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**Please note that the views expressed by our guest lecturers do not necessarily reflect the views of The Institute of World Politics.**
About the Lecture: In 1927, Mr. David Smolansky’s Jewish grandparents fled Soviet Ukraine for Cuba, from which they fled to Venezuela in 1970 after Fidel Castro's socialism caused their family business to crumble. This family history contributed to Mr. Smolanksy’s desire to become involved in politics and to oppose Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. Eventually, he earned the position of mayor of El Hatillo, in which he concentrated on decreasing kidnappings and crime and increasing security and transparency, causing the Maduro regime's decision to remove him from office and put out a warrant for his arrest. This decision forced him to make more than a month long escape to the United States. Now, Mr. Smolansky, as a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, has conducted research focusing on the explosion of violent crime and criminal gangs in Venezuela and the security implications of the Maduro regime's ties with such groups as Hezbollah, and he provides insight on shifting regional politics and what that may mean for Venezuela, including various futures that could unfold in the country. About the Speaker: David Smolansky is the former mayor of El Hatillo municipality in Caracas, Venezuela. He is currently living in exile and is a visiting scholar at Georgetown University. Mr. Smolansky was removed from office by the Maduro administration, disqualified from any public administration role, and has a warrant out for his arrest. He was forced to flee from Venezuela after 35 days in hiding, in which he faced more than 35 checkpoints until he finally reached Brazil. Mr. Smolansky is one of the best-known young Venezuelan politicians, and he was a vital member of the student movement that defeated Hugo Chávez’s constitutional reform proposal in 2007. Elected as the youngest mayor in Venezuela, his administration decreased kidnapping rates in El Hatillo, making the municipality one of the most secure and transparent in the country. Mr. Smolansky is also a founding member and deputy secretary general of Voluntad Popular, one of the main opposition political parties led by Leopoldo López. In 2015, he was recognized by Junior Chamber International as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World. Mr. Smolansky also received the Global Impact Award from Georgetown University in 2018. A journalism graduate from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, he holds a master’s degree in political science from the Universidad Simón Bolívar and participated in the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program at Georgetown University.
About the Book: Soon after the American Revolution, certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783 follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation's political philosophy and material realities. Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history's major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America's stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East. About the Author: 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.
About the Lecture: This discussion will examine the influential role played by Iran within Iraq and the challenge of building a functioning Iraqi state in the context of Iranian penetration of Iraqi politics, economics, security, and religion. In security, the rise of the Islamic State provided an opportunity for Iran to assist Iraq by standing up Shi'a militias, which are now being used to further Iran's security presence in key areas of Iraq and are helping Iran to realize its strategic vision of building a "Shi'a arc" from Tehran to the Mediterranean. This has complicated Baghdad's ability to grasp the security situation within Iraq. Iran, also, has benefited from a one-sided economic and trade relationship with Iraq. At the same time that its influence has been rising within its neighbor, Iran has been becoming increasingly unpopular among the Iraqi people for its interference in Iraq, and Iraqi nationalists such as Muqtada al-Sadr are pushing back against that influence. This talk will examine all of these aspects of Iranian interference with a particular focus on how to build healthy Iraqi governance functions in the midst of these major challenges. About the Speaker: Mike Pregent is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He is a senior Middle East analyst, a former adjunct lecturer for the College of International Security Affairs, and a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Pregent is a former intelligence officer with over 28 years of experience working in security, terrorism, counter-insurgency, and policy issues in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. He is an expert in Middle Eastern and North African political and security issues, counter-terrorism analysis, stakeholder communications, and strategic planning. He spent considerable time working malign Iranian influence in Iraq as an advisor to Iraq’s Security and Intelligence apparatus. Pregent served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and he served as a liaison officer in Egypt during the 2000 Intifada, as a counter-insurgency intelligence officer at CENTCOM in 2001, and as a company commander in Afghanistan in 2002. Additionally, Pregent served as an embedded advisor with the Peshmerga in Mosul from 2005-2006. Also, as a civilian SME working for DIA, Pregent served as a political and military advisor to USF-I focusing on reconciliation, the insurgency, and Iranian influence in Iraq from 2007-2011. He was a violent extremism and foreign fighter analyst at CENTCOM from 2011-2013.
