This talk examines the mid-century modernist ambition for a streamlined, rationalized flow of information that would remove the guesswork from foreign policy: the CIA.

Murray provides a brief discussion about the Iran-Iraq War in which nearly 1 million Arabs, Kurds, and Iranians perished. The talk examines the course and consequences of the most costly war in the past 35 years.

Armed violence continues to present an urgent problem. But research indicates that economic and political factors trump climatic ones in generating violence, and this is where countermeasures to violence should be focused.

Mitchell examines the relationship between interstate river conflicts and intrastate violence such as riots, strikes, demonstrations, and civil wars in the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, and the Middle East.

Mark Lawrence is associate professor of history and distinguished scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. His talk focuses on U.S. foreign policy during the Vietnam War and how the Vietnam War itself can be used as an analogy for later U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the developing world.

How can one understand a country's recognition, or lack thereof, of new borders drawn as a result of war? During the past two decades, scholars have critically examined the political role of space and territory and advanced our understanding of borders with dynamic concepts based on identities and discourses. The literature, however, remains divided. While some works on states' territorial conceptions suggest the primacy of international norms, others stress dynamics that are endemic to the domestic arena.

This event serves as an exploration of non-violent approaches to resolving international conflict. Panelists and guests will discuss the sources of military conflict and explore non-violent strategies designed to promote peace.

The climate change debate is often characterized by worst-case thinking, cost neglect, probability neglect, and avoidance of the notion of acceptable risk. Much of the climate change debate has focused on costly measures to reduce CO2 emissions. Climate adaptation, such as reducing vulnerability of infrastructure to extreme weather events, is much less costly, more effective in the short-term, and in many cases a sound investment even if climate projections turn out to be inaccurate.

Mark Stewart, a visiting fellow at Mershon, and professor of civil engineering at University of Newcastle in Australia, is applying risk and cost-benefit considerations to climate adaptation strategies, and determining whether they are cost-effective or not.

Ravi Komarraju is Emeritus Fellow in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Andhra University in India. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. Komarraju's research focuses on Sino-Indian foreign policy, as well as domestic Indian policies. Ravi Komarraju will deliver a small guest lecture at the Mershon Center focusing on the recent election in India and its possible effects on Indian domestic and foreign policy.

This presentation focuses upon the contribution of African colonies to the Free French war effort of General Charles de Gaulle. Jennings contends that in its early years, between 1940 and 1942, the heart of Free France was not located in London, as standard accounts would have us believe, but rather in what was then known as French Equatorial Africa and French Cameroon. Britain did not provide the movement with the majority of its soldiers, raw materials, national territory, nor even its legitimacy and sovereignty. Territorially, Free France spanned from the Libyan border down to the Congo River, and to the scattered tiny French territories of the South Pacific and India. In 1943, the vast federation of French West Africa rallied what was then being called "Fighting France." The latter now harnessed an immense territory ranging from the Mediterranean to the Congo. The harnessing was often coercive, and much of the continent saw a marked increase in forced labor and coerced recruitment under Free French rule.