The Institute of World Politics

About the Lecture: Francis Bacon once opined: "Augustus Caesar would say, that he wondered that Alexander feared he should want work, having no more worlds to conquer: as if it were not as hard a matter to keep as to conquer." Many societies have found that the process of converting military success into a consolidated conquest was harder than they expected. Oddly, historians have not spent that much time on the problem either, preferring to focus more on the battles than the ensuing garrisons. In this sweeping romp through world military history, strategy, and logistics, Dr. Lee explores the "four pillars" of conquest (the titular governor, priest, tax man and garrison) and he then compares how those same pillars worked in non-state societies on the Eurasian steppe and in the Native American woodlands.

About the Speaker: Wayne E. Lee is the Dowd Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, where he also chairs the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense. He is the author of Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History (2016), Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500-1865 (2011), and Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina (2001). He has two edited volumes on world military history (both 2011) and many articles and book chapters. He has an additional career as an archaeologist, having done field work in Greece, Albania, Hungary, Croatia, and Virginia, including co-directing two field projects. He was a principal author and a co-editor of Light and Shadow: Isolation and Interaction in the Shala Valley of Northern Albania, winner of the 2014 Society for American Archaeology's book award. In 2015/16 he was the Harold K. Johnson Visiting Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army War College.

About the Lecture: Whether in the military, government or private sector we all admire great leaders and leadership. But what’s the difference between good and great leadership? Based on observation of some of the greatest military leaders of our generation, it's “Teamwork, Tone, Tenacity,” a simple, memorable, actionable framework that can be applied anywhere to improve individual performance and organizational productivity.

About the Speaker: RADM Paul Becker, USN (Ret) is known for success leading large, diverse, high-performing organizations in peace, crisis and combat. He is a dynamic public speaker an author who’s articles and interviews have been widely published. Upon his retirement in 2016 the Naval Intelligence Community established the “RADM Paul Becker ‘Teamwork, Tone, Tenacity’ Leadership Award” in his honor.

About the Speaker: Predrag Bošković, MSc, Minister of Defence of Montenegro was born in Pljevlja (Montenegro) on March 12, 1972. He finished primary and secondary school in Podgorica. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics, the University of Montenegro, in 1996. He received his MA in Econometrics and Politics from the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade in 1999. He published numerous research papers and publications and participated in the implementation of major development projects in Montenegro. Boskvic

He started his professional career as a Teaching Assistant at the Faculty of Economics in 1996. Throughout his career, he held senior positions, including being a member of the Parliament of Montenegro and serving as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro, Minister of Economy, Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Minister of Education in the Government of Montenegro and the President of the Board of Directors of the Coal Mine in Pljevlja. He was part of IVP (international visitor program) in USA in 2003.

He has been leading the Women’s Handball Club since 2006. From 2011 to 2016, he was the President of the Board of the Montenegrin Handball Association. During this period, the club and national team he led achieved the best results in the history of Montenegrin handball, including the Olympic silver medal. His commitment and success in this sport have been recognized internationally. He became the Vice President of the European Handball Federation in November 2016.

About the Lecture: In a modern democracy, state and society occupy separate spheres, so that neither the state oppresses society, nor society dispenses with the state and descends into anarchy. The boundary zone between the two is provided by the rule of law. Among the many attributes of Abraham Lincoln as a democratic leader, his respect for the rule of law is the paramount characteristic of his statesmanship. It was a respect which has been seriously questioned, and it was a respect which the pressure of our Civil War’s circumstances gravely challenged. But viewed in proper perspective, no aspect of the Civil war era, or Lincoln’s statecraft, is more remarkable than his maintenance of the rule of law in what would otherwise have been a situation fatal to the American democracy.

About the Speaker: Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era, and Director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999), Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (2004) and Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America (2008). His book on the battle of Gettysburg, Gettysburg: The Last Invasionwas a New York Times best seller in 2013. He is currently serving as the William L. Garwood Visiting Professor in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. His website is www.allenguelzo.com.

The Reporter Who Spilled the Secret behind the U.S. Navy's Victory at Midway by The Institute of World Politics

About the Lecture: This lecture will discuss what moral relativism is and is not, touch briefly on how it became so predominant in the West, and consider its effects. Is there a way out?

