Hesham Sallam is a senior research scholar at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, where he is the associate director for research and associate director of the Program on Arab Reform and Development.

The ceasefire agreement recently reached between Israel and Hamas has renewed hope for an end of deadly war that killed over 68 thousand Palestinians and, on October 7, 2023, 1144 Israelis. The Israeli military operations have damaged 83 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure and inflicted a dire humanitarian catastrophe on its civilian population. As of the writing of these reflections, the ceasefire remains tenuous, with reports of intermittent hostilities between the two sides and widespread concerns over Israeli-imposed impediments to the delivery of adequate aid to Palestinians.

Assuming the ceasefire ends up holding, it remains to be seen whether this recent breakthrough will be a prelude to addressing the roots of the conflict, or if it will simply be a cover for containing it and restoring the status quo ante. A key prerequisite for the former is Gaza’s reconstruction, without which it is difficult to envision a future for the more than two million inhabitants of the Strip and for peace in the region, more generally.

An equally pertinent issue is Palestinian representation. That is, whether the ceasefire will facilitate the emergence of a legitimate and democratically elected Palestinian government that has the buy-in of its people and empowered to govern and negotiate on their behalf. In that regard, the rather bizarre proposal floated by the White House to govern Gaza through a provisional authority that answers to a body spearheaded by U.S. President Donald Trump, if pursued seriously, would be a step in the wrong direction. The first step toward a legitimate Palestinian government is a serious push for reviving reconciliation talks among Palestinian factions, not a U.S.-managed governing body.

A ceasefire does not, in principle, address the roots of the conflict. Doing so demands not only a durable ceasefire but also a political solution that secures Palestinian rights and statehood. If Washington and other international and regional mediators ignore this fundamental imperative and choose instead to sideline Palestinians from the Arab-Israeli normalization drive advanced by the Abraham Accords framework, the outcome will be disastrous. This would constitute a return to the dangerous regional order that existed before October 7, 2023 — a reality that evidently left the region vulnerable to war, destruction, and human suffering.

A related concern is the continuation of violence perpetrated by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, which has killed over a thousand Palestinians since October 7, 2023. Israeli settlements in the West Bank have reportedly grown at a record rate in the last year. The persistence of these trends will limit the prospects for a peaceful solution to this conflict. It will inevitably perpetuate an unjust and exclusionary “one-state reality” in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

An end to hostilities and an end to this conflict are not one and the same. Addressing the roots of the conflict requires a serious commitment to Gaza’s reconstruction and democratic representation for Palestinians. It also requires prioritizing negotiations for a political solution that encompasses both the West Bank and Gaza and upholds Palestinian statehood and rights.

This post was written on October 19, 2025

For Israel-Hamas Ceasefire to Succeed, Roots of Conflict Must be Addressed was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tom Dannenbaum is the Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, a senior fellow at FSI, a professor of law at Stanford Law School, and a professor (by courtesy) in the Department of Political Science.

Incipient, flawed, and indefensibly lacking Palestinian agency, the U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has nonetheless provided desperately needed respite and hope. Hostages and other detainees have been released and reunited with their families. Palestinians are returning to areas from which they were displaced. For a few days, humanitarian access started to scale up.

However, the process is dangerously fragile. Alleging ceasefire violations by Hamas, Israel first restricted, and then fully suspended, humanitarian access to Gaza, while engaging in lethal strikes across the Strip. This is a familiar regression predicated on a legal distortion. Israel’s obligation to grant humanitarian access and ensure the supply of essentials is categorical. Neither party may invoke the other’s violations to relieve itself from the demands of international humanitarian law. Human beings are not bargaining chips.

The most pressing imperative is to ensure that essential services are restored and Gaza is flooded with humanitarian assistance. In addition to basic supplies, this must include medical support for refeeding and addressing the impact of acute malnutrition on cognitive and central nervous system functioning, among other needs. In the longer term, there are enormous reparative challenges relating to the decimation of Gaza’s food, agricultural, water, medical, and residential infrastructure.

President Trump’s plan disregards the primary reason for these needs. Israel’s destructive military campaign and severe restrictions on humanitarian access have shattered conditions of life in Gaza, causing famine and underpinning both South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant. Rather than pursuing accountability, the Trump administration has set its sights on those who are, sanctioning nine ICC prosecutors and judges, three NGOs, and a U.N. special rapporteur, while contemplating institutional sanctions on the ICC itself. States must resist these brazen attacks on the rule of law.

Although correctly rejecting annexation and forced displacement (in contrast to earlier posturing), the Trump plan disregards Palestinian self-determination. It says nothing about unifying Gaza and the West Bank, where Israel has approved expanded illegal settlements and settler and state violence continues. It is responsive neither to the ICJ’s identification of Israel’s “obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible” nor to the widely endorsed New York Declaration that followed.

To provide a path to peace, the plan must engage with Palestinians and take their legal rights seriously. The current framework is strikingly deficient in those critical respects.

Here’s How International Law Applies to the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Artem Romaniukov

I am a Ukrainian national. I studied at Stanford University in 2019 and 2020 in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program run by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

For several years now, I have been a leader of environmental and anti-corruption NGOs. Among other endeavors, my team and I developed the SaveEcoBot program, which is the most popular air quality monitoring service in Ukraine and has 1.5 million users in 15 countries.

I was with my wife and six-year-old daughter in Kyiv when Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began. I grabbed my family and brought them to a place I thought they would be safer. Then I immediately volunteered to join the Ukrainian Defense Force. I have already seen active fire, which has resulted in a dreadful number of casualties, both for Ukrainians and Russians. But this tragedy is not just a humanitarian emergency.

The Pentagon estimates that 600 Russian missiles have been fired at Ukrainian targets in the first 10 days of war alone. Additionally, the infamous abandoned Chernobyl nuclear plant has been seized by Russian forces and, most recently, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar has been attacked and occupied by armed Russian soldiers. Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and Russian projectiles started a localized fire in an auxiliary building on the site on March 3, 2020.

Russian forces have also cut off the power supply to the Chernobyl reactor and containment site. This means that spent nuclear fuel is not being cooled at the site in accordance to internationally recognized standards. The head of the Chernobyl nuclear plant has said that the back-up generators have enough fuel to power the site for 48 hours. We can only guess what might happen after that. If this were not enough, there is still ongoing shelling at a nuclear research facility in Kharkiv. The current conditions there are unknown.

In Ukraine, we have a saying, “мавпа з гранатою,” which means, “Like a monkey with a grenade.” Russia is playing the monkey to all of Europe.

Despite these chaotic circumstances, the SaveEcoBot team, in coordination with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, has put a lot of effort into radiation monitoring and informing the public about changes in background radiation. We’ve been set back in this critical work by the damages done to our monitoring equipment by Russians, but Ukrainian technicians are restoring the systems as fast as they can.

The assaults on the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia power plants have already had implications for the environment. The radioactive dust raised by the wheels and trucks of the Russian combat vehicles in the Chernobyl zone has raised the background radiation levels to a hundredfold excess of the normal threshold. Just imagine what chaotic attacks, with Russians shooting, firing missiles, and bombing other parts of Ukrainian territory might lead to. In Ukraine, we have a saying, “мавпа з гранатою,” which means, “Like a monkey with a grenade.” Russia is playing the monkey to all of Europe.

Russia continues to assert that its forces are in Ukraine for reasons of safety and security. The takeover of Chernobyl disturbed large amounts of radioactive soil, propelling it into the air. The attack on Zaporizhzhia resulted in a fire on the site of an active nuclear plant. This is not what safety looks like. To pretend that these actions are anything but a dangerous disregard for life is an insult to all sane, rational people. We are all very lucky that none of Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors were hit by the tank shell that started that fire.

