Stanford University

Russian Hybrid War, Ukraine, and US policy

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Abstract: This talk will discuss the evolution of Russian hybrid war and how the Russians executed it to perfection to seize Crimea. At the same time, it is important to understand some of the peculiarities of Ukraine to understand why the Russians are unlikely to have the same success elsewhere. The talk will describe internal balancing options that bordering nations can take to deter Russian aggression. Finally, the talk will also discuss the fits and formulation of U.S. policymaking with regards to Ukraine.

 

Speaker Bio: COL Liam Collins is the Director of the Modern War Institute and the Director of the Department Instruction at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point. From 2016-2018, he also served Gen (ret.) Abizaid’s executive officer for his Secretary of Defense appointment as the Senior Defense Advisor to Ukraine, planning and executing meetings with senior Ukrainian and international officials to help reform Ukraine's defense establishment, and meetings with DoS, DoD, NSC, and HASC officials to inform and shape U.S. policy.

Previously, he served as the director of the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point where he authored “The Abbottabad Documents: Bin Ladin’s Security Measures” and co-authored Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?  both of which studied documents captured during the Abbottabad raid and released to the CTC. His work has been cited by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the White House Press Secretary, The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, ABC News, Fox News, NPR, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

COL Collins is a career Special Forces officer, who has served in a variety of special operations assignments. He has conducted multiple operational deployments including Operational Nobile Anvil (Kosovo ’99), Operation Joint Forge (Bosnia ’00, ’02), Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan ’01,’02,’11), Operation Iraqi Freedom (’03,’04) as well as operational deployments to South America and the Horn of Africa.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering (Aerospace) from the United States Military Academy (1992), and a Master in Public Affairs and a PhD from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.  He is also a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, the Special Forces Qualification Course, the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, and the Engineer Officer Basic Course.

COL Collins’ military awards and decorations include: Bronze Star Medal (with “V” device for valor and two oak leaf clusters), Defense Meritorious Service Medal (with oak leaf cluster), Meritorious Service Medal (with two oak leaf clusters), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal (with “V” device for valor and three oak leaf clusters), Army Achievement Medal (with four oak leaf clusters), Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Special Forces Tab, Ranger Tab, Sapper Tab, Military Free Fall Badge with Bronze Star (for combat jump), Master Parachutist Badge, and Air Assault Badge. He won the Army’s Best Ranger Competition in 2007 and was selected as the Army’s Coach of the Year in 2011.

 

Liam Collins Director of the Modern War Institute and the Director of the Department Instruction at the United States Military Academy (USMA) West Point
Seminars
European Security Initiative

The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal

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the back channel
Over the course of more than three decades as a diplomat, William J. Burns served five Presidents and ten Secretaries of State. He played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time—from the bloodless end of the Cold War to the collapse of post–Cold War relations with Putin’s Russia, from post–9/11 tumult in the Middle East to the secret nuclear talks with Iran. Burns is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished and admired American statesmen of the last half century. Upon his retirement in 2014, Secretary John Kerry said Burns belonged on “a very short list of American diplomatic legends,” alongside George Kennan. Now, Burns draws on his decades of experience to make an impassioned argument for the enduring value of diplomacy in an increasingly volatile world in THE BACK CHANNEL (A Random House Hardcover; On Sale 3/12/2019). 

In this memoir, Burns recounts with novelistic detail and incisive analysis some of the seminal moments of his career. Employing a trove of newly declassified cables and memos, he gives readers a rare inside look at American diplomacy in action. His dispatches on war-torn Chechnya and Putin’s opulent dacha outside of Moscow and his prescient warnings of the “Perfect Storm” that would be unleashed by the Iraq War will reshape our understanding of history and inform the policy debates of the future. Burns sketches the contours of effective American leadership in a world that resembles neither the zero-sum Cold War contest of his early years as a young diplomat nor the “unipolar moment” of American primacy that followed. Ultimately, THE BACK CHANNEL is an eloquent, deeply informed, and timely story of a life spent in service of American interests abroad. It is also an urgent reminder, in a time of great turmoil, of the enduring importance of diplomacy.

“The Back Channel is a masterfully written memoir from one of America’s most accomplished and respected diplomats. Ambassador Burns not only offers a vivid account of how American diplomacy works, he also puts forward a compelling vision for its future that will surely inspire new generations to follow his incredible example.”

