Stanford University

Security

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. 

The Torture Camp on Paradise Street

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Stanislav Aseyev

In The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, Ukrainian journalist and writer Stanislav Aseyev details his experience as a prisoner from 2015 to 2017 in a modern-day concentration camp overseen by the Federal Security Bureau of the Russian Federation (FSB) in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. This memoir recounts an endless ordeal of psychological and physical abuse, including torture and rape, inflicted upon the author and his fellow inmates over the course of nearly three years of illegal incarceration spent largely in the prison called Izoliatsiia (Isolation).

Since February 2022, numerous cases of illegal detainment and extreme mistreatment have been reported in the Ukrainian towns and villages occupied by Russian forces during the full-scale invasion. These and other war crimes committed by Russian troops speak to the genocidal nature of Russia’s war on Ukraine and reveal the horrors wreaked upon Ukrainians forced to live in Russian-occupied zones. Aseyev’s account offers critical insight into the operations of Russian forces in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Aseyev also reflects on how a human can survive such atrocities and reenter the world to share his story. The emphasis of the talk will be on the inhuman conditions that Russian and Russian-controlled forces subject people to on the territories controlled by them and on Aseyev’s own experience, particularly as described in the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stanislav Aseyev is a Donetsk-born Ukrainian writer and journalist. He is the author of a collection of poetry, a play, and a novel. Under the penname Stanislav Vasin, he published short reports in the Ukrainian press about the situation on the ground following the outbreak of Russian-sponsored military hostilities in Donbas. Arrested and unlawfully imprisoned by separatist militia forces for “extremism” and “spying,” Aseyev was held captive and subjected to mistreatment and intermittent torture for over two and a half years.

This event is co-sponsored by CREEES Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

Stanislav Aseyev
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Gambling with Armageddon: Reflections on the 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis

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About the Event: A panel discussion convened in partnership with the Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice, University of San Francisco, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, and the World House Project, Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, Stanford University.

About the Speakers:

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. He also serves as Chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Clayborne Carson, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor of History, emeritus, at Stanford University, has devoted his professional life to the study of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the human rights movements inspired by King, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and other visionaries. His award-winning first book, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, was published in 1981 and remains the definitive study of the courageous activists and organizers who challenged the strongholds of segregation. In 1985, Mrs. Coretta Scott King chose Dr. Carson to edit and publish a definitive, multi-volume edition of her late husband’s speeches, sermons, correspondence, publications, and unpublished writings. In addition to publishing numerous other books and scholarly articles, Carson has also reached broader audiences as a senior advisor to the Eyes on the Prize series and his contributions to more than two dozen subsequent documentaries. After launching the online Liberation Curriculum for K-12 students, Carson founded Stanford's Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute in 2005 to disseminate King-related educational resources to a global audience. After retiring as the King Institute’s Director, Carson has continued his online educational efforts by establishing The World House Project to collaborate with other human rights advocates to realize King's vision of a global community in which all people can "learn somehow to live with each other in peace.”

Rose Gottemoeller is the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

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.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

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Scott Sagan Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation
Clayborne Carson Stanford Department of History
Rose Gottemoeller Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation
David Holloway Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Honors College Day 2: In The Rooms Where (Democracy) Happens

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Gabrielle Crooks
Sarah Lee
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From walking down the same hallways as Vice President Kamala Harris to watching a stunning performance of Hamilton at the Kennedy Center, our second day of Honors College was unforgettable.

We kicked off our morning with a visit to the National Security Council (NSC) at one of our nation’s most esteemed buildings: the White House. There, we met Tarun Chhabra ‘02, Senior Director Directorate for Technology & National Security. It was incredible getting to meet and chat with Tarun, who generously shared both his experiences working in government and his expertise on the constantly evolving security challenges we’re facing today. While we’ve learned about national security, economic power, and foreign policy to some degree in our classrooms, it was an immense privilege to hear from someone immersed in these critical decision-making processes on a day-to-day basis. 

CDDRL honors students at the National Security Council
CDDRL honors students visit the National Security Council in Washington, D.C.

