The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that Colin Kahl has resumed his position at FSI as the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), effective July 17, 2023. 

Professor Kahl was on a two-year leave of absence from Stanford to serve as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, where he was the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense for defense policy and led the formulation and coordination of national security policy within the Department of Defense. 

Under Kahl’s leadership, the Department rolled out its National Defense Strategy, focusing on the challenge of the People’s Republic of China, and he helped ensure more than $40 billion in security assistance for Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022.

In recognition of his work at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin awarded Kahl with the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. 

“Colin’s work at the Pentagon had a critical impact on our country’s national security,” said Michael McFaul, director at the Freeman Spogli Institute. “Stanford is lucky to have him back. Our students and faculty have much to learn from him.”

Professor Kahl joined FSI in 2017, and became co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, alongside Rodney Ewing, in 2018. He was also a founder and leader of FSI’s Middle East Initiative. 

From June 23 to 25, the world watched as Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private militia Wagner Group, ordered his fighters to  seize the military headquarters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, demanded the resignation of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov, and advanced his forces toward  Moscow.

The rebellion posed the most significant threat to President Vladimir Putin’s power in his 23-year tenure as Russia’s leader. While the mutiny was abruptly called off following a deal brokered by Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko, the effects continue to reverberate throughout Russia, Eastern Europe, and beyond.

Much is still unknown about the mutiny, Prigozhin’s exile in Belarus, and internal disputes within the Kremlin. But long-time Putin watchers and Russia experts agree that the events of the weekend have significantly weakened Putin’s image as an authoritarian strongman and sole commander of Russia.  

Below, scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies offer their analysis of how the mutiny may impact Russia, Putin’s power, and the war in Ukraine.

Ongoing Problems for Putin

Kathryn Stoner

Writing in Journal of Democracy, Kathryn Stoner, the Mosbacher DIrector of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, explains how the rebellion is both a symptom and cause of Putin’s instability as a leader:

“Putin’s rule relies on individual loyalties rather than institutionalized, transparent chains of command and responsibility. This allows him to retain unrivaled control over a hierarchy of patron-client relationships and to change policies quickly before any real internal elite opposition can coalesce. But the result of such a system is that it operates at the mercy of shifting loyalties and is therefore inherently fragile. The Prigozhin rebellion, therefore, is a symptom of this latent instability within Putinism.”

Stoner, who has written previously about the conditions that lead to regime changes in autocracies, offered her insights in The Atlantic on how Putin might try to recoup from the embarrassment caused by the rebellion:  

“What does all of this tell us about what might now be going on in Russia and how Putin might pursue the war in Ukraine going forward? While to us Putin may look weak and ineffective, he will undoubtedly use his control over the Russian media to pin the rebellion on Ukraine, NATO, and Russia’s other enemies. He may even take credit for avoiding mass casualties in a civil war by making a deal with Prigozhin. Spinning the story as best he can, Putin himself will survive, although his carefully crafted myth of competence will be damaged. Over time, this might erode elite confidence, although it is unlikely to result in an open coup attempt anytime soon.”

Stoner believes that there is “much still to learn about all that has transpired,” but that one thing is certain: Putin’s ill-considered war in Ukraine has weakened his grip on Russia.

“Although this is not the end of the war or of Putin,” she says, “the Wagner rebellion might yet prove the beginning of the end of both.”

Risk and harm are set to scale exponentially and may strangle the opportunities generational technologies create. We have a narrow window and opportunity to leverage decades of hard won lessons and invest in reinforcing human dignity and societal resilience globally.

That which occurs offline will occur online, and increasingly there is no choice but to engage with online tools even in a formerly offline space. As the distinction between “real” and “digital” worlds inevitably blurs, we must accept that the digital future—and any trustworthy future web—will reflect all of the complexity and impossibility that would be inherent in understanding and building a trustworthy world offline.

Scaling Trust on the Web, the comprehensive final report of the Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web, maps systems-level dynamics and gaps that impact the trustworthiness and usefulness of online spaces. It highlights where existing approaches will not adequately meet future needs, particularly given emerging metaversal and generative AI technologies. Most importantly, it identifies immediate interventions that could catalyze safer, more trustworthy online spaces, now and in the future.

