Stanford University

The INF Treaty’s Demise: What it Means for Arms Control, Europe and U.S.-Russia Relations

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INF Public Panel Discussion

President Trump announced on October 20 that the United States will withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. That will end one of two agreements that constrain U.S. and Russian nuclear force levels, the other being the New START Treaty. What does the president’s decision mean for arms control, for European security and for an already troubled U.S.-Russia relationship?

 

SPEAKER

Steven Pifer
William J. Perry fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), where he is affiliated with FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Europe Center.  He is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. Pifer’s research focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, Russia and European security. A retired Foreign Service officer, his assignments included deputy assistant secretary of state, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and special assistant to the President and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council. He also served at the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Moscow and London as well as with the U.S. delegation to the intermediate-range nuclear forces negotiations in Geneva.

 

COMMENTATORS

Kristin Ven Bruusgaard
MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow, CISAC

Kristin Ven Bruusgaard is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. Her research focuses on Russian nuclear strategy and on deterrence dynamics. Dr. Bruusgaard has previously been a research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS), a senior security policy analyst in the Norwegian Armed Forces, a junior researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), and an intern at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in Washington, D.C., and at NATO HQ. She holds a Ph.D in Defence Studies from Kings College London, an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University, and a B.A. (Hons) from Warwick University. Her work has been published in Security Dialogue, U.S. Army War College Quarterly Parameters, Survival, War on the Rocks, Texas National Security Review and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Michael McFaul
Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Director and 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 was also the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University from June to August of 2015. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. 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).

Kathryn E. Stoner
Deputy Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Deputy Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy

Kathryn Stoner is the Deputy Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, as well as the Deputy Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy at Stanford University. She teaches in the Department of Political Science at Stanford, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Program. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School for International and Public Affairs. At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

 

Steven Pifer William J. Perry fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia

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In 2008, when Michael McFaul was asked to leave his perch at Stanford and join an unlikely presidential campaign, he had no idea that he would find himself at the beating heart of one of today’s most contentious and consequential international relationships. As President Barack Obama’s adviser on Russian affairs, McFaul helped craft the United States’ policy known as “reset” that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. And then, as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting, hopeful moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. This riveting inside account combines history and memoir to tell the full story of U.S.-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of the hostile, paranoid Russian president. From the first days of McFaul’s ambassadorship, the Kremlin actively sought to discredit and undermine him, hassling him with tactics that included dispatching protesters to his front gates, slandering him on state media, and tightly surveilling him, his staff, and his family.

From Cold War to Hot Peace is an essential account of the most consequential global confrontation of our time.

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Michael A. McFaul
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Nemtsov: Film Screening and Discussion with Filmmaker Vladimir Kara-Murza and Michael McFaul

Nemstov film posterNemtsov is a documentary film about the late leader of the Russian opposition, directed by his friend and colleague Vladimir Kara-Murza. The film chronicles a remarkable political life. It is a story told by those who knew Boris Nemtsov at different times: when he was a young scientist and took his first steps in politics; when he held high government offices and was considered Boris Yeltsin’s heir apparent; when he led Russia’s democratic opposition to Vladimir Putin. The film contains rare archival footage, including from the Nemtsov family. Nemtsov is a portrait. It is not about death. It is about the life of a man who could have been president of Russia.

The film is in Russian, with English subtitles. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Vladimir Kara-Murza


Vladimir Kara-Murza is vice chairman of the Open Russia movement and chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom. He was a longtime colleague of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Kara-Murza is a former deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian State Duma. He has testified on Russian affairs before parliaments in Europe and North America and played a key role in the passage of the Magnitsky Act, a US law that imposed targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators. Twice, in 2015 and 2017, he was poisoned with an unknown substance and left in a coma; the attempts on his life were widely viewed as politically motivated. Kara-Murza writes regular commentary for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, World Affairs, and other periodicals, and has previously worked as a journalist for Russian broadcast and print media, including Ekho Moskvy and Kommersant. He directed two documentary films, They Chose Freedom (on the dissident movement in the USSR) and Nemtsov (on the life of Boris Nemtsov). He is the author of Reform or Revolution (Moscow 2011) and a contributor to Russia’s Choices: The Duma Elections and After (London 2003), Russian Liberalism: Ideas and People (Moscow 2007), Why Europe Needs a Magnitsky Law (London 2013), and Boris Nemtsov and Russian Politics: Power and Resistance (Stuttgart 2018). Kara-Murza is a recipient of the Magnitsky Human Rights Award, the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, and the Geneva Summit Courage Award. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.

This event is cosponsored by the Center for Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies and the European Security Initiative.

Cubberley Auditorium (Education Building)

485 Lasuen Mall

 
Vladimir Kara-Murza Filmmaker
Film Screenings

"Our theoreticians were armed with McNamara's arguments." Reflections on Soviet military strategy in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Abstract: The quotation in the title is taken from the memoirs of Boris Chertok, a leading Soviet missile designer.  In my talk I will examine significant shifts in Soviet thinking about nuclear war and military strategy in the 1960s and 1970s and discuss some of the implications of those shifts for strategic stability in the 1980s.  I will also explore the influence of the McNamara Pentagon on Soviet military strategy and Soviet thinking about deterrence and war-fighting.    

