the chronicle - council on foreign relations · the chronicle spring 2017 task force calls for...

Task Force Calls for Boosting Strategic Commitments in the Arctic

CFR.org Has a New Look Page 2

Steven Cook Recounts the Failures of Middle East Uprisings in New Book Page 11

Global Think Tank Leaders Give International Cooperation in 2016 a Low Grade Page 12

Plus Policymakers on the Hill Seek Council Expertise Page 4

Special Report Urges Support for NATO, Reassurances for Russia Page 14

The Chronicle Newsletter of the Council on Foreign Relations — Spring 2017

OFFIC ER S

Carla A. HillsCo-Chairman

Robert E. RubinCo-Chairman

David M. RubensteinVice Chairman

Richard N. HaassPresident

Keith OlsonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

James M. LindsaySenior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair

Nancy D. BodurthaVice President, Meetings and Membership

Irina A. FaskianosVice President, National Program and Outreach

Suzanne E. HelmVice President, Philanthropy and Corporate Relations

Jan Mowder HughesVice President, Human Resources and Administration

Caroline NetchvolodoffVice President, Education

Lisa ShieldsVice President, Global Communications and Media Relations

Jeffrey A. ReinkeSecretary of the Corporation

DI R EC T OR S

John P. AbizaidZoë BairdAlan S. BlinderMary McInnis BoiesDavid G. BradleyNicholas BurnsTony ColesDavid M. CoteSteven A. DenningBlair EffronLaurence D. FinkStephen FriedmanTimothy F. GeithnerRichard N. Haass (ex officio)Stephen J. HadleyPeter B. HenryJ. Tomilson HillCarla A. Hills

Susan HockfieldDonna J. HrinakShirley Ann JacksonJames Manyika William H. McRavenJami Miscik Janet A. NapolitanoEduardo J. PadrónJohn PaulsonRichard L. PleplerRuth PoratDavid M. RubensteinRobert E. RubinRichard E. SalomonJames G. StavridisMargaret G. WarnerVin WeberDaniel H. Yergin

GLOBAL COMMUN IC AT IONS AND MEDIA RELAT IONS

Lisa ShieldsVice President

Iva ZoricDirector

Anya SchmemannWashington Director

Andrew PalladinoDeputy Director

Melinda WuellnerDeputy Director

Dustin KingsmillAssociate Director

Jenny MallamoAssociate Director

Megan DaleyAssistant Director

Sabrina KhanAssistant Director

Samantha TartasAssistant Director

Eugene SteinbergAssociate Editor

PUBLISH I NG

Patricia DorffEditorial Director

Elizabeth DanaProduction Editor

Erik CrouchAssociate Editor

Sumit PoudyalAssistant Editor

Sherman Chu Don Pollard Sardari.com Photography

Madeleine K. AlbrightMartin S. FeldsteinLeslie H. Gelb

Maurice R. GreenbergPeter G. Peterson

H ONOR A RY AN D EMER I TU S

Cover photo: The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy is one of three operational U.S. icebreakers, seen here breaking ice in the Arctic. (Patrick Kelley/U.S. Coast Guard/Handout/Reuters)

The Chronicle Spring 2017

Task Force Calls for Strategic Commitments in the Arctic 1

CFR.org Has a New Look 2

I MPACT AND AWARDS

Policymakers on the Hill Seek Council Expertise 4

Fadel, Mallaby, and CFR.org Receive Awards 6

PUBLICAT IONS

Foreign Affairs: Trump in Practice 7

New Foreign Affairs Anthology Asks What Was the Liberal Order 9

New Discussion Papers and Corruption Briefs 10

Steven Cook’s New Book, False Dawn 11

International Cooperation Receives Low Grade 12

Robert Knake on Preventing a Cyberattack on U.S. Power Grid 13

Council Special Report on Russia and NATO 14

Memo Considers Renewed Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict 15

E VEN TS

Symposium Contemplates U.S.-Russia Relations 16

CFR Celebrates Diversity at Annual Conference 17

Corporate Conference Looks at Globalization 18

International Affairs Fellowship Program Turns Fifty 19

NE WS ABOU T CFR

The Council Remembers David Rockefeller 21

New Members 23

page 11

page 12

page 21

1The Chronicle, Spring 2017

Task Force Warns U.S. Not to Leave Arctic Interests Unprotected“We are an Arctic nation and it’s time to re-mind ourselves,” remarked Christine Todd Whitman at the Washington launch of a new CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force, Arctic Imperatives: Reinforcing U.S. Strat-egy on America’s Fourth Coast. The report stresses that “the United States needs to in-crease its strategic commitment to the region or risk leaving its interests unprotected.”

Receiving an endorsement from the American Geographical Society, the re-port finds that the United States lags behind other Arctic nations that have “updated their strategic and commercial calculations to take advantage of the changing conditions stemming from the opening of the region.”

The bipartisan Task Force is composed of twenty experts from diverse backgrounds and is chaired by Thad W. Allen, retired ad-miral and former commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, and Christine Todd Whitman, former administrator of the Environmen-tal Protection Agency and governor of New Jersey. The project was directed by Esther Brimmer, a recent CFR adjunct senior fellow for international institutions and executive di-rector and chief executive officer of NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

The Task Force identified six main goals that U.S. policymakers should pursue to protect the United States’ growing eco-nomic and strategic interests in the Arctic:

� Ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Senate should help secure the United States’ legal rights to more than 386,000 square miles of subsea resources along its extended continental shelf by rati-fying this treaty.

� Fund and maintain polar ice-breaking ships. Congress should approve funding for up to six icebreakers to improve operational ca-pacity in the Arctic.