We are at a pivotal moment in the evolution of online spaces. A rare combination of regulatory sea change that will transform markets, landmarks in technological development, and newly consolidating expertise can open a window into a new and better future. Risk and harm are currently set to scale and accelerate at an exponential pace, and existing institutions, systems, and market drivers cannot keep pace. Industry will continue to drive rapid changes, but also prove unable or unwilling to solve the core problems at hand. In response, innovations in governance, research, financial, and inclusion models must scale with similar velocity.

While some harms and risks must be accepted as a key principle of protecting the fundamental freedoms that underpin that society, choices made when creating or maintaining online spaces generate risks, harms, and beneficial impacts. These choices are not value neutral, because their resulting products do not enter into neutral societies. Malignancy migrates, and harms are not equally distributed across societies. Marginalized communities suffer disproportionate levels of harm online and off. Online spaces that do not account for that reality consequently scale malignancy and marginalization.

Within industry, decades of “trust and safety” (T&S) practice has developed into a field that can illuminate the complexities of building and operating online spaces. Outside industry, civil society groups, independent researchers, and academics continue to lead the way in building collective understanding of how risks propagate via online platforms—and how products could be constructed to better promote social well-being and to mitigate harms.

Please join us in congratulating Didi Kuo, Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FS), and co-author Andrew S. Kelly, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at California State University, East Bay, on being awarded the 2023 Leonard S. Robins Award for the Best Paper on Health Politics and Policy by the American Political Science Association (APSA)!

The Robins Award is named in honor of Leonard S. Robins, who, through his presence and gentle questioning at virtually every health politics panel, graciously nurtured the scholarship of both junior and senior scholars. The award recognizes the best paper on any subject that fits under the rubric of Health Politics and Policy presented at the previous annual APSA meeting.

Kuo and Kelly's award-winning paper, "State Capacity and Public Health: California and COVID-19," investigates the comparative COVID-19 policy response across counties and regions within California. In the description of the 2022 APSA panel "The Politics of Pandemic Response and the Opportunities for Health Policy Reform," during which they presented their paper, it notes that "In moving beyond a consideration of formal state and public health capacity, Kuo and Kelly argue that the more robust policy response of the Bay Area was, in part, a product of partnerships between state and community-based actors. Drawing on the concept of 'embedded autonomy,' Kuo and Kelly reconceptualize public health capacity and consider it within broader issues of state capacity and democracy."

An abstract of the paper can be found below:
 

On March 17, 2020, six counties in the Bay Area jointly issued the nation’s first shelter-in-place orders in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Cities and states across the United States quickly followed suit, with varying degrees of success. Public health officials have been critical in setting policies, enforcing behavioral and non-pharmaceutical interventions, and communicating with the public. This paper explores the determinants of public health capacity, distinguishing between formal institutional capacity (ie budget, staff) and informal embedded capacity (ie community ties, insulation from political pressures). It argues that informal embedded capacity is critical to public health capacity, but difficult to measure empirically. It concludes by relating public health capacity to broader issues of state capacity and democracy.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to announce the release of the third module of mini-lectures in our Solving Public Policy Problems massive open online course (MOOC).

Case studies like this are instrumental to the curriculum for both CDDRL’s Leadership Academy for Development (LAD) and the Masters’ in International Policy (MIP). They address a wide range of issues in developing countries and are designed to encourage you to think critically about key decisions that have led to policy reforms. This video refers to the implementation segment of the Problem-Solving Framework (module 1.3).

Case Study: Gifford Pinchot and Sustainable Forest Management

The year was 1909, and Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester of the United States, faced a terrible personal dilemma. He had discovered a pattern of corruption in the sale of public lands to developers and other private interests. But the new president, William Howard Taft, depended on support from western Republicans and had placed a gag order on the whole affair. Pinchot was outraged at this evidence of corruption reaching the White House, but he wanted to give Taft a fair hearing. The new president had, after all, vowed to support conservation and strong control over federal lands. Taft invited Pinchot to the White House, where he alternately implored Pinchot not to go public with the matter and threatened him with dismissal if he violated the gag order. Pinchot had in his pocket a letter that could expose the scandal. This case explores the dilemma of Pinchot, a mid-level bureaucrat dependent on a president’s good will, and the strategies available to him. It shows the power of a single leader and the similarities the United States once had with many developing nations struggling with widespread corruption.

Through this case, students will gain a better understanding of how good communication is important for persuading stakeholders that a reform objective is both achievable and beneficial.

You can read the case study here, access the full series on our YouTube page, and watch Module 3 below: