Stay ConnectedThe Institute of World Politics is a graduate school of national security and international affairs, dedicated to developing leaders with a sound understanding of international realities and the ethical conduct of statecraft, based on knowledge and appreciation of the principles of the American political economy and the Western moral tradition.
**Please note that the views expressed by our guest lecturers do not necessarily reflect the views of The Institute of World Politics.**
This event is part of The African Strategic Forum sponsored by The Institute of World Politics. About the lecture: As Sudan transitions to a more transparent, civilian rule, and democratic governance, its Sudan Sovereignty Council civilian and military leadership in Khartoum will be tested on its willingness to dismantle and reform its security sector. The process of building a strong civil society and preparing the country for elections in the next two years will be scrutinized by the global community and other regional stakeholders. This panel will discuss what steps will increase the likelihood of a successful transition and reformed security sector. About the panelist: Dr. Linda Bishai is an adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs and a Research Staff Member on the Africa Team at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). She works on a wide range of international security issues including African regional economic communities, security cooperation in Africa, and monitoring instability in central and southern Africa. She has twenty years of experience in teaching, training and writing on international law, peacebuilding and security sector reform, and preventing/countering violent extremism. In her previous positions at the American Bar Association and at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Bishai designed and delivered programs on preventing election violence in Sudan and South Sudan, civic education and higher education reform in Sudan, and women’s role in preventing violent extremism in Nigeria and Kenya. As Director of North Africa programs at USIP, Bishai facilitated dialogues on just and sustainable security sector responses to violent extremism and border security in the Sahel and the Maghreb. As Director of Research, Evaluation and Learning at the ABA Rule of Law Initiative, Bishai oversaw the activities of a team of legal researchers and monitoring & evaluation professionals.Bishai has maintained an active academic profile and has taught courses in international relations, international law and human rights. Bishai holds a B.A. in history and literature from Harvard University, a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and LLM in international law from the University of Stockholm, and a Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics. Dr. Sarah Detzner is a consultant based in Washington, D.C. Her research and consulting work, on behalf of various governments, multilateral institutions, and think tanks and foundations, is focused on security sector reform, particularly monitoring and evaluation as well as the role of civil society and other forms of participation in post-conflict security sector reconstruction efforts. Previously, she served in the Obama administration as a speechwriter for former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, campaigned as an Obama 2008 staffer, and worked with the National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C., Lebanon, and Jordan. She received her doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and is a fellow of the World Peace Foundation. About the coordinator and moderator: Prof. Hashem Mekki, MA, has taught Arabic Language, Culture & Middle East Media at IWP since 2012. He is the owner of Bridge Language Solutions, providing an array of language translation, interpretation and teaching services to the Washington DC metropolitan area, and the founder of Kele Global, a nonprofit organization that promotes education, health, and economic empowerment in the Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan. He also teaches Arabic language to federal employees & professionals at the National Nuclear Security Administration at the Department of Energy.
About the lecture: The rise of great power politics has resulted in a new, global competition for political influence. Alliances and partnerships are critical to expanding US influence, yet building these partnerships is challenging. This webinar will discuss the importance of these partnerships and suggest ways for the US to expand and strengthen them. About the panelists: Dr. Frank Marlo is Dean of Academics at The Institute of World Politics. He formerly served as a Professor of Strategic Studies at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. He received his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in May 2006. From January 2002 until January 2005, he served as Assistant for Counterproliferation Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. He is the author of Planning Reagan’s War: Conservative Strategists and America’s Cold War Victory. Ambassador Philip Hughes served as the United States Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean from November 1990 until July 1993. Prior to this ambassadorial appointment, he served as Executive Secretary of the National Security Council during 1989 and 1990. Ambassador Hughes is currently Senior Director of the White House Writers Group in Washington, DC. Dr. Cailtin Schindler is a Research Professor at The Institute of World Politics and Adjunct Professor at Patrick Henry College. In addition to teaching, Dr. Schindler works for a U.S. Defense contractor providing subject matter expertise research and analysis to various government customers’ operations and programs. Dr. Schindler obtained a Master of Arts in Strategic Intelligence from the Institute of World Politics in 2010 and completed her Ph.D. on the historical origins of U.S. public diplomacy at the University of Leeds. Dr. Schindler authored The Origins of Public Diplomacy in US Statecraft: Uncovering a Forgotten Tradition.