In the afternoon, we headed to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, or IFES, where we heard from the president and CEO Anthony Banbury, and Dr. Cassandra Emmons, their Democracy Data Analysis. IFES works to advance and strengthen democracy around the world and has worked in over 145 countries since its founding in 1987. During the visit, the students learned about the Election Integrity program and the different ways that IFES helps to secure safe and effective elections as a pathway to democracy. Additionally, the visit touched on how IFES and its goals have evolved over time and how they have learned through field experience and data how to best serve these new goals, especially when the risks posed to democracy around the world are at their highest. Learning how this organization works to support democracy was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far!

How does a ragtag group of honors students spend their nights in the nation's capitol? On Tuesday evening, after resting and getting dressed up, we headed to the Kennedy Center to watch the critically acclaimed musical, Hamilton. Witnessing the (nearly accurate) historical recount of the birth of our nation through the lens of one of our founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, is always a treat, especially in the heart of Washington D.C. Amid visits to think tanks and government agencies, Hamilton gave us the sing-along footnotes version of how democracy came to be here in the U.S. and the efforts that went into protecting it. Though the days in Honors College are long, this musical (and the overpriced snacks we grabbed during intermission) was a wonderful way to close out a fascinating day. 

CDDRL honors students attend Hamilton at the Kennedy Center

Day 2 clearly was action-packed. We both returned to our hotel rooms with full hearts, tired feet, and of course, the Hamilton soundtrack stuck in our heads. But looking back, perhaps our favorite part of the day was simply getting to go full nerd-mode with everyone—whether it was over whose office we were passing by in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building or which musical number ultimately stole the show. It’s hard to come across a more caffeinated, strangely passionate group of Gen-Z’ers who are willing to unapologetically geek out about these sorts of things—we’re very glad we found this one.

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CDDRL honors students the the White House
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This is the second in a series of blog posts written by the Fisher Family Honors Program class of 2023 detailing their experiences in Washington, D.C. for CDDRL's annual Honors College.

Protests in Iran are part of a ‘long, almost Sisyphean, struggle’ for freedom and equality, Stanford scholar says

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Across Iran, protests have erupted over the killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in police custody after being apprehended for not wearing her hijab correctly.

The protestors’ bold acts of defiance against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime he represents are part of a long struggle for democracy, sovereignty, and independence among people in Iran, said Abbas Milani, the director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies.

Here, Milani, whose scholarship examines U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues, discusses how Iranians have been fighting for freedom and equality for almost 150 years and how Amini’s death is the latest centerpiece in that push for independence.

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Photographs of murdered Iranian dissidents are displayed by protesters outside of the United Nations in New York City.
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Abbas Milani, founding director of Stanford’s Iranian Studies Program, discusses how the most recent protests sweeping cities and villages across Iran are part of an enduring fight to advance women’s rights and equality.

A Conversation with Jason Rezaian

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Jason Razaian
The Washington Post

Over the past three weeks, activists across Iran have been organizing to seek justice for the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who passed away in the custody of the country's Guardian Patrol. This is one of a series of protest movements that have challenged the Iranian regime over the past five years.

Stanford in Government, in partnership with CDDRL, hosts a conversation with Jason Rezaian on October 13 from 5:00-6:30 pm in the Moghadam Conference Room 123 of Encina Commons.

In this conversation, he'll offer his perspective on the near-term prospects for U.S.-Iran relations and draw parallels between his own experience in Iran and the experience of American political prisoners abroad.

Mr. Rezaian is a writer for Global Opinions at The Washington Post. He served as The Post's correspondent in Tehran from 2012 to 2016. He spent 544 days unjustly imprisoned by Iranian authorities until his release in January 2016. Mr. Rezaian chronicled his experience in Iran in his 2019 book Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison.

Encina Commons Room 123
615 Crothers Way, Stanford, CA

Jason Rezaian
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REDS Seminar: The Good Deep State: How the Global Patrimonial Wave Endangers our Future with Jeffrey Kopstein

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The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of patrimonial rule not only in the developing world but also, more surprisingly, in the developed West. This resurgence carries potentially dire consequences for responding to a range of pressing problems. Understanding the sources of contemporary patrimonialism is hindered by assimilating the phenomenon into the familiar democracy/autocracy typology or by assuming that it is a function of failed modernization.

