The Institute of World Politics

About the Lecture: This seminar aims to expound on the impact of globalization on US public diplomacy, emphasizing Sports, Entertainment, and Culture. These three mediums, combined with the popularity of social media, continue to spread all American ideals across the globe, opening needed conversations and policies on how best the US can maximize its perception and influence as it continues to safeguard its national interests.

About the Speaker: Ms. Gor is a student at The Institute of World Politics, pursuing her M.A in Statecraft and International Affairs; formerly part of the directing team that led the inaugural Global Wellness Day- Kenya 2019 celebrations.

About the Lecture: The strategic initiative of China’s leadership to harness an unprecedented influx of wealth from the West to re-establish historical land and sea trade routes is a bold and ambitious effort to cement China’s burgeoning position as the center of global trade in its increasingly unveiled quest for global hegemony which, if successful, will invariably lead it on a collision course with US National Security priorities.

About the Speaker: Jared K. Martin is an IWP graduate with an M.A. in Statecraft and National Security Affairs with a research background in the impact of China’s rapidly expanding role in global affairs on US national security priorities.

About the lecture: There are opportunities and challenges in Angola and Mozambique to reform the electoral processes. What role can the local stakeholders and USG play to pave the way for a more transparent electoral process?

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. Mr. Mekki volunteers with the IWP Center for Human Rights and International Affairs by providing Arabic translations & strategic cultural perspectives on North Africa and Middle East. He holds Bachelors degrees in both Political Science and International Studies from the City College of New York, and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies and International Politics from IWP.

About the panelist:

Martina Perino is the Program Manager for the Great Lakes and Southern Africa at the International Republican Institute. Originally from Mozambique and Italy, she has 10 years of democracy and governance experience in Mozambique, DR Congo, Zambia, and Kosovo. In Zambia, she was the Governance and Social sectors Program Manager at the European Union Delegation. There Ms. Perino designed and managed the electoral support project, an Access to Justice project and worked closely with local CSOs and other donors for human rights issues and local governance. In 2017 she joined USAID/Kosovo as the Democracy and Governance Strategic Planning Specialist where, among other tasks, she designed several projects including a local governance and conflict mitigation project, PVE project, media strengthening project, political party and legislative strengthening. Ms. Perino has been an election observer in Mozambique, DR Congo, Zambia, Kosovo, and Albania. Ms. Perino holds a degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics and a Master’s in International Development.

Florindo Chivucute is the founder and Executive Director of Friends of Angola (FoA), and Radio Angola (an online radio station), activist, blogger and digital media specialist. Florindo earned his Master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and has over 5 years of experience working in non-profit organizations, international development, international relations, peacebuilding, and education while being active in the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) in the United States. Since founding Friends of Angola in April 2014, he has led the design and implementation of four projects in Angola: Radio Angola (an online radio station hosted by Florindo); Strengthening Nonviolent Civic Engagement Among the Youth; Strengthening Democracy in Angola Through Community Journalism; Zuela Application – a pro-democracy and social networking smartphone app focused on fostering good governance, eradicating corruption, monitoring elections and human right violations and more. All projects were envisioned as part of a larger theory of change (ToC) to strengthen the capacity of civil society, empower women and youth while promoting nonviolent civic engagement by using new and existing technologies in Angola and the South-Western African Region. These projects were funded by The National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

About the interview: Dr. John Tierney, IWP professor, spoke with IWP about world order. He discussed the the history of polarity, U.S. interest in world order, and what the future could hold in this regard.

About the speaker: Dr. John Tierney is a Professor Emeritus at The Institute of World Politics and teaches History of American Foreign Policy, History of International Relations, Peace, Strategy and Conflict Resolution, and U.S. Foreign Policy: Current and Future Challenges. Dr. Tierney is a Former Special Assistant and Foreign Affairs Officer for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1981-1993); He formerly participated in various national security negotiations for the U.S. Government. He was Executive Director of the Congressional Caucus on National Defense and the National Security Research Group, U.S. House of Representatives. He is former Chairman of the Politics Department at Catholic University and former Professor of International Relations at University of Virginia and The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Chasing Ghosts and The Politics of Peace.