About the lecture Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz will discuss how the criminal underworld was coopted by the Bolshevik revolution, how it was tamed and broken by the Soviet state, how it coexisted with it and infiltrated it; how it became transformed in the post-Soviet realm; and how it became second nature of Putin's system in Russia. Dr. Chodakiewicz will stress historical continuities of Russia's criminal underworld which have now infiltrated into the mainstream of its national life. About the speaker Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz holds the The Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies at The Institute of World Politics, where he also serves as a Professor of History and teaches courses on Geography and Strategy, Contemporary Politics and Diplomacy, Russian Politics and Foreign Policy, and Mass Murder Prevention. He is the author of Intermarium: The Land Between the Black and Baltic Seas and numerous other books and articles. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and has previously taught at the University of Virginia and Loyola Marymount University.
About the Lecture: Xi Jinping, China's Communist Party Chairman and President, has ambitious plans to make China a global power. This lecture will discuss the plans to rebuild ancient trading routes with new infrastructure that can become military bases or ports. The lecture also will cover China's plans for a modern, powerful military that can project expeditionary forces to defend China's new, far-flung interests. About the Speaker: Dr. Larry M. Wortzel served for 32 years in the United States Armed Forces, three years in the Marine Corps followed by 29 years in the Army. A graduate of the U.S. Army War College, Dr. Wortzel earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Dr. Wortzel’s military experience includes seven years in the infantry as well as assignment in signals intelligence collection, human source intelligence collection, counterintelligence, and as a strategist. He served two tours of duty in Beijing, China, as a military attaché and spent twelve years in the Asia-Pacific Region. Dr. Wortzel is the former Director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College. Concurrently he was professor of Asian studies. He retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel at the end of 1999. After his military retirement, he was director of the Asian Studies Center and vice president for foreign policy and defense studies at The Heritage Foundation. Dr. Wortzel has written or edited ten books and numerous scholarly articles on China and East Asia. His books include Class in China: Stratification in a Classless Society; China’s Military Modernization: International Implications; Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese Military History; and The Dragon Extends its Reach: Chinese Military Power Goes Global. Dr. Wortzel was reappointed Commissioner for The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review by House Speaker Paul Ryan for a term expiring on December 31, 2018.
About the Book: Sovereignty in the 21st Century and the Crisis for Identity, Cultures, Nation-States, and Civilizations describes a world already at war with itself. It is a world in which urban globalists fear and despise regional nationalists, and vice-versa. It is a time when the concept of the nation-state sovereignty incarnate has slipped from the minds of many. The populations of the mega-cities have as they have in different ways in the past assumed that they alone represented the state . The response to this has been a voter revolt in many areas of the world and the sudden re-appearance of the schisms between cities and regions. Nationalism has become, for many in the cities, a pejorative term, but an expression of hope for revival of many in the regions. But what do we know of the issues which are really at stake in this changing century? Can we adequately describe the meaning of sovereignty of individuals as well as states or the fundamental differences between republics and constitutional monarchies; between empires and suzerainties? Yet all these issues will determine whether we will live in calm and prosperity, or chaos and fear. This may be the most remarkable book yet by Gregory Copley. About the Author: Gregory Copley, an Australian, is the President of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), based in Washington, DC. He has served as an adviser on strategic issues to a number of governments and leaders. He has authored or co-authored 35 books on strategic and geopolitical issues, history, energy, aviation, and defense. Some of these works include: Sovereignty in the 21st Century, and the Crisis for Cultures, Nation-States, and Civilizations, UnCivilization: Urban Geopolitics in a Time of Chaos, and The Art of Victory. He co-authored Rise of the RedMed: How the Mediterranean-Red Sea Nexus is Resuming its Strategic Centrality, and Pakistan’s Metamorphosis: The Defense & Foreign