Ambassador Dick Bowers, LCDR Patrick Ryan and Dr. Breck Walker, Ph.D., discuss the top five items in the week’s global news providing commentary and assessments, background and context; and they take your questions and comments. We were pleased to welcome Dr. Walker to the weekly Global News Review team as a regular co-host.

This week Professor Mark Katz joined the conversation about key issues in global news especially his analyses of US-Russian affairs. Dr. Katz is a Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason University. (Bio below)

Topics:

1 – Thucydides Takes a South China Sea Cruise

2 – Vladimir the Great — Putin can serve through 2036

3 – Russia’s murder for hire program in Afghanistan

4 – Hong Kong: End of One City, Two Systems

5 – Iran: Why Are There Fires Breaking Out

This week Dick and Pat welcomed Dr. Breck Walker aboard the News Review team as a regular member. They also shared the program with Dr. Mark Katz, a specialist on Russian affairs.

Dr. Breck Walker received his PhD in Diplomatic History from Vanderbilt in 2007. His dissertation was on the foreign policy of the Carter administration. He taught at Sewanee, the University of the South, 2007-2012, and on the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea Program in Spring 2013 and Fall 2015. He worked as a historian in the Historical Office of the Office of Secretary of Defense 2013-2016, researching and writing a book on early Pentagon cyber policy. Prior to becoming a history professor, Breck worked for twenty years as an investment banker, the last ten as co-head of the Corporate Finance Group at J.C. Bradford & Co in Nashville. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, and J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University. Breck serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee World Affairs Council.

Guest Co-Host | Professor Mark Katz

Mark N. Katz, Professor of Government and Politics, began teaching at George Mason University in 1988. He writes on Russian foreign policy, the international relations of the Middle East, transnational revolutionary movements, and other subjects. During 2017, he was a visiting scholar first at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (January-March), and then at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki (April-September). During 2018, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London (January-March), and then the 2018 Sir William Luce Fellow at Durham University in the UK (April-June). In February 2019, he was appointed a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Links to his recent articles can be found at www.marknkatz.com