This article originally appeared at Brookings.

Ukraine is halfway through a presidential election: The first round took place on March 31, and the run-off is coming up on April 21. At the annual Kyiv Security Forum and in other conversations in Kyiv last week, I had the opportunity to catch up on the latest developments in Ukraine, and came away with five key observations.

UKRAINE AGAIN SCORES A DEMOCRATIC ELECTION

Ukraine pulled off the March 31 election with no major hitch. Voting and ballot-counting proceeded smoothly. The Central Election Commission’s vote tallies corresponded with exit poll results and a non-governmental parallel count. The International Election Observer Mission (IEOM) released a preliminary assessment that noted some problems but termed the election competitive, reported that candidates campaigned freely, and said that the electorate had a broad choice.

The fact that Ukraine held a free, competitive presidential election should come as no surprise. The previous four presidential votes—the third round of the 2004 election (after the Supreme Court ordered a rerun of the run-off following the Orange Revolution), the general and run-off rounds of the 2010 election, and the 2014 election after the Maidan Revolution—all earned free, fair, and competitive assessments. Another indicator of a free and fair election: While he made it to the run-off, incumbent President Petro Poroshenko came in a distant second.

Sadly, Ukraine’s democratic experience remains a relative rarity in the post-Soviet space. Showing no sense of irony, Russian media cherry-picked criticisms from the IEOM’s assessment to disparage the overall election, yet that election contrasted markedly with the Russian presidential election in 2018. Indeed, in early March, few Ukrainians could say with certainty which two candidates would make it to the run-off; most Russians could have said with certainty who would win their 2018 presidential election as early as 2013.

BARRING A MIRACLE, IT WILL BE PRESIDENT ZELENSKY

TV comedian Volodymyr Zelensky won the first round, capturing 30.24 percent of the popular vote to Poroshenko’s 15.95 percent. Pre-election polls projected a Zelensky win (the question was who would face him in the run-off). His rise since announcing his candidacy in late December is striking. Six or eight months ago, pundits projected a run-off between Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, who came in third.

Poroshenko received more bad news on April 11, with the release of the first polls regarding the run-off. One showed Zelensky ahead 51 percent to 21 percent, with an even bigger lead of 61 percent to 24 percent among those likely to vote. A second poll of those likely to vote gave Zelensky a yet wider margin: 71 percent to 24 percent. Those numbers pose a daunting challenge for the incumbent, who appears competitive only in western Ukraine.

Poroshenko deserves credit for overseeing some impressive reforms, and he has had to cope with a low-intensity war with Russia. Reforms, however, slowed after 2016. Voters felt that Poroshenko had not done enough to fight corruption or challenge the outsized political and economic influence of the country’s oligarchs. He also suffered from an under-performing economy. The electorate wanted change.

It is difficult to see how Poroshenko can turn things around in the short time before Sunday’s run-off, though a few still believe he has a chance. They argue the electorate emotionally cast a protest vote but now must ask who really should lead the country: Poroshenko or a political neophyte.

The president’s campaign has gone negative, seeking to portray the run-off as a choice between Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin. That appears to be having little impact. On the evening of April 11, the president crashed a TV talk show on a pro-Zelensky network and had a brief, bitter telephone exchange with his rival. The episode carried a whiff of desperation. Poroshenko says he wants to debate Zelensky, but the two cannot agree on details. Zelensky did not show up at Poroshenko’s proposed debate on April 14, and the president says he will not turn up at Zelensky’s proposed venue on April 19.

WHO IS ZELENSKY?

Ukrainians and Western diplomats are trying to figure out what a Zelensky presidency would mean. One senior Ukrainian official’s comment—the comedian “is talented and smart, but how will he govern if he wins?”—reflects the views of many.

On television, Zelensky plays a common man thrust unexpectedly into the presidency, where he wages war against the ills that trouble Ukraine. The show is called Sluha Narodu (Servant of the People). During the campaign, Zelensky gave few interviews, held no campaign rallies, and did not lay out positions in any detail, instead letting his television persona define his image.

Zelensky has described in generalities a readiness to negotiate with Putin but with the goal of recovering all Russian-occupied territories; support for joining the European Union and NATO; and a desire to end corruption and fully liberalize the economy. His supporters—who include several noted reformers—describe a Russia-wary, pro-Western candidate who will put fighting corruption at the top of his agenda. Some suggest Zelensky would take a hard line with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its conditions. That could prove tricky. Ukraine needs financing, and no bank matches IMF rates.