This paper, co-authored with Stephen E. Hanson, identifies the patrimonial phenomenon and explores the contemporary global diffusion of patrimonial rule from its origins in postcommunist Russia, which in the 1990s faced precisely the same social challenges—shrinking “blue collar” industries, sharply increasing economic inequality, and weak, unresponsive democratic institutions—that would bedevil developed countries around the world in the 21st century.  From Russia, patrimonialism spread westward to the “near abroad,” the new EU member states, Israel, and ultimately to the erstwhile heartland of the rule of law: the UK and the US. Some signs indicate that reestablishing bureaucratic predictability and expertise may be much harder than demolishing it. In some respects, the task may be more daunting than the salvation of democracy itself.

Jeffrey Kopstein

Jeffrey Kopstein is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. In his research, Professor Kopstein focuses on interethnic violence, voting patterns of minority groups, and anti-liberal tendencies in civil society, paying special attention to cases within European and Russian Jewish history.  These interests are central topics in his co-authored book, Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2018) and his forthcoming edited volume: "Politics, Memory, Violence: The New Social Science of the Holocaust" (Cornell University Press 2023). His current book project is "The Good Deep State: How the Global Patrimonial Wave Endangers our Future."

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by November 3, 2022.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

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Anna Grzymała-Busse
Jeffrey Kopstein, University of California, Irvine
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REDS Seminar: Has the Russian Invasion Strengthened the Liberal World Order? with Lucan Way

Lucan Way

Over the last decade, responses to the crisis of democracy have been hampered by the fact that challenges to liberalism have often been subtle and ambiguous. All this changed on 24 February 2022. Two factors made Russia’s invasion a watershed moment in Europe’s battle for democracy: the stark moral clarity of Ukraine’s cause and the existential security threat presented by a newly aggressive Russia.  As a result, the West has responded in a far more unified manner than anyone expected.

Lucan Way
Way’s research focuses on global patterns of democracy and dictatorship.  His most recent book (with Steven Levitsky), Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (forthcoming Princeton University Press) provides a comparative historical explanation for the extraordinary durability of autocracies (China, Cuba, USSR) born of violent social revolution. Way’s solo-authored book, Pluralism by Default: Weak Autocrats and the Rise of Competitive Politics (Johns Hopkins, 2015), examines the sources of political competition in the former Soviet Union.  Way argues that pluralism in the developing world often emerges out of authoritarian weakness: governments are too fragmented and states too weak to monopolize political control.  His first book, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Steven Levitsky), was published in 2010 by Cambridge University Press. Way’s work on competitive authoritarianism has been cited thousands of times and helped stimulate new and wide-ranging research into the dynamics of hybrid democratic-authoritarian rule.

Way also has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Journal of Democracy, Perspectives on Politics, Politics & Society, Slavic Review, Studies in Comparative and International Development, World Politics, as well as in a number of area studies journals and edited volumes. His 2005 article in World Politics was awarded the Best Article Award in the “Comparative Democratization” section of the American Political Science Association in 2006. He is Co-Director of the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine and is Co-Chair of the Editorial Board of The Journal of Democracy. He has held fellowships at Harvard University (Harvard Academy and Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies), and the University of Notre Dame (Kellogg Fellowship).

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by October 27, 2022.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

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This event is co-sponsored by  

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Anna Grzymała-Busse
Lucan Way, University of Toronto
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Honors Students to Meet with Top-Level Policy Makers in Washington, D.C.

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Nora Sulots
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Every September, rising seniors in the Fisher Family Honors Program travel to the nation's capitol for CDRRL's Honors College. During this week-long program, students visit a wide variety of policy-related institutions in Washington, D.C., and gain firsthand exposure to how these organizations, the federal government, and think tanks work to advance democracy and development around the world.

Throughout the week, students will have the opportunity to learn about the government's vision for democracy at the National Security Council, explore an academic view of development from scholars at the World Bank, and dive into the challenges and advantages of empowering local democratic activists — particularly in countries hostile to democracy — with speakers at the National Endowment for Democracy, among other exciting site visits. They are also encouraged to use this time to connect with experts related to their thesis question. The culminating event of the trip will bring current honors students together with alumni from across the greater D.C. area for a networking happy hour.

CDDRL’s Fisher Family Honors Program brings together undergraduates from diverse fields and methodologies who are united by their passion for understanding democracy, development, and rule of law (DDRL). The aim of the program is for students to carry out original, policy-relevant research on DDRL and produce a coherent, eloquently argued, well-written honors thesis.

