World Class: Recent Episodes
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
Podcast from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University, featuring Director Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia. Mike and our scholars dive into critical international issues, offering insights into the history and context of the biggest stories in the news.
Sasha Baker is the head of national security policy at OpenAI. Prior to that, she served as the acting under-secretary for policy and the deputy under-secretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, and as the senior director for strategic planning on President Biden's National Security Council staff.
Tarun Chhabra is the head of national security policy at Anthropic. He previously served as deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security on the National Security Council staff, where he coordinated the Biden administration's strategies for technology competition with China and technology partnerships with U.S. allies and partners.
This weeks reading/watching recommendations are AI 2027, a project by Daniel Kokotajlo; AlphaGo, a documentary by director Greg Kohs; and "Nineteenth-Century Horse Sense" by Francis Thompson.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Artificial intelligence, social media, biotechnology, energy systems, propaganda, and geopolitics — each is transformative on its own, but together they're converging in unprecedented ways that are rapidly reshaping our world. On this episode of World Class, Colin Kahl shares expertise and insights from a panel of scholars on how emerging technologies are impacting society, politics, and global security.
Drew Endy is a bioengineer at Stanford University who studies and teaches synthetic biology. Endy served on the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) the Committee on Science Technology & Law (CSTL) the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Synthetic Biology Task Force and, briefly, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board (DIB). He currently serves on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research.
Andrew Grotto is a research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Grotto’s research interests center on the national security and international economic dimensions of America’s global leadership in information technology innovation, and its growing reliance on this innovation for its economic and social life
Jeff Hancock is a leading expert in behavioral sciences and the psychology of online interaction, Professor Hancock studies the psychological aspects of social media and AI technology. He is the Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University, Founding Director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI), Founding Editor of the Journal of Online Trust & Safety, and previously the co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center.
Jennifer Pan is a Professor of Communication and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Her research focuses on political communication and authoritarian politics. Pan uses experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity in China and other authoritarian regimes to answer questions about how autocrats perpetuate their rule
The audio for this episode was originally recorded at an event held at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on May 5, 2026.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Even though China is the main global competitor to the United States, has there has been sufficient planning in Washington on how the U.S. might respond to aggression against the island of Taiwan by Beijing? Eyck Freymann wants to make sure there is. He joins Colin Kahl on World Class to discuss his new book, Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China, which outlines how the U.S. can integrate its military strength, economic leverage, technological leadership, and diplomatic influence into a single, coherent plan to prevent war.
Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, where he directs the Allied Coordination Working Group. He is also a non-resident research fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, the Institute of Geoeconomics in Tokyo, and the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.
His latest book, Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China is available from Oxford Academic Press.
This episode's reading recommendation is "A New Era of U.S.-China Interaction: From Competing to Racing" by Evan S. Medeiros, published on April 17, 2026 in Asia Policy.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched wide-spread, coordinated attacks against Iran which struck military, naval, and nuclear infrastructure and killed many of the country’s senior leaders. On a special episode of World Class, Colin Kahl discusses the war, its immediate impacts, and its possible trajectory with Israeli security expert Ori Rabinowitz and Iranian studies professor Dr. Abbas Milani. The audio of this episode was originally recorded during a panel discussion held at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University on March 4, 2026.
Colin Kahl is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow. He has served as a senior White House and defense official advising on national security policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently he was the under secretary of defense for policy at the U.S. Department of Defense from 2021 to 2023.
Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a visiting professor in the department of political science. In addition, Dr. Milani is a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution.
Ori Rabinowitz is a tenured senior lecturer at the International Relations Department of the Hebrew University and a visiting fellow at the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Her research covers the Israeli defense posture, U.S.-Israeli relations, nuclear proliferation, and the security landscape of the Middle East.
The original panel was moderated by Jim Goldgeier, who is a research affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and a professor at the School of International Service at American University.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
H.R. McMaster and Jake Sullivan, the respective national security advisors of the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, join Colin Kahl to sort through everything that has happened in U.S foreign policy since the start of the year, from Venezuela and Iran to Greenland and strain on U.S.-European alliances, and the ever-present competition with China and Russia, and how all of these issues may affect the rest of 2026.
H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who served as the 25th United States National Security Advisor from 2017 to 2018, and was appointed as the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute from 2018 to 2019. His podcast, Today's Battlegrounds, can be found on all major platforms.
Jake Sullivan served as the National Security Advisor for all four years of the Biden administration. He is now the Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Senior Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, and he hosts the podcast The Long Game alongside Jon Finer.
This episode's reading recommendations are "What Is Claude?" by Gideon Lewis-Kraus for The New Yorker, and "The Weakness of the Strongmen," by Stephen Kotkin in Foreign Affairs.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
There are a lot of changes happening in the world, from the "rupture" in the global order to a new host of World Class! Colin Kahl, the new director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, joins Michael McFaul to take on the role of podcast host and discuss how institutions like FSI can better study and contribute understanding about the rapidly changing world.
Colin Kahl is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow. He has served as a senior White House and defense official advising on national security policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently he was the under secretary of defense for policy at the U.S. Department of Defense from 2021 to 2023.
Michael McFaul is a senior fellow at the the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and former director of the institute. His latest book is Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder. His personal blog can be found on Substack.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Gabrielius Landsbergis is the former minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Lithuania. Previously, he was the chairman of the Homeland Union Party while concurrently a member of the Lithuanian Parliament. Before assuming these roles, Landsbergis was also a member of the European Parliament and began his career as a diplomat for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania. He is currently based at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he is the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow.
His recent opinion piece in the New York Times can be viewed here.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Marshall Burke is a senior fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. His research focuses on social and economic impacts of environmental change, and on the economics of rural development in Africa.
Colin Kahl is the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), an interdisciplinary research hub in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. From 2021-2023, Kahl served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense. In that role, he was the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense for all matters related to national security and defense policy.
Or Rabinowitz is a visiting scholar in the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Her research interests include nuclear proliferation, intelligence studies, and Israeli American relations.
Larry Diamond is the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. His research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy.
Steven Pifer is a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and an affiliate at the Center on International Security and Cooperation and The Europe Center. Pifer’s research focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, Russia and European security.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Michael McFaul the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2016, and has spent much of his academic career researching political change, great power competition, and American policy toward Russia. His new book is Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder, which is available for purchase from major booksellers.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Larry Diamond is the the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University.
Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.
His "Diamond on Democracy" series is available on the Persuasion website.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Ruth Gibson is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University’s Department of Health Policy and an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). Her research focuses on volatile regions affected by war and sanctions. She also works with the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights on the use of unilateral sanctions.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Arzan Tarapore is a research scholar at the Center in International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His work focuses on Indian military strategy and regional security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Prior to his scholarly career, he served for 13 years in the Australian Defence Department in various analytic, management, and liaison positions, including operational deployments and a diplomatic posting to the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Jim Goldgeier is a research affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is also a professor at the School of International Service at American University. He writes extensively on European security, NATO, Russia, and Ukraine.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform.
Her latest book, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t, is available from Oxford University Press and most major book sellers.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Steven Pifer is an affiliate with the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where his research focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, Russia and European security.. In addition to working in the Foreign Service for more than 25 years, Pifer served as a U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000. He is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She also serves in the United States Air Force Reserve, where she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve Global China Strategy.
Her latest book, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power, is available from Oxford University Press, and many major book retailers.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian politician, author, historian, and former political prisoner. A close colleague of the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, he has served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian Parliament. Leading diplomatic efforts on behalf of the opposition, Kara-Murza played a key role in the adoption of Magnitsky sanctions against top Russian officials by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia. For this work he was twice poisoned and left in a coma; a joint media investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel has identified FSB officers behind the attacks.
In April 2022 Kara-Murza was arrested in Moscow for his public denunciation of the invasion of Ukraine and of the war crimes committed by Russian forces. Following a closed-door trial at the Moscow City Court, he was sentenced to 25 years for “high treason” and kept in solitary confinement at a maximum-security prison in Siberia. He was released in August 2024 as part of the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War negotiated by the U.S. and German governments.
Kara-Murza is a contributing writer at the Washington Post, winning the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his columns written from prison, and has previously worked for Echo of Moscow, BBC, RTVi, Kommersant, World Affairs, and other media organizations. He has directed three documentary films and is the author or contributor to several books on Russian history and politics.
Kara-Murza currently serves as vice-president at the Free Russia Foundation, as senior advisor at Human Rights First, and as senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. He was the founding chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and has led successful international efforts to commemorate Nemtsov, including with street designations in Washington D.C. and London. Kara-Murza is a recipient of several awards, including the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, and is an honorary fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Audra Plepytė was appointed as Lithuania’s Ambassador to the United States of America and to the United Mexican States in 2021. Before this she was a Lithuanian Permanent Representative to the United Nations where she facilitated several negotiations, led the Group of Friends, and was elected to executive bodies of UN instruments and institutions, including being elected as the President of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2021. As a career diplomat for over 30 years, she has held numerous positions within the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dealing with bilateral and multilateral issues, heading the European Union Department (2014–2017), the Personnel Department, and International Missions and Conflict Prevention Division.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
This audio was originally recorded on October 26, 2024 during the event, “Global Threats Today: What's At Stake and What We Can Do About It,” held during Stanford University's annual Reunion and Homecoming weekend in affiliation with the Stanford Alumni Association.