Other Ukrainians hold a darker view of a Zelensky presidency. They express concern about his links to Ihor Kolomoisky, an oligarch who owns the network that broadcasts Sluha Narodu. Kolomoisky now resides in Israel after his bank, the largest in Ukraine, was taken over by Ukraine’s central bank following charges of financial improprieties. Critics question Zelensky’s lack of political experience, his ability to deal with Putin, and his commitment to a pro-Western course.

Zelensky reportedly this week will name key members of his team, including the foreign and defense ministers, chief of the general staff, head of the Security Service of Ukraine and procurator general. That could provide indications as to his planned direction.

A debate would provide Zelensky the venue to further define his prospective presidency and allow the country’s voters an opportunity to compare and contrast the positions of the run-off candidates. But a debate likely is not in the cards. Zelensky easily bested his opponents in the first round by avoiding specifics; why change a winning strategy now?

THE RUSSIANS—THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK?

Many expected the Russians, who used force to seize and illegally annex Crimea in 2014 and then fostered a simmering conflict in the eastern region of Donbas, to interfere in Ukraine’s election. They undoubtedly did—but with little apparent effect.

Ukrainian officials say Russian hackers had probed the Central Election Commission’s systems but without success. One noted that the Russians seemed more focused on general destabilization of the country rather than the election.

The Kremlin has made clear it wants Poroshenko to be a one-term president. Beyond that, however, Russian officials have taken care not to endorse a particular candidate, perhaps understanding that a “Russian favorite” tag would not prove helpful. Yuriy Boyko, head of the Opposition Bloc—the closest thing in Ukraine to a pro-Russian party—visited Moscow on the eve of the election and returned with a plan to obtain cheaper gas. That might have helped him in the eastern part of the country, from where most of his votes came. He did better than expected but still finished fourth.

The fact that part of Donbas remains occupied by Russian and Russian proxy forces severely hampers the election prospects for someone such as Boyko. The population there, which historically has favored close relations with Russia, could not vote. Nor could the population of Crimea, the only part of Ukraine in which ethnic Russians constitute a majority.

IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER

Ukrainians will know their next president late on April 21, though the official vote may take a week to report. The winner will be inaugurated no later than 30 days after the Central Election Commission announces the official result. But another national ballot looms on October 27: the Rada (parliament) elections.

The majority coalition that emerges after the new Rada is seated will select the prime minister. Zelensky, if he becomes president, will need to build his political party—named, not coincidentally, Sluha Narodu—to secure a large bloc in the Rada. That matters, as executive power in Ukraine is bifurcated, with the prime minister choosing most of the cabinet. Other parties could see defections from their ranks if Sluha Narodu builds steam, but speculation has already begun about the kind of opposition might emerge.

Some see a possibility that Zelensky might try to force snap elections in order to translate a big win on April 21 into a quick Rada win for Sluha Narodu. However, that does not appear legally possible. The Rada cannot be dismissed within six months of the end of its term. That clock starts ticking in late May, and procedural rules would not allow a newly inaugurated president time to call an early election before the six-month period began.

Politics in Ukraine have never been easy or straightforward, and they have at several points taken radical turns. The country may be entering one such period now. How Zelensky—assuming he wins on Sunday—takes on presidential responsibilities and manages the complex politics that follow will matter greatly for Ukraine’s ability to continue its reform path, deepen integration with Europe, secure peace, and regain occupied territories…all despite Russian efforts to return it to Moscow’s orbit.

This article originally appeared at Brookings.

March 18 marks the fifth anniversary of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, which capped the most blatant land grab in Europe since World War II. While the simmering conflict in Donbas now dominates the headlines, it is possible to see a path to resolution there. It is much more difficult with Crimea, which will remain a problem between Kyiv and Moscow, and between the West and Russia, for years—if not decades—to come.

THE TAKING OF CRIMEA

In late February 2014, just days after the end of the Maidan Revolution and Victor Yanukovych’s flight from Kyiv, “little green men”—a term coined by Ukrainians—began seizing key facilities on the Crimean peninsula. The little green men were clearly professional soldiers by their bearing, carried Russian weapons, and wore Russian combat fatigues, but they had no identifying insignia. Vladimir Putin originally denied they were Russian soldiers; that April, he confirmed they were.