� Improve Arctic infrastructure. Invest in tele-communications, energy, and other infra-structure in Alaska and find locations for safe harbor ports and a deepwater port.

� Strengthen cooperation with other Arc-tic nations. Continue diplomatic efforts within the Arctic Council and work with other Arctic states, including Russia.

� Support sustainable development and Alaska Native communities. “Maintain the [Arctic] Council’s focus on sustainable development, environmental protection, and continued involvement of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples.”

� Fund scientific research. Sustain budget support for research to understand the impact of accelerated climate change.

Read the report at www.cfr.org/ArcticImperatives.

Left to right: Project Director Esther Brimmer and Co-Chairs Thad W. Allen and Christine Todd Whitman, with Los Angeles Times Columnist Doyle McManus at the Arctic Task Force report launch in Washington, DC


CFR.org Has a New LookCFR is excited to announce the launch of the redesigned website. The new CFR.org features a contemporary de-sign and greatly improved navigation, and is fully opti-mized for use on mobile de-vices. Along with the launch, CFR is introducing CFR Campus, a channel designed to highlight educational re-sources for instructors and students of all ages inter-ested in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.

CFR.org will continue to provide timely analysis and explainers on major foreign policy developments. A new trending topics feature and reorganized region and topic pages enables users to get a quicker download on de-velopments. CFR On The Record offers a convenient portal into events, including a vast archive of past meetings.

“The new website gives CFR’s experts and writers a state-of-the-art platform to reach an even broader audi-ence and offers a richer and more in-depth experience for users. It makes it easy to stay informed about our in-creasingly complex world, whether from a desktop, tablet, or mobile phone,” said CFR President Richard N. Haass.

CFR.org will continue to create more video, info-graphics, trackers, podcasts, and interactive content.


Follow CFR’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Insta-gram accounts for more foreign policy insight. CFR welcomes your feedback on the new website. Email [email protected] to share your thoughts about the site.


Policymakers on the Hill Seek Council ExpertiseCFR’s Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy Program, headed by Washington External Affairs Director Patrick C. Costello, con-tinues to extend its reach on Capitol Hill. Since the start of the 115th Congress in Janu-ary, CFR has organized over one hundred meetings and roundtables for members of Congress and their staff. CFR hosts a vari-ety of programming for different Congres-sional audiences:

� The Foreign Policy Breakfast Forum is a principal-level meeting series that has connected senators and representatives with up to a dozen Council members and fellows to consider a policy or national se-curity issue of their choosing.

� The Congressional Senior Staff Round-table series has convened groups of fifty to seventy senior staff members on a near-weekly basis to discuss foreign policy top-ics with CFR fellows.

� The Congressional Foreign Policy Study Group, a competitive program for ex-ceptional congressional staff, has hosted monthly dinners to explore foreign pol-icy matters in-depth with CFR fellows and members.

� In Expert Bank Briefings, CFR experts delivered individualized, in-depth brief-ings and consultations to members of Congress and their staff on a variety of foreign policy issues.

� The program recently hosted its fifth bien-nial congressional staff conference, a day-long program featuring panel discussions on topics ranging from cyber-security to the campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State to the future of the U.S.-China relationship.

� CFR scholars are also often asked to tes-tify before Congress on issues in their areas of expertise.


“Venezuela’s economic, political, and social situation represents both a regional problem and a global affront to democratic values. As such it should be a priority for the current U.S. government, which should in-vest in the necessarily complex, time consuming, and fragile diplomatic processes to push for change, as well as to prepare for the day when it, in fact, may come.” —Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Program Shannon K. O’Neil before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on March 2

“The United States should continue to exercise leadership in advancing interpretations [of international law on cyber issues] that support its strategic interests, including its own operational needs, bearing in mind that we also seek rules that will effectively constrain the behaviors of others.” —Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy Matthew C. Waxman before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 2

“Like the Soviet Union of the 1970s, Iran has embarked on an imperial mission whose costs are more obvious than its benefits. The billions that Iran spends to sustain Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the lavish sums it invests in terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah may offer regional sway, but they further burden the Islamic Republic’s depleted economy.” —Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies Ray Takeyh before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on April 5

“Our military assistance program is pretty much irrelevant to the effort to combat terror in Egypt. The Egyptian military has, as I’ve noted, wanted to spend vast sums on submarines and frigates and high-performance combat jets, all of which are useless in fighting terror and waste scarce resources. I believe we should all be reviewing our own aid to see how it can be made far more useful to the achievement of our own goals.” —Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies Elliott Abrams before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs on April 25


Leila Fadel Reportage Receives Gracie Award

Sebastian Mallaby Awarded Eccles Prize

Amazon InfoGuide Wins Webby

Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow and NPR International Correspondent Leila Fadel received a Gracie Award for her NPR news feature “Two Little Bombs,” which tells the story of two teenage girls recruited by extremists to join the self-declared Islamic State in Libya. The Gracie Awards rec-ognize women’s work and achievements in the media indus-try. Previous recipients of the award include Diane Sawyer and Oprah Winfrey.

Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics Sebastian Mallaby has been recognized with Columbia Business School’s 2017 George S. Eccles Prize for Excel-lence in Economic Writing for his book The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan. Mallaby’s critically praised biography was also named the 2016 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year.

This year, CFR’s InfoGuide “Deforestation in the Amazon” was honored with the critic’s choice Webby Award in the “green” category. The interactive guide is a deeply immer-sive look at Brazil’s high-stakes struggle with deforestation in the Amazon and has been translated into Portuguese. This is CFR.org’s second Webby Award, the leading inter-national award honoring excellence on the internet.

