Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East
America has called for a multilateral solution to the recent crisis on the Korean Peninsula. As a result, Russia, China and Japan have been asked to play a more active role in contributing to a peaceful resolution. Drawing on years of experience in this region, Ambassador Armacost gives us his insights into this volatile area, including prospects for change. Most recently (1995-2002), Armacost served as president of Washington D.C.'s Brookings Institution, the nation's oldest think tank and a leader in research on politics, government, international affairs, economics, and public policy. Previously, during his twenty-four year government career, Armacost served, among other positions, as undersecretary of state for political affairs and as ambassador to Japan and the Philippines. Registration: 7:30 pm Program: 8:00 pm Students with ID - Free Members of the World Affairs Council - $5 Nonmembers - $8
Stanford Law School Room 180, Stanford Campus
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, Second floor, Encina Hall East
Since the Iron Curtain came crashing down, American and Russian diplomats have been searching for a special relationship between their countries to replace Cold War animosity.
Security matters have not yielded much. On issues such as the expansion of Nato, stabilising Yugoslavia and the war in Chechnya, the two have sought each other's tolerance more than co-operation. Nor have the two nations developed much economic interaction, as a result of Russia's weak institutions and faltering economy. Thus, by default, "energy" has become the new special topic in Russian-American relations.
This enthusiasm is misplaced, however. A collapse of oil prices in the aftermath of an invasion of Iraq may soon lay bare the countries' divergent interests. Russia needs high oil prices to keep its economy afloat, whereas US policy would be largely unaffected by falling energy costs. Moreover, cheerleaders of a new Russian-American oil partnership fail to understand that there is not much the two can do to influence the global energy market or even investment in Russia's oil sector. The focus on oil has also eclipsed another area in which US and Russian common interests could run deeper: nuclear power. Joint efforts to develop new technologies for generating nuclear power and managing nuclear waste could result in a huge payoff for both countries. These issues, which are the keys to keeping nuclear power viable, are formally on the Russian-American political agenda, but little has been done to tap the potential for co -operation. Given Russia's scientific talent and the urgent need to reinvigorate nuclear non-proliferation programmes, a relatively minor commitment of diplomatic and financial resources could deliver significant long-term benefits to the United States.
On the surface, energy co-operation seems a wise choice. Russia is rich in hydrocarbons and the US wants them. Oil and gas account for two-fifths of Russian exports. Last year, Russia reclaimed its status, last held in the late 1980s, as the world's top oil producer. Its oil output this year is expected to top eight million barrels per day and is on track to rise further. Russian oil firms also made their first shipments to US markets last year - some symbolically purchased as part of US efforts to augment its strategic petroleum reserve. In addition, four Russian oil companies are preparing a new, large port in Murmansk as part of a plan to supply more than 10 per cent of total US oil imports within a decade.
Meanwhile, the US remains the world's largest consumer and importer of oil. This year, it will import about 60 per cent of the oil it burns, and the US Energy Information Administration expects foreign dependence will rise to about 70 per cent by 2010, and continue inching upwards thereafter. Although the US economy is much less sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices than it was three decades ago, diversification and stability in world oil markets are a constant worry.
War jitters and political divisions cast a long shadow over the Persian Gulf, source of one-quarter of the world's oil. In Nigeria, the largest African oil exporter, sectarian violence periodically not only interrupts oil operations but also sent Miss World contestants packing last year. A scheme by Latin America's top producer, Venezuela, to pump up its share of world production helped trigger a collapse in world oil prices in the late 1990s and ushered in the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez. Last year, labour strikes aimed at unseating Mr Chavez shut Venezuela's ports and helped raise prices to more than US$ 30 (HK$ 234) a barrel. Next to these players, Russia is a paragon of stability.
The aftermath of a war in Iraq would probably provide a first test for the shallow new Russian-American partnership. Most attention on Russian interests in Iraq has focused on two issues: Iraq's lingering Soviet-era debt, variously measured at US$ 7 billion to US$ 12 billion, and the dominant position of Russian companies in controlling leases for several Iraqi oilfields. Both are red herrings. No company that has signed lease deals with Saddam Hussein's government could believe those rights are secure. Russia's top oil company, Lukoil, knew that when it met Iraqi opposition leaders in an attempt to hedge its bets for possible regime change. (Saddam's discovery of those contacts proved the point: he cancelled, then later reinstated, Lukoil's interests in the massive Western Kurna field.)
Russian officials have pressed the US to guarantee the existing contracts, but officials have wisely demurred. There would be no faster way to confirm Arab suspicions that regime change is merely a cover for taking control of Iraq's oil than by awarding the jewels before a new government is known and seated.
Of course, the impact of a war on world oil supply and price is hard to predict. A long war and a tortuous rebuilding process could deprive the market of Iraqi crude oil (about two million barrels a day, last year). Damage to nearby fields in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia could make oil even more scarce. And already tight inventories and continued troubles in Venezuela could deliver a "perfect storm" of soaring oil prices.
The most plausible scenario, however, is bad news for Russia: a brief war, quickly followed by increased Iraqi exports, along with a clear policy of releasing oil from America's reserves to deter speculators. A more lasting Russian-American energy agenda would focus on subjects beyond the current, fleeting common interest in oil. To find an area in which dialogue can truly make a difference, Russia and the US should look to the subject that occupied much of their effort in the 1990s, but that both sides neglected too quickly: nuclear power.
With the end of the Cold War, the two nations created a multi-billion-dollar programme to sequester Russia's prodigious quantities of fissile material and nuclear technology. The goal was to prevent these "loose nukes" from falling into the hands of terrorists or hostile states.
The Co-operative Threat Reduction programme also included funds to employ Russian scientists through joint research projects and academic exchanges.
