The Institute of World Politics

A presentation analyzing whether

former MI5 Director General, Roger Hollis, was or was not a Soviet agent. With arguments map by Dr. Paul Monk, and panelists Dr. Raymond Jay Batvinis, Dr. David L. Charney, Dr. Harvey Khler, and Dr. Charles R. Twardy. Event Moderated by Jon L. Wilhelm.

A presentation analyzing whether

former MI5 Director General, Roger Hollis, was or was not a Soviet agent. With arguments map by Dr. Paul Monk, and panelists Dr. Raymond Jay Batvinis, Dr. David L. Charney, Dr. Harvey Khler, and Dr. Charles R. Twardy. Event Moderated by Jon L. Wilhelm.

This panel discussion featured practitioners in humanitarian affairs who commented on realistic, on-the-ground solutions to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Albert Santoli, professor at The Institute of World Politics and founder and president of Asia America Initiative, moderated the panel. Other panelists were Dr. Michael Dziedzic, Colonel, (ret.), who is a Fellow at the World Engagement Institute and editor of "Overlooked Enemies of Peace: Subduing Criminalized Power Structures," and David Weiss, President & CEO of Global Communities.

This presentation is part of an event entitled "Beyond Crisis Management in the Middle East: Peace and Stability in the Post 2015 Development Framework" which was held at The Institute of World Politics on May 21, 2015.

The event was co-sponsored by the United Nations Association of the National Capital Region, IWP, Global Communities, and the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

This panel discussion covers the international response to the Syrian refugee crisis, and includes an overview of international mechanisms to build peace, governance, and civil society in affected areas.

Colonel Christopher Holshek (ret.), co-Chair of the UNA-NCA Peace & Security Committee and Senior Fellow, Alliance for Peacebuilding moderated the panel. Other panelists were John Filson, Senior Policy Manager at Alliance for Peacebuilding and Dr. Stefania Piffanelli, Deputy Director of the United Nations Information Center.

This presentation is part of an event entitled "Beyond Crisis Management in the Middle East: Peace and Stability in the Post 2015 Development Framework" which was held at The Institute of World Politics on May 21, 2015.

The event was co-sponsored by the United Nations Association of the National Capital Region, IWP, Global Communities, and the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

Dr. Shelly Pitterman, Director of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – Washington, gave keynote remarks at an event entitled "Beyond Crisis Management in the Middle East: Peace and Stability in the Post 2015 Development Framework" which was held at The Institute of World Politics on May 21, 2015.

This event was co-sponsored by the United Nations Association of the National Capital Region, IWP, Global Communities, and the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

On June 9, The Institute of World Politics welcomed author Dr. Daniel D. Leger for a discussion of his book Reality Check: Neoconservatism, Realism and the Battle for How the World Really Is. He discussed the basis of neoconservatism in contrast to the moral relativism of modern political theory.

He began his talk with a description of neoconservative ideology. Neoconservatives, he noted, are not ashamed to associate moral correctness with the United States' foreign policy goals. They often eschew intellectual abstractions, look for common sense in political investment, are distanced philosophically from moral relativism, and are opportunistic in their frontal assaults on policy. They differ from modern realists in that they do not focus as much on the material motivations of states and do not have as much appreciation for the moral issues involved with intervention in foreign policy.

A focus of Dr. Leger’s talk was the neoconservative stance in the arms control debate, beginning with the hard line approach they took towards the Soviet Union. Neoconservatives worked to discredit the theory of mutual assured destruction and the larger theory of détente as a whole. They worked from a strategic framework differing from that of Kissinger and Nixon, attacking the fallacy of mirror imaging. An arms control solution required recognition of the ultimate political goal of avoiding nuclear disaster. As such examples reiterated, neoconservatism finds moral relativism to be perverse. Common sense should dictate, and yet in the 20th Century common sense requires an explanation.