Russia, the U.S. and the UK committed 20 years ago to ensure Ukraine’s peaceful sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons program. This agreement was built on the idea that Ukraine without nuclear weapons would never have cause to be the target of any attack. This assurance was guaranteed by the signers of the memorandum.

But Russia’s violent attacks have proven that a nuclear threat still exists in Ukraine. It is not a threat of Ukraine’s making, but one engineered by Russia’s own reckless assault on our civilian nuclear facilities. The consequences of this diabolical action go well beyond a potential environmental catastrophe for Ukraine; our neighbors, including Russia itself, and even countries outside of Europe could all be affected by nuclear fallout carried on high-atmosphere winds across continent and over oceans.

This is not what safety looks like. To pretend that these actions are anything but a dangerous disregard for life is an insult to all sane, rational people.

One way to mitigate this threat and to realize security assurances to Ukraine is to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The hesitance of the EU and U.S. to implement a no-fly zone is understandable. But at the same time, it is critically important to develop options and generate models for other types of no-fly zones beyond the proposals being discussed today. Such alternative options could be the key to helping prevent a Ukrainian tragedy not only in terms of nuclear security, but also in averting a similar tragedy to what the world witnessed in Aleppo.

To do this, Ukraine needs more military support. We have gratefully received strong military support from our allies, but even this bounty is not enough to defend our country. Stinger missiles can shoot down small, low-flying aircraft from a fairly short distance, but are useless against ballistic missiles and high-altitude bombers. We need weapons that can shoot down planes at considerable distances and altitudes, systems to detect and shoot down cruise missiles, and planes to protect our airspace. Early Russian attacks targeted our airports to deplete our air defense capabilities and frustrate our ability to get planes in the air. But we still stand. But if we want to avert a second Chernobyl or another Aleppo, we need to strengthen our air defenses.

We learned in 1939 that making concessions to tyrants is no plan for peace. Putin is a bully. Like all bullies, he will take as much as he can get while treating all harm — including environmental harm — as merely incidental. Like all bullies, he will stop only when he meets strong resistance. Putin and the Russia propaganda machine frame all attempts to stymie Russian aggression as not only a provocation, but a provocation that could trigger a nuclear response. Such veiled threats of nuclear attacks are a form of prior restraint meant to constrain Ukraine’s allies from even suggesting that the Russian invasion is improper. But we must not accept this starkly irrational framework. Nuclear weapons are weapons of deterrence, not tools to chill diplomatic criticism.

Any compromised nuclear facility in Ukraine inherently becomes an international problem, not just a local one. Like Putin, radioactive fallout does not respect borders.

American analysts say that they expect the Russian attacks to become increasingly more brutal. Any increased risks to civilian and military targets commensurately increases risks to nuclear sites as well. And any compromised nuclear facility in Ukraine inherently becomes an international problem, not just a local one. Like Putin, radioactive fallout does not respect borders.

Just ten days ago, my life changed dramatically. I used to be a successful civil leader and entrepreneur with an innovative business. Now I sleep on the floor of an abandoned building with my gun in hand. My daughter knows exactly how the air raid siren sounds. But we are still Ukrainians. We are still Europeans. We still count on our allies. So to our allies, I say: close the Ukrainian sky. Provide us with enough weapons. We will do the rest.

Artem Romaniukov is an alumnus of the 2019 cohort of the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program run by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

He is the founder of SaveEcoBot, the first environmental bot in Ukraine designed to monitor information on the environment, industrial pollutants, their permits and the stages of the EIA (environmental impact assessment) procedure.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he has been serving in active duty for the Ukrainian Defence Forces.

‘A Monkey with a Grenade’: Russia’s Attacks on Nuclear Reactors Cross a Dangerous Line was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Vladimir Putin broke his months-long silence over the Ukrainian crisis during a press conference on February 1 and accused the United States of “drawing” Russia into an armed conflict with its western neighbor. The Russian President is following a familiar script: deflect blame onto the West to create a pretext for aggression abroad. This victimhood act is helping to conceal Moscow’s offensive foreign policy behind a defensive façade that some observers find plausible or even sympathetic.

The idea that the West is goading Russia into a war with Ukraine is not only popular in Russia, where 50% of the population believes the West is responsible for rising tensions, but also here in the United States. The New York Times ran a front-page story with the headline “Is Biden’s Strategy with Putin Working, or Goading Moscow to War?” Harvard professor Stephen Walt blamed the military buildup at the Ukrainian border on the “hubris, wishful thinking, and liberalism” of the U.S. and its European allies. Meanwhile, Republicans dropped their historic hard line on Russia and accused President Joe Biden of fomenting the crisis; Senator Josh Hawley even called for abandoning America’s longstanding commitment to Ukrainian membership in NATO. Taking the argument several steps further, Fox News host Tucker Carlson described the brewing conflict as a “manufactured crisis” devised by “restless, power-hungry neocons in Washington” and mused, “Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine?”

It is deeply concerning that influential voices in the West are faulting the U.S. for the escalation of tensions in Ukraine. These commentators ignore Russia’s agency in fomenting the crisis and lend credence to Putin’s justification for war. Putin — it is worth remembering — annexed Crimea in 2014 and backed a violent rebellion in the Donbas region that has led to over 13,000 deaths. Putin (not Biden) has amassed over 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and drawn up elaborate plans to fabricate a Ukrainian attack on Russia. These are inconvenient truths for Kremlin leaders who prefer to perpetuate the myth of Russian innocence.

In response to Russia’s campaign of intimidation, the Biden administration is sending military aid to Ukraine, fortifying NATO allies in Eastern Europe with additional troops, and threatening major sanctions. These standard actions of coercive diplomacy are designed to deter, not provoke, Russia. However much Putin wants to portray a future invasion of Ukraine as a legitimate act of retaliation against the West, his actions would betray a calculated effort to wage a war of aggression.

Before calling on Biden to concede to Russia’s security demands, policymakers and analysts need to understand the true drivers of Putin’s military buildup. The evidence available suggests that Putin resents NATO expansion not so much as a military security threat, but more so as a symbol of Russia’s geopolitical decline and ideological encirclement. The prospect of “Little Russia” — as Putin calls Ukraine — integrating successfully into an alliance of democracies would be a blow to his expansionist fantasies and to his illiberal regime. It would not, as he claimed in a 2014 speech to the Russian legislature after the annexation of Crimea, create a “perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia.” NATO is a mutual defense alliance that has not — and will never — attack Russia first. Nevertheless, Putin prefers to exploit and exaggerate the threat in his public rhetoric to legitimize his authoritarian rule at home and aggressive behavior abroad.

Seeing through Smoke and Mirrors

Russian military officers have admitted upon retirement that NATO does not present a credible national security threat, a belief the current political elite likely shares. Russia not only has a strategic advantage over NATO in conventional weapons, but also a massive nuclear deterrent to protect its territory. The positioning of NATO infrastructure near Russian borders should also matter less given that Russia can launch conventionally and nuclear equipped cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away.

Likewise, as political scientist Kimberly Marten argues, the historical record should make clear to the Russian leadership that NATO armed forces in Eastern Europe are meant for deterrence. NATO has never attacked Russia, annexed Russian territory, nor carried out assassination attempts on Russian soil. (The same cannot be said about Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Georgia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, and Germany). Developments in the post-Cold War era — such as the reduction of conventional weapons far below the limits of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty — should have also signaled to the Russian defense establishment that NATO exists to deter, not wage, war.

