The Institute of World Politics

About the lecture:

The Eastern Question is a subject that involves the the East, the West, Russia, the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East. It is a story of threat perception, religion and strategic considerations that have their origins going back to the Trojan Wars, carry up through the Crimean War and into the current tensions facing the Region, from Syria to the Ukraine, in the 21st century.

About the speaker:

Dr. Williams is originally from Michigan. He received degrees and diplomas from Culver Military Academy, the University of Virginia, the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, the University of Florence, Italy, and two Masters and a Doctorate in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, a joint Tufts and Harvard Program. He has lived in four foreign countries and has studied and worked professionally in four foreign languages: French, Greek, Italian and Turkish. Formerly a Wall St. and International Investment Banker, he is currently a licensed Realtor, operates a small consulting business, and lectures on a variety of topics, including American History, Turkey and the Middle East. He has been featured on National Public Radio related to several of his interests, has written news Commentary pieces on Turkey and the Middle east, and has published scholarly articles on Ottoman and Turkish Law. He has recently spent two semesters (2016-‘17) in Istanbul teaching a course at Koç University titled, “Turkey and America, East and West – Where the Twain Meet”. Phil is a past National Board member of the English-Speaking Union, a Past Virginia State President of the Sons of the American Revolution, and has served on the board of the American Friends of Turkey for over twenty-three years. Marilyn Williams is his wife and they have two grown children, Margaret (34) and Phillips (32).

About the lecture:

The Eastern Question is a subject that involves the the East, the West, Russia, the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East. It is a story of threat perception, religion and strategic considerations that have their origins going back to the Trojan Wars, carry up through the Crimean War and into the current tensions facing the Region, from Syria to the Ukraine, in the 21st century.

About the speaker:

Dr. Williams is originally from Michigan. He received degrees and diplomas from Culver Military Academy, the University of Virginia, the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, the University of Florence, Italy, and two Masters and a Doctorate in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, a joint Tufts and Harvard Program. He has lived in four foreign countries and has studied and worked professionally in four foreign languages: French, Greek, Italian and Turkish. Formerly a Wall St. and International Investment Banker, he is currently a licensed Realtor, operates a small consulting business, and lectures on a variety of topics, including American History, Turkey and the Middle East. He has been featured on National Public Radio related to several of his interests, has written news Commentary pieces on Turkey and the Middle east, and has published scholarly articles on Ottoman and Turkish Law. He has recently spent two semesters (2016-‘17) in Istanbul teaching a course at Koç University titled, “Turkey and America, East and West – Where the Twain Meet”. Phil is a past National Board member of the English-Speaking Union, a Past Virginia State President of the Sons of the American Revolution, and has served on the board of the American Friends of Turkey for over twenty-three years. Marilyn Williams is his wife and they have two grown children, Margaret (34) and Phillips (32).

About the lecture:

What does America owe its veterans? At a time when so few serve in the military, many Americans either place veterans on a pedestal or see them as victims. The fact is that most are neither heroes nor victims, but men and women who did their duty as they were given to see it. For that, they deserve neither adulation nor pity but understanding. One way to achieve this understanding is to appreciate the veteran's odyssey, the soldier's sojourn within, and subsequent return from, the "temple of Mars."

About the speaker:

Dr. Mackubin Thomas Owens is Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor at The Institute of World Politics. He is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia, and editor of Orbis, FPRI's quarterly journal. He recently retired as Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. At the War College he specialized in the planning of US strategy and forces, especially naval and power projection forces; the political economy of national security; national security organization; strategic geography; and American civil-military relations. From 1990 to 1997, Dr. Owens was Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly defense journal Strategic Review and Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Boston University.

Before joining the faculty of the War College, Dr. Owens served as National Security Adviser to Senator Bob Kasten, Republican of Wisconsin, and Director of Legislative Affairs for the Nuclear Weapons Programs of the Department of Energy during the Reagan Administration. Dr. Owens is also a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, where as an infantry platoon and company commander in 1968-1969, he was wounded twice and awarded the Silver Star medal. He retired as a Colonel in 1994.

Dr. Owens earned his Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Dallas, a Master of Arts in Economics from Oklahoma University, and his BA from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has taught at the University of Rhode Island, the University of Dallas, Catholic University, Ashland University of Ohio, and the Marine Corps' School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW).

About the lecture:

Ambassador Temuri Yakobashvili (former Ambassador of Georgia to the U.S.) will discuss the conditions that led to the conflict between Russia and Georgia. He will outline the steps needed to bring a lasting peace to the region and the role that the United States could play, notably in economic development. He will provide some insight from his experience as Ambassador of Georgia to the United States.

