FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.
Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions.
17th Annual Shorenstein Journalism Award Panel Discussion: How North Korea Is, and Isn't, Changing under Kim Jong Un
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Anna Fifield is the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post , responsible for coverage of greater China. She joined The Washington Post in July 2014 as Tokyo Bureau Chief, writing about Japan and the two Koreas for four years, with a concentration on North Korea. She has been on 12 reporting trips to North Korea and regularly talks about North Korea on international television and radio, and at conferences.
Andray Abrahamian is the 2018-19 Koret Fellow in the Korea Program at Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). Abrahamian has been Executive Director and Director of Research for Choson Exchange, a nonprofit that has trained over 2000 North Koreans in entrepreneurship and economic policy since 2010. His work for Choson Exchange and other projects has taken him to North Korea 30 times. He has also lived in Myanmar, where he conducted field research for his recent book, North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths (McFarland, 2018), which asks why Myanmar came to end its isolation, while North Korea has not done so yet.
Barbara Demick is New York correspondent of the Los Angeles Times , formerly head of the bureaus in Beijing and Seoul. She is the author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood . Demick has won Britain’s Samuel Johnson Award for best nonfiction, the George Polk Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, as well as the Osborn Elliot Prize for Journalism from the Asia Society and the Overseas Press Club, the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Award and Stanford University’s Shorenstein Journalism Award for best Asia reporting. She has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Yong Suk Lee is the SK Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Deputy Director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Lee’s main fields of research are in labor economics, technology and entrepreneurship, and urban economics. Some of the issues he has studied include technology and labor markets, entrepreneurship and economic growth, entrepreneurship education, and education and inequality. He is also interested in both the North and South Korean economy and has examined how economic sanctions affect economic activity in North Korea, and how management practices and education policy affect inequality in South Korea. His current research focuses on how the new wave of digital technologies will affect labor, education, entrepreneurship, and productivity. Lee’s research has been published in both Economics and Management journals. He also regularly contributes to policy reports and opinion pieces on contemporary issues surrounding both North and South Korea.
A common assumption is that North Korea is a "Hermit Kingdom" that froze in time some decades ago. There are certainly many things about North Korea that have persisted, including the all-encompassing personality cult, the brutal repression, and the pervasive fear. In the last six years, however, since Kim Jong Un came to power and predictions of imminent collapse immediately followed, North Korea has changed in significant ways.
In the course of her reporting on North Korea, Anna Fifield , the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award recipient, has watched a leader who is much bolder and more audacious than his father ever was. Sometimes that boldness comes out in executions of family members and launching of missiles. But recently, it has manifested itself as summit diplomacy with enemy leaders. Kim Jong Un is now trying to re-position himself as a responsible, if nuclear-armed, global leader. He has adeptly accelerated the nuclear program and allowed a class of nouveaux riches to flourish.
An often-overlooked fact about North Korea, reports Fifield, is that life there has been getting slightly better for many people, in relative terms. Over the last several years, she has been struck by the number of North Korean defectors she met who have escaped not because they were starving, but because they were disillusioned.
Why have these and other changes occurred in North Korea? And how does the current diplomatic engagement with the North present an opportunity for us to help the country’s transformation?
On this panel discussion, celebrating the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award, the award winner, Anna Fifield, the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post , will consider these and other questions, drawing on her long career in journalism covering Asia and focusing on North Korea.
Panelists:
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Before joining The Washington Post , Fifield was a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how change happens in closed societies. Previously, she was a correspondent for the Financial Times for 13 years, based in London, Sydney, Seoul, Tehran, Beirut, and finally in Washington D.C., where she was White House correspondent and covered the 2012 President election campaign.
Fifield comes from New Zealand and has a B.A. in English literature from Victoria University and a post-graduate diploma in journalism from Canterbury University.
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Abrahamian is an honorary fellow at Macquarie University, Sydney, and an adjunct fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. He is a frequent contributor to 38North.org, a website focused on North Korea analysis, and is a member of the US National Committee on North Korea. He holds a PhD from the University of Ulsan and an MA from the University of Sussex in International Relations.
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Panel Chair:
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Prior to joining Stanford, Lee was an assistant professor of economics at Williams College in Massachusetts. He received his PhD in Economics from Brown University, a Master of Public Policy from Duke University, and bachelor's degree and master's degree in architecture from Seoul National University.