Though Putin portrays the alliance as a menacing security threat, Russian troops and artillery actually declined sharply along the country’s western and southern borders from 2000 until 2014 amid two waves of NATO enlargement. Perhaps the more recent enlargements, in 2017 and 2020 respectively, alarmed Putin? This seems unlikely: the addition of Montenegro and North Macedonia, whose military forces are too small to contribute meaningfully to allied operations, were not major strategic events. No NATO missiles were even moved to their territories to threaten Russia or any other state. Armed force deployments in Central and Eastern Europe’s largest NATO members — countries which lie close to the Russian borders and could hypothetically unnerve Russia — have also remained low and level or declined significantly since their accession.

Still, there remains the possibility that a paranoid Putin mistakes NATO expansion for offensive aggression. Distinctions between offense and defense — which exist in theory — can admittedly become blurred in reality. However, major inconsistencies in Putin’s anti-NATO narrative undermine this possibility. During his first two presidential terms, Putin cooperated closely with the alliance through the NATO-Russia Council and reacted to the incorporation of the Baltic States in 2004 in a relatively calm and restrained manner. He even entertained the idea of Russia someday joining NATO. More recently, between 2012 and 2015, Putin granted NATO access to its military airport in Ulyanovsk for the transit of military cargo to Afghanistan. Had the Russian President regarded the alliance as a grave security threat, he would not have allowed NATO equipment to transit through the Russian heartland. Instead, Putin has inflated and deflated the military security threat from NATO as it suits his agenda.

For all the complaining Putin does about Russia’s encirclement by NATO, he has not taken the most logical approach to reducing the alleged security threat. He could avert future enlargements of the alliance by addressing Eastern Europe’s legitimate fears of a Russian invasion and by offering their heads of state security guarantees. Instead, he has surrounded Ukraine with Russian forces on three sides, making real the threat of war, and relegated Eastern European countries to mere spectators in negotiations between Russia and the West.

Putin’s True Fear

Putin’s chief grievance regarding NATO is about power: his own power and the power of Russia in the post-Soviet space. The geographic and operational expansion of NATO has sent a painful message that Russia no longer operates at parity with the United States as the Soviet Union once did. Draft security agreements published by the Russian Foreign Ministry in December resurfaced these lingering grievances and imagined a new European security architecture in which Russia enjoys a prominent, privileged role.

The post-Cold War enlargement of NATO first developed into a grievance under Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In 1996, once NATO’s vision for enlargement had become public, the foreign affairs columnist Flora Lewis conducted a series of interviews with senior Russian analysts, politicians, and officials to gauge the source of their resentment. To her surprise, “none [of the responses] included military, strategic, or geopolitical analysis, though many of the speakers were lifelong experts in those fields.” Instead, the interview participants highlighted “feelings, perceptions of Russia’s role as a great power, its need for the respect that it is due.” Lewis concluded that Moscow’s attempts to halt NATO expansion stemmed from “Russia’s unwillingness to perceive itself as anything other than one of the world’s two superpowers.”

Resentment about the impact of NATO enlargement on Russia’s sense of prestige and identity have continued to take precedence over military and security concerns. NATO’s military operation in Libya in 2011 might not have threatened Russian national security, but its symbolism hardened Putin’s attitudes. NATO launched airstrikes to create safe zones for civilians fleeing Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. With the West’s support, Libyan rebel forces overthrew the regime and executed Gaddafi. In Putin’s words, NATO’s Libyan adventure turned “the Arab Spring” into “the Arab Winter.” From his perspective, a pattern had emerged: the West was conducting an imperialist policy and its attempt to shape the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East through military force had fomented instability across the globe. Russian diplomats reportedly used a high-stakes meeting at NATO diplomatic headquarters in January to revive grievances over the alliance’s history of bombing campaigns. These discontents are revealing because complaints uttered in private offer a more reliable indicator of foreign policy drivers than public displays of outrage.

Since his return to the presidency in 2012, Putin has inflated slights by NATO to justify, excuse, and deflect many instances of foul play — chief among them, the annexation of Crimea in 2014. In his grievance-laden address to the Russian legislature in March of that year, President Putin incited horror at the prospect of NATO forces arriving in Sevastopol (“the city of Russia’s military glory”). He claimed that NATO had provoked Russia, casting the invasion of Ukraine as a desperate act of defense against an impending military threat rather than an act of aggression against a far weaker neighbor and non-member state.

However, the events leading up to the annexation tell another story. In 2010, Putin and his proxies had celebrated President Viktor Yanukovych’s electoral victory — aided by Russian financial and media resources — as a repudiation of Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Illiberalism seemed ascendant in Ukraine following the return of a Kremlin loyalist to power. But when Yanukovych canceled preparations for signing a historic pact with the European Union in late 2013, massive demonstrations erupted throughout Ukraine. Yanukovych fled to Russia, and Putin decided to strike back against what he denounced as a “coup d’état” and the “growth of extreme nationalism.” In Putin’s eyes, the 2014 Maidan Revolution was another Western attempt at regime change following the “color revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia in the early 2000s and in Libya in 2011. Since Ukrainians and Russians are, in his view, “fundamentally a single people,” the consolidation of Ukraine into a liberal democracy right on Russia’s borders would undermine Putin’s argument for strong, autocratic rule in Russia. He was more than willing to use extraordinary measures — annexation and military intervention — to achieve this ideologically-driven aim.

Realists may still insist that security concerns triggered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, Putin’s actions in 2014 belie this argument. If Putin truly saw NATO as an offensive pact — and therefore a security concern — then he would have never risked grabbing Crimea, fearing that such a move would provoke the alliance members and endanger national security. Instead, a risk-benefit calculation in which the Russian leadership deemed NATO not to pose a serious military threat led Putin to take a historic gamble and annex Crimea.

Ironically for adherents to Russia’s official grievance narrative, Putin’s annexation of Crimea made Russia less, not more, secure. It jolted NATO alliance members back into action after years of slashing their military budgets and triggered new spending and deployments within Eastern Europe. Russia was kicked out of the G7 and suffered severe economic contraction following Western sanctions. The absence of millions of Crimean and Donbass voters from Ukrainian elections has shifted Ukraine in a decidedly pro-European direction, increasing anti-Russia sentiment and support for NATO membership. Another Russian invasion of Ukraine would almost certainly spur even larger NATO deployments in Eastern Europe and turn neighboring countries against Russia.

Putin regards NATO expansion as not only a threat to Russia’s sphere of influence, but also to his regime, which seeks to create a buffer of failed democracies that will shield its illiberal, autocratic ideology from the West. For Central and Eastern European countries that were closed off from the West by the Iron Curtain, membership in NATO was a way for their leaders to assert a new, non-communist identity and to enhance their countries’ prospects of joining the European Union. Ukraine and Georgia aspire to join NATO for these very ideological reasons in addition to their security needs. Consequently, Russian state-controlled media disseminates an increasing amount of propaganda discrediting the alliance while Putin stokes divisions by bolstering nationalist political movements within NATO countries that align with his illiberal ideology.

Grieving and Deceiving

Putin’s grievances against the NATO military security “threat” are tactical. They are designed to deflect attention from Russia’s imperial intentions in Ukraine, present Russia’s military buildup as a legitimate response to historical wrongs, and shift responsibility onto Washington for the breakdown in bilateral relations. This rhetorical strategy recalls the Cold War technique of “treasuring of grievances,” a phenomenon identified by Philip Mosely in his 1961 compendium Negotiating with the Russians.