By early March, the Russian military had control of Crimea. Crimean authorities then proposed a referendum, which was held on March 16. It proved an illegitimate sham. To begin with, the referendum was illegal under Ukrainian law. Moreover, it offered voters two choices: to join Russia, or to restore Crimea’s 1992 constitution, which would have entailed significantly greater autonomy from Kyiv. Those on the peninsula who favored Crimea remaining a part of Ukraine under the current constitutional arrangements found no box to check.

The referendum unsurprisingly produced a Soviet-style result: 97 percent allegedly voted to join Russia with a turnout of 83 percent. A true referendum, fairly conducted, might have shown a significant number of Crimean voters in favor of joining Russia. Some 60 percent were ethnic Russians, and many might have concluded their economic situation would be better as a part Russia.

It was not, however, a fair referendum. It was conducted in polling places under armed guard, with no credible international observers, and with Russian journalists reporting that they had been allowed to vote. Two months later, a member of Putin’s Human Rights Council let slip that turnout had been more like 30 percent, with only half voting to join Russia.

Regardless, Moscow wasted no time. Crimean and Russian officials signed a “treaty of accession” just two days later, on March 18. Spurred by a fiery Putin speech, ratification by Russia’s rubberstamp Federation Assembly and Federation Council was finished by March 21.

ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY

Moscow’s actions violated the agreement among the post-Soviet states in 1991 to accept the then-existing republic borders. Those actions also violated commitments to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence that Russia made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine and 1997 Ukrainian-Russian Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership.

In late March 2014, Russia had to use its veto to block a U.N. Security Council resolution that, among other things, expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity (there were 13 yes votes and one abstention). The Russians could not, however, veto a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly. It passed 100-11, affirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity and terming the Crimean referendum invalid.

Russian officials sought to justify the referendum as an act of self-determination. It was not an easy argument for the Kremlin to make, given the history of the two bloody wars that Russia waged in the 1990s and early 2000s to prevent Chechnya from exercising a right of self-determination.

Russian officials also cited Western recognition of Kosovo as justification. But that did not provide a particularly good model. Serbia subjected hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians to ethnic-cleansing in 1999; by contrast, no ethnic-cleansing occurred in Crimea. Kosovo negotiated with Serbia to reach an amicable separation for years before declaring independence unilaterally. There were no negotiations with Kyiv over Crimea’s fate, and it took less than a month from the appearance of the little green men to Crimea’s annexation.

The military seizure of Crimea provoked a storm of criticism. The United States and European Union applied visa and financial sanctions, as well as prohibited their ships and aircraft from traveling to Crimea without Ukrainian permission. Those sanctions were minor, however, compared to those applied on Russia after it launched a proxy conflict in Donbas in April 2014, and particularly after a Russian-provided surface-to-air missile downed a Malaysian Air airliner carrying some 300 passengers.

Whereas Ukrainian forces on Crimea did not resist the Russian invasion (in part at the urging of the West), Kyiv resisted the appearance of little green men in Donbas. Before long, the Ukrainians found themselves fighting Russian troops as well as “separatist” forces. That conflict is now about to enter its sixth year.

Finding a settlement in Donbas has taken higher priority over resolving the status of Crimea—understandable given that some 13,000 have died and two million been displaced in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Moscow seems to see the simmering conflict as a useful means to pressure and distract Kyiv, both to make instituting domestic reform more difficult and to hinder the deepening of ties between Ukraine and Europe.

Resolving the Donbas conflict will not prove easy. For example, the Kremlin may not be prepared to settle until it has some idea of where Ukraine fits in the broader European order, that is, its relationship with the European Union and NATO. But Russia has expressed no interest in annexing Donbas. While the seizure of Crimea proved very popular with the broader Russia public, the quagmire in Donbas has not. The most biting Western economic sanctions would come off of Russia if it left Donbas. At some point, the Kremlin may calculate that the costs outweigh the benefits and consent to a settlement that would allow restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty there.

