Film Screening: The Man Who Was Too Free
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The film will be screened in Russian with English subtitles. Doors will open at 6:00pm.
The life and fate of Boris Nemtsov is inextricably intertwined with the history of Russia over the last 25 years. The film begins in the 1990s, when Nemtsov was seen as a possible future president of the country, and ends in February 2015 with his assassination on Moskvoretsky Bridge across from the Kremlin as an opposition leader. Nemtsov was the only Russian political figure who shone brightly in both the 1990s, with its free press, political infighting and low gas prices, and in the 2000s, a time of stability, economic growth, censorship and the fall of political competition. Director Vera Krichevskaya and journalist Mikhail Fishman have told the full political biography of Boris Nemtsov in this documentary. The most important, pivotal events of Russian history and Nemtsov's role in them are discussed by his friends, colleagues, family members and fellow politicians.
“The Man Who Was Too Free” won the “White Elephant” award from the Russian Guild of Film Critics in the category of “Best Documentary Film of 2016”.
Michael McFaul
Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor Michael McFaul, Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute, will introduce the film and answer questions following the screening. McFaul is Professor of 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. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Dr. 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).
This event is co-sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
Michael A. McFaul
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.
International Working Group on Russian Sanctions
Global Populisms
A Conversation with General Michael Hayden
About the Event: In conversation with Philip Taubman, General Hayden will discuss intelligence and cybersecurity challenges the United States faces in combatting terrorism, dealing with North Korea, Iran and Russia, and will assess President Trump’s relations with the U.S. intelligence community.
About the Speaker: General Michael Hayden is a retired four-star general who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency when the course of world events was changing at a rapid rate. As head of the country’s premier intelligence agencies, he was on the frontline of global change, the war on terrorism and the growing cyber challenge. He understands the dangers, risks, and potential rewards of the political, economic, and security situations facing us. General Hayden dissects political situations in hot spots around the world, analyzing the tumultuous global environment and what it all means for Americans and America’s interests. He speaks on the delicate balance between liberty and security in intelligence work, as well the potential benefits and dangers associated with the cyber domain. As the former head of two multi-billion dollar enterprises, he can also address the challenges of managing complex organizations in times of stress and risk, and the need to develop effective internal and external communications.
In addition to leading CIA and NSA, General Hayden was the country’s first principal deputy director of national intelligence and the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the country. In all of these jobs, he worked to put a human face on American intelligence, explaining to the American people the role of espionage in protecting both American security and American liberty. Hayden also served as commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center and served in senior staff positions at the Pentagon, at U.S. European Command, at the National Security Council, and the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. He was also the deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces in South Korea.
Hayden has been a frequent expert and commentator on major news outlets and in top publications, valued for his expertise on intelligence matters like cyber security, government surveillance, geopolitics, and more. He was featured in the HBO documentary Manhunt, which looked at espionage through the eyes of the insiders who led the secret war against Osama bin Laden, and in Showtime’s The Spymasters, a detailed look at the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Hayden is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group and a distinguished visiting professor at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. He is on the board of directors of Motorola Solutions and serves on a variety of other boards and consultancies. In 2013, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) awarded Hayden the 29th annual William Oliver Baker Award. General Hayden is also the first recipient of the Helms Award presented by the CIA Officers’ Memorial Foundation. In 2014 he was the inaugural Humanitas visiting professor in intelligence studies at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. His recent memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, has been a New York Times best-seller and was recently selected as one of the 100 most notable books of 2016.
Philip Taubman is Adjunct Professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is also the former Moscow and Washington Bureau Chief, and Deputy Editorial Page Editor, of The New York Times. Philip Taubman served as a reporter and editor at The New York Times for thirty years, specializing in national security coverage. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America’s Space Espionage, and The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb. He is working on a biography of George P. Shultz, the former secretary of state.
What lower US engagement in Northeast Asia could mean
Uncertainty about U.S. intentions in Northeast Asia has increased fear that events could spin out of control in the region due to American disengagement. That engagement cannot be taken for granted, Shorenstein Fellow Thomas Fingar writes on the Stanford University Press blog, and it remains to be seen just how well regional political leaders adjust to the Trump administration’s evolving foreign policy.
The blog post highlights themes from his book Uneasy Partnerships: China’s Engagement with Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, April 2017).
The Cold War: A World History
Abstract: The Cold War was about the rise and the solidification of US power. But it was also about more than that. It was about the defeat of Soviet-style Communism and the victory, in Europe, of a form of democratic consensus that had become institutionalized through the European Union. In China it meant a political and social revolution carried out by the Chinese Communist Party. In Latin America it meant the increasing polarization of societies along Cold War ideological lines of division. This book attempts to show the significance of the Cold War between capitalism and socialism on a world scale, in all its varieties and its sometimes confusing inconsistencies. As a one-volume history it can do little but scratch the surface of complicated developments. But it will have served its purpose if it invites the reader to explore further the ways in which the Cold War made the world what it is today.