The Chronicle, Spring 2017 7

“Present at the Destruction?” is the cover package of the May/June issue of Foreign Af-fairs and offers an early assessment of Don-ald J. Trump’s administration.

Highlights include:Princeton University Professor G. John

Ikenberry examines the damage Trump has already done to the liberal international order, finding that “Trump has abdicated re-sponsibility for the world the United States built, and only time will tell the full extent of the damage he will wreak.”

Philip H. Gordon, CFR senior fellow and former Obama administration offi-cial, observes that “there is a real risk that . . . Trump’s erratic style and confronta-tional policies . . . lead to open conflict—in the most likely cases, with Iran, China, or North Korea.”

University of Michigan’s Robert Mickey, Harvard University’s Steven Levitsky, and University of Toronto’s Lucan Ahmad Way note that under Trump—a president who has praised dictators and threatened to jail his campaign opponent—American democracy is not immune to backsliding, especially in an era of intense political polarization.

Georgetown University’s Matthew Kroenig presents a case for Trump’s for-eign policy decisions, concluding that on almost every front, “Trump has begun to correct the failures of the past eight years and position the United States well for the challenges to come.”

Kissinger Associates Chief Executive Officer and former Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director Jami Miscik ex-plains how the relationship between the White House should work with the intel-ligence community: “The relationship needs to be recalibrated, with policymakers gaining a deeper understanding of and ap-preciation for the work of intelligence pro-fessionals—a mission in which ‘alternative facts’ have no place.”

Antonio Taguba, the retired Army major general who led a 2004 army internal in-vestigation into prisoner abuse at the U.S. detention facility in Abu Ghraib, and Scott Cooper, a retired Marine lieutenant colo-nel, challenge Trump’s advocacy of torture as an interrogation tactic.

Dartmouth College’s Douglas A. Irwin finds Trump’s protectionist trade policy “risks triggering a global trade war that would prove damaging to all countries” and that “lessons from the past, such as the trade disaster of the 1930s, suggest that protec-tionism begets protectionism.”

Morgan Stanley Investment Manage-ment’s Ruchir Sharma asserts that “depop-ulation, deleveraging, and deglobalization have become potent obstacles to growth

May/June 2017


and should prompt policymakers in coun-tries at all levels of development to redefine economic success.”

In light of rising anti-globalist populism, Brown University’s Jeff D. Colgan and Princeton University’s Robert O. Keohane reconsider their earlier advocacy of a liberal international order they now concede was more flawed than they realized.

Chatham House’s Sanam Vakil, associ-ate fellow at and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced Inter-national Studies in Europe, and Hossein Rassam, director of Rastah Idealogistics and a former advisor on Iran to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, pro-file the three likeliest candidates to replace Iran’s aging supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As news emerges of massive new cor-ruption investigations in Brazil, Americas Quarterly’s Brian Winter explains that “only by renouncing their special privileges and committing to genuine reform will Bra-zil’s politicians be able to ward off disaster and regain the public’s trust.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy’s L. Rafael Reif argues that Trump’s proposed cuts to science funding put the United States at a competitive disadvantage.


In the wake of World War II, Western policy-makers decided to try a new kind of foreign policy. Rejecting the isolationism and pro-tectionism of the interwar years, they joined together to build a new, liberal international order based on mutually beneficial coop-eration in economics and national security. But in recent years the order has fallen on difficult times—and now faces its greatest challenge yet, in the form of the Trump ad-ministration, explains Editor Gideon Rose in his introduction to the new Foreign Affairs collection “What Was the Liberal Order?”

Selections from the collection include:“Datum Point” by Foreign Affairs Editor

Hamilton Fish Armstrong in 1943: “With-out a military victory there is no chance of a worthy peace. Without a worthy peace vic-tory will have been worth winning in only a very limited sense. Whether or not the peace is worthy will depend on the coordi-nated action and common will of the United Nations—all of them—now and later.”

“Bretton Woods and International Co-operation” by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. in 1945: “Interna-tional monetary and financial cooperation is indispensable for the maintenance of economic stability; and economic stability, in turn, is indispensable to the maintenance of political stability. Therefore, a program for international economic cooperation of which Bretton Woods is the first step must accompany the program for political and military security toward which the United Nations are moving.”

“The Myth of Post–Cold War Chaos” by University of Pennsylvania’s G. John Iken-berry in 1996: “Fifty years after its found-ing, the Western liberal democratic world is robust, and its principles and policies re-main the core of world order. The challenges

to liberal multilateralism both from within and from outside the West have mainly dis-appeared. Although regional experiments abound, they are fundamentally different from the autarkic blocs of the 1930s.”

“Global Trumpism” by Brown Universi-ty’s Mark Blyth in 2016: “To understand the election of Donald Trump we need to listen to the trumpets blowing everywhere in the highly indebted developed countries and the people who vote for them. The global revolt against elites is not just driven by re-vulsion and loss and racism. It’s also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun.”

What Was the Liberal Order? A Foreign Affairs Anthology Looks at a System Under Threat


New Discussion Papers on Asia and the Middle East, Corruption Briefs on Brazil and AfricaE XPANDI NG SOU T H KORE A’ S SECUR I T Y ROLE I N T HE A SIA-PACI FIC REGIONSouth Korea is a Northeast Asian power with a global presence, but its geopolitical influence in Southeast Asia is rarely ex-ercised. The Center for a New American Security’s Patrick M. Cronin and South Korean Ministry of Unification’s Seong-won Lee explain that South Korea could play a larger role in the wider region if it were able to place its national interests in the South China Sea over the voiced concerns of China.

