A new united nations report recommending the most sweeping reform in the institution's history offers a global vision of collective security for the 21st century that is as committed to development in poor nations as it is to prevention of nuclear terrorism in rich ones.

The point is, according to the report's research director, Stephen Stedman, a threat to one is a threat to all in today's world. "Globalization means that a major terrorist attack anywhere in the industrial world would have devastating consequences for the well-being of millions around the developing world," the document states. The report's value lies in putting forward a comparative framework of collective security that addresses all the compelling threats of the day, Stedman explained. "The recommendations really are the most important possible makeover of the institution in 60 years," he said. "I think something is going to come out of it." Stedman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Stanford Institute for International Studies (SIIS), was recruited a year ago by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to direct research for the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. Stedman is an expert on civil wars, mediation, conflict prevention, and peacekeeping.

Annan created the 16-member blue-ribbon panel, made up mostly of former government leaders and ministers, in the wake of widespread heated criticism of the United Nations following the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In Annan's annual report to the General Assembly in 2003, he said, "Rarely have such dire forecasts been made about the U.N. ... We have reached a fork in the road ... a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the U.N. was founded." The panel was charged with analyzing global security threats and proposing far-reaching reforms to the international system.

On December 2 the panel, chaired by former Thai prime minister Anand Panyarachun, issued its 95-page report: "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility." The document identifies six major threats to global security:

-War between states;

-Violence within states, including civil wars, large-scale human rights abuses, and genocide;

-Poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation;

-Nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological weapons;

-Terrorism; and

-Transnational organized crime.

Although states do not face these threats equally, a collective security system must take all member states' threats seriously and deal with them equitably, the report noted. It specifically mentioned the world's appallingly slow response to AIDS.

The report makes 101 recommendations for collective prevention and response to the threats, including ways to reform the United Nations. Annan described these in a December 3 editorial in the International Herald Tribune as "the most comprehensive and coherent set of proposals for forging a common response to common threats that I have seen."

The document also reaffirms the right of states to defend themselves-even preemptively-when an attack is imminent, and it offers guidelines to help the Security Council decide when to authorize the use of force. Stedman said other significant proposals involve improving biosecurity, strengthening nuclear nonproliferation, and defining terrorism. Panel members agreed that any politically motivated violence against civilians should be regarded as terrorism and condemned.

The panel was very critical of the Human Rights Commission, a body that has often harmed the United Nations' reputation by permitting the membership of some of the worst human-rights violators, including Cuba, Libya, and Sudan. The report also discussed the need for new institutions, such as a peace-building commission, that would support countries emerging from conflict.

Scott Sagan, co-director of CISAC, described the report as hard-hitting, although he said he would have tried to extend the withdrawal clause of the nonproliferation treaty from three months to a year. "I think it's the beginning of some major changes that will be helpful," he said. "We need to get states to work together to reform the U.N. rather than sniping at it."

CISAC was closely involved in the panel's work and was named in a cover letter accompanying the report from Panyarachun to Annan. Co-director Chris Chyba served on the panel's 30-member resource group, providing expertise on nuclear nonproliferation and bioterrorism. Bruce Jones, a former CISAC Hamburg Fellow, acted as Stedman's deputy, and Tarun Chhabra, a graduate of CISAC's undergraduate honors program and recent Marshall Scholarship recipient, worked as a research officer. Political science Professors David Laitin and James Fearon, and SIIS Senior Fellow David Victor, provided, respectively, expertise on terrorism, civil wars, and the environment, Stedman said. "There is an immense amount of Stanford influence in the report," he added.

CISAC also hosted a nuclear nonproliferation workshop for the panel on campus last March and helped organize a meeting during the summer in Bangkok. SIIS co-hosted a conference on governance and sovereignty on campus in April and a meeting at Oxford University in June. CISAC provided workspace to give the research team a quiet place to focus on writing the report's first draft in August.

The report has attracted intense international media interest in part because it calls for expanding the U.N. Security Council, its top decision-making group, from 15 to 24 members. The panel was unable to agree on one proposal and offers two options that would make the council more representative and democratic. "I believe either formula would strengthen the legitimacy in the eyes of the world, by bringing its membership closer to the realities of the 21st century-as opposed to those of 1945, when the U.N. Charter was drafted," Annan wrote in the International Herald Tribune.

