hopefully, Moscow will conclude that the costs of an attack would outweigh the political gains it might hope to achieve and turn to a more realistic diplomatic approach, however awkward that climb-down might seem.
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As the crisis between Russia and NATO and Ukraine has developed over the past three months, the Kremlin increasingly has painted itself into a corner.
Mother Nature, Bioweapons and Lab Accidents: Guarding Against the Next Global Biological Catastrophe
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For winter quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.
SEMINAR RECORDING
About the Event: With the devastating loss of life, economic disruption, and political instability it has wrought, COVID-19 has revealed that national governments and the international community are woefully unprepared to respond to pandemics—underscoring the world’s vulnerability to future catastrophic biological threats that could meet or exceed the severe consequences of the current pandemic. To effectively guard against future biological risks, leaders should take a longer-term view and recognize that, while naturally occurring pandemics remain a threat, the next global catastrophe could result from a laboratory accident or the deliberate misuse of bioscience and biotechnology. This talk will provide a high-level overview of the broader biothreat landscape and outline actions that national leaders and the international community should take with a view to preventing catastrophic biological events—specifically by constraining capabilities and shaping the intent of powerful actors who may wish to exploit the tools of modern bioscience to cause harm. This talk will outline two priority NTI initiatives to strengthen international capabilities to prevent catastrophic biological events. We are working to develop and launch the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS), a new international organization that will focus on preventing the deliberate abuse or accidental misuse of bioscience and biotechnology by strengthening international biosecurity norms and developing innovative, practical tools to reduce risks throughout the research and development life cycle. NTI is also working to develop the concept of a new Joint Assessment Mechanism to strengthen UN-system capabilities to investigate high-consequence biological events of unknown origin. The ability to rapidly discern the source of emerging pandemics is critical to mitigating their effects in real time and protecting against future risks.
About the Speaker: Dr. Jaime M. Yassif is Senior Director and Lead Scientist for Global Biological Policy and Programs at NTI, where her work focuses on strengthening governance of dual-use bioscience and reducing global catastrophic biological risks. Yassif previously served as a Program Officer at Open Philanthropy, where she led the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness initiative. In this role, she managed approximately $40 million in biosecurity grants, which rebuilt the field and supported work in several key areas, including developing new biosecurity programming at leading think tanks, establishing the Global Health Security Index, and initiating new biosecurity work in China and India. Prior to this, Yassif served as a science and technology policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Defense and worked on the Global Health Security Agenda at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Jaime Yassif
NTI
Seminars
Russia, Ukraine and NATO: The View from London
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All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.
SEMINAR RECORDING
About the Event: The Russian military continues to mass forces near Ukraine, while the Kremlin says that the United States and NATO have addressed its secondary concerns but have ignored its key demands, such as that the Alliance foreswear further enlargement. Britain has played a critical role in NATO deliberations on how to respond to Moscow proposals and actions, and the British military is sending additional forces to bolster the Alliance's eastern flank. Sir Roderic Lyne, a former British ambassador to Russia and former foreign policy advisor to the prime minister, will describe how the crisis is viewed in London, the motivations driving Russian actions, and how the West should respond.
About the Speaker: Roderic Lyne served in the UK's Diplomatic Service for 34 years, including three postings to Moscow between 1972 and 2004, and was the last Head of the Soviet Department in the Foreign Office. In the mid-1990s he was the adviser to the Prime Minister on foreign affairs, security and Northern Ireland. Since retiring as Ambassador to the Russian Federation in 2004 he has visited Russia about fifty times as a business consultant and lecturer, and has written extensively on the subject. His most recent article was "Putin's Gamble: Must It End Up As Lose/Lose", published by Chatham House in late January. From 2009 to 2016 Roderic Lyne served on the UK's Inquiry into the Iraq conflict of 2003.
Virtual only.
Sir Roderic Lyne
Seminars
Jessie Brunner
650-736-7622
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In addition to her role as Director of Strategic Partnerships for the Human Trafficking Data Lab, Jessie Brunner serves as Deputy Director of Strategy and Program Development at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University. In this capacity she manages the Center's main interdisciplinary collaborations and research activities, in addition to advising on overall Center strategy. Jessie currently researches issues relevant to data collection and ethical data use in the human trafficking field, with a focus on Brazil and Southeast Asia. Furthermore, in her role as co-Principal Investigator of the Re:Structure Lab, Jessie is investigating how supply chains and business models can be re-imagined to promote equitable labor standards, worker rights, and abolish forced labor. Brunner earned a MA in International Policy from Stanford University and a BA in Mass Communications and a Spanish minor from the University of California, Berkeley.
Director of Strategic Partnerships, Human Trafficking Data Lab
Deputy Director of Strategy and Program Development, Center for Human Rights and International Justice
Early Warning Early Response Structures and the Challenge of Illegibility
For winter quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.
(Stanford faculty, visiting scholars, staff, fellows, and students only)
About the Event: In Nigeria today, frequent conflicts, disappearances and mass violence, especially in the Northern region of the country, have amounted to large-scale destruction of human life and the displacement of large populations as unarmed civilians are caught in the crossfire. The effects of climate change on the Lake Chad basin are key triggers of conflict as herders migrate to other parts of the region to find fodder and water for their cattle. Existing responses to conflict and mass violence in Nigeria have been beset by challenges. The migration patterns of nomadic communities have begun to signal security concerns beyond the immediately impacted regions. In late 2017, state governments within the western and southern parts of the country began to set up community policing strategies to address growing security challenges around their states, including those relating to the (perceived) threats associated with the movement of cattle herders. Complicating this situation, the presence of large groups of cattle has incentivized “conflict entrepreneurship” as armed groups of young men across north-central, north-west and southern parts of the country engage in cattle rustling. Government efforts at various levels, ranging from the creation of legal and policy frameworks to programs on-the-ground, have been inadequate to protect civilians and have led to the development new mechanisms for human protection. For example, interventions by the Nigerian Federal Government have, at times, accelerated conflict, as with the passage of an anti-grazing law that has fueled controversy over implementation at state and local levels of government. Local civil society initiatives have continued to emerge to address the gap and attempt to mitigate ever growing security concerns in the region. One such strategy has involved the development of Early Warning and Early Response Systems (EWER) using geospatial technologies and other forms of crowd sourcing imagery to enhance local resilience in the face of security threats and strengthen the ability of communities to protect themselves in a sustainable way. However, the potential of such technologies depends on the ability to “see” particular phenomena and render other phenomena illegible. This paper will argue that such geospatial technology’s interpretive power is concerned with assigning to future violence an interpretive code based on its baseline values. As an act of decoding that is anticipatory, the power of EWER processes lies in its decoding potential. These interpretive code processes provide participants with the potential to engage in analyses that involve mapping patterns and potential risk that have the ability to produce indicators that have material effects. It is these material effects, drawn from visual codes, that are used to justify action that is life preserving as well as render other relations illegible and therefore invisible to intervention. This paper explores the emergence of EWER strategies used to address widespread violence and the challenge of illegibility that is central to it.
About the Speaker: M. Kamari Clarke is the Distinguished Professor of Transnational Justice and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto where she teaches in the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies. Over her career she has worked at The University of California Los Angeles (2018-2021), Carleton University (2015-2018), The University of Pennsylvania (2013-2015) Yale University (1999-2013), and at Yale she was the former chair of the Council on African Studies from 2007- 2010 and the co-founder of the Yale Center for Transnational Cultural Analysis. For more than twenty years, Professor Clarke has conducted research on issues related to legal institutions, human rights and international law, religious nationalism and the politics of globalization. For more than 20 years, Professor Clarke has conducted research on issues related to legal institutions, international legal domains, religious nationalism, and the politics of globalization and race. She is the author of nine books and over fifty peer reviewed articles and book chapters, including her 2009 publication of Fictions of Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Challenge of Legal Pluralism in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Affective Justice (with Duke University Press, 2019), which won the finalist prize for the American Anthropological Association’s 2020 Elliot P. Skinner Book Award for the Association for Africanist Anthropology. Clarke has also been the recipient of other research and teaching awards, including Carleton University’s 2018 Research Excellence Award. During her academic career she has held numerous prestigious fellowships, grants and awards, including multiple grant awards from the National Science Foundation and from The Social Sciences and the Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and, very recently, the 2021 Guggenhiem Award for Career Excellence.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Kamari Clarke
University of Toronto / UCLA
Seminars
Free Speech on Public Platforms
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Join us on Tuesday, January 18 from 12 PM - 1 PM PST for Free Speech on Public Platforms featuring Professor Jamal Greene of Columbia Law School in conversation with Daphne Keller, Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at the CPC. This weekly seminar series is jointly organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative.
It is commonly assumed that social media companies owe their freedom to moderate solely to their status as private actors. This seminar explores the adequacy of that assumption by considering the hypothetical construct of a state-run social media platform. Jamal Greene argues that the categorical nature of First Amendment norms leave the doctrine ill-equipped to order regulation of such a platform, and that international human rights norms, while less categorical, remain immature in this space. Greene suggests that the most promising area of legal intervention would address the development of procedural rather than substantive norms.