This year's Honors College begins on Sunday, September 18, and will be led by Didi Kuo and Stephen Stedman, who jointly direct the honors program, alongside Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy Larry Diamond.

Check back throughout the week for photos and updates from our students.

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2022-23 CDDRL Honors Students
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Introducing Our 2022-23 CDDRL Honors Students

Representing nine different majors and minors and hailing from four different countries, we are thrilled to welcome these twelve outstanding students to our Fisher Family Honors Program.
Introducing Our 2022-23 CDDRL Honors Students
CDDRL honors class of 2022 with Steve Stedman, Sako Fisher, and Didi Kuo
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Graduating CDDRL Honors Students Recognized for Outstanding Theses

Adrian Scheibler ('22) is a recipient of the 2022 Firestone Medal and Michal Skreta ('22) has won the CDDRL Outstanding Thesis Award.
Graduating CDDRL Honors Students Recognized for Outstanding Theses
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CDDRL Congratulates Newly Elected Phi Beta Kappa Members

Sylvie Ashford (honors class of 2021) and Carolyn Chun (honors class of 2022) are among the newest members of this prestigious academic honors society.
CDDRL Congratulates Newly Elected Phi Beta Kappa Members
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Washington Monument, Washington, United States Jacob Creswick via Unsplash
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From September 18 through 24, the Fisher Family Honors Program class of 2023 will attend CDDRL's annual Honors College, gaining firsthand exposure to how the federal government, policy organizations, and think tanks work to advance democracy and development around the world.

European Security: Past, Present, Future

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Traditionally, definitions of security emphasized military defenses and alliances against potential adversaries. Over the last few decades, of course, everything from financial flows and technology transfer, water and energy supplies, trade relationships, to information security and social media disinformation have demanded increasing attention, alongside or instead of hard power. Nowhere have notions of security been more multidimensional, and less militaristic, than in Europe.

Has Russia's fullscale war in Ukraine forced an enduring correction back to traditional notions? Or are some changes predating the war destined to persist? Can geopolitics return if it never went away? What is the future of the fiscal-military state? Is the modern state fit for purpose any more? What is technology actually doing to governance, if anything? How might security depend on new or reinvented institutions? Is China an even bigger game-changer than Russia for European security? Is there, could there be, a pivot to Asia, or is that a nonsense? So many questions -- how do we begin to sift them, and order them, to establish a workable framework with which to build notions of security that could last?

Anna Grzymała-Busse

Stephen Kotkin

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford,  CA  94305-6055

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
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Stephen Kotkin is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Within FSI, Kotkin is based at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and is affiliated with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and The Europe Center. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley and has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades.

Kotkin’s research encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present. His publications include Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 (Penguin, 2017) and Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 (Penguin, 2014), two parts of a planned three-volume history of Russian power in the world and of Stalin’s power in Russia. He has also written a history of the Stalin system’s rise from a street-level perspective, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (University of California 1995); and a trilogy analyzing Communism’s demise, of which two volumes have appeared thus far: Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970–2000 (Oxford, 2001; rev. ed. 2008) and Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment, with a contribution by Jan T. Gross (Modern Library, 2009). The third volume will be on the Soviet Union in the third world and Afghanistan. Kotkin’s publications and public lectures also often focus on Communist China.

Kotkin has participated in numerous events of the National Intelligence Council, among other government bodies, and is a consultant in geopolitical risk to Conexus Financial and Mizuho Americas. He served as the lead book reviewer for the New York Times Sunday Business Section for a number of years and continues to write reviews and essays for Foreign Affairs, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal, among other venues. He has been an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow.

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Or (Ori) Rabinowitz

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Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies
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Or (Ori) Rabinowitz is a tenured senior lecturer (Associate Professor) at the International Relations Department of the Hebrew University and a Visiting Fellow of Israel Studies at Stanford, 2025-2026. After receiving the British Foreign Office's Chevening Scholarship, Rabinowitz completed a PhD at the War Studies Department of King’s College London in 2011. Her first book, Bargaining on Nuclear Tests, was published in 2014 by Oxford University Press. Her second book, currently under contract with Cambridge University Press, explores the evolution of US-Israeli collaboration in countering nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, think pieces, and op-eds in leading journals and magazines. She is also the recipient of several grants and awards, including two personal grants from the Israel Science Foundation.

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