The Institute of World Politics

About the Event: On November 15, 2019, the Institute of World Politics hosted a special day-long debate event examining the past, present, and future of Socialism/Communism. Sponsored by the Claremont Institute together with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and produced by the Imprimatur Group to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the program featured a morning debate on the economic viability of a socialist or communist system while the afternoon session explored the nature of cultural Marxism, which has been argued to have supplanted the tenets and goals of economic Marxism with a new emphasis on “social justice.”

Our participants include Michael Anton, former member of the National Security Council, Marek Chodakiewiz, Professor of History at the Institute of World Politics, historian Ronald Radosh, a former Marxist and author of The Rosenberg File, and Michael Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. On the left, the debaters are Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor and publisher of Jacobin Magazine, author and managing editor of Jacobin Micah Uetricht, Eric Blanc, an author and contributor to Jacobin and The Nation, and sociologist Nicole Aschoff, author of The New Prophets of Capital. The debate will be moderated by cultural historian Michael Walsh, author of The Devil’s Pleasure Palace and The Fiery Angel, who will discuss his personal experiences in Berlin when the Wall fell during a special lunchtime presentation.

About the Event: On November 15, 2019, the Institute of World Politics hosted a special day-long debate event examining the past, present, and future of Socialism/Communism. Sponsored by the Claremont Institute together with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and produced by the Imprimatur Group to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the program featured a morning debate on the economic viability of a socialist or communist system while the afternoon session explored the nature of cultural Marxism, which has been argued to have supplanted the tenets and goals of economic Marxism with a new emphasis on “social justice.”

Our participants include Michael Anton, former member of the National Security Council, Marek Chodakiewiz, Professor of History at the Institute of World Politics, historian Ronald Radosh, a former Marxist and author of The Rosenberg File, and Michael Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. On the left, the debaters are Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor and publisher of Jacobin Magazine, author and managing editor of Jacobin Micah Uetricht, Eric Blanc, an author and contributor to Jacobin and The Nation, and sociologist Nicole Aschoff, author of The New Prophets of Capital. The debate will be moderated by cultural historian Michael Walsh, author of The Devil’s Pleasure Palace and The Fiery Angel, who will discuss his personal experiences in Berlin when the Wall fell during a special lunchtime presentation.

This debate argues whether or not socialism and communism remains a viable economic, social and political system, but it possibly just has not been implemented correctly yet.

About the lecture: What is the origin of Russian behavior in international politics? What is their worldview and grand strategy? How do they apply it in Cyberspace and what are the implications for the US and the West? This presentation will delve into how Russian strategic thinking originated in the Soviet era and how it transitioned to contemporary Russia, and how they have a unique competitive advantage in Cyber Space. This presentation will also address the principles and theories of Hybrid Warfare from the Russian perspective and contrast it with Western thinking, which has broad security implications.

About the speaker: Mr. Peter Debbins has 20 years of experience and knowledge in intelligence, national security, strategic planning, CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, enhanced Explosives), cyber and cyber space, hybrid warfare, business, economics, finance, world geopolitical environment, and science and technology (S&T). He possesses native fluency in Russian.

Mr. Debbins served as an officer in the US Army and has also worked in commercial businesses in Ukraine and Russia. He was a Russian Cyber Analyst for the US Government, and later a Cyber Operations instructor. Currently he works as an Area Studies and Hybrid Warfare instructor for the US European Command (EUCOM) and NATO.

About the Book: A path-breaking work on Chinese global strategy, China’s Vision of Victory brings the reader to a new understanding of China’s grand-scale planning and ambitions. From seabed to space, from Africa to the Antarctic, from subsurface warfare to the rise of China’s global corporations, this book illuminates the greatest challenge of our lifetimes – the Chinese Communist Party’s ambition to end the American-led world and to bring about a century defined by Chinese power.

China’s Vision of Victory a is landmark book on Chinese global strategy. It brings together numerous primary sources, both contemporary and historical, unveiling the grand strategic vision of China’s leaders, laying out the ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party and their project for the creation of a new world order, built on the ‘resurrection’ of China’s supremacy among nations. China’s leaders envision a turning point in history, the breaking up of the American-led global order, and the vanquishing of American power in the Pacific and beyond. Only when China has returned to its seat at the head of all nations, both in Asia and around the world, as the supreme power of the 21st Century, can the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ as China’s leaders call it, then be complete.

About the Speaker: Dr. Jonathan D. T. Ward is the Founder of Atlas Organization, a consultancy focused on the rise of China and India, the new geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific, and US-China global competition. He completed his D.Phil. at Oxford in China-India relations and has traveled widely throughout China, India, and the Indo-Pacific Region. Dr. Ward has consulted for the Pentagon on Chinese long-term strategy and began studying Chinese global strategy, the Indian Ocean Region, and Maritime Asia for Oxford Analytica, the UK’s leading political risk consultancy.

Dr. Ward’s travels in the Indo-Pacific include traversing the South China Sea on an Indonesian cargo ship, hitch-hiking with truck drivers in the China-India Himalayan border regions, and getting stuck on a mountaintop in the Strait of Hormuz during travels with Omani fishermen in the Persian Gulf. As an undergraduate, Jonathan studied Philosophy, Russian, and Chinese language at Columbia University. He speaks Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic and has lived in Russia, China, India, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Dr. Ward is a member of the 2018 Next Generation National Security Leaders Fellowship program at the Center for a New American Security. He is a frequently invited speaker for public and private audiences in the United States, Europe, and Asia, on China, India, and the Indo-Pacific. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme.

About the Lecture: Ambassador Romualdez will speak on Philippines-US relations in the context of a quickly changing Indo-Pacific, including the emerging economic, political, and strategic realities of the region. He will also touch on the strong history of Philippine-US ties that include not only the trade and security relationship but perhaps most importantly the people to people ties that undergird the relationship.

About the Speaker: Jose Manuel “Babe” del Gallego Romualdez was appointed Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines to the United States of America in July 2017 by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. On 29 November 2017, he presented his credentials to US President Donald J. Trump and formally assumed office as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. Additionally, as the head of the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., Ambassador Romualdez is concurrently the Philippines’ emissary to the Commonwealth of Jamaica, Republic of Haiti; Republic of Trinidad and Tobago; Antigua and Barbuda; Bahamas; Barbados; Dominica; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; and Saint Lucia.

Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Romualdez was designated as a special envoy of the Philippine President to the United States. He also served as a member of several Philippine business delegations visiting the United States, China, Japan and New Zealand from 1989 to 2012.

Ambassador Romualdez has extensive experience as a media practitioner and business executive. He used to be the Chief Executive Officer of Stargate Media Corporation and Publisher of People Asia Magazine (The Philippine Star affiliate). He was president of the Manila Overseas Press Club and vice-president of Rotary Club of Manila.

Ambassador Romualdez writes columns for The Philippine Star. All his columns have a wide following of readers both in the Philippines and abroad.

Born and raised in Manila, Ambassador Romualdez received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from De La Salle College in 1970.

About the book: Pulitzer Prize Finalist in History and Winner of the Journal of the American Revolution 2016 Book of the Year Award

The remarkable untold story of how the American Revolution’s success depended on substantial military assistance provided by France and Spain and places the Revolution in the context of the global strategic interests of those nations in their fight against England.

In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded. France and Spain provided close to the equivalent of $30 billion and 90 percent of all guns used by the Americans, and they sent soldiers and sailors by the thousands to fight and die alongside the Americans, as well as around the world.

Ferreiro adds to the historical records the names of French and Spanish diplomats, merchants, soldiers, and sailors whose contribution is at last given recognition. Instead of viewing the American Revolution in isolation, Brothers at Arms reveals the birth of the American nation as the centerpiece of an international coalition fighting against a common enemy.