According to Stedman, the media has highlighted the Security Council's proposed expansion because so many nations have a stake in it. "But in the absence of a new consensus on international peace and security, expansion of the council will not be effective," he explained.

In March, Annan will use the report to inform a series of proposals he will present to the 191 U.N. member states. These, in turn, will be submitted to a summit of world leaders before the General Assembly convenes next September in New York. Stedman said he has been asked to stay on for another year as a special advisor to the secretary general to keep the United Nations "on message" during negotiations.

Engagement by the United States, which has openly questioned the institution's relevance, will be critical to implementing the report's recommendations, said Stedman, who added that the superpower can benefit from a revamped United Nations. "Putting threats to the United States into a global framework makes it more secure," he said.

Stedman noted that one of the most disturbing aspects of the panel's consultations was listening to government representatives from civil-society organizations dismiss the seriousness of bio- and nuclear terror threats against the United States. "They were essentially denying this as a real threat to American security," he said. "I said it's as real a threat to the U.S. as other threats are to you."

When Stedman accepted the job, he thought he would spend 80 percent of his time on research and writing and 20 percent on consultations and negotiating. In fact, he said, it was the other way around. "It's unlike anything I've ever done," he said. "It's been a blast." In contrast to academia, where a researcher presents his or her best findings and defends them, Stedman was faced with 16 people who would push back, reject, or accept his work. "I had to work to change language to include their concerns," he said. "My biggest concern at the beginning was that the report would be based on the lowest common denominator. It's not."

Stedman said the panel members remained open-minded throughout the year. "They showed flexibility, listened to arguments, and changed their minds," he said. "Our job was to be as persuasive, rigorous, and comprehensive in our analysis as we were able to achieve."

In the end, Stedman said, the report belongs to the panel. "Parts of what the exercise shows is that access to those making policy is really important," he said. "If you do really good work and you have access, you have a chance of being heard. Kofi Annan gave me that opportunity."

Among the growing number of recent cases where international actors have become engaged in trying to rebuild a shattered state and construct democracy after conflict, Iraq is somewhat unique. The state collapsed not as a result of a civil war or internal conflict, but as a result of external military action to overthrow it. We are still very much in the middle of an internationally assisted political reconstruction process in Iraq, and we will not know for a year or two, or maybe five or ten, the outcome of the postwar effort to rebuild the Iraqi state. Nevertheless, some important lessons can be identified.

Prepare For A Major Commitment

Rebuilding a failed state is an extremely expensive and difficult task under any circumstance, and even more so in the wake of violent conflict. Success requires a very substantial commitment of human and financial resources, delivered in a timely and effective fashion, and sustained over an extended period of time, lasting (not necessarily through occupation or trusteeship, but at least through intensive international engagement) for a minimum of five to ten years.

Commit Enough Troops

One of the major problems with the American engagement in Iraq is that there were not enough international troops on the ground in the wake of state collapse to secure the immediate postwar order. As a result, Iraq descended into lawless chaos once Saddam's regime fell. The United States Army wanted a much larger force on the ground in order to secure the postwar order, something like 400,000 troops rather than the total invasion force of less than 200,000 that was ultimately authorized. Of course, what is needed is not simply enough troops but the right kind of troops with the proper rules of engagement. It does no good to have troops on the ground if they simply stand by and watch what is left of the state being stolen and burned. One lesson of Iraq is that international post-conflict stabilization missions need to be able to deploy not just a conventional army but a muscular peace implementation force that is somewhere between a war-making army and a crime-fighting police, between a rapid reaction and riot control force.

Mobilize International Legitimacy and Cooperation

In the contemporary era, a successful effort at post-conflict reconstruction requires broad international legitimacy and cooperation, for at least two key reasons. First, the scope and duration of engagement is typically more than any one country-and public-is willing to bear on its own. The broader the international coalition, the greater the human and financial resources that can be mobilized, and the more likely that the engagement of any participating country can be sustained, as its public sees a sense of shared international commitment and sacrifice. Second, when there is broad international engagement and legitimacy, people within the post-conflict country are less likely to see the intervention as the imperial project of one country or set of countries. All other things being equal, international cooperation and legitimacy tends to generate greater domestic legitimacy-or at least acceptance-for the intervention.