–Madeleine K. Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State

“Bill Burns is a treasure of American diplomacy who I had the honor of watching in action and working closely with during my years at the State Department.  He is a model of the American idea and spirit when we need it most. In The Back Channel, Burns provides another great act of public service by giving us a smart, plain-spoken account of America’s changing role in the world and the power and purpose of American diplomacy at its best.”

–Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Secretary of State

“From one of America’s consummate diplomats, an incisive and sorely needed case for the revitalization of our diplomacy—what Burns wisely describes as our ‘tool of first resort.’”

–Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State

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Retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014, after a thirty-three-year diplomatic career, Ambassador Burns holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, career ambassador, and is only the second serving career diplomat in history to become deputy secretary of state. Prior to his tenure as deputy secretary, Ambassador Burns served from 2008 to 2011 as under secretary for political affairs. He was ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2001 to 2005, and ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001. Ambassador Burns earned a bachelor’s in history from La Salle University and master’s and doctoral degrees in international relations from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.

Encina Hall

Bechtel Conference Center, 1st floor

William J. Burns <i>President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace</i>
Seminars

Prices for Denuclearization of North Korea

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Note:

  • Members of the media interested in covering this event should contact Noa Ronkin at noa.ronkin@stanford.edu by 5:00 pm, Wednesday, February 20, to register. They will also need to present their press credentials for admission. 
  • No recording allowed.
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About the speaker: Andrew Kim recently retired as a senior intelligence officer from the Central Intelligence Agency after 28 years of service. He established the CIA's Korea Mission Center in April 2017 in response to a presidential initiative to address North Korea's longstanding threat to global security. As part of his role as head of the Mission Center, he managed and guided CIA Korean analysts in providing strategic and tactical analytic products for a range of policymakers. He accompanied CIA Director and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang in meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times. Formerly he served as the Agency's associate deputy director for operations and technology, leading all efforts to update operational technology and incorporate a state-of-the-art doctrine into CIA training curricula.

Earlier in his career, Kim served as the CIA's chief of station in three major East Asian cities, while also managing the intelligence relationship with politically and militarily complicated foreign countries and advancing U.S. interests. He speaks fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese.

 

 
Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Sung Andrew Kim

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Sung Hyun "Andrew" Kim was a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) through December 2019. Previously he was William J. Perry visiting scholar at APARC. Kim, who retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2018 as a senior intelligence officer after 28 years of service, was assistant director of the CIA's Korea Mission Center, where he helped secure the foundation for the Trump-Kim summit of June 2018.  At Stanford, he will contribute to studies of current North Korea diplomacy in comparison to previous negotiations with the DPRK, a research scope that he refers to as "U.S.-DPRK summit of the century and the tide of history."  Kim will also participate in policy engagement regarding North Korea issues through Shorenstein APARC and its Korea Program.

Kim established the CIA's Korea Mission Center in April 2017 in response to a presidential initiative to address North Korea's longstanding threat to global security. As part of his role as head of the Mission Center, he managed and guided CIA Korean analysts in providing strategic and tactical analytic products for a range of policymakers. He accompanied CIA Director and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang in meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times. Formerly he served as the Agency's associate deputy director for operations and technology, leading all efforts to update operational technology and incorporate a state-of-the-art doctrine into CIA training curricula.

Earlier in his career, Kim served as the CIA's chief of station in three major East Asian cities, while also managing the intelligence relationship with politically and militarily complicated foreign countries and advancing U.S. interests. In recognition of his many contributions, Kim was honored by the Agency with the Director's Award (2018), Presidential Rank Award (2012), and the Donovan Award (1990). He speaks fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese.

Visiting Scholar at APARC
<i>William J. Perry Visiting Scholar, APARC, Stanford University </i>
Seminars
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Talking to the Enemy: Explaining Diplomatic Strategy in Conflicts in Asia

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by February 12, 2019 to: https://goo.gl/forms/h9RRcz4vR9Ybn5cQ2

VALID STANFORD ID CARD MUST BE PRESENTED UPON ARRIVAL

 

ABSTRACT: Diplomacy plays a critical role in the management and resolution of armed conflict in the international system. After a war breaks out, decision makers see the opening of talks as a constructive step in the conflict’s resolution — dialogue allows for belligerents to broker deals and coordinate the logistics of war termination. However, in modern warfare, states almost always fight initially for period of time without engaging in talks. What factors explain whether states are willing to talk to their enemy while fighting and when might their diplomatic postures change? “Talking to the Enemy” presents a framework to explain variation in countries’ approaches to wartime diplomacy, focusing on the costs of talks and how states mitigate these costs to get to the negotiating table. I test this framework with respect to Chinese decision making in the Korean and Sino-Indian Wars — one in which China was against talks for nine months before opening up and the latter in which China actively pursued talks throughout the whole conflict. The findings have significant implications for crisis management and conflict resolution in U.S.-China relations.  