About the book: The book compiles for the first time corroborative primary sources in English, Russian, French, German, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. The result is the most comprehensive list of Soviet intelligence officer defectors to date. Through the eyes of those officers, it shows the fluctuations in the Soviet recruitment and vetting of personnel for sensitive national security positions, corresponding with fluctuations in the stability of the Soviet government. It also shows the evolution of Soviet threat perceptions and the development of the “main enemy” concept in the Soviet national security system.

About the Speaker: Dr. Kevin P. Riehle is an associate professor at the National Intelligence University. He has spent over 28 years in the U.S. government as a counterintelligence analyst studying foreign intelligence services. He received a Ph.D. in War Studies from King’s College London, an MS in Strategic Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College, and a BA in Russian and Political Science from Brigham Young University. He has written on a variety of intelligence and counterintelligence topics, focusing on the history of Soviet and Eastern Bloc intelligence services.

This event is part of the Student Speaker Series sponsored by The Institute of World Politics.

About the lecture: The classical definition of acting is ‘living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.’ Contrary to the common perception that acting is ‘pretending,’ the working process of actors (as well as of directors and writers) is an exploratory journey to revealing the truth of every moment, the sum of which must build a narrative that connects to and transforms the audience. This webinar lecture will highlight several functional aspects of an actor’s craft that are also pertinent to the national security practitioner and policymaker: training to truly listen, attaching action to words, using the ‘what if’ to create and to foresee possible scenarios, choreographing the sequence of actions and meanings to achieve a scenario objective with maximum impact, and more.

It is the hope of the presenter that some of these elements of an actor’s craft can add value to the existing toolbox of the national security professionals who aim to ‘live and operate truthfully under real circumstances’ in which they deal with real domestic and international ‘actors.’ More importantly, the lecture will discuss the critical element achieved through the study of acting without which all pursuits are bound to be less than fully effective: knowing oneself.

About the speaker: Sebastian is currently Creative & Executive Director of Dacian Wolf Productions, a stage and film development, and production company, where he actively writes, directs, and produces. A former Lecturing Professor of Acting and Movement at Pace University, NYC, he holds a BFA in Dance & Theater, an MBA in Accounting, a Certificate of Completion of the Two-Year Professional Acting Program at the William Esper Studio, NYC, and a candidate for the MA in Statecraft and National Security Affairs at IWP.

Since arriving in the United States from his native Bucharest, Romania in 1982, Sebastian has toured with the internationally acclaimed Pilobolus Dance Theatre and has taught movement, acting, and choreography workshops in Romania, Russia, Korea, Japan, Italy, Chile, Argentina, as well as at many US universities.

His current interests revolve around projects dealing with disinformation and narrative warfare. For more information, please visit www.sebastiantudores.com

This event is part of the Winning without War series sponsored by The Institute of World Politics.

About the lecture: Despite suffering repeated setbacks in recent years, Islamic extremism or more specifically, totalitarian Islamism, and the terrorism it spawns, remains a major threat to the United States and its allies. While there will always be a need for the selective use of military power to counter this threat, effectively addressing it requires non-military tools of statecraft. This webinar will discuss how the United States and its international partners can better use these tools to win the fight against terrorism without over-reliance on combat operations

About the speakers:

Dr. Christopher C. Harmon has been publishing terrorism studies for over 35 years. His works include two editions of the graduate-level text Terrorism Today (2000; 2007) essays on counterterrorism in the geopolitics journal Orbis, and a volume on terrorist propaganda for The Brookings Institution (2018). Dr. Harmon has lectured in some 15 countries and has taught at The Institute of World Politics and other graduate schools, civilian and military. He holds a Bren Chair at Marine Corps University and the Marine Corps University Foundation.

Dr. Douglas E. Streusand is a Professor of International Relations at the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College and Adjunct Professor at The Institute of World Politics. Educated as an Islamic historian, he has pursued a broad range of teaching and research interests, historical and contemporary He has written two books, The Formation of the Mughal Empire and Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals and edited a third, The Grand Strategy that Won the Cold War: Architecture of Triumph and numerous articles and book chapters.