Featuring:
Michael McFaul, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science; the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.
Marshall Burke, Deputy Director at the Center on Food Security and the Environment; an associate professor in the Doerr School of Sustainability, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and courtesy assistant professor of Political Science; active service in the United States Air Force Reserve, where she works at the Pentagon as deputy director of Reserve China Global Strategy
Didi Kuo, Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and associate director for research at its Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.
Amichai Magen, the inaugural Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; In Israel, a senior lecturer (U.S. associate professor), head of the MA Program in Diplomacy & Conflict Studies, and director of the Program on Democratic Resilience and Development (PDRD) at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, Reichman University.
Steven Pifer, affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Relations; former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and member of the U.S. Foreign Service.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Susan E. Rice served as domestic policy advisor to President Joe Biden. Previously, she was President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of the Cabinet. During the Clinton Administration, Rice was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, as well as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs, and Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping at the National Security Council.
An alumna of Stanford (History, '86), Susan Rice returned to campus during spring 2024 as the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, with simultaneous affiliations with the Institute’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL), and the Cyber Policy Center (CPC), where she focused on the issue of governance of artificial intelligence.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Kristjan Prikk has served as Estonia´s Ambassador to the United States since May 2021. This is his third diplomatic posting to Washington, D.C. Before assuming his current duties, Prikk served for nearly three years as the Permanent Secretary of the Estonian Ministry of Defense. In this role he was responsible for the management of the Ministry and for the coordination of activities of the agencies under the Ministry, including the Estonian Defense Forces, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, and the Centre for Defense Investments.
The audio for this podcast originally came from an event hosted on May 29, 2024 by Stanford Libraries, Stanford's Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).
CORRECTION: During his remarks, the Ambassador of Estonia cited news that referred to Dmitry Trenin as the person suggesting that Russia should conduct a “demonstrative” nuclear test to deter the West from allowing Ukraine to aim at targets on Russian territory. In fact, it was Dmitry Suslov who had suggested this. See more: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/think-tank-close-kremlin-says-russia-should-consider-demonstrative-nuclear-2024-05-29/
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Josep Borrell serves as the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. He previously served as President of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2007 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation in the Government of Spain from 2018 to 2019. He is an alumnus of Stanford University (M.S. '75) with a degree in applied mathematics (operations research).
Michael McFaul is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995, and currently sits as the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2009 to 2012, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House, and from 2012 to 2014 was appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation.
If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.
Matviichuk originally delivered this speech at the 2024 S.T. Lee Lecture hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.
Oleksandra Matviichukis a human rights lawyer focused on issues within Ukraine and the OSCE region. She is the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, which was a co-recipient of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The organization supports legislative reforms, monitors law enforcement and judiciary, conducts wide education programs, and leads international solidarity efforts.
Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a visiting professor in the department of political science. In addition, Dr. Milani is a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution.
Michael McFaul is the host of World Class and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he is also the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2009 to 2012, he worked as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council during the Obama administration, and from 2012 to 2014 served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation.
Michael McFaul is joined by:
Oleksiy Honcharuk, whoserved as the 17th prime minister of Ukraine from 2019-2020, during which time he introduced important policy initiatives in Ukraine including the institution of business privatization processes, efforts to combat black markets, and the launch of the Anti-Raider Office to respond to cases of illegal property seizures. Prior to serving as prime minister, Honcharuk was deputy head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine and was a member of the National Reforms Council under the president of Ukraine. In 2021, he was the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).
Serhiy Leshchenko, formerly a journalist with Ukrainska Pravda and member of Ukrainian Parliament (2014-2019). He first rose to political prominence during Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution, and has continued to serve in government and civil society since. He is an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff, working and living in the governmental bunkers during the start of Russia's invasion and siege on Kyiv in 2022. He is an alumnus of the 2013 cohort of the Draper Hills Summer Fellows program (now the Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program) at FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, a human rights advocate and founder of the Center for Civil Liberties, which was recognized as a co-recipient of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The mission of the Center for Civil Liberties is to protect human rights and establish democracy in Ukraine and the OSCE region. The organization develops legislative proposals, exercises public oversight over law enforcement agencies and judiciary, conducts educational activities for young people, and implements international solidarity programs. Matviichuk was a visiting scholar from 2017-2018 with the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
Oleksandra Ustinova, who serves as the People's Deputy of Ukraine and a member of Ukraine’s parliament. Since the beginning of Russia's invasion in 2022, she has met repeatedly with lawmakers in the United States to advocate on behalf of Ukraine, including an address before the U.S. House of Representatives on February 28, 2022. Prior to her government service, Ustinova was the head of communications and anti-corruption in healthcare projects at the Anti-Corruption Action Center (ANTAC), one of the leading organizations on anti-corruption reform in Ukraine. She was a visiting scholar with the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law from 2018-2019.
When Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn set off to make a documentary about Ukraine, he thought he would be telling the story of a comedic showman-turned president named Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the young democracy that had elected him. Instead, Penn found himself witnessing the start of a horrific war of aggression.Sean Penn joined Michael McFaul at Stanford University for a special screening of "Superpower," a film co-directed by Penn and Aaron Kaufman about the days leading up to and immediately following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. During their discussion, Penn shares what it was like to be an accidental witness to history, and the inspiration he continues to take from President Zelenskyy, Ukrainians, and their fight for freedom.Natalia Antelava, editor-in-chief of Coda Story and a John S. Knight Journalism fellow at Stanford, moderates the conversation.
To understand why the conflict in Gaza is so complex, you have to understand the history of Israel's relationship with Palestine and Hamas well before October 7, 2023. In this episode of World Class, we bring you a conversation with Ambassador Dennis Ross and Ghaith al-Omari, two experts on the Middle East, who help contextualize the current situation in Gaza, offer a framework for how to understand the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and share their thoughts on what it will take to bring stability to the region. Their discussion is moderated by Janine Zacharia, a lecturer in the Department of Communication at Stanford University.Ambassador Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.Ghaith al-Omari, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute's Irwin Levy Family Program on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Relationship, is the former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine. He served as advisor to the negotiating team during the 1999–2001 permanent-status talks in addition to holding various other positions within the Palestinian Authority.
Conflict between Hamas and Israel; the ongoing war in Ukraine; rising tensions between China and Taiwan; climate change; dissatisfaction with national politics. These are some of the most pressing challenges facing the world today. What do we need to understand better about these issues, and what can be done to address them?On this episode of World Class, host Michael McFaul brings you a conversation with four scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies held during Stanford University's 2023 Reunion and Homecoming. Together they unpack what's at stake, how these challenges are related, and offer policy recommendations for how to solve them.Featuring:Michael McFaul, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science; the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.Marshall Burke, Deputy Director at the Center on Food Security and the Environment; an associate professor in the Doerr School of Sustainability, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.Larry Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; and a professor, by courtesy, of sociology and of political science.Didi Kuo, Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and associate director for research at its Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.Amichai Magen, the inaugural Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; In Israel, a senior lecturer (U.S. associate professor), head of the MA Program in Diplomacy & Conflict Studies, and director of the Program on Democratic Resilience and Development (PDRD) at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, Reichman University.
In September 2023, Michael McFaul and political philosopher Francis Fukuyama traveled to Kyiv to participate in the Yalta European Strategy conference. They met with policymakers from Ukraine, Europe, and beyond; military experts; Ukrainian alumni of fellowship and development programs from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and even President Zelenskyy himself. On World Class, they recap what stood out to them from their trip, what they learned, and the stories from everyday Ukrainians that have stuck with them.
Changes to the legal code. Massive protests from the public. Walk-outs by members of the legislature. What exactly is going on in Israel? Law and governance expert Amichai Magen joins World Class host Michael McFaul to discuss the growing crisis Israeli democracy faces. Magen gives context on the crisis, explains some of the cultural and institutional reasons that led Israel to this point, and offers his thoughts as to how Israel might move forward from here.
Featuring:
Sauli Niinistö, President of Finland
Michael McFaul, Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute
Anna Grzymala-Busse, Director of The Europe Center
Oriana Skylar Mastro, FSI Center Fellow and expert on the Chinese military and strategic competition
H.R. McMaster, retired lieutenant general and former U.S. National Security Advisor
Steven Pifer, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and European security expert
Risto Siilasmaa, leader in Finnish technology and security policy and board member at Nokia
Alex Stamos, Director of the Stanford Internet Observatory
Kathryn Stoner, Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
It's been a year since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Few people have had a closer view of the realities of that war than Sergiy Leshchenko, an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff and an alumnus of the Draper Hills Summer Fellows program at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He joins Michael McFaul on World Class to report on what a year of brutal fighting looks like from inside Ukraine, and shares what progress he hopes to see in the coming months as Ukraine continues it's fight to remain a sovereign, democratic state.