This event is sponsored by the Asia Initiative Lecture Series at The Institute of World Politics. About the lecture: After 20 years of White House National Security Strategies premised on the hope that great power competition might be mitigated by cooperation with China on counter-terrorism, financial governance or climate change, the Trump administration announced unapologetically in its 2017 National Security Strategy that the United States is in strategic competition with China. The same year the State Department introduced the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy and brought back the US-Japan-Australia-India “Quad” to check Chinese expansion in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. No matter who wins the Presidency in November, these key pillars of U.S. strategy should continue. But serious changes are necessary or the strategy will fail. Over the next four years, the United States must re-invest in alliances, multilateral institutions, trade negotiations, and military deterrence or the framing of strategic competition with China will become hollow. About the speaker: Michael Jonathan Green is senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) from 2001 through 2005, first as director for Asian affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia, with responsibility for East Asia and South Asia. Before joining the NSC staff, he was a senior fellow for East Asian security at the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center and the Foreign Policy Institute and assistant professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and senior adviser on Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also worked in Japan on the staff of a member of the National Diet. Dr. Green is also a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, a distinguished scholar at the Asia Pacific Institute in Tokyo, and professor by special appointment at Sophia University in Tokyo. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, the America Australia Leadership Dialogue, the advisory boards of Radio Free Asia and the Center for a New American Security, and the editorial boards of the Washington Quarterly and the Journal of Unification Studies in Korea. He also serves as a trustee at the Asia Foundation, senior adviser at the Asia Group, and associate of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Dr. Green has authored numerous books and articles on East Asian security, including most recently, By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783 (Columbia University Press, 2017). He received his master’s and doctoral degrees from SAIS and did additional graduate and postgraduate research at Tokyo University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from Kenyon College with highest honors. He holds a black belt in Iaido (sword) and has won international prizes on the great highland bagpipe.
This event is part of the Intermarium Lecture Series sponsored by The Institute of World Politics. About the lecture: This lecture investigates the similarities among three different revolutionary women’s liberation campaigns: the Soviet policy of hujum in Uzbekistan in the 1920s and 1930s, the Chinese Communist Party’s policies on marriage reform from 1921 until 1953, and U. S. policies and rhetoric toward Afghan and Iraqi women during the interventions in the early 2000s. It is widely recognized that women’s liberation, when subordinated to another ideological mission, almost invariably falls short of its objectives. Placing these episodes in comparison helps to demonstrate key aspects of the fateful logic of women’s liberation when pursued as a strategy for revolutionary state-building. This comparison also sheds new light on U.S. operations in the Middle East and suggests that the U.S. effort to build democracy shares with revolutionary communism the normative assumption that the disruption of traditional gender norms is one of the first and most important steps toward building a new regime. About the speaker: Dr. Emily Finley holds a PhD in Political Theory from The Catholic University of America and is currently a postdoctoral scholar in Political Science at Stanford University. Her research interests include political ideology, international relations, epistemology, religion and politics, and intellectual history.