About the Speaker: Odd Arne Westad is the S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at Harvard University, where he teaches at the Kennedy School of Government. He is an expert on contemporary international history and on the eastern Asian region.
Sergey Parkhomenko
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305
Sergey Parkhomenko is Russian journalist, publisher, and founder of several projects aimed at developing civic activism and promoting liberal values in Russia.
Parkhomenko is a former political reporter, commentator and editorialist at popular daily newspapers; founder and first editor-in-chief (1995-2001) of 'Itogi', Russia's first current affairs weekly, published in cooperation with Newsweek; editor-in-chief of several publishing houses producing translated fiction and non-fiction literature; editor-in-chief of 'Vokrug Sveta', Russia's oldest monthly magazine.
Since August 2003 Parkhomenko has been presenting 'Sut' Sobytyi' ('Crux of the Matter') on Radio Echo of Moscow, a weekly programme making sense of the events of the past week.
Parkhomenko was instrumental in organizing mass rallies in Moscow in Winter 2011 – Spring 2012. He organized the 'Vse v sud!' ('Go to court!') a civic campaign helping people to file lawsuits against widespread election rigging. He is one of the founders of 'Dissernet' ('DissertationWeb'), a network community dedicated to exposure of dissertation plagiarism, and 'Posledny Adres' ('Last Address') civil campaign helping people to create a collective memorial dedicated to the victims of political repression in the Soviet Union and Russia. He is also one of the founders of 'Redkollegia' program, an independent award supporting free professional journalism in Russia.
Parkhomenko is a Public Policy fellow with the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC), since September 2016 and a Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies since March 2017.
FBI confirms investigation of Trump campaign, Russia links
In the interview for CBCNews, Kathryn Stoner, FSI/CDDRL Senior Fellow and the Director of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at Stanford University, claims Russians left trails and didn't fight much to deny their interference in the U.S. 2016 elections because they wanted everyone to know that it was them, to emerge as a great power. Watch the video here.
Russia’s Evolving Military Strategy
Abstract: Russia’s adaptation to the changing character of war has been an object of an ongoing discussion among security experts. Contemporary warfare is being profoundly altered by an increasingly wired world, disruptive technologies, the role of information and social interactions; it aims to impact the state’s entire capacity by exerting political, economic and cultural influence rather than by annihilating the adversary. As put by the Russian General Staff, the 21st century wars are not even declared and nonmilitary tools play an increasing role in achieving objectives of war. Russia’s swift annexation of Crimea, as well as a widespread use of disinformation, cyber attacks, electronic warfare, economic levers, and a spectrum of other means merging military, nonmilitary, asymmetrical and indirect approaches have supposedly manifested a new doctrinal and operational era in the Russian strategy, called ‘hybrid war,’ ‘new generation warfare,’ ‘non-linear war,’ or even ‘ambiguous war,’ among other terms. However, the assessments of Russian strategy lack conceptual clarity and have been accompanied by conflicting narratives, one portraying Russia as a master of strategy that has outmaneuvered the United States in key international security issues, the other claiming that strategic thinking is foreign to the current Russian authorities. This study identifies misconceptions about Russia’s contemporary military strategy, disentangles its theoretical foundations, and examines key patterns in the Russian adaptation to the challenges of modern-day and future conflict.
About the Speaker: Dr. Katarzyna Zysk is an associate professor at the Norwegian Defence University College – the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies in Oslo, a position she has held since 2007. In the academic year 2016–2017, she is on a sabbatical leave and serves as a visiting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, and subsequently as a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. She is also a member of the Hoover Institution’s Arctic Security Initiative and was a research fellow (resident and non-resident) at the US Naval War College – Center for Naval Warfare Studies, where she also cooperated closely with the War Gaming Department. In 2016, she served as an acting dean of the Norwegian Defence University College. Dr. Zysk has an academic background in international relations and international history. Following her PhD thesis on NATO enlargement (2006), her research and publications have focused on various aspects of security and strategic studies, in particular on Russia’s security and defense policies, including military change and modernization of the Russian armed forces, strategic culture, political philosophy, Arctic geopolitics, as well as uses of seapower and maritime security. Currently, she is writing a book about Russia’s military strategy.
Encina Hall, 2nd floor
The U.S. Was Wrong to Think Russia Was No Longer a Player
"One mistake was to discount Russia’s importance in international affairs. The U.S. became engrossed in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, thinking that Russia was weak, and generally unimportant. Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. assumed that the world was unipolar after the Cold War, and that it would always be so," writes Kathryn Stoner, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and faculty director of the Ford Dorsey Program on International Policy Studies at Stanford for the New York Times "Room for Debate". Read the article here.
Abe-Putin summit holds prospect of resolution on island dispute
A hot springs summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin next week hopes to solve the 70-year-old dispute over an isolated string of islands that Russian and Japanese nationalists both claim as their own, according to Daniel Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
Read the commentary piece in Foreign Policy here.