About the speaker:

Ambassador Temuri Yakobashvili is co-Founder and President of the New International Leadership Institute. He is a career diplomat who has held various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, including that of a Director of the Department for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. Previously, he was a Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister for Reintegration in the Government of Georgia, and served as an Ambassador of Georgia to the United States. Amb. Yakobashvili is a graduate of Tbilisi State University and has fulfilled training and fellowships at Oxford University’s Center of Political and Diplomatic Studies, Yale University, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

About the lecture:

Speaking at IWP in April, Nikolas Gvosdev discussed the balance between Russia-engagers and Russia-skeptics in the Trump Administration. Over the summer, the balance of forces, along with the passage of major new sanctions against Russia by the Congress, has shifted strongly in favor of containment. Why has a candidate Trump who called for improved relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia morphed into President Trump a seeming Russia hawk--and what does this say for how future encounters between Washington and Moscow will go?

About the speaker:

Nikolas Gvosdev is Professor of National Security Affairs, holding the Captain Jerome E. Levy Chair in Economic Geography and National Security at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He also serves as a Senior Fellow for the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Eurasia Program and Program on National Security. He was formerly the Editor of The National Interest magazine and a Senior Fellow at The Nixon Center in Washington, D.C. Gvosdev received his doctorate from St Antony's College, Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes Scholarship. A frequent commentator on Russian and Eurasian affairs, his work has appeared in such outlets as Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Orbis, and he has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and BBC. He is the co-author of US Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Rise of an Incidental Superpower, and the co-author of Russian Foreign Policy: Vectors, Sectors and Interests.

About the lecture:

North Korea’s energy picture offers a striking contrast between abundant resources and chronic energy shortfalls that have created bottlenecks throughout the economy. These obstacles have even affected the all important military sector. Pyongyang has tried short term fixes to deal with energy related difficulties via its neighbors Russia and China but for the most part these efforts have either exacerbated existing problems or created new ones.

Cutting across classical standards of analysis, North Korean energy insecurities are not straightforward problems and cannot easily be classified as either economic or political-military. Opaque and impenetrable to outsiders, North Korea’s painful combination of resource deficiency and a lack of geopolitical leverage to command access to deficient resources is especially hard for the United States to understand, given the abundant resources they have readily at hand and the political-military leverage they possess to acquire the resources they lack. As the information revolution expands worldwide, in both civilian and military dimensions, and as industrial facilities become more and more technology intensive, the quality of electric power becomes more important to the DPRK in all aspects of economic and military life. North Korea is beginning to discover that it cannot run on their erratic power supply with which Pyongyang, and its provincial towns are presently afflicted.”

Recommended Reading: Energy Security in North Korea: From Defiance to Survival, Foreign Policy Association, https://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2017/06/15/energy-security-north-korea-defiance-survival/

About the speaker:

Patricia is an energy analyst based in Washington DC and an Associate Member of New College at Oxford University. She has extensive experience in global energy market studies, energy security and political risk with special focus on Europe, the United States and Russia. Patricia was recently selected as one of the top 40 most influential individuals in the energy sector by Right Relevance Inc, in San Francisco California. Patricia previously worked at Le Figaro Newspaper in Paris and was a parliamentary assistant and attaché at The French National Assembly. While working for a petrochemical company, she wrote her thesis on U.S Foreign Policy towards Terrorism after 9/11 focusing on the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a member of Chatham House, she has led several research projects in the areas of energy security and emerging threats in critical energy infrastructure as well as policy and risk assessment of European and Russian oil and gas systems. She has collaborated with various academic institutions, think tanks and embassies on European energy market, the geopolitics of energy and investment patterns. She has published for Pipeline Oil and Gas Magazine in Dubai, The National Interest, Oxford Politics and International Relations Departments as well as the Foreign Policy Association in NY. She is a frequent contributor to international media on energy security and international economic issues. Patricia holds a Master Degree from the Institute of World Politics in Washington D.C. She studied law and international relations in Paris, London,Geneva and completed a course certificate on sustainability and environmental management at Harvard University. Follow her on Twitter: @Patricia_Energy

About the book:

This book examines historic examples of US public diplomacy in order to understand how past uses and techniques of foreign public engagement evolved into modern public diplomacy as a tool of American statecraft. The study explores six historic cases where the United States’ government or private American citizens actively engaged with foreign publics, starting with the American Revolution in 1776 through the passage of the Smith-Mundt Bill of 1948. Each case looks specifically at the role foreign public engagement plays in American statecraft, while also identifying trends in American foreign public engagement and making connections between past practice of foreign public engagement and public diplomacy, and analyzing how trends and past practice or experience influenced modern American public diplomacy.

