The Institute of World Politics

Title: To Lose a Country: France 1940

About the Lecture: This lecture is a part of The Loss of Country Panel, which was held at The Institute of World Politics on June 13th.

About the Panelist: Dr. John J. Tierney, Jr. 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. He served for many years as the Walter Kohler Professor of International Relations at IWP. 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 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 Univserity of Virginia and The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Chasing Ghosts and The Politics of Peace.

Title: The Artful Recluse: 17th Century China

About the Lecture: This lecture is a part of The Loss of Country Panel, which was held at The Institute of World Politics on June 13th.

About the Panelist: Dr. Richard J. Bishirjian, was Founding President and Professor of Government at Yorktown University from 2000 to 2016. He earned a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame under the direction of Gerhart Niemeyer. While a graduate student at Notre Dame he studied under Eric Voegelin. After completing graduate work at Notre Dame, he did advanced study with Michael Oakeshott at the London School of Economics. Dr. Bishirjian taught at colleges and universities in Indiana, Texas and New York and is the author of a history of political theory, editor of A Public Philosophy Reader and The Conservative Rebellion (2015) and The Coming Death and Future Resurrection of American Higher Education(2017), published by St. Augustine’s Press. Dr. Bishirjian is the author of professional essays in The Political Science Reviewer, Modern Age, Review of Politics, Anamnesis and The Imaginative Conservative. He has published topical essays in Chronicles and the American Spectator.

Title: Citizens as Instruments of National Power

About the Lecture: To achieve national security and foreign policy objectives, the United States must embrace new approaches and use all instruments of national power, including our citizens and private sector. This talk will discuss how private resources and new models of private-public collaboration are complementing U.S. government capabilities in Ukraine, Syria, Serbia, Laos, West Africa, and elsewhere.

About the Speaker: Mr. Jim Hake founded Spirit of America (SoA) in response to the attacks of 9/11. SoA is a citizen-funded 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian and economic assistance in response to needs identified by U.S. troops and diplomats serving abroad.

Prior to SoA, Mr. Hake was an Internet entrepreneur. He founded Access Media, one of the first Internet media companies, and sold it to SOFTBANK Forums. It was later incorporated into Ziff Davis. In 2000 and 2001, Mr. Hake was named a “Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum. He has been honored at the Marines Evening Parade, and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Honorary Member of the US Army Civil Affairs Regiment, and a member of State Department’s Stabilization Advisory Council. Additionally, Mr. Hake is a contributing author to Warriors and Citizens, and he has lectured on entrepreneurship at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, the SMU Cox School of Business, and USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. He has given talks at the TED Conference, the Aspen Institute, the Bush School at Texas A&M, and the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Title: Chinese Influence Operations Against Taiwan and Beyond

This event is sponsored by IWP’s China lecture series.

About the Lecture: J. Michael Cole will explore ongoing influence operations by China against one of the principal targets of its political warfare activities. He will then make the case for greater cooperation between Taiwan and other democracies worldwide.

About the Speaker: About the Speaker: J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based Senior Fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., Senior Fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, Senior Fellow with the Taiwan Studies Program at the University of Nottingham, U.K., Associate Researcher with the French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC), Assistant Coordinator for the International Coalition for Democratic Renewal-Forum 2000 China Working Group, and Chief Editor of Taiwan Sentinel.

Mr. Cole was Chief Editor at Thinking Taiwan, a publication of the Thinking Taiwan Foundation (a foundation created by Tsai Ing-wen in 2012) between 2014 and 2016, and Deputy News Chief and Columnist at the Taipei Times between 2006 and 2013. He is the author of five books. His latest, Convergence or Conflict in the Taiwan Strait, was published by Routledge in fall 2016. He is currently writing a new book on cross-Strait relations since 2016, to be published in July 2019.

Before moving to Taiwan in 2005, he was an analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in Ottawa. He has a master’s degree in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada, a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, the International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from the Center for International Health and Cooperation/Fordham University, and CX-77 (Peacekeeping) from the Lester B. Pearson International Peacekeeping Center.

Title: A Journey to the Gulag: Experiencing History Through Virtual Reality

This event is sponsored by IWP’s Intermarium Lecture Series.

To learn more about A Journey to the Gulag please visit Gulag.cz.

About the Lecture: Around 20 million people went through the horrors of Soviet labor camps. At least 1.6 million of them died. Among the victims of Soviet repression were also people from European countries and the U.S. Currently, with the exception of the former Perm-36 project, there aren’t any museums in Russia of former Gulag camps from Stalin’s era. However, hundreds of abandoned camps are still hidden away in the Siberian taiga. A small group of enthusiasts visit and document these sites to virtually preserve them to make them accessible to the public through virtual and augmented reality.