Affairs Handbook on Pakistan. He is Editor-in-Chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs publications, and the Director of Intelligence at the Global Information System (GIS), an on-line, encrypted-access, global intelligence service which provides strategic current intelligence solely to governments. In 2007, he drafted the grand strategy framework document for Australia, called Australia 2050. He authored and edited the encyclopedia, The Defense & Foreign Affairs Handbook, from 1976 until the present time, taking it from a 2,500 page print book to an even bigger online publication in recent years. He has received a significant number of orders and decorations from governments, including, in 2007, being made a Member of the Order of Australia for his contributions to the international community in the field of strategic analysis. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society in 2011, and was awarded the Society’s Erebus Medal in 2015. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Canadian Forces College Foundation. He received the Asian Council Award in 1990. Mr Copley also has had an extensive career as an industrialist, owning several shipyards and engineering companies in the United Kingdom, a naval architectural firm, and a chemical company in France. Among his other activities, he founded Argonaut LLC, a company exploring — and delivering — remote area, mobile energy and water purification solutions. He also served as Vice-Chairman of the Scottish national airline, Highland Express.
About the Lecture: This examination of American governance makes a rather unique comparison of economic democracy with political democracy. It will be shown that this is the mechanism that governs and regulates much of our lives, not government, and does so in a much more efficient, responsive manner than political democracy. In the process, it draws a variety of conclusions about the consequences of liberty, the consequences for equality, and the physical impossibility of democratic socialism. About the Speaker: Professor Alan Messer served in the CIA for 32 years, first as an analyst on Soviet defense industries and economics for 17 years, in the Directorate for Science and Technology for two years, and then as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service for 13 years, specializing in the KGB and GRU. Prof. Messer has a Master's degree in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and a Master's degree in economics from UCLA. Prof. Messer teaches A Counterintelligence Challenge: The Enigmas and Benefits of Defectors at IWP.
About the Lecture: In 1985 and 1986, the CIA experienced the unparalleled loss of its stable of Soviet assets, which all but wiped out human source reporting on the Soviet Union. In this lecture, Ms. Grimes will discuss her and her co-spy catcher's personal involvement in the CIA's effort to identify the reason for those losses and to protect future Soviet assets from a similar fate of execution. In 1991, the quest led them to search for a Soviet spy in the CIA. They came to identify that individual as CIA Case Officer, Aldrich Ames, a long-time friend and co-worker. In February of 1994, Ames was arrested by the FBI and sentenced to life in prison. About the Speaker: Sandy Grimes is a twenty-six year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service. She spent most of her career working against the former Soviet Union supporting many of the CIA's most valuable cases, including penetrations of the KGB and GRU. She is co-author of the book "Circle of Treason," which details the search for a Soviet traitor in CIA. It is also the basis for an ABC News mini-series "The Asset", which aired in 2014. The daughter of parents who worked on the Manhattan Project, Sandy spent her formative years in Denver, Colorado, where she substituted a course in Russian for the dreaded junior year of physics that set the direction of her personal and professional life. She holds a BA in Russian from the University of Washington, Seattle. She is a mother of two daughters and grandmother of four. She lives in Great Falls, Virginia with her husband of 49 years.
Maria Juczewska, IWP, Kosciuszko Chair of Polish Studies. This year, we are celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Poland's regaining independence. One of the factors that greatly contributed to the rebirth of Poland was the support of General Haller's Army, created on the American soil. The lecture discusses the Army's diplomatic and military contribution to Polish independence.
Matthew J. O’Brien, Federation for American Immigration Reform, Director of Research. The nations of Europe are rapidly becoming the victims of their unnecessarily generous immigration policies, their overly broad concepts of religious freedom and their unwillingness to defend Judeo-Christian culture from Islamic encroachment. Will Poland and its neighbors be the next casualties of this disturbing trend?”
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