Moscow will not, on the other hand, willingly give up Crimea. Russians assert a historical claim to the peninsula; Catherine the Great annexed the peninsula in 1783 following a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. (That said, Crimea was transferred from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954, and, as noted above, the republics that emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991 agreed to accept the borders as then drawn.)

Retaining Crimea is especially important to Putin, who can offer the Russian people no real prospect of anything other than a stagnant economy and thus plays the nationalism and Russia-as-a-great-power cards. He gained a significant boost in public popularity (much of which has now dissipated) from the rapid and relatively bloodless takeover of the peninsula. Moreover, it offers a vehicle for Russia to maintain a festering border dispute with Ukraine, which the Kremlin may see as discouraging NATO members from getting too close to Ukraine.

Kyiv at present lacks the political, economic, and military leverage to force a return. Perhaps the most plausible route would require that Ukraine get its economic act together, dramatically rein in corruption, draw in large amounts of foreign investment, and realize its full economic potential, and then let the people in Crimea—who have seen no dramatic economic boom after becoming part of Russia—conclude that their economic lot would be better off back as a part of Ukraine.

For the West, Russia’s seizure and annexation of Crimea pose a fundamental challenge to the European order and the norms established by the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. The United States and Europe should continue their policy of non-recognition of Crimea’s illegal incorporation. They should also maintain Crimea-related sanctions on Russia, if for no other reason than to signal that such land grabs have no place in 21st-century Europe.

Today, January 14, marks the 25^th anniversary of the Trilateral Statement.  Signed in Moscow by President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, the statement set out the terms under which Ukraine agreed to eliminate the large arsenal of former Soviet strategic nuclear weapons that remained on its territory following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Among other things, the Trilateral Statement specified the security assurances that the United States, Russia and Britain would provide to Ukraine eleven months later in the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.  Unfortunately, Russia grossly violated those assurances in 2014 when it used military force against Ukraine.

Soon after regaining independence, Ukraine’s leadership indicated its intention to be a non-nuclear weapons state.  Indeed, the July 16, 1990 declaration of state sovereignty adopted by the Rada (parliament) adopted that goal.  Kyiv had questions, however, about the terms of the elimination of the strategic weapons.

First, eliminating the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), bombers, ICBM silos and nuclear infrastructure would cost money.  Ukraine’s economic future in the early 1990s was uncertain (the economy ended up declining for most of the decade).  Who would pay for the expensive elimination process?

Second, the strategic nuclear warheads had economic value as they contained highly enriched uranium.  That could be blended down into low enriched uranium to fabricate fuel rods to power nuclear reactors.  If Ukraine shipped warheads to Russia for dismantlement, how would it be compensated for the value of the highly enriched uranium they contained?

Third, nuclear weapons were seen to confer security benefits.  What security guarantees or assurances would Kyiv receive as it gave up the nuclear arms on its territory?

These questions were reasonable, and Kyiv deserved good answers.  In 1992 and the first half of 1993, Ukrainian and Russian officials met in bilateral channels to discuss them, along with other issues such as a schedule for moving warheads to Russia.  In parallel, U.S. officials discussed similar issues with their Ukrainian and Russian counterparts.

However, in September 1993, a Ukrainian-Russian agreement dealing with the nuclear issues fell apart.  Washington decided to become more directly involved out of fear that a resolution might otherwise not prove possible, giving birth to the “trilateral process.”  Discussions over the course of the autumn led U.S. negotiators in mid-December to believe that the pieces of a solution were ready.

In a negotiation in Washington in early January 1994, U.S. Ambassador-at-large Strobe Talbott, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Shmarov and Deputy Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgiy Mamedov and their teams finalized answers to Kyiv’s three questions, and wrote them into what became the Trilateral Statement and an accompanying annex.

The United States agreed to provide Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction funds to finance the elimination of the strategic delivery systems and infrastructure in Ukraine.  Specifically, $175 million would be made available as a start.

The three sides agreed that Russia would compensate Ukraine for the value of the highly enriched uranium in the nuclear warheads transferred to Russia for elimination by providing Ukraine fuel rods containing an equivalent amount of low enriched uranium for its nuclear reactors.  In the first ten months, Ukraine would transfer at least 200 warheads, and Russia would provide fuel rods containing 100 tons of low enriched uranium.