Štěpán Černoušek will speak about the project documenting the Gulag camps and creating VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) experiences for the unique online Gulag museum.

About the Speaker: Štěpán Černoušek is the head of the Virtual Museum Gulag.Online and Chairman of the Gulag.cz Association. Mr. Černoušek regularly visited Chechnya from 2007 to 2010 and created a section of recorded testimonies with Chechen witnesses. In 2013 and 2014, he extended this activity to witnesses from Georgia, Armenia, and North Ossetia. In 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2016, he organized four expeditions to abandoned Gulag camps in Siberia. The result is a virtual museum, Gulag Online, and projects in virtual and augmented reality. In 2016, he established the Russian Memorial Society’s branch office in the Czech Republic. Mr. Černoušek was elected to the Board of the central International Memorial organization in 2018. He is currently on Fulbright scholarship in the U.S., invited by The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.

About the Book: In the era of rising authoritarianism around the world, ordinary people are harnessing the power of digital and social media to advance the universal rights of all human beings in ways never before possible. A blogging revolution in Iran led to new demands for fair elections and human rights. USB drives and SD cards loaded with hours of 'outside' music, news and television, has helped to introduce basic human rights concepts to North Koreans living under authoritarian rule. Law enforcement can now identify hotels used by sex-traffickers when ordinary people upload pictures of their hotel rooms into a database. These are just a few of the stories in Human Liberty 2.0, a new collection of stories about people and organizations around the world using digital and social media to advance the cause of human dignity. Like Chicken Soup for the Soul but with a modern, digital twist, this book includes over two dozen true stories guaranteed to uplift and inspire. Readers will discover how they can participate in the Human Liberty 2.0 revolution and follow in the footsteps of these inspiring adults, teens, and children who are truly the best of humanity…both online and off. Dr. Daniels, IWP's Chair of Law and Human Rights, also teaches a course on Human Rights and Counter-Radicalization which deals with some of these same themes.

About the Speaker: Matthew Daniels, JD, Ph.D. teaches human rights and law on three continents and is the creator and Executive Producer of the Human Rights Network, an educational video network promoting universal rights through digital media. Professor Daniels is Chair of Law & Human Rights at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, and founder of the Center for Law and Digital Culture at Brunel School of Law in London. Daniels is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Handong International Law School in Pohang, South Korea. Professor Daniels is the creator of the non-profit organization Good of All and UniversalRights.com.

About the Book: Red Crew: Fighting the War on Drugs with Reagan’s Coast Guard is a first-hand account of U.S. Coast Guard anti-smuggling operations during the early years of the nation's maritime war on drugs. Jim Howe describes his experience as the executive officer of a specialized drug-hunting crew that sailed in then-state-of-the-art "surface effect ships," a small flotilla of high-speed vessels pressed into the drug war on short notice.

In the early 1980s, South Florida and the Caribbean were awash in illicit drugs, with hundreds of smuggling organizations bringing huge loads of marijuana, and later cocaine, into the United States. To fight this epidemic, the Reagan administration led a massive effort to disrupt shore-side gangs while bolstering interdiction activity at sea. To increase the number of days at sea for each surface effect ship, a "multi-crewing" concept was employed, with four teams of sixteen sailors—the Red, Blue, Green, and Gold Crews—rotating among three hulls.

Through its first-person narrative, Red Crew offers a rare glimpse into the day-to-day pressures, challenges, failures, and successes of Coast Guard cuttermen as they carried out complex and dangerous missions. Red Crew provides a unique historical view of the early days in the Coast Guard's war on drugs, and is the only book-length history of the diminutive, one-of-a-kind surface effect ship fleet.

About the Author: Jim Howe served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard for 27 years, rising to the rank of Captain (O-6). He was stationed aboard cutters for a total of 11 years, with five years in command. During his time at sea he gained extensive experience in maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, and national security missions. His recent book, Red Crew: Fighting the War on Drugs with Reagan’s Coast Guard (Naval Institute Press) describes his first-hand experiences chasing smugglers and saving lives in the waters off South Florida aboard a one-of-a-kind flotilla of high-speed patrol boats.

After retiring from active duty, Howe served for two years as the senior career civil servant in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Legislative Affairs. He now works in the nuclear fuel industry.