This event is part of The African Strategic Forum sponsored by The Institute of World Politics. About the lecture: The tension over GERD has created an impasse for the African Union on how to resolve the conflict between these three countries. Our panelists will analyze the politics in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia around the timeline for filling the dam. The panelists will also provide insights into the prospects of a peaceful resolution and the economic benefits of this grand project may bring throughout the African continent. What role do the African Union (AU), UN, and other international mediators like the U.S. play in this case? About the panelist: Dr. Hani Sewilam is a Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources Management at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany. He is currently the Managing Director of the UNESCO Chair in Hydrological Changes and Water Resources Management at the RWTH Aachen. He is also a professor at the American University in Cairo. Hydrology, water management, desalination and sustainable development are his main areas of specializations. In Germany, his research team focuses on flood risk management and the development of innovative capacity building programme for water professionals. Dealing with water scarcity through desalination, aquaponics, hydroponics, and effective water management is the focus of his other team in Egypt. Another focus of his research is implementing the concept of Water-Energy-Food nexus at local, national and regional levels. Over the last 5 years, Sewilam co-founded an MSc program in “Sustainable Management – Water and Energy” at the RWTH Aachen in Germany and founded another M.Sc. program in “Sustainable Development” at the American University in Cairo. He has contributed significantly to the establishment of the UNESCO Chair in Hydrological Changes and Water Resources Management at the RWTH Aachen. Sewilam is the founder of the first Center for Sustainable Development in Egypt. Sewilam has been raising funds and implementing research and development projects since 2002 with universities and institutions from at least 15 Euro-Mediterranean countries. Sewilam was awarded his PhD with honor from the RWTH Aachen University in the area of water resources management and his MSc from Southampton University in the UK in the area of irrigation management. Dr. Semu Moges has a B.sc in Hydraulic Engineering, M.sc, and Ph.D. in Water Resources Engineering and over 20 years of extensive experience in teaching, research, and consultancy in the area of hydrological modeling, water resources planning and management, climate change. Dr. Moges has taught in many Universities in Ethiopia and abroad. He has coordinated and been involved in many regional and national projects and programs related to the Nile basin. He was the national coordinator for the Applied Training Project of the Nile Basin Initiative. He has also been involved in many regional Nile research. He published in broad areas of river basin hydrology and water resources management. He was among the first researchers published on modeling and evaluation of the impact of GERD along with his Ph.D. students. Currently, Dr. Moges works as a consultant Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the USA. He is also affiliated in teaching and research with the University of Connecticut. He is currently pursuing research to understand the long-term interaction between the Water-Energy-Food nexus.
This event is sponsored by the Asia Initiative Lecture Series at The Institute of World Politics. About the lecture: Hitherto, almost all writings about Beijing’s espionage and influence operations have focused on individual cases that shed little light on the actual nature of China’s organs of state security. Dr. Matthew Brazil will speak about how he and his co-author researched original sources in Chinese and unearthed new insights into Beijing’s most secret operations at home and abroad. About the Speaker: Matt Brazil is a non-resident Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He worked in Asia for over 20 years as a U.S. Army officer, American diplomat, and corporate security manager. He is the co-author of Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, Nov 2019). More information on the book and this topic may be viewed at https://www.mattbrazil.net/. The author’s compendium of espionage terms in Chinese and photos from the world of Chinese Communist espionage may be seen at https://www.ccpintelterms.com/.
About the lecture: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. foreign policy has been built on an assumption of hegemony and a sense of exceptionalism that allows–perhaps demands–that the U.S. can control many , if not most, of the events in the post-Cold War world. This has been the view of both major political parties, albeit from quite different perspectives. What they have either not realized or accepted is that the world is changing so rapidly and thoroughly that this American assumption is no longer valid and assuming it is so is counterproductive and even dangerous. How will the next administration approach foreign policy? Will it be able to come to grips with the new realities of the 21st century? About the speaker: Dr. Steven E. Meyer received his undergraduate degrees at the University of Wisconsin in political science and mathematics. He received his M.S. degree in Political Science from Fordham University and a PhD in comparative politics at Georgetown University. After a long career at the Central Intelligence Agency as an analyst and manager, specializing in European and Russian affairs, Dr. Meyer taught security studies, American foreign policy, Russian and European politics and environmental security. He has published many articles and contributed to several books. Currently, he is writing a book on Opportunities Lost After the Cold War. He lectures extensively in the U.S. and Europe.