Inevitably, it has failed to meet all its goals. In a country where central control has broken down and scientific salaries have evaporated, it is difficult to halt the departure of every nuclear resource. Nor is it surprising that US appropriators have failed to deliver the billions of dollars promised for the collective endeavour. Other priorities have constantly intervened, and Russia's uneven record in complying with arms control agreements has made appropriation of funds a perpetual congressional battle. Various good ideas for reinvigorating the programme have gone without funding and bureaucratic attention - even in the post-September 11 political environment, in which practically any idea for fighting terrorism can get money.
Russia has opened nuclear waste encapsulation and storage facilities near Krasnoyarsk, raising the possibility of creating an international storage site for nuclear waste. This topic has long been taboo, but it is an essential issue to raise if the global nuclear power industry is to move beyond the inefficiencies of small-scale nuclear waste management.
Russia should also be brought into worldwide efforts to design new nuclear reactors. The global nuclear research community, under US leadership, has outlined comprehensive and implementable plans for the next generation of fission reactors. The Russian nuclear programme is one of the world's leaders in handling the materials necessary for new reactor designs. Yet Russia is not currently a member of the US government-led Generation IV International Forum, one of the main vehicles for international co-operation on fission reactors and their fuel cycles. Top US priorities must include integrating Russia into that effort, endorsing Russia's relationships with other key nuclear innovators (such as Japan), and delivering on the promise made at last summer's G8 meeting of leaders of the world's biggest economies - to help Russia secure its nuclear materials.
For opponents of nuclear power, no plan will be acceptable. But the emerging recognition that global warming is a real threat demands that nations develop serious, environmentally friendly energy alternatives. Of all the major options available today, only nuclear power and hydroelectricity offer usable energy with essentially zero emissions of greenhouse gases.
Neither government should be naive about the sustainability of this endeavour. Russia is not an ideal partner because its borders have been a sieve for nuclear know-how and because its nuclear managers are suspected of abetting the outflow. Thus, plans for nuclear waste storage, for example, must ensure that they render the waste a minimal threat for proliferation. The US must also be more mindful of Russian sensitivity to co-operation on matters that, to date, have been military secrets.
Another difficult issue that both nations must confront is Russia's relationship with Iran. A perennial thorn in ties, Russia's nuclear co -operation with officials in Tehran owes much not just to Iranian money but to the complex relationship between the two countries over drilling and export routes for Caspian oil. This link to Iran cannot be wished away, as it is rooted in Russia's very geography. Any sustainable nuclear partnership between the US and Russia must develop a political strategy to handle this reality.
The world, including the US, needs the option of viable nuclear power. Yet Russia's talented scientists and nuclear resources sit idle, ready for action.
Using firsthand personal accounts and focusing on the experiences of women, Katherine R. Jolluck relates and examines the experiences of thousands of civilians deported to the USSR following the Soviet annexation of eastern Poland in 1939. Upon arrival in remote areas of the Soviet Union, they were deposited in prisons, labor camps, special settlements, and collective farms, and subjected to tremendous hardships and oppressive conditions. In 1942, some 115,000 Polish citizens - only a portion of those initially exiled from their homeland - were evacuated to Iran. There they were asked to complete extensive questionnaires about their experiences. Having read and reviewed hundreds of these documents, Jolluck reveals not only the harsh treatment these women experienced, but also how they maintained their identities as respectable women and patriotic Poles. She finds that for those exiled, the ways in which they strove to recreate home in a foreign and hostile environment became a key means of their survival. Both a harrowing account of brutality and suffering and a clear analysis of civilian experiences in wartime, Exile and Identity expands the history of war far beyond the military battlefield.
Ground Floor Conference Room (E008), Encina Hall, East Wing
The Korean peninsula has been at the center of Cold War politics ever since its 1945 territorial division, and remains so even after the demise of the Soviet empire. After half a century of intense conflict and tensions -- including a major war -- the leaders of North and South Korea held their first summit in summer 2000, creating hope and enthusiasm for peace and unification on the peninsula. However, the current stalemate in inter-Korean relations and the recent tension over North Korea's nuclear program clearly indicate that a peaceful conflict resolution, let alone unification, will not come easily. The current situation also attests to the urgent need for a new forum that can address various issues related to inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S./Japan relations at the nonofficial, nonpolitical level.
We believe that early 2003 will be a critical moment in inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S./Japan relations. The new South Korean government will take office in late February 2003 and the newly created special economic zone in Shin-ui-ju is expected to be at work in a few months. Also, the recent visit of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to North Korea could lead to a new relationship between the two countries, and the Bush administration will be entering the second half of its term in early 2003.
All these developments, along with the recent revelation of North Korea's nuclear program, make the proposed policy conference timely and essential for (re) formulating new North Korean policies by South Korea, Japan, and the United States. The proposed conference will discuss policy issues toward North Korea among scholars and policymakers from the United States, Japan, China, and Russia, as well as South Korea. We seek to produce a policy proposal to be presented to the new South Korean government, as well as to the governments in Tokyo and Washington, D.C.
Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall, Central Wing
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.
McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).
McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.
He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.
McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.
Dr. Bat Batjargal is visiting scholar at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, Stanford University. He holds a lecturer position at London Business School and is assistant professor in strategy at Beijing University School of Management. His Ph.D. is from the University of Oxford. Previously, he has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, United Nations University in Tokyo, and the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is the author of several research articles on entrepreneurship, and the book "Entrepreneurship in the New Russia: The Resource Based View" to be published by Edward Elgar in 2002.
Okimoto Conference Room, Third Floor, Encina Hall, East Wing
The main goal of this unit is to introduce students to the geographic, political, and cultural diversity of the peoples and territory of the Russian Federation. The unit highlights the main geographic regions of this vast country: the North Caucasus, Siberia, and the Far East.