Dr. Abbas Milani joins Michael McFaul on World Class to discuss the impact the protests against the death of Mahsa Amini are having in Iran, what the desire for democracy might mean for the country, and how a democratic Iran could change the calculus of the global geopolitical stage.
In this episode of World Class, we're bringing you a conversation from the 2022 Stanford Reunion. In this recording, you'll hear Michael McFaul and a panel of experts from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies discuss some of the biggest policy challenges of the moment — climate change, Russia and the war in Ukraine, China and Taiwan, and maintaining democracy at home and abroad. Each panelist will give their assessment of a challenge, then provide feedback on how policymakers are addressing it and what more can be done.Michael McFaul is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.Marshall Burke is the deputy director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.Didi Kuo is a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule Law.Oriana Skylar Mastro is a center fellow at FSI, working primarily with the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. Steven Pifer is a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.
As winter in Eastern Europe settles in, the Russian military continues to cede ground to advancing Ukrainian forces. The question many people are asking now is: “What happens next?”
Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and political scientist Francis Fukuyama join Michael McFaul on World Class podcast to discuss Ukraine’s progress in the war so far and offer possible prognoses for the future.
While the world still watches the conflict in Ukraine, on the opposite side of the globe, the potential for conflict between Taiwan, China, and the United States is increasing. Will China forcibly try to reunify Taiwan with the mainland? And if they do, how will the United States respond?
Larry Diamond, an scholar of Taiwan and Chinese sharp power, and Oriana Skylar Mastro, an expert on the Chinese military and security, join Michael McFaul on the World Class to discuss possible timelines for China’s ambitions against Taiwan, and how the U.S. and its allies can deter Beijing.
To launch our new season of World Class, we're bringing you a special extended interview with Michael McFaul and Ray Suarez of the World Affairs podcast about the changing conditions on the Ukrainian battlefield and the political situation inside Russia. Their conversation originally aired on World Affairs on September 23, 2022.
Just before Putin's military order on September 21, 2022 mobilizing up to 300,000 additional troops from Russia to fight in Ukraine, former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, spoke with Ray Suarez to give a sense of what we can expect from the war in Ukraine in the coming weeks and – perhaps – months, and how it's impacting Russia's international standing.
For more from World Affairs, visit their website at — https://www.worldaffairs.org/index.php.
To launch our new season of World Class, we're bringing you a special extended interview with Michael McFaul and Ray Suarez of the World Affairs podcast about the changing conditions on the Ukrainian battlefield and the political situation inside Russia. Their conversation originally aired on World Affairs on September 23, 2022.
Just before Putin's military order on September 21, 2022 mobilizing up to 300,000 additional troops from Russia to fight in Ukraine, former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, spoke with Ray Suarez to give a sense of what we can expect from the war in Ukraine in the coming weeks and – perhaps – months, and how it's impacting Russia's international standing.
For more from World Affairs, visit their website at — https://www.worldaffairs.org/index.php.
This is a special crossover episode of World Class and the World Affairs podcast, hosted by Ray Suarez. Michael McFaul, the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, joins Ray as a guest to discuss what motivated Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine and how is his war changing the balance of power between Russia, the US, Europe and China.
This episode was first published on March 7, 2022 by World Affairs. To learn more, please visit: https://www.worldaffairs.org/media/blog/951
Data clearly shows that extreme weather patterns like those seen across the globe in 2021 are driven by climate change. But is that fact driving policymakers to make meaningful inroads to address the climate crisis?
Marshall Burke, the deputy director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, joins Michael McFaul on World Class podcast to review the latest data on what’s happening with climate change in the field and in Congress.
There are plenty of glamorous Hollywood spies, but how does the world of real espionage and intelligence work?
In her book Spies, Lies and Algorithms, national security and intelligence expert Amy Zegart separates facts from fictions about the U.S. intelligence community. She joins FSI Director Michael McFaul on World Class to trace the history of intelligence in America and unpacks the challenges intelligence organizations need to address in an increasingly digital world.
The situation on the Ukraine-Russia border continues to change, but the ideological fight between democracy and autocracy is as hot as ever. Former prime minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk joins Michael McFaul to give an inside view on the Ukraine-Russia conflict and discuss the bigger strategy Putin is using to undermine democracy in Eastern Europe and beyond.
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman joins Michael McFaul on World Class to discuss why values and integrity are crucial to upholding democratic norms here in the United States, and why democracies everywhere should support and encourage those norms in places like Ukraine.
His testimony before Congress was key part of President Trump's first impeachment trial in 2019 over his phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He shares his story of becoming an unexpected public figure, and the life experiences that guided his decisions in his book, Here, Right Matters.
Taiwan. Hypersonic missiles. The South China Sea. In the last few months, China’s activities have grabbed headlines and imaginations. But how much of this action is posturing, and how much should U.S. policymakers and strategists take seriously?
Oriana Skylar Mastro, an expert on China's military and strategic planning and active member of the United States Air Force Reserve, rejoins Michael McFaul on World Class to debunk some of the myths that persist about China’s capabilities and reframe how the U.S. needs to think about strategic competition with Beijing.
In the last 30 years, authoritarian regimes have gained significant ground in countries around the world, and democracy norms are in decline. Why?
Former Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications and Speech Writing and veteran podcaster Ben Rhodes joins Michael McFaul to discuss his new book, "After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made," which tries to understand why democracy is faltering through the stories of individuals on the front lines trying to defend it.
In his inaugural address, President Biden declared, “Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause — the cause of democracy.” But is the United States still a beacon for aspiring democratic societies around the globe?
In a crossover episode with the World Affairs Podcast, World Class host Michael McFaul and Dr. Francis Fukuyama — Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law — look at the current state of democracy.
Last week, riot police used force to remove Nika Melia, the leader of Georgia’s main opposition party, from his political headquarters. Meila’s arrest has deepened political rifts within Georgia and is plunging the nation into crisis, with opposition parties vowing to boycott Parliament until Melia is released by the government.
Nino Evgenidze, a Georgian activist and executive director of the Economic Policy Research Center in Tbilisi, tells Mike what Melia’s arrest means for Georgia, the region and the rest of the world.
In a special crossover episode, World Class host Michael McFaul discusses how the U.S. can mend relationships with the rest of the world after four years of unpredictability on the World Affairs Podcast. Mike and Jorge Castañeda, former Foreign Minister of Mexico, join World Affairs co-host Ray Suarez to talk about how to best address foreign policy moving forward.
Iran’s economy is at its worst point in decades, its Supreme Leader is ill, and the country is “desperate” for a nuclear deal with the United States, says Abbas Milani, an expert on U.S.-Iran relations. On this episode, he and Mike discuss the Iranian economy, the future of Iran’s leadership, and what a potential new nuclear deal might look like.
While we should expect some big changes over the next four years when it comes to U.S. foreign policy toward Russia, President Joe Biden should be willing to cooperate with Russia on select issues, says Steven Pifer, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. In this episode, Pifer discusses the Biden administration’s approach to Russia and its priorities in working with the Kremlin.
We bring expertise on international affairs from Stanford's campus, straight to you. Hosted by former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, experts from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies offer insights into the history and context of the biggest stories in the news.
840 million people — or about one-ninth of the world’s population — live in China’s rural areas. They tend to settle in the regions in which they are born, and they’re generally not depicted in mainstream media outlets, but they are going to play an instrumental role in the country’s economic future.
In this episode, Scott Rozelle discusses how the wealth gap between the richer urban parts of China and the poorer rural areas could contribute to a slowdown in China’s economic growth, which he calls “the biggest problem China faces that no one knows about.”
During the 2016 presidential election cycle, Russian operatives used Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms to spread disinformation in order to divide the American public. Four years later, misleading and false information about the 2020 presidential election is still rampant online. And this time around, more of that misleading information is coming from domestic actors within the U.S.
As research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, Renée DiResta investigates the spread of malign narratives across social networks, and assists policymakers in devising responses to the problems that those narratives create. On today’s episode, she discusses what it’s like to navigate this online world of propaganda and conspiracy theories.
We are nearing the end of the election season in the U.S. that has been anything but ordinary — the country is in the midst of a global pandemic, which has caused a seismic shift in how Americans will vote. Nearly three-quarters of American voters are eligible to receive a mail-in ballot for the 2020 election.
Nathaniel Persily is one of the leaders of the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, and he has been working very hard over the past several months to ensure that we have a free and fair election in November. In this episode, Persily weighs in on the risk of voter fraud, questions about mail-in ballots, and his work with the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
Signed by President Barack Obama and former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in 2010, the New START Treaty caps the number of strategic missiles and heavy bombers that the U.S. and Russia can possess. The nuclear arms control treaty is set to expire in February 2021 unless an agreement is signed in the coming months.
Rose Gottemoeller, the chief negotiator of New START, joins World Class to discuss what it’s like to negotiate with the Russians and the path ahead for extending the New START Treaty.
Described by some as “Europe’s last dictator,” Alexander Lukashenko has headed an authoritarian regime in Belarus for the last 26 years. Following his recent victory in Belarus’ presidential election, which is widely considered to have been rigged, citizens have taken to the streets to protest.