Oriana Mastro
PROFILE: Oriana Skylar Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. Dr. Mastro is also a 2017-2019 Jeane Kirkpatrick Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where she is working on a book about China’s challenge to U.S. primacy. Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she works as a Senior China Analyst at the Pentagon. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016. She has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs, International Security, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Survival, and Asian Security, and is the author of The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019). She holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an MA.and PhD in Politics from Princeton University. Her publications and other commentary can be found on twitter @osmastro and www.orianaskylarmastro.com.  

 

Oriana Mastro Assistant Professor of Security Studies Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Seminars

Fukushima Accident and Its Aftermath

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Plese note: we're no longer accepting RSVPs for this event.

 

Eight years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. Steady progress has been made towards the reconstruction of Fukushima, repopulation of surrounding areas, and the decommissioning of the plant, of which Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) must shoulder 16 trillion yen of the 22 trillion yen, the total estimated cost of the accident. Meanwhile, with Japan having fully liberalized its electricity and gas retail market, the business environment surrounding TEPCO is undergoing a major change. In the long term, TEPCO foresees a decrease in demand for their power service and increased competition among utility companies. In this program, Naomi Hirose, who endeavored to manage the Fukushima incident spearhead reforming the company as President of TEPCO from 2012 to 2017, shares his insights on the current situation in Fukushima, lessons learned and implications from the accident.

 

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Naomi Hirose is senior executive whose service at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) spans four decades.  He joined the company in 1976, having gained an appreciation for the energy industry following the 1973 Oil Shock, and worked in a number of management positions from 1992 to 2005, including corporate planning, sales, marketing, and customer relations.  Mr. Hirose became an executive officer in 2006, and in 2008, conceived and spearheaded a campaign promoting the economic and environmental benefits of electrification, called “Switch” that was a Japan-first. In 2010, he re-energized the company vision for global expansion.  Immediately after the 3.11 Fukushima Accident, Mr. Hirose dedicated himself to create the system for Nuclear Damage Compensation. After becoming President and CEO in 2012, he led the company in addressing a number of highly complex issues such as water management and decommissioning plans for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, compensation for the accident and Fukushima revitalization, and keeping TEPCO competitive while facing the deregulation of Japan’s electricity market.  He currently serves as Executive Vice Chairman, Fukushima Affairs, overseeing the utility’s passionate and steadfast efforts to reconstruct and revitalize Fukushima Prefecture.  Mr. Hirose received his B.A. in Sociology from Hitotsubashi University in 1976,and his MBA from Yale School of Management in 1983.

Naomi Hirose, Vice Chairman, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO)
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Book Talk - Empire of Hope: The Sentimental Politics of Japanese Decline

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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

In this talk, David Leheny (Waseda University) discusses his new book Empire of Hope (Cornell University Press, 2018), which challenges current trends in debates about emotion and politics, arguing that we should instead look at the role of narrative in shaping emotional representation. In the book, Leheny draws from debates about status in international relations theory and from debates about affect and narrative in literary and historical studies to analyze cases from Japan’s Bubble and post-Bubble eras. This talk will focus especially on a 2001 crisis in US-Japan relations over a collision between a US Navy nuclear submarine and a fisheries training boat that resulted in the deaths of nine Japanese, including four high-school students. By presenting grief as both a national emotion and as one that could be narrated through the lens of timeless cultural difference, the US and Japanese governments crafted a crisis resolution that ostensibly rested on “mutual understanding” but that also hid the messier realities of power and of loss in the collision’s aftermath.

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David Leheny is Professor in the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University. He previously was an assistant and associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1998-2007) and the Henry Wendt III ’55 Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University (2007-2017). He is the author of, in addition to Empire of Hope, The Rules of Play: National Identity and the Shaping of Japanese Leisure (Cornell University Press, 2003) and Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence, and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan (Cornell University Press, 2006).

Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
David Leheny Professor in the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies Waseda University
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Pressure for Pressure: North Korean Strategic Culture and the Risks of Policy Blowback

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by January 29, 2019 to: https://goo.gl/forms/0bPqyoTQwub8WaRo2

VALID STANFORD ID CARD MUST BE PRESENTED UPON ARRIVAL

 

ABSTRACT: How does North Korea think about coercion—that is, threats and the use of force to achieve political goals? The answer affects not only the kinds of “sticks” to employ as part of North Korea policy, but the potential cost of using sticks or pressure at all. In this presentation, Jackson argues that part of North Korean strategic culture—specifically its beliefs about coercion—helps explain a durable pattern in its foreign policy and crisis bargaining history: generating deliberate friction with adversaries despite the risk of its own destruction. This presentation will explain the offensive and reputational underpinnings of how North Korea thinks about coercion, detail how this aspect of North Korean strategic culture helps us make sense of its foreign policy history, and explore the implication of this set of beliefs for recent North Korea policy. It will argue that the policy of “maximum pressure,” and its “strategic patience” antecedent, both contained implicit assumptions about North Korean behavior at odds with the historical record— assumptions that were blind to the risks of blowback they were generating.

PROFILE: Van Jackson is a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington, the defense and strategy fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies, and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is also a senior editor with War on the Rocks and an associate editor with the Texas National Security Review. Jackson's first book, with Cambridge University Press, was Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in U.S.-North Korea Relations (2016). His second book, just out and also with Cambridge University Press, is On the Brink: Trump, Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War (2018). He is a former Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. From 2009-2014, Jackson held positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) as a strategist and policy adviser focused on the Asia-Pacific, senior country director for Korea, and working group chair of the U.S.–Republic of Korea Extended Deterrence Policy Committee. He was a contributor to the 2013 Strategic Choices Management Review, the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, and OSD’s implementation of the U.S. policy of rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific. He started his career as a Korean linguist in the U.S. Air Force.


 

Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

 

Van Jackson Senior Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington; Defence and Strategy Fellow, Centre for Strategic Studies Wilson Center; Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Seminars

A New Russia in a New World?

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RSVP here

 

Abstract: Russian foreign and security policy are changing, both to shape and respond to what appears to be a rapidly shifting geostrategic environment. Olga Oliker will discuss the sources of Russian foreign and security policy, how they manifest in defense planning and strategy, Moscow's actions in Ukraine and Syria, and Russian interaction with the United States and European countries. She will then consider the implications of a more active Russia for global security and stability and for the interests and policies of the United States and its allies.

Bio: As Crisis Group's Program Director for Europe and Central Asia, Olga Oliker leads the organisation’s research, analysis, policy prescription and advocacy in and about Russia, Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Oliker’s own research interests center on the foreign and security policies of Russia, Ukraine, and the Central Asian and Caucasian successor states to the Soviet Union, domesticpolitics in these countries, U.S. policy towards the region, and nuclear weapons and arms control. Prior to coming to Crisis Group, Oliker directed the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and held research and management roles at the RAND Corporation. Oliker holds a B.A. from Emory University in international studies, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Olga Oliker Director, Europe and Central Asia Program Center for Strategic & International Studies
Seminars
European Security Initiative

Research in Progress: Are the Mentally Ill Rational? Evidence from Insurance Behavior with Eric Sun

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Are the Mentally Ill Rational? Evidence from Insurance Behavior
Eric Sun, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Perioperative Medicine

Eric Sun received his PhD in business economics from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business in 2006 and a MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 2010.  He then completed his residency in anesthesiology at Stanford University in 2014.  Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Perioperative Medicine at Stanford University, where his research examines the economic effects of physician consolidation as well the economics of policies related to chronic pain.

CHP/PCOR Conference Room 123
Encina Commons (Located behind Encina Hall)
615 Crothers Way

Seminars

Japan-US Trade Frictions Past and Present: Implications for China-US Trade War

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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

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Japan and the US were involved in fierce trade frictions beginning with textiles in the 1950s to semi-conductors in the 1990s. Bilateral trade problems between Japan and the US have resurged recently after Donald Trump became US President. Analysis of Japan-US trade frictions can provide useful implications for ongoing trade war between the US and China.

Shujiro Urata is a Professor at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda Univeristy.  His focus of research is in international and development economics.  He received his PhD in Economics from Standford University in 1978.

Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Shujiro Urata Professor Waseda University
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series
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