About the Shorenstein Journalism Award:
The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, honors a journalist not only for a distinguished body of work, but also for the particular way in which that work has helped readers to understand the complexities of Asia. The award, established in 2002, was named after Walter H. Shorenstein, the philanthropist, activist, and businessman who endowed two institutions that are focused respectively on Asia and on the press: the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2010, Shorenstein APARC re-envisioned the award in recognition of the fact that Asia has served as a crucible for the role of the press in democratization in places such as South Korea, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Since then the award has also recognized Asian journalists who, in addition to their professional excellence and contribution to knowledge of Asia, have helped defend and build a free media in Asia.
Open to the public
Fisher Conference Center
The Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center
326 Galvez St
Stanford, CA 94305
Three takeaways from the CISAC Visit to USSTRATCOM
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On May 14 and 15, 2018, many of the CISAC fellows were lucky enough to visit the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska. USSTRATCOM oversees strategic deterrence on multiple fronts, including nuclear weapons, missile defense, and, until recently, cyber-attacks. This trip was only the latest iteration of a longstanding relationship between CISAC and USSTRATCOM to foster research and debate on deterrence, assurance, and nuclear security
Our visit involved several highlights. General John Hyten, Commander of USSTRATCOM, took time out of his schedule to speak with us during breakfast on the first day. We were briefed on the global mission and history of USSTRATCOM, strategic planning, laws of armed conflict, nuclear modernization, and cybersecurity. The fellows were also able to visit the Global Operations Center and Battle Deck, where many of USSTRATCOM’s most important day-to-day functions take place. Several CISAC fellows (including me) had the opportunity to brief both military and civilian members of USSTRATCOM on a range of issues spanning from nuclear terrorism to the proliferation of offensive cyber capabilities to the domestic politics of American citizens’ growing perception (now at a historic high) of national decline.
I walked away from the experience with three strong impressions.
First, USSTRATCOM is populated with thoughtful individuals who have deeply sober attitudes about the devastating impact of using nuclear weapons. Each person we met was committed to ensuring the nation’s security but emphasized how seriously they took the notion of nuclear conflict and how they all sought never to prevent conflicts from reaching that point.
Second, I was struck by how everyone at USSTRATCOM was open to discussing new or provocative ideas. During our breakfast, General Hyten called upon one of the fellows working on Russian nuclear doctrine. It was clear that he was aware of the fellow’s work and disputed its conclusion. The two conversed about their differing views for several minutes before agreeing to disagree. Another one of our fellow’s briefings focused on the origins of the recent United Nations treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Her talk drew some skepticism, but also many questions and generated a very civil discussion. USSTRATCOM invited us to speak, took our arguments seriously, and sought to understand any viewpoint that they felt could be valuable.
Third, and lastly, there is enormous need and potential to continue building connections between the military (or government more broadly) and the academic community. Visiting USSTRATCOM highlighted how scholars who study security may not fully grasp the realities behind how to effect and maintain it. This might lead to academic work that tends to be unrealistic or too reductive. Conversely, both military and civilian members of USSTRATCOM may be so engrossed in addressing specific problems that they sometimes miss the forest for the trees or overlook fallacies in their strategic logic. This could result in policies that have unintended and, given USSTRATCOM’s purview, severe consequences. Collaboration between these two worlds is perhaps the best tool we have for solving both problems simultaneously. The potential ramifications are too important not to do so.
Eric Min is a Zukerman Postdoctoral Fellow in Social Sciences at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science. His research focuses on the application of text analysis, machine learning, and statistical methods to analyze the dynamics of conflict and diplomacy. Starting in the fall of 2018, he will be an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He can also be found on Twitter.
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Crimea: Russia's Unique Experiment on Integration of Annexed Territory | A Conversation with Mustafa Dzhemilev
This event is now full. Please send an email to sj1874@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.
Crimea has become a precedent in the newest world history. After annexation, Russia turned the peninsula into a testing ground for new tactics of information warfare, suppression of dissent, and the formation of militaristic sentiment. The former resort has been transformed into a powerful military base whose missiles can reach targets in the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, and other nearby countries.
Russia has closed access to international organizations in Crimea. For the past five years, about 2.5 million people have remained without any legal protection from the actions of the occupying power. Forced disappearances, politically-motivated arrests, religious persecution, censorship, and the destruction of independent media have all become an everyday reality.