Generate legitimacy and trust within the post-conflict country

No international reconstruction effort can succeed without some degree of acceptance and cooperation-and eventually support and positive engagement-from the people in the post-conflict country. Without some degree of trust in the initial international administration and its intentions, the international intervention can become the target of popular wrath, and will then need to spend most of its military (and administrative) energies defending itself rather than rebuilding the country and its political and social order. Unfortunately, these qualities were lacking in the occupation of Iraq, and the Iraqi people knew it. From the very beginning, the American occupation failed to earn the trust and respect of the Iraqi people. As noted above, it failed in its first and most important obligation as an occupying power-to establish order and public safety. Then it failed to convey early on any clear plan for post-conflict transition.

All international post-conflict interventions to reconstruct a failed state on more democratic foundations confront a fundamental contradiction. Their goal is, in large measure, democracy: popular, representative, and accountable government, in which "the people" are sovereign. But their means are undemocratic: in essence, some form of imperial domination, however temporary and transitional. This requires a balancing of international trusteeship or imperial functions with a distinctly non-imperial attitude and some clear and early specification of an acceptable timetable for the restoration of full sovereignty. As much as possible, the humiliating features of an extended, all-out occupation should be avoided.

Hold Local Elections First

One of the toughest issues on which to generalize concerns the timing of elections. Ill-timed and ill-prepared elections do not produce democracy, or even political stability, after conflict. Instead, they may only enhance the power of actors who mobilize coercion, fear, and prejudice, reviving autocracy and even precipitating large-scale violent strife. In Angola in 1992, in Bosnia in 1996, and in Liberia in 1997, rushed elections set back the prospects for democracy and, in Angola and Liberia, paved the way for renewed civil war. There are therefore compelling reasons, based in logic and in recent historical experience, for deferring national elections until militias have been demobilized, new moderate parties trained and assisted, electoral infrastructure created, and democratic media and ideas generated. International interventions that seek to construct democracy after conflict must balance the tension between domination for democracy and withdrawal through democracy. In these circumstances, two temptations compete: to transform the country, its institutions and values, through an extended and penetrating occupation (à la British colonial rule), and to hold elections and get out as soon as possible. The question is always, in part, how long can international rule be viable? In Iraq, for better or worse, the answer-readily apparent from history, and from the profound and widespread suspicion of American motives in the region and among Iraqis themselves-was: not long.

Disperse Economic Reconstruction Funds and Democratic Assistance As Widely As Possible

Both for the effectiveness and speed of economic revival, and in order to build up local trust and acceptance, there is a compelling need for the decentralization of relief and reconstruction efforts, as well as democratic civic assistance. The more that the international administration, as well as private donors, works with and through local partners, the more likely that their relief and reconstruction efforts will be directed toward the most urgent needs, and the better the prospect for the accumulation of political trust and cooperation with the overall transition project. In Iraq there was a particularly compelling need for the creation of jobs, which might have been done more rapidly by channeling repair and reconstruction contracts more extensively through a wide range of local Iraqi contractors, instead of through the big American mega-corporations.

Proceed With Some Humility

This encompasses perhaps the ultimate, overarching contradiction. It is hard to imagine a bolder, more assertive, and self-confident act than a nation, or a set of nations, or "the international community," intervening to seize effective sovereignty in another nation. There is nothing the least bit humble about it. But ultimately the intervention cannot succeed, and the institutions it establishes cannot be viable, unless there is some sense of participation and ultimately "ownership" on the part of the people in the failed and re-emerging state. This is why holding local elections as early as possible is so important. It is why it is so vital to engage local partners, as extensively as possible, in post-conflict relief and economic reconstruction. And it is why the process of constitution making must be democratic and broadly participatory.

Coit D. Blacker, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, recently named Professor Michael McFaul as the new director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). McFaul, a reknowned specialist on the former Soviet Union, is currently associate professor of political science at Stanford as well as the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also an alumnus of Stanford University.