From 2003 to 2005, Howe served in the Office of the Vice President of the United States as Special Advisor for Homeland Security, focusing on border and transportation security issues. During that time he interacted daily with the law enforcement professionals at a number of federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Secret Service, and he made several fact-finding visits to America’s northern and southern borders.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Government. Howe earned a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Government from Harvard University (Extension School); there, his master’s thesis examined maritime drug interdiction operations in the Caribbean. He is a graduate of the Marine Corps War College, earning a Master of Strategic Studies degree, and in 2014 he earned a Master of Science degree in Space Studies from American Military University. He also is a graduate of the MIT Seminar XXI program and currently is conducting post-graduate research at the University of Leicester. Howe has written on national and border security topics and is an award-winning author.

About the Book: Turkey and America: East & West - Where the Twain Meet is a synthesis of the author’s now lifetime of deep and abiding personal and professional experiences that have led to his deep understanding of the American Experience, the Mediterranean World, and U.S.-Turkish relations. The narrative guides the audience to bridges, where others may see only chasms. The reader is transported, back and forth, from East to West, across the centuries, juxtaposing geography and discovery, politics and war, religion and the arts, terrorism, key figures and human triumphs. The goal of the journey is a better appreciation for the nature of both historic and current controversies and under-recognized extraordinary contributions that lie at the heart of the East-West dynamic. This book seeks to decode some of the presumptions and misconceptions that tend to become the prisms through which both individual and state perceptions are filtered and pose as “the truth”. These truths, like beauty, tend to vary in the eyes of the beholder.

About the Author: Dr. Henry “Phil” Williams III is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of World Politics. He has received Degrees and Diplomas from Culver Military Academy, the Universities of Virginia, Edinburgh, and Florence, and a PhD in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He has worked in four foreign languages and studied and worked more than ten years of his life on the Mediterranean, including stints in Turkey doing Doctoral Research, Investment Banking, Consulting, and university-level teaching.

About the Book: Since September 11, 2001, the CIA and DoD have operated together in Afghanistan, Iraq, and during counterterrorism operations. Although the global war on terrorism gave the CIA and DoD a common purpose, it was actions taken in the late eighties and early nineties that set the foundation for their current relationship. Driven by the post--Cold War environment and lessons learned during military operations, policy makers made intelligence support to the military the Intelligence Community's top priority. In response to this demand, the CIA/DoD instituted policy and organizational changes that altered the CIA/DoD relationship. While debates over the future of the Intelligence Community were occurring on Capitol Hill, the CIA and DoD were expanding their relationship in peacekeeping and nation-building operations in Somalia and the Balkans. By the late 1990s, some policy makers and national security professionals became concerned that intelligence support to military operations had gone too far, weakening the long-term analysis required for strategy and policy development. In Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post--Cold War Relationship, David P. Oakley reveals that, despite these concerns, no major changes to either national intelligence organization or its priorities were implemented. These concerns were forgotten after 9/11, as the United States fought two wars and policy makers increasingly focused on tactical and operational actions. As policy makers became fixated with terrorism and the United States fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, the CIA directed a significant amount of its resources toward global counterterrorism efforts and in support of military operations.

About the Author: LTC David Oakley is a FA59 (Strategist) with over twenty years as a national security professional within the US Army and the Intelligence Community. He currently serves as an assistant professor at National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs (CISA) in Washington, D.C. Dave was commissioned a Field Artillery officer in December 1998 through Pittsburg State University’s Reserve Officer Training Corp. After completing the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course, he served in South Korea as a platoon leader with 6-37 Field Artillery, 2nd Infantry Division. Dave was stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma from 1999-2005 where he served in the Field Artillery Training Center as a battery executive officer, detachment commander, assistant brigade S-3, battery commander, and company commander. Dave temporarily left active duty for the Army Reserve after completing company command. While off active duty, Dave was selected for the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Clandestine Service Trainee (CST) Program as a Staff Operations Officer (SOO). After graduating from the CIA’s SOO Certification Course, Dave served within the CIA’s Near East Division. Following his CIA service, Dave served as a contractor with the National Counterterrorism Center’s Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning. Dave returned to active duty as a FA59 in late 2007. Following completion of the Basic Strategic Arts Program (BSAP), he served as a planner with the 1st Infantry Division (1ID) at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 2010, he deployed with 1ID to Iraq where he served as a liaison officer to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. In 2011, Dave moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where he attended the Command and General Staff School followed by the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). In 2013, Dave departed Fort Leavenworth for Fort Sam Houston, Texas where he served as a planner with 5th Army/Army North until 2015.

Jack Doyle, Valedictorian of the IWP Class of 2019, gave remarks during IWP's Commencement ceremony, which took place at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C. on May 18.

Video by Adam Savit, Center for Security Policy