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During the Soviet Union, Mustafa Dzhemilev defended the right of the Crimean Tatar People to return from the places of deportation to their homeland, Crimea. He spent more than 15 years in Soviet camps and prisons and survived a 306-day hunger strike, which ended only after Andrei Sakharov's request. Mustafa Dzhemilev has been awarded dozens of international awards for his human rights activities. After the annexation of the peninsula, Russia banned Mustafa's return to his native Crimea.
This event is co-sponsored by The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, The European Security Initiative at The Europe Center, and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University. It is free and open to the public.
Mustafa Dzhemilev
speaker
Leader of the Crimean Tatar People
Ford Dorsey Master's Program in International Policy Webinar
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Online Event
Interested in learning more about the Ford Dorsey Master's Program in International Policy at Stanford University? Then please join us for an informational webinar on May 23, 2018 at 9:30am PST. We will be going over program specifics and answering any questions.
RSVP on Eventbrite - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ford-dorsey-masters-program-in-internation…
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The Imprudence of Unilateral US Withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal
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In his article for the The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Abbas Milani writes that "the much-rumored and long-expected announcement by President Trump that he will order the United States to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal—officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA—is arguably the worst policy option for addressing problems in what was the least-bad possible deal when it was signed." Read the full article here.
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CVID approach to North Korea's nuclear program faces significant challenges
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The recent developments in North Korea's summit diplomacy and the feasibility of CVID (complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement) of the nuclear program have received unprecedented responses, both optimistic and pessimistic, from the international community.
Please stay tuned to this page for APARC researchers' commentary and analysis on the CVID of the North Korean nuclear program through articles published in various news media.
Latest Commentaries:
How to Keep the Ball Rolling on North Korean Negotiations (East Asia Forum, May 2, 2019)
Why Walking Away from Kim's Deal May Have Been the Right Move (Axios, February 28, 2019)
Success of Second Trump-Kim Summit Will Lie in the Details (Axios, February 26, 2019)
The Second Trump-Kim Summit Must Settle the Big Questions (The National Interest, February 19, 2019)
Normalising, Not Denuclearising, North Korea (East Asia Forum, October 3, 2018)
Moon-Kim Summit in Pyongyang Was Promising, But No Game Changer (Axios.com, September 19, 2018)
Towards Normality: What's Next with North Korea? (East Asia Forum Quarterly, September 2018)
Stanford scholars discuss U.S.-North Korea Relations in Washington, D.C. (C-SPAN, July 26, 2018)
Back to the Basics: Above and Beyond CVID with North Korea (38 North, July 18, 2018)
The Singapore Summit Empowers South Korean Chaebols (The New Republic, June 26, 2018)
Korean Elections Give Moon Momentum, But Could Shift U.S. Alliance (Axios, June 14, 2018)
Despite Lack of Plan, North Korea Denuclearization Could Still Happen (Axios, June 12, 2018)
Ambassador Kathleen Stephens shares reactions following the Trump-Kim summit, including her thoughts on President Trump's pledge to cancel military exercises on the Korean Peninsula (KQED's Forum, 06/12/18)
With North Korea, Let's Not Forget the Big Picture (The Diplomat, June 8, 2018)
"[T]he mere prospect of the June summit has already enhanced Kim's status on the international stage," observes APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin, Trump needs leadership and allies to salvage the North Korea summit (Axios, May 25, 2018)
Stanford Scholars Discuss Diplomacy’s Future after U.S.-North Korea Summit Is Canceled (May 24, 2018)
Dan Sneider understands Japanese skepticism of North Korea's conversion to disarmament in Japan, China and South Korea Get Together (The Economist, May 10, 2018)
Future of U.S. troops in South Korea uncertian (Los Angeles Times, May 4, 2018)
Related articles:
A new start or a rerun on the Korean Peninsula? (East Asia Forum, May 6, 2018)
Stanford Panel Discusses North-South Summit and What Happens Next (APARC News, April 28, 2018)
North Korea Summit Diplomacy (The Diplomat, March 30, 2018)
Moon's Bet on the Olympics: What Comes Next? (East Asia Forum, February 18, 2018)
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Panmunjom Declaration on April 27, 2018
Cheong Wa Dae
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