T HE KORE AN PI VOT: SEOUL’ S STRATEGIC CHOICE S AND R ISI NG R I VALR I E S I N NORT HE A ST A SIACFR’s Scott A. Snyder and Sungtae “Jacky” Park and Johns Hopkins Univer-sity’s Darcie Draudt argue that the United States and South Korea will need an even closer alliance and improved multilateral cooperation to deal with the North Korean threat and to prepare for the possibility of instability in North Korea. They contend that Washington should allow room for Seoul to maneuver in its relationship with Beijing and not seek to lock South Korea into a balancing posture against China.

RECONCI LI NG U.S . -TURK ISH I N TERE STS I N NORT HERN S YR IAAlthough some of the United States’ and Turkey’s objectives in northern Syria are complementary, others are contradictory. The United States needs to consider the ef-fects of its intervention in northern Syria on Turkey, its North Atlantic Treaty Orga-nization ally, as well as on terrorist groups

it seeks to destroy. The Atlantic Council’s Aaron Stein argues that to address these systemic problems, the United States should reconcile the contradictory aspects of its re-lationship with Turkey.

W H AT U. S . P OLI C YM A KER S CA N LE A R N F ROM BR A ZI L’ S A N T I COR RUP T I ON GA I N SCFR’s Matthew M. Taylor explains the im-portant lessons Brazil’s path holds for how U.S. policymakers might assist other coun-tries in their fight against corruption. By en-hancing international cooperation capacity, providing targeted technical training, and encouraging the adoption of international norms, the United States can advance the efforts of local reformers in other middle-income democracies.

H OW T H E TRUM P A DM I N I S TR AT I ON CA N H ELP COM BAT KLEP TOCR AC Y I N A F R I CACFR’s John Campbell and Allen Grane contend that a Trump campaign against kleptocracy in Nigeria and South Africa would support democratic interests, re-duce domestic acquiescence or support for insurgencies in sub-Saharan Africa, and counter international criminal networks. It would also strengthen and spread a pan- African culture of anticorruption, thereby encouraging a long-term sustainable re-gional commitment to good governance and the rule of law.


Steven A. Cook Recounts the Failure of Middle East Uprisings in New BookMore than half a decade after people across the Middle East poured into the streets to demand change, hopes for democracy have disappeared in a maelstrom of violence and renewed state re-pression. In False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East, Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies Steven A. Cook explains why the Middle Eastern uprisings did not succeed.

Despite appearances, there were no true revo-lutions in the Middle East six years ago: none of the affected societies underwent social revolu-tions, and the old structures of power were never eliminated. Egypt remains an authoritarian state, Syria and Yemen are in the midst of devastating civil wars, Libya has descended into anarchy, and the self-declared Islamic State remains a threat. Even Turkey, which also experienced large-scale protests, has abandoned its earlier shift toward openness and democracy and now more closely re-sembles an autocracy.

In examining the root causes of the current state of affairs in the region, Cook acknowledges that “leaders around the Middle East harbored world-views that were antithetical to what the uprisings and the Gezi Park protests [in Turkey] stood for.” However, he notes that these leaders “cannot be held solely responsible for the nature of politics in their respective countries. They have certainly had help from feckless oppositions, bloodthirsty extremists, and indifferent world powers.” Cook adds, “In an important way, however, no one is di-rectly responsible.”

With regard to the role of the United States, Cook argues, “What ails the Middle East has less to do with the United States than Washington’s political class and the foreign policy establishment are in-clined to believe. Policymakers should get used to it because it will likely be the story of the Middle East for at least a generation to come.”

Visit the book page at www.cfr.org/falsedawn.

“False Dawn offers a sweeping account, a combination of on-the-ground narrative and deep historical analysis of what went wrong. Steven Cook’s excellent book opens with a quote from deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011 that seemed like a threat at the time but now reads more like a prophecy: ‘The youth who called for change and reform will be the first to suffer.’ Cook tells us why.”

—Deb Amos, international correspondent, NPR News


Global Think Tank Leaders Give International Cooperation in 2016 a Low GradeThe third annual Report Card on Interna-tional Cooperation sharply downgraded its assessment of efforts to mitigate the world’s most vexing problems in 2016 to a C–, fall-ing from a B grade in 2015.

The Council of Councils, a CFR initiative comprising twenty-six major international policy institutes, surveyed the heads of member think tanks to evaluate the world’s performance on ten of the most important transnational challenges of 2016.

“Limited progress in combating climate change and advancing development in 2016 was overwhelmed by dismal failures of in-ternational efforts to promote global trade, resolve internal conflicts, and advance cyber governance,” said CFR President Richard N. Haass. “Nationalist electoral campaigns throughout the world sailed to victory on promises to retreat from international com-mitments. This suggests 2017 will face even more fundamental challenges to interna-tional cooperation.”

The Report Card offers the following in-dividual grades:

� Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change: B

� Promoting Global Health: B � Advancing Development: B– � Preventing Nuclear Proliferation: B– � Managing the Global Economy: C+ � Combating Transnational Terrorism: C � Preventing and Responding to Violent

Conflict Between States: C � Managing Cyber Governance: C– � Expanding Global Trade: D+ � Preventing and Responding to Internal

Violent Conflict: D+

Of the ten challenges, respondents indi-cated that fighting terrorism held the most potential for progress in 2017. Despite being graded a mediocre score of C, this was the only area in which respondents saw an im-provement over 2015.

Preventing and responding to violent conflict between states should be the top priority for world leaders in 2017, according to the think tank leaders polled between De-cember 2016 and January 2017.