About the author:

Caitlin E. Schindler obtained a Master of Arts in Strategic Intelligence from The Institute of World Politics in 2010. While studying at IWP, Caitlin worked as a technical writer and executive officer, for a U.S. Defense Contractor supporting various government customers, mainly in counterterrorism policy and operations. In 2015, Caitlin completed her PhD at the University of Leeds in the UK under the supervision of Nicholas Cull (University of Southern California). Dr. Schindler's research focuses on the role of intelligence and national techniques of strategic communication to include propaganda, public diplomacy, and political warfare in national statecraft. Caitlin is currently employed by Leidos and is a Research Professor at The Institute of World Politics.

About the book:

MONIKA JABLONSKA’S WIND FROM HEAVEN. JOHN PAUL: The Poet Who Became Pope is the story of the future pope Karol Wojtyła as poet and playwright, as true servant of the Word — a student of Polish literature, dramatist, actor, professor, philosopher, and priest, whose religious conviction added a moral dimension to world politics and changed the course of history. Wind from Heaven offers a new perspective on John Paul II and the pontificate that transformed the Church, its people, and the whole world. Drawing on a wealth of Polish sources, the author throws a fresh and numinous light onto the personal and literary life of John Paul II for English-language readers. She portrays the history of Karol Wojtyła’s native Poland, its literature, and faith-suffused used culture as the crucible out of which emerged a boy, then a man of unbreakable spirit, who answered the call to priesthood, and became a pope who in face of immense worldly evils feared no one but God, giving ringing voice to Love and Hope with such moral clarity that the world rose up with courage in response. The reader of this inspiring book comes away in reverent awe of Karol Wojtyła, this “man from a far country” who played a crucial role in some of the most momentous events of our time, who implemented lasting changes in this world, and who left behind springs of inspiration owing stronger with each passing year.

About the author:

MONIKA JABLONSKA is an entrepreneur, lawyer, consultant, and business executive. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation, on social business. At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, Monika launched her own social business called Nurture the World to feed hungry children around the world. She runs projects in the USA, Brazil, and Europe. In 2015, she received a Special Recognition Award from the American Institute ofPolish Culture in Miami for her Nurture the World project. Monika was also nominated for Businesswoman of the Year in 2016. Wind from Heaven has previously been published in Poland, Brazil, and Colombia.

About the lecture:

This presentation will discuss current relations between the Russian Federation and Latin American and Caribbean states. Apart from addressing Moscow’s relations with “the usual suspects” (e.g. Cuba and Venezuela), we will also explore initiatives with other regional states at the diplomatic, defense and economic level. We will conclude by discussing whether the Russian government currently has an overall strategy towards Latin America and the Caribbean and what new initiatives we can expect in the near future.

About the speaker:

W. Alejandro Sanchez is an international affairs analyst who focuses on geopolitical and defense issues in the Western Hemisphere. A member of the Forum on the Arms Trade, he is a regular contributor to IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, the Center for International Maritime Security, Living in Peru, among others. His analyses have appeared in journals including Small Wars and Insurgencies, Defence Studies, the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, European Security, Studies in Conflict and Terrorismand Perspectivas. He received his B.A. from Ursinus College, his M.A. from American University, his Certificate on Caribbean Defense and Security from the National Defense University (Washington, DC) and his Certificate on International Politics from the Institute of World Politics.

The views expressed in this presentation are the sole responsibility of the presenter and do not necessarily reflect those of any institutions with which the presenter is associated.

About the lecture:

The period of continental peace in Europe has been shattered. Whereas many assumed that war would never return to Europe after the Cold War, it would seem that conflict with Russia and Islamic extremism (as well as economic instability) now dominates the once-peaceful European continent. With America's commitment to NATO and the EU in question, this lecture will address the question whether key countries--such as Germany and Poland--should develop nuclear arms to better defend themselves absent of a firm American defense commitment.

About the speaker:

Brandon J. Weichert is a former congressional staffer and is the founder and CEO of The Weichert Report: A World News Website. He is also a Contributing Editor at American Greatness. Brandon received his B.A. in Political Science from DePaul University and his M.A. in Statecraft and National Security Affairs from The Institute of World Politics.