The sides laid out in the Trilateral Statement the specific language of the security assurances that Ukraine would receive once it had acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapons state.  Although Kyiv had sought security guarantees, Washington was not prepared to extend what would have been a military commitment similar to what NATO allies have; the assurances were the best that was on offer.

Two issues—the date for transfer of the last nuclear warheads out of Ukraine and compensation for the highly enriched uranium that had been in tactical nuclear warheads removed from Ukraine to Russia by May 1992—nearly derailed the Trilateral Statement.  The sides, however, agreed to address those in private letters.

Presidents Clinton, Yeltsin and Kravchuk met briefly in Moscow on January 14, 1994 and signed the Trilateral Statement.  That set in motion the transfer of nuclear warheads to Russia, accompanied by parallel shipments of fuel rods to Ukraine.  The deactivation and dismantlement of missiles, bombers and missile silos in Ukraine began in earnest with Cooperative Threat Reduction funding.

In December 1994, Ukraine acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain in the Budapest Memorandum.  France and China subsequently provided Kyiv similar assurances.

Ukraine fully met its commitments under the Trilateral Statement.  The last nuclear warheads were transferred out of Ukraine in May 1996.

The other signatories met their commitments—with one glaring exception.  In 2014, Russia used military force to illegally seize Crimea, in violation of its Budapest Memorandum commitments “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine,” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against Ukraine.  Russian security and military forces then instigated a conflict in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that has claimed more than 10,000 lives and continues to simmer.

At the time, the Trilateral Statement was seen as a major achievement in Washington, as it eliminated hundreds of ICBMs and bombers and nearly 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads that had been designed and built to strike the United States.  Not surprisingly, in light of Russia’s aggression, many in Ukraine now question the value of the Trilateral Statement and Budapest Memorandum.  They argue that, had Ukraine held on to at least some nuclear weapons, Russia would never have dared move on Crimea and Donbas.

That argument is understandable and perhaps correct (although alternative histories are not always easy to envisage).  However, had Ukraine tried to keep nuclear weapons, it would have faced political and economic costs, including:

·      Kyiv would have had limited relations, at best, with the United States and European countries (witness the virtual pariah status that a nuclear North Korea suffers).  In particular, there would have been no strategic relationship with the United States.

·      NATO would not have concluded a distinctive partnership relationship with Ukraine, and the European Union would not have signed a partnership and cooperation agreement, to say nothing of an association agreement.

·      Kyiv would have received little in the way of reform, technical or financial assistance from the United States and European Union.

·      Western executive directors would have blocked low interest credits to Ukraine from the IMF, World Bank and European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.

To be sure, one can debate the value of these benefits.  But those who now assert that Ukraine should have kept nuclear arms should recognize that keeping them would have come at a steep price.  Moreover, in any confrontation or crisis with Russia, Ukraine would have found itself alone.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the worry in the West was what would happen to that country’s thousands of nuclear weapons. Would “loose” nukes fall into the hands of terrorists, rogue states, criminals – and plunge the world into a nuclear nightmare?

Fortunately, scientists and technical experts in both the U.S. and the former Soviet Union rolled up their sleeves to manage and contain the nuclear problem in the dissolving Communist country.

One of the leaders in this relationship was Stanford engineering professor Siegfried Hecker, who served as a director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory before coming to Stanford as a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is a world-renowned expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction and nuclear security.

Hecker cited one 1992 meeting with Russian scientists in Moscow who were clearly concerned about the risks. In his new book, Doomed to Cooperate: How American and Russian scientists joined forces to avert some of the greatest post-Cold War nuclear dangers, Hecker quoted one Russian expert as saying, “We now need to be concerned about terrorism.”

Earning both scientific and political trust was a key, said Hecker, also a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The Russians were proud of their scientific accomplishments and highly competent in the nuclear business – and they sought to show this to the Americans scientists, who became very confident in their Russian counterparts’ technical capabilities as they learned more about their nuclear complex and toured the labs.

Economic collapse, political turmoil

But the nuclear experts faced an immense problem. The Soviets had about 39,000 nuclear weapons in their country and in Eastern Europe and about 1.5 million kilograms of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (the fuel for nuclear bombs), Hecker said. Consider that the bomb that the U.S. dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945 was only six kilograms of plutonium, he added. Meanwhile, the U.S. had about 25,000 nuclear weapons in the early 1990s.