“Tensions have emerged in places where no one could have foreseen just a few months ago,” said Luis Rubio, president of the Con-sejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales in Mexico. “The current world order is being challenged and uncertainty as to what will emerge in its place abounds.”

The Report Card was made possible by the generous support of the Robina Foundation. Read the full report at www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/reportcard.


Mitigating the Risks of a State-Sponsored Cyberattack Against the U.S. Power Grid“The U.S. power grid has long been consid-ered a target for a major cyberattack,” writes Robert K. Knake in a new Contingency Planning Memorandum. The memoran-dum, produced by CFR’s Center for Preven-tive Action, examines how such a large-scale cyberattack could be possible and suggests preventive measures for the Donald J. Trump administration to consider.

Knake, CFR’s Whitney Shepardson se-nior fellow, warns that disabling or other-wise interfering with the power grid could seriously harm the United States. “Besides the intrinsic importance of the power grid to a functioning U.S. society, all sixteen sec-tors of the U.S. economy deemed to make up the nation’s critical infrastructure rely on electricity,” he cautions.

Although cyberattacks by terrorist and criminal organizations cannot be ruled out, the capabilities necessary to mount a major operation make state adversaries the prin-cipal threat. “A number of sophisticated ac-tions would require extensive planning by an organization able to recruit and coordi-nate a team that has broad set of capabilities and is willing to devote many months, if not years, to the effort. State actors, therefore, are the more likely perpetrators, and given these long lead times, U.S. adversaries have likely already begun this process in anticipa-tion of conflict,” he explains.

Knake, a former director for cybersecu-rity at the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, suggests that the Trump administration focus its efforts on preventing an attack on the grid both through deterrence policy and by strength-ening security. He offers several recommen-dations, including

� “focus on creating an information-shar-ing system that can bring together early

signals that an attack against the grid is under way and share information that can be used to stop it;”

� “ensure that both the government and the industry are prepared to respond. [The Federal Emergency Management Agency] should develop a response plan for a prolonged regional blackout that addresses the logistical difficulties of re-sponding at scale in an environment de-graded by the loss of power;” and

� “ensure utilities can invest sufficiently in cybersecurity and do not need to make tradeoffs between traditional risk man-agement activities and addressing na-tional security threats.”

Read the memorandum at www.cfr.org/CyberattackUS.

A reliability coordinator monitors power at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas command center in Taylor, Texas. (Julia Robinson/Reuters)


Special Report Urges Support for NATO, Reassurances for Russia“[Vladimir] Putin’s aggression makes the possibility of a war in Europe between nu-clear-armed adversaries frighteningly real,” writes Kimberly Marten in a new Council Special Report on tensions between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-tion (NATO). She outlines how U.S. policy-makers can deter Russian aggression with robust support for NATO, while reassur-ing Russia of NATO’s defensive intentions through clear words and actions based in international law.

Marten, a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, and director of the Program on U.S.-Russia Re-lations at Columbia’s Harriman Institute, lays out several scenarios that could lead to a dangerous confrontation—ranging from an inadvertent encounter between NATO and Russian aircraft and ships to an inten-tional Russian land grab in Europe. The report, produced by CFR’s Center for Pre-ventive Action, offers a plan for the Trump administration to lessen the chances of cri-sis escalation.

Marten recommends that U.S. policy-makers take the following steps to deter Russian threats:

� Reaffirm the U.S. commitment to NATO defense. “President Trump should im-mediately reaffirm, and the State Depart-ment and Pentagon should periodically restate, that the defense of all NATO member states is Washington’s highest priority in Europe.”

� Sustain U.S. troop deployments in Poland while emphasizing the deployments’ le-gitimacy under past international agree-ments with Moscow.

� Rely on—and publicize—comprehensive, superior capabilities to deter Russia.

� Encourage NATO to think creatively about measures that would significantly

raise the costs for Russia of attacking NATO and therefore make such an attack less attractive and less likely.

She also suggests a series of reassurance measures to demonstrate that NATO has only defensive intentions:

� Treat Russian leaders and the Russian state with public respect even if tensions rise. “The Trump administration will achieve more if it remains diplomatic and unemotional, and helps Russian leaders save face at home.”

� Formally announce that the United States does not seek to impose regime change on Russia and ask Putin to reciprocate.

� Publicly state that the United States be-lieves Ukraine has not currently met NATO membership standards and has a long way to go.

� Reestablish regional military and arms control negotiations.

To read the full report, Reducing Tensions Be-tween Russia and NATO, visit www.cfr.org/RussiaNATOCSR.

Russia’s national security strategy, signed by Vladimir Putin, calls the expansion of NATO a national security threat. (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/Pool/ Reuters)


U.S. Should Work With Russia to Avoid Renewed Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh, Asserts New CFR Memo“The likelihood that Armenians and Azer-baijanis will clash over Nagorno-Karabakh in the next twelve months is high,” writes Carey Cavanaugh in a new Contingency Planning Memorandum. Renewed violence in this South Caucasus region disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan since the fall of the Soviet Union could jeopardize U.S. and other Western interests in the region and endanger U.S. relations with Russia, Tur-key, and Iran, he cautions.

In “Renewed Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh,” a memo produced by the Center for Preventive Action, Cavanaugh, a former U.S. ambassador and special negotiator for conflicts in Eurasia, details how such a crisis could unfold and how greater collaboration with Russia could help prevent it. Nagorno-Karabakh last flared in April 2016, resulting in the worst bloodshed seen in the region in over twenty years, and the risk of either an inadvertent escalation along the line of con-tact or a deliberate provocation by either Azerbaijan or Armenia remains high.