“The Soviet official covers up his own aggressive behavior and lack of substantive proposals by piling on grievances, real or imaginary, against the negotiating adversary usually amid disconcerting ripostes and accusations of bad faith.”

The West’s diplomats and analysts should pay close attention to Putin’s rhetoric, but be careful not to interpret his grievance narrative at face value. What Putin describes as a legitimate pursuit for the security of the Russian homeland is, in fact, an illegitimate excuse to extend Russia’s territorial reach and illiberal influence into Ukraine. If power and ideological conquest are his aims, then ruling out Ukrainian membership in NATO will not appease Putin. Such a concession would not only amount to a betrayal of Ukraine but would allow Putin to go unpunished for his aggression and embolden him to create and inflate more grievances. The West must recognize the tactical nature of Russia’s grievance narrative or risk letting Putin upend the post-Cold War European order in the name of security.

Yasmin Samrai ’22 is a senior at Stanford University studying History and Economics. Last year, she wrote an honors thesis at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) on “The Geopolitical Blame Game: Russia’s Strategy of Weaponizing Grievances against the West.”

Don’t be Duped by Putin’s Grievances against NATO was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Taehwa Hong

This commentary was originally published in Foreign Policy

There’s been a lot of attention paid to the danger of intensifying U.S.-China competition, and to ways to reduce tensions. However, a poorly executed detente presents its own risks to international security, creating an unstable situation in East Asia that could spiral into its own disaster.

Right now, both domestic U.S. and international opposition to Chinese aggression seemingly preclude a detente, but the possibility is still there. If the escalating tension in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea lead to a crisis that falls short of a military conflict and is resolved without a clear and definitive settlement, the chances of a U.S.-China detente, mirroring the U.S.-Soviet detente after the Cuban missile crisis, will grow. The possibility of war can — rightly — scare both sides, but this may also not lead to a stable peace.

Already the economic costs of confrontation and technological decoupling are pushing business and political leaders to advocate a modus operandi of defusing the tension. Other areas of possible cooperation might drive a push for de-escalation. A majority of Americans and allied populations, especially in Europe, consider climate change a top national security threat — and there are regular calls for compromise with China to address this issue. America’s current mood of isolation and retrenchment adds to the possibility of detente.

It’s not difficult to imagine what this could look like on the U.S. side. Washington and Beijing could agree on an informal division of influence within the so-called first island chain along the eastern edge of Asia. The United States could reduce troops in the region or revise alliance treaties to limit the scope of security guarantees, and such decisions could coincide with the host country’s domestic political situation, as demonstrated by the threatened termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines in 2020. The join initiatives of Japan, India, Australia, and the United States — known together as the Quad — could be restricted to nonmilitary dimensions.

Whatever the specifics, the perception of the detente would be shaped by China’s own concessions, such as toning down its rhetoric against Taiwan or reducing its military presence in the South China Sea. But, realistically, none of Beijing’s offers will alter its position as the dominant regional power relative to its neighbors. Without a fundamental shift in either China’s aspirations or capability, a premature detente could well be perceived by allies as a quasi-abandonment of the region. And unlike the United States, there are commitments — like revanchism over Taiwan — that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) simply cannot surrender without risking domestic political crisis. Washington’s regional commitments, however long-standing, would be much easier to abandon politically.

Despite the common notion that East Asia is Washington’s priority theater, the fear of abandonment remains tangible. During the Trump administration’s negotiations with North Korea, South Korea and Japan were anxious that a grand bargain — where North Korea dismantled its intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the U.S. mainland and some nuclear weapons in return for reduced U.S. presence in the peninsula — could entail their abandonment.

A perceived U.S. withdrawal could trigger a wave of ultranationalism, precipitating an arms race, potentially even a nuclear one. Given China’s and its neighbors’ incompatible ideologies, coupled with Beijing’s authoritarian vision for the regional order, East Asian countries are likely to balance against, rather than bandwagon with, China.

Calls for nuclear armament are already growing in South Korea, especially among conservatives. Japan’s postwar Peace Constitution will likely be untenable in the context of perceived U.S. withdrawal.

Analysts often point to the economic interdependence between China and its neighbors. However, growing anti-China sentiment across the region could align the foreign-policy elite and the population’s drive for large-scale armament, even at its economic costs. The trade conflict between South Korea and Japan in 2019, resulting from a wave of intense nationalism, demonstrates how such sentiments might overwhelm economic rationales, especially when combined with a sense of existential threat from China.

Granted, the original U.S.-China detente in the 1970s had exactly the opposite effect. It produced thaws across the Bamboo Curtain in East Asia. In 1972, the two Koreas produced the “July 4th North-South Joint Statement,” the first of its kind. China and Japan normalized diplomatic relations the same year. However, the situation is dramatically different today.

In 1972, South Korean President Park Chung-hee temporarily abandoned his anti-communist hard line for inter-Korean reconciliation, primarily because he feared a total U.S. withdrawal. He was concerned that not playing along with Washington’s peace initiatives could accelerate withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea. He also sought to use the nominal thaw to buy time to prepare South Korea, then an impoverished nation, against a potential North Korean invasion. Lastly, Park hoped to strengthen the legitimacy of his regime, a military dictatorship, by adopting his leftist political rivals’ dovish position on inter-Korean affairs.

From the onset of the 1950s, Japanese elites sought reconciliation with China. Domestic business interests, along with growing socialist voices, favored improved relations with China so much that by the 1970s, even the conservative Liberal Democratic Party campaigned on pledges for reconciliation. Most importantly, Beijing at the time had neither the intent nor the capacity to pursue unrivaled hegemony in the region, particularly in the presence of the Soviet Union — its biggest perceived threat. China was even willing to push aside territorial contentions and Japan’s wartime atrocities for diplomatic normalization. In fact, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka concluded that normalizing relations with Beijing provided a “stronger security guarantee than having an Asian NATO.”

In 2022, however, the landscapes have changed radically. Seoul is ready to boost its already expanding military programs in the event of a U.S. withdrawal. The tensions in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea constantly remind the South Korean foreign-policy establishment of two cold truths: that they could get trapped into an unwanted conflict and that South Korea might not be a strategic priority in the broader competition between the great powers. Now one of the world’s largest economies, Seoul is likely to engage in independent military buildup.

Domestic South Korean politics is also moving in the opposite direction than in 1972. It is telling that the outgoing Moon Jae-in administration faces piercing criticisms for a supposedly supine stance toward Beijing. Some conservatives advocate requesting Washington redeploy tactical nuclear weapons — which were removed in 1991 as the Cold War drew to a close — to the peninsula to elicit Beijing’s cooperation in denuclearizing North Korea. Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s tenure has already created a rare consensus among conservatives and progressives that a strong national military should bolster the South Korean-U.S. alliance, rather than excessively relying on Washington. A further sign of U.S. retrenchment or abandonment is highly likely to kick-start discussions of weapons development, particularly after the May 2021 termination of the U.S.-South Korea Ballistic Missile Range Guidelines that prohibited Seoul’s acquisition of missiles over a range of greater than 800 kilometers (about 500 miles).

Japan has maintained surprisingly strong ties with China despite its role in the Quad and the U.S.-led alliance system. Economic interdependence is at the crux of the relations; belying calls for Western decoupling from China, Japanese companies such as Toyota are adding major investments there. Despite the hawkish factions within their cabinets and party, both former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his successor Yoshihide Suga, who has also since left office, pursued a warm policy toward China. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Abe had invited Xi Jinping for his first visit to Japan as the CCP’s general secretary. However in the face of increasingly aggressive China, Japan is intensifying cooperation with India and Vietnam, including a potential trilateral forum in the Indo-Pacific.