Hecker and the rest of the Americans were deeply concerned about the one million-plus Russians who worked in nuclear facilities. Many faced severe financial pressure in an imploding society and thus constituted a huge potential security risk.

“The challenge that Russia faced with its economy collapsing was enormous,” he said in an interview.

The Russian scientists, Hecker said, were motivated to act responsibly because they realized the awful destruction that a single nuclear bomb could wreak. Hecker noted that one Russian scientist told him, “We arrived in the nuclear century all in one boat, and a movement by anyone will affect everyone.” Hecker noted, “Therefore, you know, we were doomed to work together to cooperate.”

All of this depended on the two governments involved easing nuclear tensions while allowing the scientists to collaborate. In short order, the scientists developed mutual respect and trust to address the loose nukes scenario.

The George H.W. Bush administration launched nuclear initiatives to put the Russian government at ease. For example, it took the nuclear weapons off U.S. Navy surface ships and some of its nuclear weapons off alert to allow the Russians to do the same. The U.S. Congress passed the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction legislation, which helped fund some of the loose nuke containment efforts.

While those were positive measures, Hecker said, it was ultimately the cooperation among scientists, what they called lab-to-lab-cooperation, that allowed the two former superpower enemies to “get past the sensitivity barriers” and make “the world a safer place.”

Since the end of the Cold War, no significant nuclear event has occurred as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its nuclear complex, Hecker noted.

Lesson: cooperation counts

One lesson from it all, Hecker said, is that government policymakers need to understand that scientists and engineers can work together and make progress toward solving difficult, dangerous problems.

“We don’t want to lose the next generation from understanding what can actually be done by working together,” he said.  “So, we want to demonstrate to them, Look, this is what was done when the scientists were interested and enthusiastic and when the government gave us enough room to be able to do that.”

Hecker said this scientific cooperation extended to several thousand scientists and engineers at the Russian sites and at U.S. nuclear labs – primarily the three defense labs: Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia national laboratories. Many technical exchanges and visits between scientists in Russia and the United States took place.

He recalled visiting some of the nuclear sites in Russian cities shrouded by mystery. “These cities were so secret, they didn’t even appear on Soviet maps.”

Change of threat

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the nature of the nuclear threat changed, Hecker said. The threat before was one of mutual annihilation, but now the threat changed to what would happen if nuclear assets were lost, stolen or somehow evaded the control of the government.

“From an American perspective we referred to these as the ‘four loose nuclear dangers,'” he said.

This included securing the loose nukes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; preventing nuclear materials or bomb fuel from getting into the wrong hands; the human element involving the people who worked in the Soviet nuclear complex; and finally, the “loose exports” problem of someone trying to sell nuclear materials or technical components to overseas groups like terrorists or rogue nations.

For Hecker, this is not just an American story. It is about a selfless reconciliation with a longtime enemy for the greater global good, a relationship not corrupted by ideological or nationalistic differences, but one reflective of mutual interests of the highest order.

“The primary reason,” he said, “why we didn’t have a nuclear catastrophe was the Russian nuclear workers and the Russian nuclear officials. Their dedication, their professionalism, their patriotism for their country was so strong that it carried them through these times in the 1990s when they often didn’t get paid for six months at a time … The nuclear complex did its job through the most trying times. And it was a time when the U.S. government took crucial conciliatory measures with the new Russian Federation and gave us scientists the support to help make the world a safer place.”

The Europe Center Graduate Student Grant Competition

Call for Proposals:

The Europe Center is pleased to announce the Fall 2014 Graduate Student Grant Competition for graduate and professional students at Stanford whose research or work focuses on Europe. Funds are available for Ph.D. candidates from across a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to prepare for dissertation research and to conduct research on approved dissertation projects. The Europe Center also supports early graduate students who wish to determine the feasibility of a dissertation topic or acquire training relevant for that topic. Moreover, funds are available for professional students whose interests focus on some aspect of European politics, economics, history, or culture; the latter may be used to support an internship or a research project. Grants range from $500 to $5000.

Additional information about the grants, as well as the online application form, can be found here.  The deadline for this Fall’s competition is Friday, October 17th. Recipients will be notified by November 7th. A second competition is scheduled for Spring 2015.
 