Speaker:
Jamal Greene is the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses in constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and the law of the political process. He is the author of How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on constitutional law and theory. He is also a co-chair of the Oversight Board, an independent body that reviews content moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram. He served as a law clerk to the Hon. Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for the Hon. John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School and his A.B. from Harvard College.
Cloud Governance Challenges
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Join us for our winter seminar series starting Tuesday, January 11 from 12 PM - 1 PM PST. The first in the session is Cloud Governance Challenges and features leaders from the Carnegie Endowment’s Cloud Governance Project and Marietje Schaake of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, in conversation with Kelly Born of the Hewlett Foundation. This weekly seminar series is jointly organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative.
Central to the ongoing digital transformation is the growth of cloud computing, which is enabling remarkable gains in efficiency, innovation, and connectivity around the world. However, the cloud also accentuates many preexisting digital policy challenges and brings to the fore new ones. It increases the consequences of disruption resulting from cyberattacks and natural disasters, and raises the stakes associated with ensuring equitable access to the digital environment. It also creates some new challenges associated with the concentration of the cloud market in the hands of a few hyperscale providers. Left to their own devices, cloud providers lack the incentives to comprehensively address these issues, and governments’ ability to fill the gap is being challenged by the pace of the developments in the cloud technology landscape. To promote more coherent and effective governance of the cloud, concerned players must recognize the challenges, interconnections, and policy tradeoffs across issue areas. They will need to apply a combination of regulation, self-regulation, and industry standards, while balancing competing private, national, and international interests.
Speakers:
Kelly Born, Director, Cyber Initiative, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Ariel Eli Levite, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Vishnu Kannan, Special Assistant to the President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director, Cyber Policy Center
Russia, Ukraine and NATO: The View from Berlin
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For winter quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.
SEMINAR RECORDING
YouTube
About the Event: The year 2022 has begun with Russian military forces massed near Ukraine's borders while Moscow makes demands for security guarantees from NATO and the United States. Managing the steps to deter a Kremlin decision to attack Ukraine and the accompanying diplomacy pose an early foreign policy challenge for the new German government, which just took office in December. Amb Rolf Nikel, Vice President of the German Council on Foreign Relations and a long-time German diplomat, will discuss how the crisis is viewed from Berlin and what steps the West should be taking in response.
About the Speaker: Amb Rolf Nikel is Vice President of the German Council on Foreign Relations. In 2021, he also was Chairman of the German Expert Commission on the Place of Remembrance and Encounter with Poland, a memorial that will commemorate the suffering of the Polish people during World War II. Previously, Amb Nikel served forty years in the German diplomatic service, including assignments as Ambassador to Poland (2014-20), Federal Commissioner for Arms Control and Disarmament (2011-14), Deputy Foreign and Security Policy Advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel (2005-11) and head of the Political Department of the Embassy in Washington, DC (2002-05). He also served at the German embassies in Paris, Nairobi and Moscow.
Virtual Only.
Rolf Nikel
Seminars
The Russian Military Threat to Ukraine: How Serious?
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For winter quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.
SEMINAR RECORDING
YouTube
About the Event: The Russian military has deployed and sustained major forces on or near Ukraine’s border, raising significant concerns in Washington and other NATO capitals that the Kremlin may be planning a new assault on its western neighbor. Meanwhile, Moscow has demanded security guarantees for Russia and indicated that it otherwise will take unspecified “military-technical” measures. Michael Kofman, Research Program Director in the Russia Studies Program at CNA, will discuss the Russian build-up, the military options it gives the Kremlin, and how a Russia-Ukraine conflict might play out.
About the Speaker: Michael Kofman serves as Research Program Director in the Russia Studies Program at CNA and as a Fellow at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC. His research focuses on the Russia and the former Soviet Union, specializing in Russian armed forces, military thought, capabilities, and strategy. Previously, he served as a Program Manager and subject matter expert at National Defense University, advising senior military and government officials on issues in Russia and Eurasia. Mr. Kofman is also a Senior Editor at War on the Rocks, where he regularly authors articles on strategy, the Russian military, Russian decision-making, and related foreign policy issues. He runs a personal blog on the Russian armed forces at https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/.
Mr. Kofman has published numerous articles on the Russian armed forces, security issues in Russia/Eurasia, and analyses for the US government. He holds an MA in International Security from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
This event is virtual only. This event will not be held in person.
Michael Kofman
Seminars