Belarusian scholar and activist Aleś Łahviniec breaks down what happened during Belarus’ election in early August, why people are protesting, and what it feels like to be out on the streets in Minsk.
Many see China as having a desire to displace the United States as the preeminent power in the world. In this episode, Jean Oi and Thomas Fingar (co-editors of "Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future") explain why they disagree with this belief. They also discuss China’s growth and achievements over the past 40 years, the choices that will shape China’s future, and the role of political parties and leaders in China.
With protests continuing after the tragic killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, people around the world are demanding more transparency and accountability from police officers. What steps can be taken to curb police violence and abuses of power?
Dr. Beatriz Magaloni is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the founder and director of the Poverty, Violence and Governance Lab. She has been conducting research on institutionalized police brutality in Mexico and police violence in Brazil for many years. In this episode, Magaloni discusses what she’s learned about police brutality and the abuse of power in those countries, as well as how community-oriented policing and constitutional reform can impact violence committed by police.
Following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, widespread protests have erupted in cities around the United States and around the world. What can we learn from these protests, and what implications might they have for democracy in the United States?
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. In this episode, Diamond discusses institutional racism and police brutality in the U.S., how recent protests for racial justice compare to the civil rights movement, and why he’s worried about the upcoming United States presidential election.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, its effects could be potentially devastating to global democracy and the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Nate Persily, a senior fellow at FSI and co-director of the Stanford-MIT Project on a Healthy Election, and Larry Diamond, also a senior fellow at FSI, discuss how democracies and autocracies are doing in response to the global crisis, why some democracies are doing better than others, and the potential effects of the pandemic on the U.S. election in November.
COVID-19 has established itself around the globe and will be with us for the foreseeable future. What do we know about the virus so far, and what makes it unique?
Michelle Mello is a professor of law and medicine at Stanford whose research focuses on law, ethics, and health policy. David Relman is a professor in the departments of Medicine and Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI.
In this episode, Mello and Relman discuss what scientists have learned about the virus, the U.S. response to the pandemic on both a state and national level, and lessons that can be learned from the global response.
Global populism is on the rise. Once associated with Latin American and post-communist democracies, populist parties and politicians have now gained support and power in established democracies.
In a new white paper, “Global Populisms and Their Challenges,” co-authors Anna Grzymala-Busse, Didi Kuo, Frank Fukuyama, and World Class host Michael McFaul explore the threats that populism poses to democracy and what can be done to alleviate those problems.
In this episode the trio define populism, and discuss how to spot a populist and whether the movement can be stopped.
The coronavirus has infected more than 75,000 people and killed more than 2,000 since it was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late December. Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies experts Karen Eggleston and David Relman join host Michael McFaul to discuss what you should know about the virus, its impact on China and the world, and whether there is any truth to the rumors about its origins.
In the wake of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani by the United States, Abbas Milani — an expert on U.S.-Iran relations — discusses Iran’s economic and political troubles, Soleimani’s role in Iranian politics, and what the country’s decision to fire missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops means for relations between Iran and the U.S. going forward.
Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford, Adjunct Professor at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
With an average age of 41, Ukraine’s new parliament — elected in July 2019 — is its least experienced one yet. 80 percent of the legislature had no political experience before the election last summer, and the nation is at a crossroads of sorts: will it transition into a successful reformist government, or will its efforts fail?
Francis Fukuyama — the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI, and the director of both the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program — is optimistic. In this episode, Fukuyama discusses the struggle for democracy in Ukraine, and why we all should be paying attention.
President Donald Trump recently made the decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria. Why was the U.S. there in the first place; where do things stand now with Turkey, the Kurds, and Syria; and what effect did that decision have on the fight against ISIS?
Brett McGurk is the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at FSI and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He previously served as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at the U.S. Department of State. In this episode, McGurk discusses why the removal of U.S. troops from Syria is a big deal, the effect it has had on the fight against ISIS and security in northern Syria, and what it signals to the rest of the world.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s name has appeared regularly in discussions about the controversial situation with Ukraine. What was Biden trying to achieve during his visit to Ukraine in 2015, and what is his connection to the controversy surrounding the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky?
Colin Kahl is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation and a senior fellow at FSI. From 2014 to 2017, he served as deputy assistant to President Barack Obama and national security advisor to Biden. In this episode, Kahl provides an inside look into what really happened between Biden and Ukrainian officials during that time period.
Ukraine has been in the news a lot lately in the context of U.S. politics, but we haven’t heard many Ukrainian perspectives in the U.S. media following the controversy surrounding the recent interactions between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In this episode, Sasha Ustinova shares a Ukrainian perspective on the Trump-Zelensky phone call, provides context and background of Ukrainian politics, and discusses the fight against corruption inside Ukraine. A member of the Ukrainian parliament, Ustinova is also an alumna of the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer breaks down the controversial July 25 phone call between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. He talks about the context of what was going on between the U.S. and Ukraine when the call took place, what was discussed during the call, and why the situation is damaging U.S. diplomatic relations with Ukraine.
Following the Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election, election security and disinformation are now global issues. What should be done in order to protect the integrity of the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election, and who should be responsible for creating these protections?
Alex Stamos — the former chief security officer at Facebook, who is now a research scholar at the Cyber Policy Center — picks up where he left off when he was on World Class in May, discussing the growth of — and battle against — online propaganda.
Between 1991 and 2006 the world was dominated by liberal values and institutions, and we saw a major increase in the number of democracies around the globe. But for the past 13 years, global freedom has been on the decline. Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, discusses why the world may be on the cusp of a “democratic depression.”
What is the evolution of thinking about digital technology, the companies that dominate it, and their responsibility to users of their platforms and the tenets of free speech? Eileen Donahoe, the executive director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI) at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center, discusses the need for global internet guidelines, and GDPI’s mission to improve democratic values and human rights in the digital realm.
More needs to be done to protect against foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. election, and not just by the American government. Nathaniel Persily, co-director of the Cyber Policy Center and a senior Fellow at FSI updates us on how technology companies have changed the way they display political advertising, why other countries need to be on the lookout for disinformation campaigns, and how Americans’ attitudes toward the media could impact who becomes the next U.S. president.
The standoff over the presidency in Venezuela continues, with two men, Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó, still claiming the office. Dr. Harold Trinkunas, deputy director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI, updates us on how the situation has evolved since the beginning of the political conflict, the interests of the U.S. and Russia in the country, and explains the three most likely scenarios of what might happen next.
Three weeks after the release of the Mueller Report, much of its content is still off-limits to the public. In this episode, former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos shares his thoughts on what was and was not included in the public report, and what surprised him the most.
A cybersecurity expert, business leader and entrepreneur, Alex Stamos is an adjunct professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted his report to the Attorney General, but additional investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election are now expected. Greg Miller and Mike McFaul discuss the challenges that policymakers and journalists face in investigating Russia, and how democracy in the U.S. has fared since 2016.
Greg Miller is a national security correspondent for the Washington Post, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and a Stanford alumnus (MA ’93). He is the author of "The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy," a book exploring Russia’s effort to undermine the 2016 election.
This podcast was recorded on March 20, 2019, two days before Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The United States-North Korea summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, was cut short and did not produce any agreement between the two countries on denuclearization. What does this outcome mean for the prospect of future diplomacy and the potential for armed conflict?
Scott Sagan is a professor of political science at Stanford University, and a senior fellow at FSI and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He has written and edited several books and articles on nuclear strategy and security, and the risks and proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide. In this episode, Sagan analyzes President Trump’s uneven relationship with Kim Jong-un, assesses potential outcomes of an armed conflict with North Korea, and presents recent polling data on the American public’s support of nuclear weapon use.
There’s a range of issues dividing voters in America today. As it turns out, though, the current polarization is not limited to the U.S. political system. What is triggering polarization, and what is the relationship between polarization and the populist movements underway globally? What, if anything, can be done to alleviate deepening political divides?
Murat Somer is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford. He has written several articles and books on polarization, democracy and democratic erosion across the world. In this conversation he explores the roots of polarization, the surprising similarities between Turkey and the US, and how we might heal divisions by taking a different approach to democratic politics.
Gun violence is one of the most polarizing topics in America, and the gun debate is about to heat up. The Supreme Court has decided to hear a significant gun rights case, and House Democrats recently unveiled a landmark bill requiring background checks. All of this comes in the wake of the worst year for gun deaths in two decades. Gun violence goes beyond homicides – a large share of deaths are attributed to accidents and suicides. For many in the medical community this is a public health crisis, and they are working to understand the impacts on the health and safety on Americans.
David Studdert is a professor of medicine and law at Stanford, and a core faculty member at Stanford Health Policy at FSI. In this discussion he shows us how emerging science may be able to clarify some of the most contentious issues surrounding gun safety.
The economic and diplomatic tensions between the US and China are creating ripple effects across Southeast Asia. China is pursing an aggressive agenda of economic development throughout the region, and while there is undoubtedly a strong need for infrastructure projects, the Chinese strategy could limit the future autonomy of the Southeast Asian nations. If the US-China trade war were to escalate, Southeast Asia could be the battleground for a new cold war.