In August 2021, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party held a 2+2 meeting with Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, infuriating Beijing. Japan has been the most vocal Asian country in criticizing China’s actions in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Ultimately, a warm China policy is strictly conditioned upon the premise that the U.S.-Japan alliance remains intact, an indispensable precondition for the 1972 normalization. A U.S.-China detente in which Japan felt betrayed would reshape Tokyo’s calculations. Having already expanded its defense budget beyond the informal guideline of 1 percent of GDP, Japan is likely to embark on a more assertive, if not military, move at the sign of a dangerous U.S.-China compromise.

Unlike Europe, which has promoted arms control — at least locally — since the end of World War II, Asia is traditionally unfamiliar with collective arms control. In fact, China’s neighbors have records of mobilizing their economies for national security interests. The miracle of South Korea’s economic success stemmed from a focus on heavy industry, initially intended to foster the defense industry to boost its military against North Korea.

Hostile China-Russian relations, the pillar of the original detente, has been replaced with a close partnership bordering on an outright alliance. In 2022, China’s neighbors perceive substantial Chinese threats to their territorial integrity. Chinese advances in the Yellow Sea, along with its saber-rattling over the uninhabited islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, suggest the security fear is far from hypothetical. A report compiled by the Republic of Korea Army in March 2020 singled out the People’s Liberation Army Northern Command as the largest security threat to the peninsula. Then-Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso asserted last year that “Okinawa could be next” after China’s bid to take over Taiwan. A poorly managed U.S.-China detente in 2022 would likely generate intense security competition.

This is not to say that Washington and Beijing should push for a military clash. Rather, the United States should ensure that its allies’ interests and concerns are reflected in any agreements signed with China. For example, signing comprehensive trade agreements with China when steel and aluminum tariffs on U.S. allies are in place could send the wrong message. Ceasing joint military exercises without consultation with allies — as Trump did after his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in 2018 — would amplify fears of Washington’s intent.

Accommodating Beijing’s technological influence in such areas as 5G mobile infrastructure, as advocated by some business interests both in the United States and across Asia, will in the long term render U.S. allies hostage to weaponized dependence. Washington has previously signed deals with adversaries that disregard its allies’ interests; it defied Israel and Gulf partners’ protests to sign the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, and it ignored Indian and European concerns when signing the Doha agreement with the Taliban in 2020. This should not be the case when dealing with China.

U.S. allies should enhance cooperation among themselves, including with partners that lack a formal security treaty with Washington, and built interoperable forces. In particular, South Korea and Japan should strengthen ties not only to anchor the United States’ presence in the region but also to devise a security structure that can cushion any adverse impact of a U.S.-China compromise that does not reflect their interests. Washington should proactively mediate between the two allies over the historical issues that have caused bitterness between Seoul and Tokyo, preventing them from pursuing urgent geopolitical cooperation.

Washington and its allies can redefine collective security commitment to include nonmilitary domains such as cyberattacks and economic coercion. Chinese aggressions in the so-called gray zone are designed to test the resolve of collective defense. In particular, trade coercion and supply chain disruptions, if are not explicitly covered in the security treaties, could weaken the basis of collective security in an era when economy and security are inexorably intertwined. China has repeatedly shown its willingness to use such tools. Responses to these threats do not have to be military, either — proportional, targeted measures would prevent unconventional conflicts from spiraling out of control, as would expressly including these in security treaties. As with traditional military threats, deterrence functions when there is a solid assumption of reciprocity.

China on its part should not pursue hegemony over Asia by weakening U.S. alliances. China’s Zhou Enlai, who spearheaded the Japan-China Joint Communique in 1972, accepted the U.S.-Japan alliance, including its coverage of Taiwan; he believed a U.S. presence was an impediment to the resurgence of Japan’s militarism. Beijing should realize that its neighbors will not accept its version of the Asian order, which will likely resemble a mix of traditional Asian suzerainty and the 19th-century Concert of Europe — a hierarchical structure that overshadows sovereign equality, and where nationalism and liberalism are squashed for the sake of stability.

About the author: Taehwa Hong is a junior at Stanford University (’23) majoring in International Relations. He is currently working as a research assistant for Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro, an expert on China, military strategy and security at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center (APARC) and the Center for International Cooperation and Security (CISAC).

U.S.-China Detente Would Pose Its Own Dangers was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Nora Swidey

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the American people and government have been fearing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil by foreign-born jihadists. However, in the two decades since 9/11, this country has witnessed just one deadly attack of this nature. At the same time, an even more dangerous threat has been forming on our very own soil. The Jan. 6 Capitol raid showed just how vicious domestic right-wing terrorists can be.

The domestic threat is not new, but it has been long overlooked as a security priority. Even more troubling, it’s on the rise. A Washington Post analysis of The Center for Strategic and International Studies data found that domestic terrorism incidents in this country reached an all-time high in 2020. Of the domestic terrorist attacks from January 2015 to January 2021, right-wing extremists are responsible for 267 and left-wing extremists for 66.

What explains this dramatic spike? Trump’s presidency emboldened homegrown extremist groups, giving them legitimacy from the highest office in the land. Trump’s first year in office saw a stunning 70 percent increase in far-right violent attacks. His rhetoric meets four out of five indicators of “dangerous speech,” a framework developed by Susan Benesch to identify speech that has a good chance of leading to violence, and his policies fueled the white nationalist agenda. His call from the debate stage in 2020 for the white supremacist Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” exemplified his support of right-wing violence. In this context, the Jan. 6 Capitol raids can be viewed not as an aberration but instead as the crescendo of his four-year record of reckless incitement.

Despite this growing threat from home, public sentiment and policy has remained more wary of jihadists. One reason for this distorted threat assessment involves the popular American depiction of what a terrorist is. In the U.S., a Muslim perpetrator is almost always labeled a terrorist while far-right domestic extremists are more often classified as mass-shooters. A study on mass shootings found that 39 percent of events classified as mass-shootings met all four criteria of terrorism, indicating that the U.S. often disregards the terrorist intent behind these forms of violence. Increased fear around jihadist events might be both the fuel for, and the result of, this finding. If we don’t even acknowledge white right-wing extremists as terrorists, how can we properly combat the serious threat they present?

The Islamophobia that accompanied the War on Terror helped fuel the right-wing movement which capitalized on the fear following 9/11, launching anti-Muslim campaigns and marrying them with anti-immigrant and white-supremacist agendas. This societal fixation on jihadist terrorist gave far-right groups only more fuel for their recruitment drives. And while these groups spread on American soil, the U.S. government was preoccupied overseas, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. A review of government counter-terrorism spending reflects these distorted priorities. The Stimson Center reported that, from 2002 to 2017, the U.S. spent less than $80 billion on domestic counterterrorism efforts, a tiny fraction of the nearly $3 trillion in estimated total counter-terrorism spending over that period.

Some people contend that the U.S. government’s laser-like focus on foreign jihadists is to thank for the relative dearth of jihadist terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11 attacks. While the U.S. government’s decision to flood the zone with resources to fight jihadists may have had a deterrent effect on new plots, a more plausible argument is al-Qaeda got what it wanted by drawing the world’s most powerful nation into an all-consuming forever war it can never win. The Costs of War Project at Brown University released a new assessment that is more comprehensive than the Stimson Center study, and it finds that the U.S. has spent $8 trillion fighting terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since the Sept. 11 attacks.