About the Speaker: Joseph R. Wood is a retired Air Force colonel. He served in the White House as a senior appointee from 2005 until 2008 as Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, with responsibility for all policy involving Europe, Eurasia, Africa, and defense issues. His military career included operational and command fighter assignments (A-10 and F-15E) in Asia and Europe; faculty duty in the Department of Political Science at the Air Force Academy where he taught U.S. foreign and defense policy; service at the Pentagon as speech writer for the Chief of Staff and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force; and temporary assignments in the Joint Staff, the U.S. Mission to the Conventional Forces in Europe Talks in Vienna, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and NATO SHAPE Headquarters in Mons, Belgium.

After retiring from the Air Force, he was appointed a member of the career Senior Executive Service at NASA Headquarters. He later worked in the RAND Corporation's Washington office. He was a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. from 2008 until 2012 and worked at BAE Systems, Inc. from 2011 until 2012. He has taught in a variety of graduate seminars in Europe.

About the Lecture: George Washington was inaugurated as the nation's first president on April 30, 1789, taking the helm of an executive branch with a mandate to execute, and more importantly, define, the nebulous powers of article two of the United States Constitution. What was true of the founding of America as a nation was especially true of the American presidency – George Washington was the “indispensable man.” Washington was the only national figure who was known to his fellow citizens and trusted by them to safely wield the powers the president was granted. Suffice it to say that these powers were unlikely to have been granted without the assumption by the delegates at the Constitutional Convention, and by those who attended the state ratifying conventions, that George Washington would be the first president. Washington understood that the precedents he set would shape the presidency and the nation for as long as the American experiment survived.

About the Speaker: Stephen F. Knott is a Professor of National Security Affairs at the United States Naval War College. He served as co-chair of the University of Virginia's Presidential Oral History Program, directed the Ronald Reagan Oral History Project, and also served on the staff of the John F Kennedy Presidential Library. Professor Knott received his PhD in Political Science from Boston College, and has taught at the United States Air Force Academy and the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous books including Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics; Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency, an examination of the use of covert operations by early American presidents; and Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth, a book on Alexander Hamilton's controversial image in the American mind. He is a co-author of The Reagan Years and At Reagan’s Side: Insiders’ Recollections from Sacramento to the White House. His most recent co-authored volume is Washington & Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America.

Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley is an adjunct professor at IWP, where she teaches a course on Economics for Foreign Policy Makers.

She is the Vice President of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, where she develops and commissions research toward a systematic biblical theology of economic freedom. She is a visiting professor at Georgetown University and has previously taught at George Mason University and at Charles University, Prague. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Bernard Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy. She served as the Associate Director for the Program in Economics, Politics, and the Law at the James M. Buchanan Center at George Mason University.

Dr. Rathbone Bradley's academic work focuses on the political economy of terrorism with specific emphasis on the industrial organization of al-Qaeda. Her academic research has been published in scholarly journals and edited volumes. She is currently working on a book that analyzes the political economy of al-Qaeda post 9/11. Based on her academic research she also worked as an Economic Analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of Terrorism Analysis.

Dr. Rathbone Bradley received her Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University in 2006 during which time she was a James M. Buchanan Scholar.

About the Lecture: It's all propaganda. Propaganda. Don't panic. We've been here before.

Propaganda is once again a subject of US public interest and debate, arguably for the first in three generations, since the onset of the Cold War in the 1950s. And once again, the US is debating about how to defend against propaganda, protecting the public sphere and free speech.

From World War I through World War II, America's response to foreign entities using propaganda has historically been prompted by alarm, fear, and suspicion, often delaying or neglecting a measured approach to foreign propaganda efforts. Proposals and attempts to protect against propaganda included "inoculation" or public education, the "expertise" solution, censorship, and legislative measures. Between 1918 and 1948, a combination of censorship and legislation was attempted. With the Cold War, particularly in the 1980s, the United States adopted an offensive counter-influence and inoculation approach.

Today, revelations of Russia's involvement in the 2016 presidential election have churned up endless media reporting and public discussions on "fake news," disinformation, Russian manipulation, internet troll farms and bots. And in 2015, the sudden, rapid rise of Daish in Syria and Iraq, also initiated discussion on the threat posed by terrorist propaganda and how to defend against terrorist propaganda. As many experts have observed, the US is already behind in its response to 21st century propaganda and the ensuing "information warfare," but US anxiety and alarm overshadow current discussions on Russian and terrorist propaganda. America must overcome national paranoia regarding propaganda and develop a measure approach to avoid succumbing to continued foreign influence.

About the Panel:

This panel will address the legal issue related to and the military developments specifically after 1968, on the Vietman War. It will include an alternative perspective to the war than the one presented by the Burns-Novick Vietnam War Film.