Highlights from 2013-2014:

In the 2013-2014 academic year, the Center awarded grants to 26 graduate students in departments ranging from Linguistics to Political Science to Anthropology. We would like to introduce you to some of the students that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured students this month are Michela Giorcelli (Economics) and Orysia Kulick (History).

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Undergraduate Internship Program: Highlights

The Europe Center sponsored four undergraduate student internships with leading think tanks and international organizations in Europe in Summer 2014.  Laura Conigliaro (International Relations, 2015) joined the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), while Elsa Brown (Political Science, 2015), Noah Garcia (BA International Relations and MA Public Policy, 2015), and Jana Persky (Public Policy, 2016) joined Bruegel, a leading European think tank. Our featured student this month is Laura Conigliaro.

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Recap:  Panel on Europe-Russia Relations and EU expansion

On September 30, 2014, Miroslav Lajčák, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, participated in a panel discussion in which he shared his thoughts and opinions about Europe’s relationship with Russia, and about the E.U.’s management of its future membership and associations. The Minister’s viewpoints were of particular interest, given his role in the E.U. foreign policy establishment, and the Slovak Republic’s role in the E.U. and NATO.

“The fact is that E.U.-Russia relations have worsened dramatically. That cannot be denied. But it’s not E.U. enlargement that played a major role in this.”  According to the Minister, Russia did not view E.U. enlargement with hostility, in part, because enlargement remained a transparent process. “But it all changed when Europe decided to enter into Russia’s immediate neighborhood...the former Soviet Republics. And this was something that

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Minister Lajčák’s brought a variety of experiences to the panel. He served as the European Union Chief Negotiator for the E.U.-Ukraine and E.U.-Moldova Association Agreements, and was the European Union Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Sarajevo. Additionally, he was previously the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. 

After Minister Lajčák spoke, he was followed by comments by Michael McFaul, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institute and Freeman Spogli Institute; Norman Naimark, the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor in East European Studies in the History Department and The Director of Stanford Global Studies; and Kathryn Stoner, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Faculty Director of the Susan Ford Dorsey Program in International Studies.

Introducing “Immigration and Integration in Europe” Policy Lab

The Europe Center would like to introduce a new research project entitled, “Immigration and Integration in Europe:  A Public Policy Perspective,” led by Professors David Laitin and Jens Hainmueller. Duncan Lawrence has recently joined Stanford University to help direct the project. The project is part of the new Policy Implementation Lab at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The social and economic integration of its diverse and ever growing immigrant populations is one of the most fundamental and pressing policy issues European countries face today. Success or failure in integrating immigrants is likely to have a substantial effect on the ability of European countries individually and collectively as members of the European Union to achieve objectives ranging from the profound such as sustaining a robust democratic culture to the necessary such as fostering economic cooperation between countries. Various policies have been devised to address this grave political dilemma, but despite heated public debates we know very little about whether these policies achieve their stated goals and actually foster the integration of immigrants into the host societies. (Inset: David Laitin)

The goal of this research program is to fill this gap and create a network of leading immigration scholars in the US and Europe to generate rigorous evidence about what works and what does not when it comes to integration policies. The methodological core of the lab’s research program is a focus on systematic impact evaluations that leverage experimental and quasi-experimental methods with common study protocols to quantify the social and economic returns to integration policies across Europe, including polices for public housing, education, citizenship acquisition, and integration contracts for newcomers. This work will add to the quality of informed public debate on a sensitive issue, and create cumulative knowledge about policies that will be broadly relevant. (Inset: Jens Hainmueller)

The Europe Center Sponsored Events

We invite you to attend the following events sponsored or co-sponsored by The Europe Center:

Additional Details on our website
October 8-10, 2014
“War, Revolution and Freedom: the Baltic Countries in the 20th Century”
Stauffer Auditorium, Hoover Institution
9:00 AM onward

Save the Date
April 24-25, 2015
Conference on Human Rights

A collaborative effort between the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School (IHRCRC), the Research Center for Human Rights at Vienna University (RCHR), and The Europe Center. The conference will focus on the pedagogy and practice of human rights. 

Save the Date
May 20-22, 2015
TEC Lectureship on Europe and the World 
Joel Mokyr
Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Economics and History, Northwestern University

We welcome you to visit our website for additional details.