And what does this nation have to show for this treasury-depleting outlay? As the messy exit of U.S. forces in Afghanistan last month shows: nothing good. Despite all the lost American and Afghan lives over the last 20 years, the Taliban still wrested control of the country as the U.S. forces departed.

The American anti-terrorism plan cannot consist only of a never-ending war overseas. First and foremost, we need to clean up our own backyard and root out domestic terrorism.

Combating foreign-orchestrated jihadist terrorism should certainly remain a security concern, but the U.S. must move past the War on Terror era and recognize times have changed. Luckily, the Biden Administration represents a sharp contrast from the Trump-era support of far-right extremists. Biden’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism is the first of its kind and promises over $100 million to combating the threat.

A hefty budget will not solve this problem alone, however. American society must follow suit and condemn right-wing domestic terrorists as strongly as they did jihadist terrorists post-9/11.

Right-wing extremist ideology is pervasive and dangerous. It preys on people’s fears of being “replaced” and deep histories of racism. According to the Dangerous Speech Project, one effective way to stop the spread of these groups is to “inoculate” the audience against inflammatory speech by teaching them to recognize and resist it.

The new domestic terrorism plan vaguely mentions programs to improve internet literacy and resistance to online recruitment. To effectively break the cycle of dangerous ideas that fuel this violence, the Department of Education should focus on implementing anti-racism education in public schools. This approach has been effective in other countries, like Germany, Norway, and New Zealand, experiencing a rise in right-wing extremism. Unfortunately, many Republican states have already passed laws banning programs like this, labeling them as divisive. So, it will take a Herculean effort to accomplish the societal change necessary. If combating domestic terrorism is truly a priority of the new administration though, they must try.

The Department of Justice will surely be a major part of addressing the threat as well, but the Biden plan already allocates more resources for the Department of Justice and the FBI to hire new analysts, investigators, and prosecutors, as well as provide better training to aid investigations and prevent threats before they come to fruition. The plan also discusses the possibility of creating specific legislation to explicitly outlaw domestic terrorism. Both free speech absolutists and civil rights activists have raised concerns over this law, arguing that the FBI and other relevant organizations already have sufficient jurisdiction to interrupt these threats: all they need to do is exercise it. And so, a broader societal campaign to recognize the present threat may be more effective in condemning domestic terrorists as well as in encouraging government organizations to do their jobs to prevent these attacks.

While there will be no simple way to neutralize domestic terrorism, we will have no hope of meeting that challenge if we fail to first acknowledge just how clear and present a danger it represents.

Nora Swidey, a Stanford student at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), wrote this opinion piece as part of her coursework in CISAC’s PS114S, International Security in a Changing World.

Current momentum exists at the national level for the development of Internet of Things (IoT) security. These initiatives focus on consumer-based IoT and ignore Industrial IoT (IIoT). Consumer-based IoT security is critical in dampening the effects of malicious software globally but does not directly address the ever-present security vulnerabilities in IIoT. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, should capitalize on the existing momentum for IoT device security and make efforts to address IIoT security standardization and collaboration.

IoT security

An analysis of the security risks of internet of things devices is a well-worn path. While adherence to Lee’s Sliding Scale of Cybersecurity is often overlooked, doing so would likely significantly diminish the risks associated. Lee’s scale does have limitations. Many of the recommendations are not necessarily applicable to IoT devices that fall outside the norm of consumer and enterprise networks, namely Industrial Control Systems (ICS). IoTs in ICS are a known risk, sometimes overlooked in research due to the lack of scalable solutions, and can create devastating impacts if left vulnerable.

Attempts to address IoT vulnerabilities with policy solutions at the federal level were arguably stagnant. This changed recently with President Biden’s executive order (EO) on May 12th. The EO took several significant steps towards addressing these problems. One of the critical elements of this order is the creation of a working group to establish a standardized IoT labeling system. The labeling system, while a long time coming, focuses on consumer IoT. Addressing security concerns in consumer IoT is a laudable and applicable effort in support of CISA’s goals, but fails to address the critical vulnerability of Industrial IoT, or IIoT, devices.

Why labeling?

While the executive order section 4t explicitly addresses consumer-based IoT, a quick look at the strategy demonstrates the expandable value into other areas. Labeling of IoT devices does not only impact how consumers behave, but also manufacturers. Market research indicates a preference for more secure IoT devices. Additionally, consumers are willing to pay a premium for peace of mind.

With a standardized label, product purchasing managers can make informed decisions, thereby improving the overall security of a network. This purchasing incentive may not translate directly to IIoT for two reasons. First, due to the different types of products that IIoT purchasers are acquiring. IIoT differs from consumer devices due to their specialization, limited functionality, and often tailor-made functions. This makes standardizing security functions nearly impossible across the sector. Secondly, the age of existing IIoT systems and the rarity at which they are replaced must be considered. Even if critical infrastructure (CI) owners aimed to purchase “four-star” security devices, it would likely be years before crucial system elements are replaced. The need to “buy the latest device” in critical infrastructure does not appear to exist. Efficient functionality, or in triad terms, “availability,” is paramount. As long as availability is assured, a CI operator has a limited likelihood of replacing that device.

Labeling IIoT devices as a course of action should not be abandoned. CISA, as the principal government liaison to critical infrastructure, should use the tailwind of these new initiatives to improve the security of these devices that play vital roles in national security.

CISA capitalization on current momentum

CISA can utilize several vital ingredients from the Executive Order to directly target the IIoT challenges to CI. Namely, the development of a working group for IIoT standards, the establishment of minimum security standards for devices utilized in CI, require minimum standards in federal and contract purchasing, and the adoption of a labeling scheme that focuses predominately on the “CIA” triad geared toward device function rather than placement.

Development of a working group for IIoT standards

The previously mentioned Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity establishes in Section 4(t) a working group to “identify IoT cybersecurity criteria for a consumer labeling program.” The recommendation flowed from similar recommendations published by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s Report. This requirement brings together the Department of Commerce (DoC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and others to establish these criteria. There is little that would impede creating a similar commission that focused exclusively on IIoT devices in CI.

Participants in the suggested working group will vary from the consumer IoT working group. The Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, Transportation, and Energy all have critical roles. CISA’s Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) membership would serve as an excellent starting point for sector representatives.

Creating another working group does not at its surface appear to be a novel idea; however, there is a significant difference. Existing working groups utilize best practices and information sharing continually as their overarching goal to combat emerging threats. This serves well to address problems in specific, but without a fundamental baseline, the approach will always be “whack a mole.” The recommended solution is not an ongoing working group, but instead establishes standardized minimum standards that cross technologies. This challenge is more complicated than it appears due to the diversity of devices at issue. How do you standardize these metrics? A traditional cybersecurity principle may hold the answer.

Focusing on the CIA Triad

Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability… The CIA triad is a fundamental discussion point in the digital security community. Rather than prescribing minimum technical standards or safeguards, first, identifying which element is most critical for the device should take center stage. Members of this working group should establish levels of security based on these functions. Manufacturers can then identify the device’s primary function to determine where best to spend research funds, and purchasers can purchase based on device use. When devices are required to perform multiple functions, whichever role holds the highest priority should take precedence.

Establish minimum security standards for IIoT used in CI

These foundational standards by function could be translated into an IIoT label, capitalizing on existing momentum. With these levels by function, federal regulators could establish a minimum score required for use in CI. For example, a device where confidentiality is the primary function must have a confidentiality score of at least 3 of 4.