Speaker bio: David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

David Holloway

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E214
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-1737 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
0820stanford-davidholloway-238-edit.jpg PhD

David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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David Holloway Professor of Political Science, Professor of History CISAC, Stanford University
Seminars

The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past

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This event is now full, and we are no longer able to accept reservations.
Please send an email to sj1874@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.

 

Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but also focuses on ordinary Russians and their motivations. He charts how Putin raised victory in World War II to the status of a national founding myth in the search for a unifying force to heal a divided country, and shows how dangerous the ramifications of this have been.

The book explores why Russia, unlike Germany, has failed to come to terms with the darkest pages of its past: Stalin's purges, the Gulag, and the war deportations. The narrative roams from the corridors of the Kremlin to the wilds of the Gulags and the trenches of East Ukraine. It puts the annexation of Crimea and the newly assertive Russia in the context of the delayed fallout of the Soviet collapse.
 
The Long Hangover is a book about a lost generation: the millions of Russians who lost their country and the subsequent attempts to restore to them a sense of purpose. Packed with analysis but told mainly through vibrant reportage, it is a thoughtful exploration of the legacy of the Soviet collapse and how it has affected life in Russia and Putin's policies.
 

Shaun Walker

Shaun Walker is Moscow Correspondent for The Guardian and has reported from Russia for more than a decade. He studied Russian and Soviet history at Oxford University, and has worked as a journalist in Moscow for more than a decade.

 
Copies of this book will be on sale at the event.
Shaun Walker Speaker
Lectures

Putin and his generals: Explaining change in Russian nuclear strategy

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Abstract: What are the causes of change in Russian declaratory nuclear strategy? Three cases of Russian declaratory nuclear strategy, the military doctrines from 1993, 2000 and 2010, demonstrate significant variation in the role nuclear weapons play in Russian national security.

Structural theories of international relations explain this variation as a function of the balance of military power. Perceived nuclear or conventional inferiority vis-a-vis potential adversaries certainly inspires Russian behavior, but Russia chooses to balance in different ways than balance of power theory predicts, depending on available resources and capabilities.
 
A more compelling explanation for strategy variation lies in the politics of strategy formulation in Russia. Russian military actors effectively influence nuclear strategy due to both intellectual and institutional dominance. Civilian actors are less unified in their strategy preferences and less institutionally dominant in strategy formulation over time. Despite increased political control over the military, civilian influence on nuclear strategy outcomes does not seem to increase in Russia.
 
These findings have implications for how we understand the Russian security policy-making environment as well as for the content and context of Russian nuclear strategy and posture.
 
Speaker bio: Kristin Ven Bruusgaard is a Stanton Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow at CISAC, and a doctoral candidate at King’s College London. Her research focuses on Russian nuclear strategy and deterrence policy in the post-cold war era. Kristin is currently on leave from the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS). She has previously been a senior security policy analyst in the Norwegian Armed Forces, a junior researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), and an intern at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in Washington, D.C., and at NATO HQ. She holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University, and a BA from Warwick University. Her work has been published in Security Dialogue, U.S. Army War College Quarterly Parameters, Survival and War on the Rocks. 
Kristin Ven Bruusgaard CISAC
Seminars

Oleksandra Matviichuk

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Visiting Scholar, Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program 2017-18
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Oleksandra Matviichuk is a human rights defender who works on issues in Ukraine and the OSCE region. At present she heads the human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, and also coordinates the work of the initiative group Euromaidan SOS. The activities of the Center for Civil Liberties are aimed at protecting human rights and establishing democracy in Ukraine and the OSCE region. The organization is developing legislative changes, exercises public oversight over law enforcement agencies and judiciary, conducts educational activities for young people and implements international solidarity programs. 

The Euromaidan SOS initiative group was created in response to the brutal dispersal of a peaceful student rally in Kyiv on November 30, 2013. During three months of mass protests that were called the Revolution of Dignity, several thousand volunteers provided round-the-clock legal and other aid to persecuted people throughout the country. Since the end of the protests and beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the initiative has been monitoring political persecution in occupied Crimea, documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity during the hybrid war in the Donbas and conducting the “LetMyPeopleGo” international campaign to release political prisoners detained by the Russian authorities. 

Oleksandra Matviichuk has experience in creating horizontal structures for massive involvement of people in human rights activities against attacks on rights and freedoms, as well as a multi-year practice of documenting violations during armed conflict. She is the author of a number of alternative reports to various UN bodies, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court. In 2016 she received the Democracy Defender Award for "Exclusive Contribution to Promoting Democracy and Human Rights" from missions to the OSCE.

Protecting democracy from online disinformation requires better algorithms, not censorship

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"New laws in democratic countries that force social media platforms to remove disinformation will encourage autocratic countries to do the same, with devastating effects on human rights," writes Global Digital Policy Incubator Director Eileen Donahoe in her op-ed "Protecting Democracy from Online Disinformation Requires Better Algorithms, Not Censorship." Read here. 

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