Political Science professor Don Emmerson has spent his career working with scholars and policymakers in the region. Emmerson is a senior fellow at FSI and director of the Southeast Asia Program. In this interview he helps us understand the ASEAN coalition, why the South China Sea remains an area of contention, and what steps the US Congress is taking to assure Southeast Asian nations that it is committed to progress across the region.
Ever since the the scientific revolution of the 17th century, there has been tension between the institutions of science and religion. This tension between religion and science has a direct effect on governance. After all, the United States was conceived as a system of democratic institutions that valued reason and deliberation. But are religious beliefs and rationality completely at odds with one another? What exactly does it mean to be "rational?" Might it be necessary to understand more religious forms of rationality in order to heal some of the polarization present in America today?
In this conversation we talk with Dan Edelstein, who is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French and an affiliate of the Freeman Spogli Institute's Europe Center. Professor Edelstein helps us understand the conflict between religion and rationality, how this conflict continues to play out in the present day, and what it all means for democratic institutions around the world.
We are still learning the details about Russia’s disinformation and manipulation campaigns during the US 2016 elections. Tech companies have come under intense scrutiny, and, according to former Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, much of the spotlight on Big Tech is warranted. However, Stamos also argues that our government, the media, and we as citizens all have a role to play in the security of our elections. Stamos is now the William J. Perry Fellow at FSI, and in this conversation he offers an unrivaled diagnosis of everything that went wrong during the 2016 election cycle. In a future episode, Stamos will share his ideas of what we can do to prevent similar failures in the future.
Climate change is likely to have far reaching impacts, and some consequences are particularly unexpected. In a provocative study, Marshall Burke and his colleagues demonstrate that suicide rates increase on hot days, regardless of other factors. Burke's findings raise significant questions. Are the underlying drivers of this relationship tied to economic forces, or are there human biological factors that exacerbate mental health issues? Can we forecast the overall effect as greenhouse gases and temperatures rise in the coming decades? What steps might we take now to mitigate the damages? In this conversation with World Class producer, Nicole Feldman, Burke offers a clear-eyed perspective on the wide-ranging implications of his research. Burke is the deputy director of FSI’s Center on Food Security and the Environment.
Silicon Valley's role in the world is now so big that some people argue the power of tech firms is similar to the powers of a nation-state. So maybe it's not too surprising to learn that Denmark has taken an unusual step, and has dispatched career diplomat Casper Klynge to serve as the world’s first tech ambassador. Klynge's role is to create avenues for dialogue, to work with firms to establish appropriate regulations, and to engage with Silicon Valley from a foreign policy perspective. In this conversation, Ambassador Klynge tells the story of how this came about, how he views his priorities, and how western societies are working to nurture innovation while simultaneously protecting the core principles of open democracy.
From 2011 to 2015 Ambassador Wendy Sherman was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth-ranking official in the State Department. She was the lead U.S. negotiator on the Iran nuclear deal, and before that she served as policy coordinator on North Korea for President Clinton. She has a new book, Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence. In this conversation, Ambassador Sherman shares the backstory on the Iran nuclear deal, the future of relations with Iran, and what it's like being the only woman in the room doing diplomacy.
Biosecurity threats are often overlooked. For years scientists have been saying that the world is overdue for a pandemic, and there's an ongoing risk that terrorists or nation states might weaponize diseases. If that's not worrying enough, the risks of pandemics increase as climate change worsens. What steps are we taking to understand and prepare for the next outbreak?
David Relman is a senior fellow and Megan Palmer a senior research scholar at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. They are part of an interdisciplinary research initiative working to assess the threats posed by biological agents. In this wide-ranging conversation with Michael McFaul, Relman and Palmer unpack the complex issues, and offer their perspectives on how best to counter these threats.
It is now clear that the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Turkey was a pre-planned execution, likely ordered by people at the very top of the Saudi government. The incident has sparked an international outcry, and raises questions about the US’s relationship with the Saudis. What is the underlying nature of the US-Saudi alliance? How has Trump's strategy differed from Obama’s, and what impact might all of this have on relations with Iran and elsewhere across the Middle East?
Colin Kahl was deputy assistant to President Obama and a national security advisor to Vice President Biden from 2014 to 2017. He’s now the co-director of FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the head of its Middle East Initiative. In this discussion with Michael McFaul, Kahl outlines the unease some American diplomats feel towards our relationship with Saudi Arabia. He explains steps that President Obama took to restructure the alliance, and he argues that President Trump’s decision to double-down in Saudi Arabia has narrowed the options for responding to an increasingly fractured relationship.
With the US midterms fast approaching, we are still trying to make sense of everything that happened in the 2016 elections. What do we now know about vulnerabilities in our democratic processes? What risks do we face from foreign adversaries? Beyond the US, how are governments around the world adjusting to threats posed by digital technologies?
Eileen Donahoe was the first US Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council during the Obama Administration. She’s now the Executive Director for the Global Digital Policy Incubator at FSI. Her current research focuses on cyber sovereignty, digital literacy, election security, protecting freedom of expression, and the impact of AI. In this conversation with Michael McFaul, Ambassador Donahoe frames the various threats posed by digital technologies, and the implications for the midterm elections.
“Identity politics" has become a driving force in political conversations in the U.S. and abroad, but what exactly is it? Where did it come from, and how will it shape the future of our society? FSI Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow and CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama joins host Michael McFaul to explain how his new book, “Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment,” sheds light on these questions and reveals how our political trajectory from the civil rights era to 21st century populism has been shaped by a universal human desire for respect and recognition.
African American men have the lowest life expectancy of any major demographic group in the U.S. The reasons for this are many and complex, but new research from FSI's Stanford Health Policy suggests that there may be a straightforward solution: hiring doctors who look like the patients they're treating. Dr. Marcella Alsan, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford Health Policy, and her research partner, Dr. Owen Garrick, President and CEO of Bridge Clinical Research, join host Michael McFaul to discuss the reasons behind the health disparities for African American men; the theory, ethics and outcomes of their study; and what their findings should mean for the future of health care.
President Trump says the nuclear threat is behind us, but do the experts agree? Gi-Wook Shin, Scott Sagan, Kathleen Stephens, and Michael McFaul tell us about the winners and losers from the 2018 U.S.-North Korean Summit, what we should worry about, what denuclearization really means, and the eternal question: what comes next?
Kathleen Stephens is the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and a William J. Perry fellow at FSI. Scott Sagan has authored many books and articles on nuclear weapons as a senior fellow at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Gi-Wook Shin founded the Korea Program at FSI’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, which he directs. In addition to hosting World Class, Michael McFaul is the former U.S. ambassador to Russia and current director of FSI.
What’s it like to have a dictator after you? In the wake of Vladimir Putin’s “request” to interrogate former ambassador and World Class host Michael McFaul, the US public backlash was swift and strong. It’s extremely unlikely that McFaul will be asked to respond to Russian investigators - but many Americans were unnerved at the Trump administration’s response. Where do US-Russia relations stand in the aftermath of Helsinki? What are the practical implications for McFaul, and what will be the lasting impact for transgressing the diplomatic norms? Michael McFaul addresses all these questions in this candid conversation.
It's not so easy to create a whole new country, and the world map is much more fixed than it used to be. While there are many secessionist and independence movements around the globe, the truth is that international powers are extremely reluctant to redraw borders. Where are the unrecognized states in the world, and what commonalities do they share? What happens when our normal understanding of "sovereignty" breaks down? In this conversation with FSI Deputy Director Kathryn Stoner, Joshua Keating shares stories from his new book, Invisible Countries: Journey’s to the Edge of Nationhood. Keating is a foreign policy analyst and a staff writer at Slate.
The gulf between right and left in America is widening by the day. How long has this been going on, and what can we learn by studying other Western democracies? Didi Kuo is an expert on democratization and political parties. She's a research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at FSI, and she has a new book called, Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: The Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain.
The Venezuelan economy is disintegrating, yet president Nicolas Maduro has thus far been successful in squashing his political opposition. How has Maduro been able to remain in power, and what's the best-case scenario for Venezuela's future? We're joined today by Harold Trinkunas to examine the situation in Venezuela since the death of Hugo Chavez. Later in the conversation we also talk with Trinkunas about his book, Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder.
Today's episode is a rebroadcast. In November of 2016, FSI's Center on Democracy, Development & The Rule of Law co-hosted a panel with Stanford's Center for Latin American studies. At this event, Latin scholars, students, and staff at Stanford explored what Donald Trump's election would mean on the US's southern border. Now, almost two years later the analysis and perspectives of our panelists continue to resonate.
Daniel Ellsberg is well-known for the Pentagon Papers, but few people realize he also has extensive experience with US nuclear weapons policy dating back to the 1950s and 60s. Last year, Ellsberg published a memoir called "The Doomsday Machine," where he argues that US developed immoral and dangerous policies during the Cold War, and that surprisingly little has changed in the years since. Ellsberg recently visited FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), where he participated in a Q&A about his new book.