About the author: Dr. Larrie D. Ferreiro is the 2017 Pulitzer finalist for History, for his book “Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It”. He received his PhD in the History of Science and Technology from Imperial College London. He teaches history and engineering at George Mason University in Virginia and the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He has served for over thirty-five years in the US Navy, US Coast Guard and Department of Defense, and was an exchange engineer in the French Navy. He lives with his wife and their sons in Virginia.

About the Lecture: The Trump administration quietly undertook a range of counterterrorism efforts during its first year, allowing President Trump to rightfully claim at the State of the Union address in January 2018 that, under his administration, ISIS suffered substantial territorial loss to its physical caliphate. But, that alone is not enough. This presentation aims to update the terrorism challenge going forward in light of policy choices, a new National Counterterrorism Strategy, and international pressure on terrorist actors. Going forward, the United States must also consider adapting its approach to counter a broader (and sometimes underground) jihadist movement by working with the right foreign partners to institutionalize better governance and support stabilization efforts. Failure to do so will risk yet another jihadist terrorist group rising to threaten the United States and its broader interests. In addition, senior leaders and policymakers must attain a better understanding of the complex “Grey Zone” dynamics ongoing in the Middle East, where the United States and its partners must be willing to invest in a long-term counter-strategy to contest the competing forces — both state and non-state in that vacuous space. This dynamic is now complicated by United States military forces essentially pulling out of Syria, as well as the continuance of a strained relationship with Iran. Lastly, we can’t ignore domestic terrorism or homegrown violent extremism (HVE) – those would-be terrorists that are at risk of radicalizing and mobilizing for violence. Effective measures to counter these threats require a range of capabilities — not solely those related to law enforcement, but also with the capabilities of the private sector and civil society.

About the Speaker: Mr. Costa served as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council (NSC). At the NSC, he was responsible for coordinating counterterrorism policy and strategy as well as U.S. hostage recovery activities. Mr. Costa had 34 years of progressive national security experience and well‐documented success in strategy, policy, special operations, counterintelligence, and human intelligence, deploying on multiple contingencies and to combat operations in the Republic of Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Mr. Costa’s last assignment with the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) was as Program Director in the Operations Directorate. Preceding USSOCOM, Mr. Costa served as a Department of the Navy civilian at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group – with US Navy SEALs, and as a Senior Adjunct Instructor with Norwich University’s Bachelor of Science in Strategic Studies and Defense Analysis Program; with Norwich University, he taught on topics related to national security, strategy, and counterterrorism. He holds an M.A. in Strategic Intelligence from American Military University; an M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College; and a B.A. from Norwich University. His military awards and decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, and two Bronze Stars. In May 2013, Mr. Costa was inducted into USSOCOM’s Commando Hall of Honor for extraordinary and enduring service to Special Operations Forces. Most recently, Mr. Costa joined the International Spy Museum as the Executive Director where he will play a leading role in building on its extraordinary success as a Washington attraction and speaking responsibly on current counterterrorism and intelligence issues.

This event is a part of IWP's Intermarium Lecture Series.

Three cases of Polish captivity in years 1918 – 1924: Galician Ukrainians, “Petlura’s” Ukrainians and Bolsheviks – a comparative study

About the lecture: Just after Poland had regained its independence, 3 wars with her neighbors ensued. The Ukrainian war in the Eastern Galicia. Then a conflict with other Ukrainians – this time from Dnipro Ukraine – in the territory of Volhynia. And finally, the conflict between Poland and Soviet Russia when the Red Army entered present-day Western Belarussian lands. One of the outcomes of those conflicts was the presence of thousands of prisoners-of-wars and internees in Poland; either captured on the frontline or interned by Polish military authorities on the charge of being a threat to newly created Polish state. During this lecture, a new approach to the problem of their captivity will be presented. Mr. Weglewicz will try to compare the three groups of POWs mentioned above. First, the approach of the Polish military authorities to all three groups will be presented. Then, he will analyze other topics, such as material conditions in the camps, alimentation/hunger, sanitary conditions and the death rates. Finally, the fate of the POWs after release from the camps also will be moved.

