Notre Dame International Security Center

Recorded: April 6, 2021

Host: Joseph Parent

Speaker: Steven Pincus

Title: A New Faustian Bargain? Understanding the Lessons of the Soviet-German Cooperation

An Interview with Professor Ian Johnson by Charles Sedore

Summary:

In this episode of Students Talk Security, Charles Sedore, a Notre Dame senior, and Professor Ian John, Assistant Professor of Military History, discuss the history surrounding the German-Soviet Cooperation that occurred during the interwar period and the lessons learned about Russian foreign policy choices. From this historical discussion, the conversation looks to the future as a means of assessing what Russian foreign policy regarding China could look like.

Biography:

Professor Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Military History at the University of Notre Dame’s Department of History. Prior to joining Notre Dame, Professor Johnson received his PhD from the Ohio State University in 2016, with his dissertation focusing on the secret military cooperation between the Soviet Union and Germany during the interwar period. Also, during his time prior to Notre Dame, Professor Johnson received a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, was a pre-doctoral fellow at Yale University, a postdoctoral fellow at the Clements Center for National Security, and an Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University.

Currently, Professor Johnson has focused his efforts on war, both in its origins and conduct, and the maintenance of peace. This has led to a forthcoming publication from the Oxford University Press, The Faustian Bargain: Secret Soviet-German Military Cooperation in the Interwar Period. On top of the publication, Professor Johnson is also working on a new manuscript about early Cold war military history focusing on collective security and the plans for an international military force.

Recorded: March 23, 2021

Host: Joseph Parent

Speaker: Mariya Grinberg

Summary:

On this episode of “Outside the Box,” Jim and Mike speak with Dr. William Ruger, Vice President for Policy at the Charles Koch Foundation, Iraq War Veteran, President Trump’s nominee as ambassador to Afghanistan, and author of a widely discussed New York Times Op/Ed piece urging the Biden Administration to hold to the May 1, 2021 deadline in the United States’ agreement with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Title: Geopolitics: The Competing Maritime and Continental World Orders of China, Russia, and the United States

Recorded: March 16, 2021

Host: Joseph Parent

Speaker: Sarah Paine

Full Title: Large-N Qualitative Analysis (LNQA): Everything You Wanted to Know about Doing a Cornell-Princeton Book, Part I

Speaker: Gary Goertz and Stephan Haggard

Host: Joseph Parent

Recorded: February 23, 2020

Title: Anticipate, Prevent, Respond: Conflict Stabilization and U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa

Hosted by Katherine McLaughlin

Summary:

With 54 voting UN members, economies ripe for investment and development, and the emergence of foreign influence in the continent, Africa’s future is of strategic importance to U.S. foreign policy. In this episode of “Students Talk Security,” Kate McLaughlin sits down with Foreign Affairs Officer Libby Strait to discuss the priorities and challenges facing the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, with a particular focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Biography:

Libby Strait has served as a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. Department of State since 2011. She currently works in the Bureau of Conflict & Stabilization Operations (CSO), where she leads the bureau’s efforts to prevent and mitigate violent conflict in West Africa. She has previously served as Acting Deputy Director for the bureau’s Africa Office and as Team Lead for East Africa.

During her tenure with the Department, Libby has deployed to U.S. Missions in Nigeria, Kenya, and Mozambique, serving as an advisor to U.S. Ambassadors, country teams, and partners on conflict-related foreign policy challenges. She has also served at U.S. Africa Command and in the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs.

Prior to joining the State Department, Libby worked in international development and as a writer and editor for the Minnesota State House of Representatives. Libby is a proud Minnesotan, earned a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MA in International Affairs and Conflict Resolution from the George Washington University.

Summary:

Sanctions expert and Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies George A. Lopez draws on his extensive research and experience in sanctions design and peace building to explain the advantages and drawbacks of targeted economic sanctions as a diplomatic tool, particularly in how they enable the US to intervene in nuclear threats, corrupt regimes, and human rights abuses.

Biography:

George A. Lopez is the Hesburgh Chair in Peace Studies, Emeritus, at the Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame. Lopez's research and consultancy work focuses on economic sanctions, human rights, and various aspects in peacebuilding.

Since 1992, Lopez has advised various international agencies and governments regarding sanctions issues, ranging from limiting their humanitarian impact to the design of targeted financial sanctions. He has written more than 40 articles and book chapters, as well as authored/ edited eight books, often with David Cortright of the Keough School, on economic sanctions. He frequently publishes op-eds on economic sanctions.

From October, 2010 - July, 2011, he served on the United Nations Panel of Experts for monitoring and implementing UN Sanctions on North Korea. From September 2013 – July 2015 he was Vice President at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington, D.C.

Title: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy: The Importance of Law and Humanitarian Values on the Battlefield

An Interview with Colonel Ian Brasure by Evan Muller

Summary: In this episode of ‘Students Talk Security’, Evan Muller will discuss Col. Brasure's career, the importance of international law, his involvement in humanitarian operations, and current and future events in military justice.

Bio: Ian Brasure serves as an Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where his legal practice includes the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the U.S. telecommunications sector. Prior to joining DHS, he served as a Legal Advisor and Special Advisor to the Armed Forces Department in the International Committee of the Red Cross Regional Delegation for the United States and Canada, where his work concerned emerging issues related to armed conflict and their humanitarian impact.

Ian served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 30 years and concluded his career as Deputy Legal Advisor at the White House within the National Security Council (NSC). This assignment included responsibility for the provision of legal advice to the President of the United States and the National Security Advisor on matters pertaining to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, arms control/nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction, and space and maritime law. During his tenure at the NSC he was the senior Marine Corps officer serving at the White House.

Summary:

On our second episode of Outside the Box, Mike and Jim discuss U.S.-Israel relations after the Trump Administration. Under the 45th President, the United States moved closer to the positions of the Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud government than any previous Administration, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, encouraging the historic Abraham Accords between the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates, and withdrawing from the Obama Administration’s Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). On the other hand, the Israel-Palestine conflict remains frozen and the new Biden Administration has committed itself to reengaging Iran. To discuss these and other issues, Mike and Jim are joined by Jessica Smith, Chief Operating Officer, and Dylan Williams, Senior Vice President for Policy and Strategy of J Street, an organization committed to providing a political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.