Cavanaugh warns of the potential rever-berations: “Russia is committed by treaty to defend Armenia, Turkey has pledged to pro-tect Azerbaijan, and Iran borders both na-tions and contains an Azerbaijani minority that far outnumbers the population of Azer-baijan itself.” The conflict could also imperil a new pipeline from Azerbaijan and Central Asia to Western markets that bypasses Rus-sia and Iran.

Cavanaugh, a professor of diplomacy and conflict resolution at the University of Kentucky, recommends that the United States work more actively with Russia on the Minsk Group peace process. The Minsk Group, led by the United States, Russia, and France under the auspices of the Or-ganization for Security and Cooperation

in Europe (OSCE), “represents the leading area of U.S.-Russian cooperation with both nations promoting common, uncontestable goals: minimizing warfare and advancing a peaceful settlement.”

Cavanaugh advocates that the co-chairs make better use of incentives and penal-ties, facilitate Turkey’s inclusion in periodic discussions, and apply pressure on Arme-nia and Azerbaijan. Implementing agreed-upon confidence- and security-building measures, such as increasing the number of OSCE observers and creating an indepen-dent mechanism to investigate incidents, could help reduce the almost daily cease-fire violations. Intelligence sharing between the United States and Russia on regional military developments could also assuage concerns about whether strategic arms par-ity is being maintained. “By exhibiting the benefits of mutual collaboration, Nagorno-Karabakh could become a stepping stone for greater U.S.-Russia cooperation,” Cava-naugh asserts.

Read the memorandum at www.cfr.org/nagornokarabakh.

Armenian forces have controlled Nagorno-Karabakh since 1994. (Staff/Reuters)


In mid-April, the Council hosted a symposium designed to help members and the media bet-ter understand the new era of relations between Russia and the West. Distinguished experts came from around the United States, Western Europe, and Russia to discuss Russia’s inter-nal politics, its foreign policy, and policy options for the United States and Europe. The event was made possible with the generous support of the Hauser Foundation.

“We live in a very dangerous situation also because twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there’s precious little fear of a nuclear war. And I get the feeling that Russia is being handled as if it were not a nuclear power, or a nuclear superpower, and that, I think, is just dangerous.” —Dmitri Trenin, director, Carnegie Moscow Center

“In my mind, the best way to deal with the Russian ‘threat’ is to ask the $6 million question, ‘What are average Americans going to do to earn a living wage in 2025?’ Because if our societies continue to stumble because we have a large segment of disaffected voters, I think the Russians may well succeed in undermining the order that we’ve built. . . . So, in many respects, the best way to deal with Russia is getting our own house in order.” — Charles A. Kupchan, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; former special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs, National Security Council

“What we’re seeing in Russia right now is the beginnings of a shift in the social contract . . . the social contract is no longer about economic prosperity, [in exchange for giving] up your political rights. It’s about Russia as a great power. ‘I will give you that if you give up some of your rights.’ It is a way to reframe the social contract and to push blame away from Putin himself from mismanaging the Russian economy.” —Alina Polyakova, director of research, Europe and Eurasia, Atlantic Council

Watch the symposium events and read the transcript at www.cfr.org/events.

Symposium Contemplates a New Era of U.S.-Russia Relations


CFR Conference Affirms the Need for Diversity in Foreign Policy“While America’s ethnic and racial makeup has changed dramatically in recent years, the ethnic and racial makeup of America’s foreign policy community has not kept pace. And that’s a loss for our country,” observed James M. Lindsay, senior vice president, di-rector of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the opening of CFR’s fifth annual Conference on Diversity in International Af-fairs. As part of CFR’s Diversity Initiative in Foreign Policy and in collaboration with the Global Access Pipeline and the International Career Advancement Program, the Council hosted a conference to encourage members of underrepresented groups to participate in the foreign policy debate and consider ca-reers in foreign policy.

Over two hundred participants came to CFR’s Washington office for networking

opportunities, discussions about foreign policy issues, and one-on-one career-coun-seling sessions.

Calvin Sims, president and chief executive officer of the International House and a for-mer New York Times reporter, delivered the keynote remarks and stressed that especially in the media industry “the lack of diversity means that you’re not having a product that is as informative as it should be.” Sims also emphasized the need for young profession-als to seek out mentors and for organizations to consider the full spectrum of diversity, including educational, cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity.

This conference was made possible by the generous support of the Robina Foundation. Watch the event at www.cfr.org/diversity.

“If you look at where the audience is trending, people of color, people of diverse backgrounds actually will eventually become the majority of the United States. [The mainstream media] will have to appeal to that demographic,” observed Calvin Sims, a former CFR Edward R. Murrow press fellow.


Richard N. Haass and David Miliband

Corporate Members Discuss Globalization at Annual ConferenceThis April, PayPal’s Presi-dent and Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman kicked off the annual Cor-porate Conference with a discussion on consum-ers’ relationship with glo-balization and the value of public-private partnerships. More than two hundred ex-ecutives from over seventy member companies partici-pated in a series of sessions that examined a variety of issues at the intersection of business and foreign policy, including

� geopolitical risk with Pres-ident Richard N. Haass, the International Res-cue Committee’s David Miliband, and Fortune’s Leigh Gallagher;

� the future of work with Google’s Caroline Atkin-son, former U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Com-missioner Erica Gro-shen, and McKinsey’s James Manyika; and

� the global economic out-look with Princeton Uni-versity’s Alan S. Blinder, Senior Fellow for Eco-nomics Kenneth S. Rog-off, and CFR Co-Chair and former U.S. Trea-sury Secretary Robert E. Rubin.