Government-funded purchasing and Minimum Standards

The above would pair well with the recently ordered IoT device purchasing standards established by the Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020. The federally required minimums could map to levels in the IIoT labeling scheme. This would allow for easy compliance in purchasing. An additional consideration for the benefits of a level-based labeling program is the effect on manufacturer incentives. With levels that denote increased security, manufacturers are encouraged to exceed minimum standards through competition. Labels with pass/fail measures minimize manufacturers’ incentive to invest in security beyond a “passing standard.”

Other Initiatives

The IIoT sector is also primed for innovation. With limited product replacement, there may be little incentive to innovate. “If it works, it works.” CISA, in conjunction with DHS, could work to form an IIoT innovation group dedicated to making better mousetraps, of sorts. The business incentive for innovating on already performing equipment is low. Still, with national funding for innovation, development does not necessarily have to fit within the confines of best business practices.

CISA, through DHS, may also consider the development of an IIoT version of the Idaho National Labs, run by the Department of Energy. This location would allow for testing new technology on non-production networks to determine their security and functionality before installing in critical infrastructure. This step is essential to make sure that new devices will not impede the functioning of CI. It would also alleviate the costs associated with individual builds of redundant systems.

Conclusion

CISA continues to be a trusted federal organization in the cybersecurity domain. This trust as a non-partisan arbiter could capitalize on the existing momentum to secure IoT devices. Using CISA’s role of support for critical infrastructure, it could lead efforts to establish a labeling system for industrial IoT that increases ease of compliance with federal law and overall device security. A label based on levels of security by function within the CIA triad could be used to drive purchasing decisions and ease of regulation at the state and local levels. Additionally, adopting a level system will discourage a bare minimum mentality among manufacturers. Opportunities are not limited to labeling. The development of an innovation institute for IIoT could also yield results in a stagnant field. A national laboratory for IIoT would also alleviate costs associated with testing new products. CISA will continue to be the voice for critical infrastructure security at the federal level, so they must use this voice to speak now while others are listening.

The opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the authors alone and not representative of their employers or associated entities.

About the author: Dathan Duplichen is a master’s student with FSI’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program concentrating on Cyber Policy and Security. He is a career technology specialist for the United States Department of Defense that focuses on international cooperation in the cyberspace.

CISA and IIoT: Time to Grab the Reigns was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A partnership between four students of the Stanford Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy (MIP) program and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy has culminated in a long-awaited and direly needed coalition to help micro, small and medium sized businesses (MIPyMEs) in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

With the support of Blas L. Pérez Henríquez of Stanford’s Mexico Clean Economy 2050 and MIP faculty and administration, the graduating students hosted a widely attended and highly commended co-creation workshop that brought together almost 50 government officials, universities and research centers, funders and development banks as well as community leaders and business associations over the course of two days.

Committed to Solutions

Every year, graduating students of the MIP program, part of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), are assigned a real policy problem with an external partner to apply their two-year learning experience and produce innovative solutions. The experience is part of the Capstone Practicum of the Policy Change Studio taught by professors Francis Fukuyama and Jeremy Weinstein.

When Angela Ortega Pastor, Hallie Lucas, Samantha Lee and Serage Amatory were assigned NREL as their partner, they were tasked to address the “lack of access to reliable, inexpensive, and clean energy for microbusinesses in the Yucatan Peninsula.” At that point their work could have either become a successful completion of a graduation requirement or been taken beyond the limits of the classroom and turned into a real, sustainable and concrete solution. Samantha Lee confirms that her team has opted for the latter. “As a team, we had decided right from the start that we wanted this project to have real impact on real people,” said Lee. “That goal drove us to reach out to more stakeholders on the ground and be more thoughtful about the solutions we were developing, which eventually culminated in this co-creation workshop.”

Gathering Stakeholders

The team organized their two-day workshop around key themes of problem identification, solution development and implementation. They concluded that access to affordable finance remains the ultimate obstacle for businesses in the Yucatán Peninsula who seek to invest in energy efficiency and clean generation upgrades.

Team member Hallie Lucas further contextualized the problem: “MIPyMEs in the Yucatan pay the second highest electricity tariff in Mexico, so there is significant potential for energy cost-savings on both the generation and demand side…However, the upfront capital needed to finance these systems is cost-prohibitive for many MIPyMEs that operate in the informal economy and are assessed a high risk premium by formal lending institutions.”

From their extensive work, research, and conversations with vital stakeholders over the past six months, the team engendered three critical action points to address the barriers to clean energy investments:

1. access to finance
2. cost of finance
3. financial and technical literacy.

Team member Angela Ortega Pastor expressed her pride in “the level of enthusiasm and commitment from participants.’’ She said that the team “could not have pulled it together without the guidance and feedback of all partners — especially FSI who provided great insights into how to host a successful zoom conference and allowed us to have live interpretation, which was a serious game changer and took our event to the next level.”

In light of the pandemic restrictions, costs of the workshop were covered by MIP in lieu of the usual funding dedicated for a field trip.

Defining the Action Plan

Following the April MIPyMEs Verdes co-creation workshop series, the Stanford-NREL team remains determined to work alongside local partners to address each of the three key barriers in turn. The team has proposed a solution that leverages payment of month-to-month electricity bills as an alternative measure of credit and establishes a community revolving fund to help MIPyMEs build or improve their formal credit history through microloan energy efficiency investments.

The team has recommended a pilot phase in the form of a social impact lab, implemented by partners in local government and academia to test this theory of change. Additionally, the team sees significant potential for a fintech solution in the form of an online platform that integrates publicly available financial data and utility payments to automate alternative credit-ratings and provide recommendations on suitable financing schemes. By using simple user-input metrics and decreasing informational asymmetries between lenders and borrowers, such a platform could help more MIPyMEs gain access to the affordable financing they need.

Putting Community First

From the outset, the Stanford team has sought to center community agency and leadership and to maximize social and environmental co-benefits of energy cost savings wherever possible. Serage Amatory affirmed his team’s vehement belief in the importance of meticulously considering the social impact of the program, stating that “any intervention that fails to consider the well-being of the community, the environment and the end-users will be rendered incomplete and probably counter-productive.” He proceeded to explain that besides aspiring to create a scalable model of a clean economy, their project will empower micro, small and medium sized business owners and will promote access to credit for indigenous and women-business owners who face disproportionate barriers to doing so.

After the end of their Stanford journeys this June, Samantha Lee and Angela Ortega Pastor reiterate that “the team remains committed to our goals and looks forward to continuing our work with partners in the region.” Discussions with NREL, the Stanford Mexico Clean Economy 2050 and MIP are ongoing regarding taking this initiative forward.

Learn more about Stanford’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy (MIP) program.

Stanford Students on Track to Bring Clean, Affordable Energy to Businesses in the Yucatan… was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Dathan Duplichen

The Ukrainian tech sector is poised to cross ten percent of GDP, generates $360 million US Dollars (USD) in tax revenue, and accounts for over $5 billion USD in exports. As a percentage of commercial services as a whole it equated to 53.05% in 2019. The growing significance of this sector to the Ukrainian economy is evident. In order to continue rapid growth, the sector is beginning a shift from IT Outsourcing to IT Service. A brief history of the Ukrainian tech sector allows for insight into how a sector that once could not afford to keep the telephone on, is now the second largest exporter in Ukraine.

Ukraine in Transition: Adapting to Independence

During the Soviet period Ukraine served as the second largest research and development region, second only to Russia. This resulted in a high quantity of technically trained talent during the period; however, their research focused primarily on material science and mineral extraction. After independence in 1991, the tech sector entered a period of stagnation. The largest purchaser of goods, Russia, was no longer a major market for the sector. Leadership struggled to carve a unique path for the industry, weighted down by nomenklatura appointees. Finally, foreign direct investment focused heavily on Russia as the presumptive heir to the Soviet Union, along with their nuclear stockpile. The side effect was a market slippage of 36%.