After the June 12th meeting between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, the US is pushing for rapid denuclearization. But, even in a best case scenario, what is a realistic timetable? And now that North Korea has nuclear military capabilities, how might the US encourage the North Koreans to develop nuclear energy for their electrical grid instead?
Dr. Siegfried Hecker is the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a senior fellow at FSI, and an expert on denuclearization. He is also the only American scientist to have toured North Korea’s nuclear plants for enriching uranium. In this timely conversation with FSI director Michael McFaul, Hecker explains the logistical challenges of denuclearization, how the North Korean case is different from Iran, and what scenarios to watch for as the US contemplates a new relationship with the North Koreans.
As income inequality soars, we expect democracies to correct it with higher taxes on the rich. But time and again, the average voter rejects this idea at the ballot box. Why does this happen? In a country founded on the ideal that we are all equal, who gets to decide what’s fair? We talk with Professor Kenneth Scheve, an FSI senior fellow and professor of political science, about our ideas of fairness and how they impact the way our societies work.
Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump met in Singapore on June 12th, and everyone is still working to make sense of the meeting. What led up to this meeting, what are the key takeaways from the summit itself, and what can we expect going forward? Former South Korean Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, who is also the William J. Perry Fellow at FSI’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI, joins FSI Director Michael McFaul to offer her candid analysis of everything that unfolded, and what to watch for next.
What exactly is populism and why is it suddenly everywhere? Are the different movements around the world connected to each other, or are they popping up independently? What are the underlying conditions that give rise to populism, and what risks does it present to democracy?
Anna Gryzmala-Busse is a senior fellow at FSI and the new director of our Europe Center. Together with Michael McFaul and Frank Fukuyama, Gryzmala-Busse recently launched a project to study and report on populist movements. In this conversation with FSI director Michael McFaul, Gryzmala-Busse outlines some of the reasons populism is on the rise, why the current wave is ultimately about the breakdown of political parties, and what we can expect from the current populist movement in America.
Fears are growing that Cambodia is coming under authoritarian rule. Prime Minister Hun Sen, the world’s longest-serving government leader, has dissolved the opposition party and started arresting its leadership in September 2017. Deputy opposition leader and human rights activist Mu Sochua, fearing imprisonment herself, went into exile last October. In this conversation with FSI senior fellow Larry Diamond, she talks about how Cambodia has changed the since the time Khmer Rouge genocide, how events on the ground are unfolding, and what steps she hopes the US and other governments will take in order to put Cambodia back on a path towards democracy.
Michael McFaul, director of FSI, former US ambassador to Russia, and host of World Class, has a new book out. It's called From Cold War to Hot Peace, and it offers an unparalleled perspective on US–Russia relations. In this conversation with FSI's deputy director Kathryn Stoner, herself a Russia expert who has co-authored two books with Amb. McFaul, he shares the story of how he first became interested in Russia, his experiences during his time as ambassador, and why he's still optimistic that someday US–Russia relations will improve.
Is it too late to stop Brexit? As the deadline for exiting approaches, what are the pros and cons of trying to halt Brexit at this late juncture? Regardless of what happens, what might we expect for the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union? In this conversation Sir Nick Clegg, former Deputy Prime Minister from 2010-2015, sits down with former Stanford president and senior fellow at FSI, Gerhard Casper, to talk about how we got here – and what lies ahead.
Armenia is in a state of transition. Peaceful protests led by Nikol Pashinyan have dislodged Serzh Sargsyan from his seat of power, and suddenly the country looks poised for dramatic change. Is this a grassroots movement, or are outside forces pulling the strings? What's the role of social media in all this? And why now, exactly? To take stock of these fast moving developments, we're joined by FSI's Sarah Shirazyan and Yeghishe Kirakosyan of the Stanford Law School for perspective and what to watch as the story unfolds.
Since the 1980s, Taiwan has been a model of democracy in East Asia, but there are challenges on the horizon. Domestically, Taiwan is experiencing slow economic growth and a polarized electorate. Meanwhile across the region leaders are navigating tensions on the Korean peninsula, disputes in the South China Sea, and the possibility of a US-China trade war. In this conversation, former president of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou talks with Professor Francis Fukuyama about all these issues, as well as the future of Taiwan's relationship with China.
Kenya is in a state of polarization, and its democracy is at risk. Maina Kiai was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association from 2011 – 2017, and in this conversation with FSI's Larry Diamond he discusses Kenya’s 2017 disputed presidential election. The stakes are high. As Kiai wrote last year, "Elections in Kenya are not a civil political competition; they are an all-out contest for power and resources." The growing democratic recession in Africa may be undermining the country's electoral democracy.
When we think of health in conflict zones, we usually think of the victims of violence. But more people can die due to other healthcare disruptions than they do from combat wounds. War-torn states are vulnerable to malnutrition, contaminated water, and – most terrifying – outbreaks such as Ebola and Zika. If physicians can't do their work, the wrong set of conditions could set off a global pandemic. What lessons can we draw from the past few years, and what steps are we taking now to be ready for the next inevitable outbreak?
Michele Barry and Paul Wise are two of the eight FSI scholars confronting civil war threats with the "Civil Wars, Violence, and International Responses" project. Supported by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, FSI's Karl Eikenberry and Stephen Krasner gathered experts from around the world to talk about changing international policy to meet these new challenges. We will be speaking with each of the scholars about how civil wars are changing, how they might affect the rest of the world, and what we can do about it. To learn more about the project, check out the fall 2017 and winter 2018 issues of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the outreach projects Eikenberry and Krasner are embarking on around the world: www.amacad.org/content/Research/…ject.aspx?d=22262.
Dealing with world hunger has never been easy, but in recent years the challenge has less to do with natural disasters and much more to do with human conflict. In this lecture, Ertharin Cousin, former director of the World Food Programme and a visiting scholar at FSI’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, reflects on her experiences and identifies key strategies for helping to end world hunger.
Medical and humanitarian workers are increasingly in the crosshairs as hospitals and aid centers have become part of the battlefield in today's wars. In this panel discussion, the producers of the new documentary, The New Barbarianism, and FSI faculty discuss this crisis, its causes, the limited international response and possible ways forward. They build off the film, a CSIS Global Health Policy Center original, which features original footage obtained from inside Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, to analyze the profound surge of violence seen across several open-ended conflicts.
This episode is brought to you by the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH). It is moderated by Michele Barry, CIGH's director and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. Panelists include Steve Morrison, director of The New Barbarianism; Justin Kenny, writer and co-director of The New Barbarianism; Ertharin Cousin, former Executive Director of the UN World Food Program and current Payne Distinguished Lecturer at FSI; and Paul Wise, FSI senior fellow.
When jihadists get involved in civil wars, they push the conflict well beyond its original borders. Since 1990, the rate of jihadist involvement in civil conflict has jumped from 5% to 40%. What's changed? FSI senior fellow Martha Crenshaw, a counterterrorism expert, tells FSI director Michael McFaul how jihadism has grown in the last 30 years and how terrorism and civil wars affect each other.
Crenshaw is one of eight FSI scholars confronting civil war threats with the "Civil Wars, Violence, and International Responses" project. Supported by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, FSI's Karl Eikenberry and Stephen D. Krasner gathered experts from around the world to talk about changing international policy to meet these new challenges. We will be speaking with each of the scholars about how civil wars are changing, how they might affect the rest of the world, and what we can do about it.
To learn more about the project, check out the fall 2017 and winter 2018 issues of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the outreach projects Eikenberry and Krasner are embarking on around the world: www.amacad.org/content/Research/…ject.aspx?d=22262.
Ever wonder how Medicare pricing works? It affects us all more than you might think. Prices for procedures set by Medicare often trickle over to the private sector, so Medicare effectively sets the cost of procedures for the health-care market as a whole. David Chan and Jay Bhattacharya explain how an independent committee gives recommendations on how much each procedure will cost. Because the committee is largely made up of specialists, many wondered whether their pricing might be biased against primary care doctors. The answer? Not much.
David Chan and Jay Bhattacharya are core faculty members at Stanford Health Policy, an FSI center. This episode originally aired live through the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Technology is threatening liberal democracy, say Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Francis Fukuyama. The internet has revolutionized society, but too often it is exploited by authoritarian leaders and populist groups. Fake news breeds more partisanship and disunity. Governments can do more to combat this, but there is a fine line between sensible regulation and encroaching on free speech. For instance, China already drastically regulates their citizens' media use, breeding political resentment. There are no easy answers, and citizens need to encourage a culture shift to continue fighting the toxic effects of these technologies.
Francis Fukuyama is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Toomas Ilves is the former President of Estonia and a current affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.
The way Iranians interact with their government is changing. With information more readily available through the internet, it is easier for citizens to organize protests but also to make an impact without leaving home. Since the Iranian Green Movement in 2009, the political elite has changed dramatically, but a small, stagnant group at the top still holds the most influence. Mehdi Yahyanejad, a senior researcher in computer science at USC, and Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, spoke to FSI Director Michael McFaul about how Iran's youth are changing the way the country interacts with its politicians. They visited Stanford to speak at a conference about whether politics and culture are changing in Iran, co-hosted by FSI and and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies.