For more information, visit www.cfr.org/corporate.

Leigh Gallagher, Caroline Atkinson, Erica Groshen, and James Manyika

Dan Schulman


Parthemore of CLP Global LLC and Daryl G. Press of Dartmouth College; and

� the role of strategic planning in U.S. foreign policy with Charles N. Edel of the U.S. Naval War College and Neil Narang of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

For more information, visit www.cfr.org/fellowships.

Former International Affairs Fellows (IAFs) Edward L. Morse, global head of commodities research at Citigroup Inc., Michelle Patron, director of sustainability policy at Microsoft Corporation, and Nigel Purvis, president and chief executive officer of Climate Advisers, kicked off this year’s IAF Conference with a discussion on U.S. energy policy. The session was moderated by Columbia University’s Jason Bordoff.

Over 150 members, former IAFs, and guests gathered in New York on May 12 to celebrate the program’s fiftieth anniver-sary. By placing academic fellows in public service and policy-oriented settings and by placing government officials in scholarly settings, the IAF program has over the years bridged the gap between the study and mak-ing of U.S. foreign policy, creating over six hundred alumni. Participants at the confer-ence discussed a diverse set of foreign policy issues, including

� lessons from Tunisia and Egypt for the Trump administration with Daniel P. Be-naim of the Center for American Progress and Sarah E. Yerkes of the Carnegie En-dowment for International Peace;

� a look ahead at U.S.-Africa diplomacy with Morgan J. O’Brien III of the U.S. Department of State and Matthew T. Page of the Centre for Democracy and Development;

� Japan’s national spending choices amid changing demographics with Tania M. Chacho of the U.S. Military Academy and Jennifer Friedman of GR Japan;

� counterterrorism in the Middle East and in cyberspace with Jim Golby of the office of the vice president and Adam Klein of the Center for a New American Security;

� emerging challenges in U.S.-Japan se-curity cooperation with Christine

CFR Celebrates Fiftieth Anniversary of the International Affairs Fellowship

Jason Bordoff, Edward L. Morse, Michelle Patron, and Nigel Purvis

University of Pennsylvania’s Michael C. Horowitz, Charles N. Edel, and Neil Narang


CFR welcomes three new corporate mem-ber companies, McKesson Corporation, the oldest and largest health care company in the country, Stephens, Inc., an indepen-dent financial services firm, and Chesa-peake Energy, an onshore oil and natural gas company.

These new members join the nearly 150 prominent companies that participate in

CFR’s Corporate Program, which provides member-company executives with timely analysis on global issues and policy debates that affect their businesses.

For more information, please contact the Corporate Program at 212.434.9684 or [email protected].

Three New Companies Join the Corporate Program

The Chronicle, Spring 2017 20

Fellowship Program Announces Three New International Affairs FellowshipsThe CFR Fellowship Program is pleased to announce the recipients of three new International Affairs Fellowships that were launched last summer. Placement confirmations are underway.

� The International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars, sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, offers tenured international relations professors hands-on and practical experience in the foreign policymaking field by placing selected fellows in U.S. government agencies or interna-tional government organizations for a period of one year. The 2017–2018 fellows are Masoud Kavoossi of Howard University, Helen Kinsella of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, David Lektzian of Texas Tech University, Kimberly Marten of Columbia University, and George Shambaugh of Georgetown University.

� The International Affairs Fellowship in Canada, funded by Paul Desmarais Jr., chairman and co-chief executive officer of the Power Corporation of Canada and a founding member of CFR’s Global Board of Advisors, provides each year one or two Americans the opportunity to spend six to twelve months at a Canadian institution to deepen their knowledge of Canada. The 2017–2018 fellow is Lindsay Rodman, formerly with the Office of the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

� The International Affairs Fellowship in International Eco-nomics, funded by Kimberly Querrey, cofounder and presi-dent of SQ Advisors, LLC, offers business economists as well as university-based economics scholars hands-on experience in the U.S. government. The 2017–2018 fellow is Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan from the University of Maryland.


The Council on Foreign Relations mourns the loss of David Rockefeller, who was CFR’s honorary chairman, longest-serving member, and a pillar of the institution for more than half a century.

Rockefeller began his lifelong association with the Council in 1941, quickly becom-ing the youngest member appointed to the board of directors. He served on the board for thirty-six years, twenty as vice president and fifteen as chairman. Rockefeller chaired CFR during years of great change and chal-lenges. Without fail, he preserved the non-partisan and independent leadership that had governed the Council since its found-ing. Under his tenure, from 1970 to 1985, CFR opened the process of selecting direc-tors to election by the members, instituted a full-time chief executive officer, opened an office in Washington, DC, and embarked on an ambitious effort to enlarge and diver-sify our membership. Rockefeller was in-strumental in the creation of the Council’s flagship International Affairs Fellowship program, which remains a revered training ground for the next generation of foreign policy leaders.

Rockefeller’s deep involvement with and commitment to the Council contin-ued after he became honorary chairman in 1985. In this capacity, he founded and led the Council’s International Advisory Board for a dozen years, spearheading a distin-guished group of international statesmen and business leaders intent on invigorating international dialogue. As honorary chair-man, he frequently represented the institu-tion on trips abroad, leading delegations of CFR members across the globe. During his nearly eight decades of membership, Rock-efeller participated in countless CFR meet-ings and led dozens of study and discussion groups on pressing foreign policy issues.

The Council Remembers David Rockefeller

“I can only say that I have had a wonderful life.” —David Rockefeller


In recognition of Rockefeller’s many intellectual, financial, and leadership con-tributions, in 2005 the Council’s Studies Program was named in his honor. Home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners, the David Rockefeller Studies Program embod-ies what Rockefeller considered to be the core of the Council’s mission: to add value to the public debate on international affairs.