The lecture has been based on archival resources from various archives, including Central Military Archive in Warsaw, Central State Historical Archive in Lviv and Central Archive of Supreme Bodies of Power and Administration in Kyiv, as well as newspapers from that era and the literature on the subject.

About the speaker: Wiktor Weglewicz is a PhD candidate at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. In 2018 he received a grant “Etiuda 6” for research for his PhD thesis from Polish National Science Center. Part of it is presently carrying out at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. He also received a Visegrad Fund scholarship (at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, 2017), and twice – European Union Erasmus scholarships (University of Florence, 2012-2013, and Charles University in Prague, 2015-2016). His scientific interests are centered around the cases of prisoners-of-wars and internees in Poland, 1918 – 1924 as well as Ukrainian prisoners-of-wars and internees in the countries of East – Central Europe, 1914 – 1924. He authored several articles, published in Poland, Ukraine and Russia; also, he has presented the results of his researches at various conferences in Cracow, Warsaw, Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Moscow and Sankt – Petersburg.

About the Lecture: International law prohibits the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries. Mercenaries do not enjoy the rights of armed combatants such as to be treated as prisoners of war pursuant to Geneva Convention Norms. Notably, the Russian Criminal Code provides that the recruitment, training, financing, or supplying of mercenaries, and also the use of them in armed conflicts or hostilities is a crime.

Nonetheless, the Russian Government has deployed private organizations such as the Wagner Group to advance its foreign policy goals in Ukraine, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela, and elsewhere. Sometimes these forces play a decisive role in shifting the battlefield or political balance in limited conflicts.

The Wagner Group and similar organizations are now engaged in supporting friendly regimes, securing rights to raw materials, and undermining certain governments. It is important that US National Security Managers not exaggerate the effectiveness of these forces when determining appropriate policies to pursue.

In this lecture, IWP Adjunct Professor Ethan S. Burger will discuss the practical domestic Russian and international consequences of its outsourcing and/or privatizing these traditional state functions.

About the Speaker: Ethan S. Burger is a Washington-D.C.-based international attorney and educator with a background in cybersecurity, transnational financial crime, and Russian legal matters. He has been a full-time faculty member at the American University (School of International Service — Transnational Crime Prevention Center) and the University of Wollongong (Australia) (Faculty of Law — Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention), and as well as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and Washington College of Law. He has taught about cybersecurity as a Visiting Professor at Vilnius University on a grant from the Fulbright Foundation and will be teaching a course during the Fall Semester at IWP on the International Law Governing Cyber Operations. Mr. Burger earned his J.D. at the Georgetown University Law Center, A.B. from Harvard University, and obtained a Certificate in Cybersecurity Strategy from Georgetown University. He will be teaching a course about the international law governing cyber-operations at the IWP during the Spring 2020 Semester.

This event is sponsored by the IWP’s Student Veterans Association.

About the Lecture: Ms. Diane Foley will discuss her personal account of her son, James W. Foley, an American freelance journalist who was taken hostage in Syria in 2012, tortured and executed by ISIS in 2014. Ms. Foley will explore how Jim aspired to moral courage and how it could inform the United States’ hostage policy. In light of Pearl Harbor Day as a reminder of the need for constant vigilance, she will discuss how having a well-thought-out hostage policy will minimize risk to American citizens.

About the Speaker: Diane M. Foley is the mother of five children, including American freelance conflict journalist James W. Foley. She founded the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation in September 2014, less than a month after his public execution. Diane is currently serving as the President and Executive Director of JWFLF. Since 2014, she has led JWFLF efforts to fund the start of Hostage U.S. and the international Alliance for a Culture of Safety, ACOS. In 2015, she actively participated in the National Counterterrorism Center hostage review which culminated in the Presidential Policy Directive-30. This directive re-organized U.S. efforts on behalf of Americans taken hostage abroad into an interagency Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and a White Hostage Response Group. Previously, Diane worked first as a community health nurse and then as a family nurse practitioner for 18 years. She received both her undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.