About the book: The Decline of Nations takes an in-depth look at the condition of the contemporary United States and shows why Americans should be deeply concerned. It tackles controversial subjects such as immigration, political correctness, morality, religion and the rise of a new elite class. Author Joseph Johnston provides many historical examples of empires declining, including the Roman and British empires, detailing their trajectory from dominance to failure, and, in the case of Britain, subsequent re-emergence as modern day nation. Johnston delivers riveting lessons on the U.S. government viewed through the lens of excessive centralization and deterioration of the rule of law. He demonstrates the results of weak policies including the surging Progressive movement and the expanding Welfare state. In The Decline of Nations, Johnston asks important questions about diminished military capacity, a broken educational system, and the decline of American arts and culture. He questions the sustainability of the nation’s vast global commitments and shows how those commitments are threatening America’s strength and prosperity. There is no historical guarantee that the United States can sustain its economic and political dominance in the world scene. By knowing the historic patterns of the great nations and empires, there is much to be learned about America’s own destiny. About the speaker: Joseph F. Johnston, Jr., is a graduate of Princeton University and received a master’s degree in history and a law degree from Harvard University. He practiced law in New York City and Washington, D.C., was a visiting lecturer at the University of Virginia law school and is a member of the American Law Institute. He is the author of The Limits of Government, published by Regnery Gateway. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
This event is a part of IWP’s Annual Constitution Day Lecture series. About the lecture: As we celebrate the Constitution, let us reflect that it took the Civil War to make the Constitution conform to our ultimate founding document, the Declaration of Independence. Beginning with the abolition of slavery, the 13th Amendment required other radical changes as well. The triumph and the tragedy of the 13th Amendment become more vivid, as we Americans today assume the duty of perpetuating the Founders’ and Abraham Lincoln’s achievements and intentions. About the Speaker: Dr. Ken Masugi is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute and a Senior Contributor to the online journal of American Greatness. He is also a lecturer in Government at the Johns Hopkins University Center for American Government in Washington, DC.
This event is sponsored by The Institute of World Politics’ IAFIE Student Chapter. About the book: When Joint Special Operations Command deployed Task Force 714 to Iraq in 2003, it faced an adversary unlike any it had previously encountered: al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI’s organization into multiple, independent networks and its application of Information Age technologies allowed it to wage war across a vast landscape. To meet this unique threat, TF 714 developed the intelligence capacity to operate inside those networks, and in the words of commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, USA (Ret.) “claw the guts out of AQI.” In Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War, Richard H. Shultz Jr. provides a broad discussion of the role of intelligence in combatting nonstate militants and revisits this moment of innovation during the Iraq War, showing how the defense and intelligence communities can adapt to new and evolving foes. Shultz tells the story of how TF 714 partnered with US intelligence agencies to dismantle AQI’s secret networks by eliminating many of its key leaders. He also reveals how TF 714 altered its methods and practices of intelligence collection, intelligence analysis, and covert paramilitary operations to suppress AQI’s growing insurgency and, ultimately, destroy its networked infrastructure.TF 714 remains an exemplar of successful organizational learning and adaptation in the midst of modern warfare. By examining its innovations, Shultz makes a compelling case for intelligence leading the way in future campaigns against nonstate armed groups. About the speaker: Richard H. Shultz, Jr. is the Lee E. Dirks Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He teaches graduate-level courses on various aspects of international security affairs to include: the role of force in international politics; internal conflict and irregular war; special operations strategies for responding to irregular warfare challenges; origins, conduct, and termination of war; intelligence and national security; and crisis management. At the Fletcher School he also is Director of the International Security Studies Program. The ISSP prepares U.S. and international graduate students for public and private sector careers in national and international security policy. Director responsibilities include management of courses and curriculum; conferences and workshops; senior-level speaker series; the military fellows program; crisis simulation exercises; fundraising. Currently, he is Senior Fellow at the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Joint Special Operations University. Previously, in Washington, he served as director of research for the National Strategy Information Center from 2004-2012. In 2010 he completed with Roy Godson a major study focused on Adapting America’s Security Paradigm and Security Agenda to meet the challenges posed by 21st Century armed groups and the states that support them. He also completed a study on Armed Groups and Irregular Warfare: Adapting Professional Military Education, a curricular guide for military educational institutions, among other publications and reports. He has served as a security consultant to various U.S. government departments and agencies concerned with national security affairs. For the last ten years that has included as a senior fellow to the Special Operations Command’s Joint Special Operations University. As a senior fellow, he deploys abroad as a member of military education teams to teach courses on terrorism/counterterrorism, special operations integration, and asymmetric challenges to NATO to foreign military officers. This has included programs taught in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Tunisia, Morocco, Mali, Kenya, Cameroon, each of the Baltic nations, and the NATO School in Germany.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