Beyond the Council, Rockefeller’s career was legendary. Widely respected for his lengthy career at the helm of Chase Man-hattan, he was perhaps best known for his philanthropy and his involvement with nu-merous civic, cultural, educational, and re-search institutions. Among the ones he was most closely associated with were the Mu-seum of Modern Art, Rockefeller Univer-sity, and Harvard University. He was deeply committed to his native city of New York and played an important role in the revital-ization of lower Manhattan.

“David Rockefeller was a great American citizen and the epitome of an active CFR member.” said CFR Chairman Emeritus Peter G. Peterson. “He represented the best of this country, with his commitment to bettering the lives of ordinary people—be it through education, research, parkland and public space, or the arts.”

New York City Mayor Fiorello Laguardia with David Rockefeller in 1941

CFR Chairman Emeritus Peter G. Peterson with David Rockefeller


N E W YOR K AR E A

Mr. Ronald L. AllenNBC News

Mr. Andrew M. AlperAlper Investments, Inc.

Mr. James L. AmineCredit Suisse

Ms. Ekpedeme M. BasseyBlackRock

Ms. Frances G. BeineckeNatural Resources Defense Council

Ms. Sundaa A. Bridgett-Jones IAF, T

The Rockefeller Foundation

Mr. Mark ColodnyWarburg Pincus LLC

Ms. Lisa J. DonahueAlixPartners, LLP

Ms. Patricia M. DuffThe Common Good

Ms. Arlene P. GetzThomson Reuters

Mr. Shawn P.M. Golhar T

Barclays

Ms. Catherine M. KeatingCommonfund

Ms. Georgia Levenson KeohanePershing Square Foundation

Ms. Younghee Kim WaitWait Family Office

Dr. Robert L. KlitzmanColumbia University

Mr. Thomas D. Lehrman T

Haystack Partners

Ms. Terri L. LudwigEnterprise Community Partners, Inc.

The Honorable Carolyn B. MaloneyU.S. House of Representatives

Ms. Marjorie MillerAssociated Press

Louise Mirrer, PhDNew-York Historical Society

Mr. Marc MorialNational Urban League

Pilar Ramos, Esq.Mastercard

Mr. Jonathan F.P. RoseJonathan Rose Companies LLC

Mr. Adam SilverNational Basketball Association

Mr. Ercument TokatCenterview Partners

Daniel H. Weiss, PhDMetropolitan Museum of Art

Mr. Strauss H. ZelnickZelnick Media Capital

WA SH I NGTON, DC , ARE A

Ms. Laura Winthrop Abbot IAF, T

U.S. Department of State

Mr. Marc AllenThe Boeing Company

Mr. Hady A. Amr TU.S. Department of State

Brigadier General Leo A. Brooks Jr., USA (Ret)The Boeing Company

Captain Charles L. Cashin III, USCG FU.S. Coast Guard

The Honorable Arnold A. ChaconU.S. Department of State

Mr. Patrick M. DewarThe Trenton Group, LLC

Mr. Jamie M. Fly TOffice of U.S. Senator Marco Rubio

The Honorable Jimmy J. KolkerU.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Ms. Florizelle B. LiserCorporate Council on Africa

Mr. Arshad A. MohammedThomson Reuters

Brigadier General Mark W. Odom, USAU.S. Army

Vice Admiral Frank C. Pandolfe, USNJoint Chiefs of Staff

Ms. Maria Pica KarpChevron Corporation

Mark E. Plotkin, Esq.Covington & Burling LLP

Dr. Christopher A. PrebleCato Institute

Ms. Staci WardenMilken Institute

Colonel Robert L. Wilson, USANational Security Council

Mr. Charles W. Yost II T

Central Intelligence Agency

Mr. Glenn A. YoungkinThe Carlyle Group

NAT IONAL

Joel F. Brenner, PhDMIT Center for International Studies

James D. Fearon, PhDStanford University

Ms. Jennifer FonstadAspect Ventures

Ms. Alexandra Harney IAF, T

Thomson Reuters

Dr. Valerie M. HudsonTexas A&M University

The Honorable Eric L. JohnsonTexas House of Representatives

Mr. Alex S. JonesDaily Chatter LLC

Mr. Kenneth J. KelleyHarvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Vanessa B. Kerry, MD, MSc T

Seed Global Health

Ms. Gisel KordestaniCrowdpac Inc.

Douglas J. Kramer, Esq.CloudFlare, Inc.

Colonel Sean P. Larkin, USAF F

U.S. Air Force

Mr. Philip F. MaritzMaritz, Wolff & Co.

Mr. William B. McNulty IIITeam Rubicon Global, Ltd.

New Council Members

IAF Former International Affairs FellowF Former FellowT Former Term MemberAffiliations are current as of February 2017.


Dr. Leslye ObioraUniversity of Arizona

Mr. Thomas L. PearsonCohesive Capital Partners

Mr. Timothy R. PearsonPearson Advisors and Partners

Professor Lamin SannehYale Divinity School

The Honorable Dana Shell SmithU.S. Embassy in Doha

Valerie A. Smith, PhDSwarthmore College

Mr. Paul H. StebbinsWorld Fuel Services Corporation

Admiral Kurt W. Tidd, USNU.S. Southern Command

Ms. Robin L. WashingtonGilead Sciences, Inc.

Captain Thomas R. Williams II, USN TU.S. Navy

Rabbi David WolpeSinai Temple

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