About the lecture: Charlie Chaplin, Daffy Duck, Dr. Seuss, Team America, and Winnie-the-Pooh have entertained audiences using humor. What is perhaps less known about these entertainers is how their humor and images have been used to denigrate and ridicule dictators and authoritarian regimes. When thinking about propaganda and mass influence, humor and ridicule do not often come to mind. However, humor and ridicule are powerful tools of influence and can be used to encourage opposition to authoritarian rule. This talk will explore what makes humor and ridicule such effective tools of influence and why authoritarian regimes fear ridicule so much.

About the speaker: Dr. 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, published by Palgrave Macmillan. Dr. Schindler’s current research is focused on the origins and evolution of Russian political warfare.

About the lecture: In 1915 Germany's successful offensive in the east resulted in the occupation of the Western chunk of the Russian Empire, a swath of land between the Baltic and Black Seas. We refer to it as the Intermarium, and it is essentially coterminous with the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Germans shared their conquest with their junior partners, the Austrians. Both made sure not to include the captured lands into their own partitions of Poland. Instead, they kept them apart as the so-called Polish Kingdom and, further east, the Ober Ost. In the former, the Germans favored the Poles; in the latter, they advantaged the Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Jews. In neither place did the occupiers agree to serious political concessions; they permitted local autonomy at best. It was a classical divide et impera situation. The main objective of Berlin (which by 1918 totally dominated its Viennese partner) was to gain a permanent geopolitical advantage and to exploit the area's economy and labor. The Second Reich pursued a similar policy toward Ukraine when it expanded there in the wake of Brest Litovsk in February 1918. Ultimately, however, Germany's plans collapsed as a result of its defeat on the Western Front.

About the speaker: About the speaker: Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz holds The Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies at The Institute of World Politics and leads IWP’s Center for Intermarium Studies. At IWP, 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 in Failed and Failing States. 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: Since 1972, the nuclear disarmament community —led by major self-described arms control organizations— hasn’t supported any serious nuclear arms control ideas. They’ve supported dangerous ideas such as the nuclear freeze, opposed American strategic nuclear and missile defense modernization efforts, and denounced the most revolutionary and beneficial agreements such as INF, Start 1, and 2. Nearly 50 years after the SALT 1 nuclear agreement, it has become increasingly difficult to secure genuine and verifiable nuclear agreements such as Start 1 and INF. The United States has entered into nuclear deals with Iran, North Korea, and Russia that do little to improve America’s security. In many respects, the global zero campaign has significantly distorted the debate on nuclear security issues. America’s enemies are increasingly expanding their nuclear arsenals and adopting strategies of using nuclear weapons for coercive and hegemonic objectives. A growing narrative among the media, academia, and some politicians is that nuclear arms control is on the ropes. That’s true, but the reason is not the Trump administration, it is the fault of the US disarmament community and global zero advocates that have effectively killed arms control and repeatedly pushed the USA into bad nuclear deals.

About the speaker: Mr. Peter Huessy is President of his own defense consulting firm, GeoStrategic Analysis, founded in 1981, and since 2016, Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute on Aerospace Studies. He was the senior defense consultant at the National Defense University Foundation for 22 years. He was the National Security Fellow at the AFPC, and Senior Defense Consultant at the Air Force Association from 2011 Mr. Huessy has served as an expert defense and national security analyst for over 45 years, helping his clients cover congressional activities while monitoring budget and policy developments on terrorism, counter-terrorism, immigration, state-sponsored terrorism, missile defense, weapons of mass destruction, especially US-Israeli joint defense efforts, nuclear deterrence, arms control, proliferation, as well as tactical and strategic air, airlift, space and nuclear matters and such state and non-state actors as North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda. This also includes monitoring activities of think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and other US government departments, as well as projecting future actions of Congress in this area. His specialty is developing and implementing public policy campaigns to secure support for important national security objectives.

He is on the Board of the InSeries Theater in Washington; EMPACT, the organization devoted to protecting the US from EMP threats; and MTA, the Maryland Taxpayers Association. He authored legislation calling for the divestment of US pensions from any company doing business with Iran and testified before a number of state legislatures on this subject and on counter-terror policy, including whether or not drivers licenses should be made available to those illegally in the US. He is also a member of Secure American Energy, an organization devoted to breaking the back of OPEC and providing the US with American sources of energy.

He has lectured around the world and across the USA on nuclear terrorism, nuclear deterrence, missile defense, homeland security, counter-terrorism policy, and strategic threats to the US and its allies.