Post-Euromaidan: Tech Finds Momentum

Prior to Euromaidan, the IT Sector accounted for only .06% of GDP (2012). In 2020, it was estimated to cross 10%. The sector averaged over 20% growth rates in the last five years. The high-quality tech talent, business shifts toward IT outsourcing, and fiscal stabilization measures served as fuel for this growth. In 2016, Ukraine became the largest IT outsourcing destination in Europe, third globally. In addition, Ukraine ranks third globally to locate advanced technical skills. Inflation rates, once 10,000 percent in 1993, came under control to six percent in January 2021. The unicorn status of GitLab and WhatsApp, as well as the pending status of Grammarly and Preply, has observers wondering if Ukraine is the next “unicorn factory.”

This recognition and reputation is not going to waste. Businesses in Ukraine are beginning to shift models. IT outsourcing laid the groundwork for building reputation a for talent in the region, but the sector must diversify in order to continue growth. To accomplish this, a model of IT service consulting is being adopted. This model places Ukrainian tech companies at the center of the development process of projects rather than simply working on a singular element. The expansion comes with new opportunities and challenges. The requirement for growing numbers of technical specialists is beginning to impact the sector. For the 16,000 graduates entering the market in Ukraine annually, nearly 30,000 jobs are created.

Future Opportunities

As the tech sector in Ukraine shifts there are several opportunities for the government to enable growth. First is through targeted taxing opportunities. Research and development centers are becoming commonplace in Ukraine. Google’s R&D center, opened in 2020, joined Samsung, Amazon, Siemens, Huawei, Oracle, and Boeing’s existing centers. For each new job created at an R&D center four supporting positions are created. By targeting tax incentives to support the creation of these centers, the Ukrainian government could provide an avenue to address the World Bank reported 8.93% unemployment rate.

A second opportunity is expanding sector integration across the mining and agricultural sectors. These sectors rank first and third in exports and comprise a major portion of the Ukrainian economy. Unfortunately, only ten percent of agribusinesses use new technologies. Adopting new technologies can increase crop productivity, decrease input costs, increase worker safety, and increase overall agricultural efficiency. Perhaps the most important side effect of new technology is the more efficient use of chemical pesticides. Doing so will help prolong the cultivation cycles of the critical black soil deposits of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian IT Creative Fund was developed to prioritize the creation of direct academic pathways for technical specialists, increase funding opportunities for education, and provide grants to junior academics working in the tech space. This fund is a great opportunity for talent generation and support. It does not address talent retention. Emmigration of talent in Ukraine continues to be a challenge as qualified workers exit the state. A scholarship for service option could increase the longevity of the domestic talent workforce by requiring government, or non-profit, service for a period of time in exchange for scholarships. This would invest in local talent and allow the government to incentivize work in high priority areas.

The July 2020, the creation of the National Intellectual Property Authority(NIPA) was a significant step taken by the Rada to address a growing concern. As the tech sector moves toward a knowledge driven business model that relies on proprietary consulting strategies and unique software development, intellectual property(IP) rights are becoming increasingly important. Additionally, IP theft is a deterrent to foreign investment in research and development centers. Queen Mary University of London provides several recommendations that should be considered to continue strengthening these rights. Amongst the recommendations is the decentralization of the IP court from Kyiv to allow greater access to Ukrainians. Secondly, IP law fails to adequately address the jurisdictional status of non-private IP claims, such as tax and customs disputes. This ambiguity should be addressed. The report suggests all IP related claims fall under the authority of the IP Court. This would serve an additional value of centralizing court systems that would be required to deal with technical data, leading to a final recommendation of note. The creation of a scientific panel of experts should assemble to advice the IP court regarding matters of technological detail to ensure consistency and impartial judgement.

Moving Forward

The Ukrainian tech sector continues to grow despite the ongoing pandemic and conflicts in the region. An opportunity to accelerate that growth is available with several tailored government policies. The Ukrainian government recently decided to increase taxes on foreign tech corporations operating in Ukraine to generate revenue. Additionally, this strategy is designed to counter foreign-owned corporations competing with domestic entities. This strategy will raise revenue after implementation in 2022, but may undermine the very element that has allowed for rapid growth. After all, Ukraine is not the only country with aspiring tech talent and low labor costs, hello Poland and Romania.

About the author: Dathan Duplichen is a master’s student with FSI’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program concentrating on Cyber Policy and Security. He is a career technology specialist for the United States Department of Defense that focuses on international cooperation in the cyberspace. All opinions expressed in this article are that of the author and do not represent the United States Department of Defense or the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

IT Outsourcing to IT Service: Opportunities for Ukrainian Tech was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Georgian activist Nino Evgenidze discusses the arrest of opposition leader Nika Melia and what it means for Georgia, the region and the world.

By Alice Wenner

Last week, opposition parties in the nation of Georgia vowed to boycott Parliament until the government releases Nika Melia, the leader of Georgia’s main opposition party. Videos posted online following Melia’s arrest show that riot police forcefully entered the building that houses his political party, and used tear gas in order to remove him. Meila’s arrest has caused a political rift within Georgia and is plunging the nation into crisis.

Nino Evgenidze is a Georgian activist, executive director of the Economic Policy Research Center in Tbilisi, and an alumna of the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program at the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Listen and read below for her analysis of Georgia’s turbulent history, the current political climate, and what the rest of the world can do to help her country uphold its democratic values.

On Georgia’s relationships with its neighbors:

“20% of Georgian territory is occupied by Russia. Just 40 kilometers from the capital of Tbilisi — where I live right now — there are Russian troops stationed there. They’re moving across the border every single day, they’re kidnapping people every single day, and they’re killing people every single day. And no one is refusing. No one can stand against this ongoing Russian occupation, unfortunately.

Georgia is like an island in the authoritarian sea. Just look at our neighbors — Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Iran. Georgia is trying to fight for its freedom and democracy, but we’re in a very tough neighborhood.”

On Russia’s expanding influence in the world:

“Over the past decade, Russia has invaded Ukraine, interfered in U.S. elections, and has interfered in European elections as well. This is where we stand now. Putin and the kleptocracy and oligarchy within Russia is not only Georgia’s problem — it’s a global business model of the 21st century.

Russia and the other authoritarian countries are exporting this model to the rest of the world, and proving to them that this Russian-style gangster model works. And maybe countries like the U.S. can contain it because they are very strong. But without international support, it’s almost impossible for a country like Georgia to fight against this phenomenon.”

On Bidzina Ivanishvili, billionaire and former prime minister of Georgia:

“He’s the informal governor of the country, but formally or legally, he’s not responsible for anything. And he’s controlling all different aspects of power within Georgia. Over the past few years, he has been constantly attacking civil society organizations and Western-oriented people who want Georgia to join NATO. And of course, he came from Russia — that’s where he made his money.

If you look at the structure of our economy, Georgian trade mostly relies on Russia, and most investment comes from Russia. Ivanishvili’s presence in this country keeps Georgia close to Putin’s Russia.”

On the importance of U.S. support in Georgia’s time of crisis:

“[Melia’s arrest] was alarming to our international partners, especially the United States and Europe. I believe this is a litmus test for the Biden administration. We were watching Biden’s statement that America is back, democracy is back, foreign policy is back. And now it’s time for him to deliver. This is not only about Georgia’s inside political crisis, it’s also about the Russian special operation against Georgia. And we need the support of the West to survive in this situation.”

What’s Going On in Georgia? was originally published in Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.