In appointing McFaul to lead CDDRL, Blacker expressed his confidence that the center will continue to establish itself as one of the leading research units in the United States devoted to exploring the interactions between the establishment of democracies, promoting development, and the rule of law. The center's previous director was Stephen D. Krasner, who took Ppublic service leave from Stanford in the winter of 2004 to serve as the director for policy planning at the U.S. Department of State.

Before joining the Stanford faculty in 1995, McFaul worked for two years as a senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in residence at the Moscow Carnegie Center. McFaul is also a research associate at the Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) and a senior adviser to the National Democratic Institute. He serves on the board of directors of the Eurasia Foundation, Firebird Fund, International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy, Institute of Social and Political Studies, Center for Civil Society International, and Institute for Corporate Governance and Law; the steering committee for the Europe and Eurasia division of Human Rights Watch; and the editorial boards of Current History, Journal of Democracy, Demokratizatsiya, and Perspectives on European Politics and Society. He has served as a consultant for numerous companies and government agencies.

McFaul's current research interests include democratization in the post-communist world and Iran, U.S.-Russian relations, and American efforts at promoting democracy abroad. With Abbas Milani and Larry Diamond, he codirects the Hoover project on Iran.

McFaul is the author and editor of several monographs including one with Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge University Press, 2004). With Nikolai Petrov and Andrei Ryabov, Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Post-Communist Political Reform (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004); with James Goldgeier, Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (Brookings Institution Press, 2003); with Timothy Colton, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 (Brookings Institution Press, 2003); Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (Cornell University Press, 2001); Russia's 1996 Presidential Election: The End of Bi-Polar Politics, (Hoover Institution Press, 1997); with Tova Perlmutter, Privatization, Conversion and Enterprise Reform in Russia (Westview Press, 1995); Post-Communist Politics: Democratic Prospects in Russia and Eastern Europe (CSIS, 1993); and, with Sergei Markov, The Troubled Birth of Russian Democracy: Political Parties, Programs and Profiles (Hoover Institution Press, 1993). His articles have appeared in Constitutional Political Economy, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, Journal of Democracy, Political Science Quarterly, Post-Soviet Affairs, and World Politics.

McFaul also comments on current Russian and U.S.-Russian affairs, including articles in the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Moscow Times, New Republic, New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the Weekly Standard, as well as television appearances on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC, and PBS. During the 1995 parliamentary elections in Russia, he worked as senior consultant and commentator for CBS News. During the 1996 presidential election, 1999 parliamentary election, and 2000 presidential election in Russia, he served as a commentator and adviser for CNN. While in Moscow in 1994-95, he also coproduced and appeared in his own television program on democracy for the Russian Television Network (RTR).

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his BA in international relations and Slavic languages and his MA in Slavic and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford where he completed his PhD in international relations in 1991.

The Stanford Institute for International Studies (SIIS) became the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, or FSI, effective September 1.

The name change is in recognition of the $50 million lead gift by Brad Freeman and Ron Spogli to the institute and to Stanford's International Initiative, a bold new venture launched this spring by President John Hennessy to unify and strengthen Stanford's role in global affairs. Freeman ('64), a former Stanford trustee, and Spogli ('70), a former member of the institute's Board of Visitors, are founding partners of the Los Angeles-based investment firm Freeman Spogli & Co.

As the anchor for Stanford's International Initiative, FSI plans to roll out the first of many innovative programs under the auspices of the International Initiative to address global challenges to international security, governance, and human well-being, the initiative's central themes.

Siegfried S. Hecker, a senior fellow and emeritus director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, will join CISAC as a visiting professor in 2005-2006. He will teach undergraduates and pursue research and policy advising on nuclear proliferation and the security of nuclear weapons stockpiles.

As the Los Alamos director, Hecker advised the U.S. Congress on nuclear security challenges created by the Soviet Union's dissolution. He worked with Russian counterparts to consolidate nuclear weapons from four former Soviet states and to implement new security measures agreed to under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program.

"Russia is the key link to fighting nuclear proliferation," Hecker said. He continues to advise Congress members and staff and to work closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy on several cooperative threat reduction programs.

On his arrival this fall, Hecker will be one of two former national lab directors at CISAC. Emeritus Professor Michael M. May formerly directed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Science magazine announced Hecker's CISAC appointment in its Aug. 5 issue.