The 2016 cyber campaign to influence the U.S. election has been well documented, but represents only a fraction of what information technology makes possible. Drawing on extensive experience in both the private and public sectors, Paul Stockton, the managing director of Sonecon, outlines how foreign adversaries might use information operations for an increasing number of alarming purposes, sowing discord in a manner that U.S. security forces are unequipped to deal with. Stockton also explains the devastating impact that a cyberattack on American power grids could have, and urges the government to draw on the expertise of the private sector to stay one step ahead of potential threats.
Civil wars have changed. In the last 20 years, the average duration has increased and organizations like the UN have had a harder time keeping the peace. This has been particularly true in the Middle East and North Africa where most peace-keeping and state-building efforts have failed. James "Jim" Fearon, an FSI senior fellow, tells us why civil wars have changed.
Fearon is one of eight FSI scholars confronting civil war threats with the "Civil Wars, Violence, and International Responses" project. Supported by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, FSI's Karl Eikenberry and Stephen D. Krasner gathered experts from around the world to talk about changing international policy to meet these new challenges. We will be speaking with each of the scholars about how civil wars are changing, how they might affect the rest of the world, and what we can do about it.
To learn more about the project, check out the fall 2017 and winter 2018 issues of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the outreach projects Eikenberry and Krasner are embarking on around the world: www.amacad.org/content/Research/…ject.aspx?d=22262.
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Ertharin Cousin, the former Executive Director of the United Nation's World Food Programme, leads a panel discussion on the future of African agriculture. African political leaders from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa concur that more private industry and technological advancement is needed for the continent. Given that famine and corruption is still all too common, African governments need to increase their focus on the security of their food systems. In order to do so, AGRA is working on developing a disease-resistant strain of cassava, a common starch grown throughout the continent. However, high-tech research is not the only solution. Paying attention to the demands of small farmers and creating simple phone apps to track fertilizer use and rainfall can bring just as much benefit.
Countries created after the Soviet Union dissolved provide a unique window into state development. The Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — have emerged as geopolitical and economic leaders in Eastern Europe. Former President of Estonia and FSI Affiliate Toomas Hendrik Ilves and FSI Director Michael McFaul discuss the reasons for these states’ unlikely success, delve into Estonian history, and discuss the ongoing challenges posed by Russia.
Looking for a reliable source on climate change? Marshall Burke is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University and an FSE fellow. He has studied climate change extensively throughout his career. He tells FSI Director Michael McFaul how the world has already warmed one degree Celsius since pre-industrial times, causing more extreme weather events, a small rise in sea levels and a greater amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is virtually no disagreement among scientists that the world is warming, he says, and the vast majority of scientists agree that humans are causing the change. Unless we reduce our emissions, the world will warm four to five degrees in the next century, making bad weather worse and gradually increasing average temperatures everywhere. If this happens, the world's GDP will decrease by about 20 percent, causing massive disruption to the world's economy.
The liberal world order that arose after World War II did not occur because of the intellectual superiority of liberal ideas, argues Dr. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Instead, it was the military and geopolitical might of the United States that converted countries like Germany and Japan into Western-style democracies. However, in today's world, Kagan believes the United States is ceding this role as a worldwide protector of liberal values, enabling countries like Russia and China to become more authoritarian and threatening the world order. Going forward, only a realistic foreign policy that employs military strength to spread American democratic values can prevent a further decay of democracy, he says.
With double-digit unemployment, widespread corruption and inequality, and a youth population ready for change, the recent protests in Iran are no surprise, says Abbas Milani, Stanford’s Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies. After arresting more than 3,700 protesters, the Iranian regime has quelled the demonstrations for now. Should we expect more, or will the government succeed in shutting them down? Milani tells FSI Director Michael McFaul that the recent demonstrations are more widespread than, for instance, the 2009 protests against a rigged presidential election. They are concentrated in small, religious towns with little history of anti-government action. Iran’s economic woes are not going away, and Milani expects protests will continue until they do.
How has the United States Constitution been holding up during President Trump's first year in office? Pretty well, says constitutional law expert Gerhard Casper. The three branches of government are still operating independently, and President Trump has actually scaled back the power of his branch by overturning some of President Obama’s executive orders. The American people are politically engaged and have made energetic use of the first amendment. So why the political turmoil? It is our primary system that needs fixing, according to Casper.
After serving as dean of the University of Chicago Law School, Casper joined Stanford in 1992 as the university’s ninth president. He was also the director of FSI from 2012 to 2013.
Civil wars are getting longer, and their consequences are starting to seep across borders to threaten other countries and, sometimes, the rest of the world. In this first episode of our series on civil wars, Karl Eikenberry and Stephen Krasner talk about how war is changing and why we need to address it.
In their project on confronting civil war threats, Eikenberry and Krasner gathered experts from around the world to talk about changing international policy to meet these new issues. Eight of the scholars are from FSI, and we will be speaking with all of them about how civil wars are changing, how they might affect the rest of the world, and what we can do about it.
To learn more about civil wars, check out the fall 2017 and winter 2018 issues of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the outreach projects Eikenberry and Krasner are embarking on around the world: https://www.amacad.org/content/Research/researchproject.aspx?d=22262.
Eikenberry spent 35 years in the U.S. Army before leaving his post as Lieutenant General to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. Here at FSI, he is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations.
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For years, people around the world have hailed China as a rising power. Those days are over: China has arrived. At the October 2017 Communist Party Congress, President Xi Jinping was the first Chinese leader to acknowledge China’s strength as a “great” power. What will this mean for the United States and other countries around the world? Former Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army and Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry speaks with FSI Director Michael McFaul about China's new role on the world stage and President Xi Jinping's plans for the country's growth.
U.S.-Russian relations have reached their lowest point since the Cold War. Amidst accusations that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Russian frustration with NATO, dialogue between the two powers has become increasingly strained. Anatoly Antonov, Russian Ambassador to the United States, talks about what might be done to mend relations between the two countries and offers Russia’s perspective on global affairs.
Sustainable food systems may be the single most essential ingredient of human wellbeing. In this podcast, World Class producer Nicole Feldman interviews Ertharin Cousin, formerly the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and director of the World Food Programme, who is now the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at FSI's Center for Food Security and the Environment. Cousin discusses threats to food security at every stage of production, from bare ingredients to consumption, and delves into the key challenges that the world faces in securing nutritious food for this generation and the next. She delves particularly into the unique harms posed by ongoing security threats like the presence of ISIS and an increasingly mercurial climate, and outlines possible steps forward to create and stabilize sustainable food systems worldwide.
Some Europeans worry about the migrants flooding their borders, but most would be willing to accept more asylum seekers if they felt the system was fair, says Jens Hainmueller. As co-director of the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab, he works with policymakers to create better policies for migrants. He speaks with World Class producer Nicole Feldman about how to improve immigration policy in Europe and the United States for both citizens and migrants.
"It feels like cyber is everywhere and yet at the same time insignificant," says Amy Zegart, co-director of FSI's Center for International Security and Cooperation.
As cyber talk turns from how technology makes life easier to how it will doom us all, understanding its many perils becomes increasingly difficult. In her discussion with FSI Director Michael McFaul, Amy Zegart breaks down the threats into four easily digestible categories: spying, stealing, disrupting and destroying.
Learn more about Zegart's work on security in "Pragmatic Engagement amidst Global Uncertainty: Three Global Challenges" at https://fsi.stanford.edu/publication/pragmatic-engagement-amidst-global-uncertainty.
What causes civil wars and what can we do about it? Michael McFaul introduces a panel of some of FSI’s most distinguished scholars, who tackle this complex topic in a special two-volume issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Karl Eikenberry, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, and Stephen Krasner, former State Dept. director of policy planning, are co-editors of this volume; they are joined by FSI senior fellows Francis Fukuyama, Stephen Stedman, Michele Barry, James Fearon, and Paul Wise.
On the ground in Mosul, FSI senior fellow Paul Wise joined a small team to evaluate the World Health Organization (WHO)'s efforts to treat civilian casualties of war. What he found was a city destroyed but also a remarkable resilience as Iraqis begin to rebuild.
The fighting in Mosul is only one example of how war is changing, and humanitarian organizations are working to alter their tactics. Wise leads a group of researchers at Stanford that is evaluating how modern warfare affects civilians and plans to work with humanitarian organizations to adjust their responses.
Wise is the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society at Stanford Health Policy.
Democracy is in jeopardy. Dictatorships are on the rise. What can we do to change the political landscape? In Stanford Reunion's "Classes without Quizzes" series, FSI scholars explain why populism is on the rise in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world and how it relates to the decline of democracies. FSI Director Michael McFaul moderates the panel which includes Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI and the Mosbacher Director at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; Anna Grzymala-Busse, an FSI senior fellow and Director of the Global Populisms Project; and Didi Kuo, the Academic Research and Program Manager for the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspectives.
As the President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves witnessed firsthand a devastating cyberattack — a series of 2007 attacks that comprise one of the largest instances of state-sponsored cyberwarfare in the modern era. Now a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, he talks here with Herbert Lin, a senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. They discuss how ubiquitous information technology has become in our everyday lives and what that means for our security. They answer questions about the tradeoff between privacy and safety and ultimately urge for a change in mindset with our approach to cyber issues.
Not many people can say they've held North Korea's plutonium in their hands, but Siegfried Hecker has toured North Korea's nuclear facilities four times. He was the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and has advised several U.S. presidents on nuclear security. Hecker tells us about North Korea's weapons capabilities and whether we're heading toward the world's first nuclear war. He is currently a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more on North Korea from Hecker and our other nuclear scholars, visit https://fsi.stanford.edu/content/north-korea-nuclear-situation.
Faculty views do not necessarily represent those of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies or Stanford University, both of which are nonpartisan institutions.
The Political History of American Food Aid: An Uneasy Benevolence is the first book to tell the history of U.S. food aid. From early discussions with James Madison to large-scale programs in the Cold War, author Barry Riley, a visiting scholar at FSI's Center on Food Security and the Environment, explores how food aid programs developed in America and what we can expect in the coming years. Learn more about the book at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-political-history-of-american-food-aid-9780190228873?cc=us&lang=en&.
Hoi Trinh was born in South Vietnam. After the war ended, his family was forced to flee to Australia. Trinh rose from refugee to hot shot lawyer, but he wasn't satisfied. He wanted to understand where he came from and to help the people who were left behind. He returned to Vietnam to work with refugees but was again cast out. In 2005, he co-founded VOICE, the Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment, and now advocates for democracy and civil society development in Vietnam. In 2017, he came to Stanford as a Draper Hills fellow to learn from faculty across campus about ways to promote democracy.
Learn more about VOICE at vietnamvoice.org. To help with their work, email Hoi Trinh at hoitrinh@gmail.com.
Learn more about the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship at https://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/summerfellows.
New York Times editor Philip Taubman met General Michael Hayden while investigating NSA eavesdropping operations that began after 9/11. As the director of both the NSA and the CIA, Hayden experienced every facet of cybersecurity. Here, he and Taubman discuss responses to events like Russian hacking during the last U.S. election and leaked NSA tools shared by the Shadow Brokers.
Stanford University is a nonpartisan institution, as is the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The opinions of the commentators are not necessarily aligned with the views of either institution.
The term "radicalization" has become linked to Islamic terrorism, but what does it really mean? Are all terrorists radicalized? How do people become terrorists, and how has terrorism changed since the Cold War? Terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and Professor of Political Science, answers these questions and more, speaking with FSI Director Michael McFaul.
To see how militant organizations have changed over time, view Mapping Militant Organizations at https://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/. To learn more about Professor Crenshaw's work on terrorism, check out her most recent book, Countering Terrorism, at http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/countering-terrorism.
In 1972, President Nixon famously visited China, moving away from a bilateral relationship with the Soviet Union and toward a more inclusive global conversation. Could the United States enhance its negotiating position with Russia today by improving relations with China? Experts from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) convened at the Nixon Foundation to discuss relations between these three countries. Are Russia and China building a relationship in opposition to the United States? How important are relations between these three countries? How has the rise of populism and autocracy changed the relationship? FSI deputy director and senior fellow Kathryn Stoner asks these questions and more to the panel: FSI senior fellow David Holloway, the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History at CISAC; Thomas Fingar, a Shorenstein APARC fellow; and Karl Eikenberry, the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Shorenstein APARC. A video of the panel can also be viewed at http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/holloway-us-china-and-russia.
Welcome to the first episode of World Class with Michael McFaul. In this series, we bring you conversations between FSI Director and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and top researchers at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).
In the American psyche, Russia has moved from a remnant of the Cold War to the top of headlines around the world. How did we get here? Russia experts Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner, the director and deputy director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, discuss how Russia’s history lead to President Putin’s rise to power, why he moved toward a more authoritarian regime, and how Russia’s relationship with the United States has changed, particularly since President Trump took office. For more Russia expertise, be on the lookout for Kathryn Stoner’s upcoming book, Resurrected? Russia’s Return as a Global Power.
Fifty years after the cultural revolution made religious belief illegitimate in China, it's making a comeback. What are the religious experiences of the Chinese people today? Award-winning journalist Ian Johnson spoke at FSI's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center about his new book, The Souls of China.
After going in for a routine procedure, a man ends up with a punctured lung and a medical emergency. A woman's surgery goes well until her stomach is stitched up with a sponge inside. Most of us feel safe going to the doctor, but the road to high-quality care was not straightforward. Stanford Health Policy's Kathryn McDonald tells us how the safe, high-quality care we expect got where it is today and what we can do to maintain it. Kathryn McDonald is the Executive Director at the Center for Health Policy/Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford University. Learn more about her work in patient safety and quality at https://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/people/kathryn_m_mcdonald.
Dictators use cyberwarfare to hit democracies where it hurts - the ballot box. Former Estonian president Toomas Ilves, a visiting fellow at FSI in 2016-17, explains.
What can the U.K. and France's recent elections tell us about Europe's political climate? The Scholars' Circle brings together three top scholars to find out. The Europe Center's Patrick Chamorel, a senior resident scholar at the Stanford University Center in Washington DC, joins Jeroen Dewulf, an associate professor in the Department of German at UC Berkeley and Mark Amsler, an associate professor in the Department of European Languages and Literature at the University of Auckland.
North Korea's nuclear capabilities are growing. What's the rest of the world to do? APARC's Gi-Wook Shin and Kathleen Stephens, also the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, are joined by the Wilson Center's James Person and CISAC visiting fellow Katharina Zellweger.
The greatest dangers to your organization may come from the inside. Security expert Matthew Bunn joins CISAC's Amy Zegart and Scott Sagan to explain.
President Obama's chief of staff, Denis McDonough, visits FSI to talk about his tenure in the White House and his thoughts on its current occupants. He's interviewed by Stanford in Government chair Libby Scholz, '17.
National security scholar Graham Allison speaks with the Hoover Institution's Niall Ferguson at FSI. Allison's new book is called "Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?"
What does the president's "America First" foreign policy mean for our relationship with the rest of the world? Former US ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder visits Stanford to discuss.
FSI's William J. Perry Fellow Matthew Spence interviews Jake Sullivan, former Deputy Assistant to President Obama and National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox visits Stanford University to talk about the future of US-Mexico relations.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice introduces her new book, "Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom," in discussion with fellow FSI scholars Francis Fukuyama, Larry Diamond, and Michael McFaul.
What's it like to run a liberal democracy in the age of cyber attacks? Toomas Ilves, former president of Estonia, speaks with FSI director Michael McFaul.
Can Europe take the lead in a new world of nationalism? Finland's former Prime Minister, Alexander Stubb, speaks at FSI.
Gen. Karl Eikenberry, former US ambassador to Afghanistan, and Erik Jensen, co-director of Stanford's Rule of Law program, talk to FSI about the status of Afghanistan today.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon spoke at FSI in April 2017 about Brexit, her call for a new referendum on Scotland's independence, and connections with California.
STRATCOM commander Gen. John Hyten describes the threat to American security from space. It's not what you think.
Gen. Karl Eikenberry, former US ambassador to Afghanistan, offers recommendations for our military presence in Asia.
Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications in the Obama White House, speaks to FSI about re-establishing U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba.
If you're an American parent, your child needs Medicaid - no matter your income. FSI's Paul Wise and Lisa Chamberlain explain.
How governments should respond to terror attacks: FSI senior fellow Martha Crenshaw and University of Maryland professor Gary LaFree discuss their new book, "Countering Terrorism."
Princeton professor Andrew Moravchik speaks at FSI's Europe Center on the latest shock waves of world events across Europe.
What does India's rise look like in today's Asia? Carnegie Fellow Ashley J. Tellis speaks at FSI's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, as part of a seminar series co-sponsored by Stanford's Center on South Asia.
FSI senior fellow Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, director of Stanford's Center on Latin American Studies, discusses the diplomatic and economic issues around President Trump's order to build a border wall.
What will Donald Trump's administration mean on the US's southern border? LatinX scholars, students, and staff at Stanford discussed their response to the election in November.
Are nukes ever OK to use? How can you fight insurgency without fighting civilians? FSI scholars Scott Sagan, Joe Felter and Paul Wise discuss new ethical models for new kinds of conflict.
From the archives: In Oct 2016, foreign policy experts Michael McFaul, Amy Zegart, Abbas Milani, Martha Crenshaw and Larry Diamond discuss the challenges of 2017.
What happens now with Russia? Panel discussion with former ambassador Michael McFaul, former defense secretary William Perry, former Los Alamos director Siegfried Hecker, and nuclear history professor David Holloway.
Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, speaks at FSI about the state of US-Russia relations. Recorded on Nov 10.
What will the biggest health concerns around the world be in the next few years? Not the ones you think. Stanford Health Policy experts discuss.
Russian hacking was a central story of the 2016 election. What should the US do about it? The Hewlett Foundation convened FSI and other experts in September to discuss.
Stanford political scientists Larry Diamond and Frank Fukuyama lead a post-election discussion and try to make sense of the surprising results.