Dr. Leger moved on to discuss neoconservatism within the context of the ideas of Leo Strauss, Hans Morgenthau, and then more generally neopositivism. He noted that, if the goal is a hope for peace, the challenge is to allow the most useful theory to gain popular credence so that it becomes operative. This has historically been done through propaganda. Neoconservative and neopositivist ideas, which are often mired in academic jargon, should be conveyed using common sense and logic so that they appeal to the larger public.

Following his talk, Dr. Leger fielded a number of questions concerning the evolution of neoconservatism over time, as well as Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush’s roles in the theories behind the invasion of Iraq.

Dr. Leger holds a B.A. in Political Science, a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame, and is presently the Head of Strategic Planning and Client Services for Akre Capital Management. Prior to that, he held business development and senior asset raising roles with a variety of companies, including BRI Partners, Ore Hill Partners, Steel partners, and Geosphere Capital Management.

Dr. Leger’s book Reality Check: Neoconservatism, Realism and the Battle for How the World Really Is is available at http://amzn.to/1FYza11.

On June 9, Dr. Paul Coyer, a Forbes foreign policy columnist, delivered an Intermarium Series lecture at The Institute of World Politics entitled "Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church." The lecture, which was sponsored by IWP's Kościuszko Chair of Polish Studies, focused on a recent article by the speaker, entitled "(Un)Holy Alliance: Vladimir Putin, The Russian Orthodox Church and Russian Exceptionalism."

Dr. Coyer began by noting that it can be easy to sympathize with the Russian Orthodox Church, which claims to preserve tradition and uphold moral values. He then described the complexities and various dimensions of the Church's involvement with the Russian state.

Orthodoxy is not viewed by Russians in the same way that religion is widely viewed in the West. For example, Dr. Coyer noted, 30 percent of respondents in Russia who self-identified as Orthodox simultaneously also identified as atheists. Dr. Coyer explained that Orthodoxy in post-Soviet Russia is a matter of culture and identity, not necessarily the belief in a Supreme Being.

In addition, the speaker described Vladimir Putin's attempts to increase the strength of the Russian Orthodox Church, with over 20,000 churches being built from 2000 onwards. He argued that this resurgence in the Church's strength added to Russian exceptionalism and nationalism. Russia has an advantage in its citizens' mindsets, in that they are more fiercely dedicated to their homeland. By contrast, a 2015 Pew Research Center poll found that Europeans overwhelmingly would not be willing to fight for their countries.

Dr. Coyer maintained that, even without Putin, the conflict between Russia and the West will not fade away. One of the reasons is that culture, including that of Russian Orthodoxy, is at stake. He asserted that a serious confrontation of the West with Russia is increasingly likely.

Dr. Coyer covers international affairs, with a focus on Eurasia, in his Forbes column. He has spent time in academia, having graduate degrees from Yale University and the London School of Economics. His PhD, from the LSE, was on Sino-American relations and diplomatic history. From 2007-2013, he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and he served as a visiting lecturer on Chinese foreign policy and Sino-American relations at the University of Florence, Italy, in 2011 and 2012. He has lived and worked in several locations around the world, including Shanghai, where he did macro-economic research on China's development and edited a book on the Shanghai stock exchange that was jointly published by JPMorgan and the South China Morning Post, and in Hong Kong, where he did a brief stint in banking for Deutsche Bank.

The likely candidates for President for both major political parties, with a few exceptions, seem committed to continuing America's global strategy of Primacy, including maintaining a large military and being willing to intervene with it in many places around the world with it. There is some evidence that such a policy makes sense in terms of fund-raising and party primary dynamics, but what about among the general public? In this discussion, Dr. Michael C. Desch argues that not only is Restraint the optimal policy for America on its merits, but there is reason to think that it could have broader electoral appeal in the general election.

This event, entitled "Is a Grand Strategy of Restraint Politically Viable?" took place at The Institute of World Politics on May 27, 2015 and was sponsored by the Charles Koch Foundation.

Michael Desch is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He was the founding Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs and the first holder of the Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-Making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University from 2004 through 2008. Prior to that, he was Professor and Director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. From 1993 through 1998, he was Assistant Director and Senior Research Associate at the Olin Institute. He spent two years (1988-90) as a John M. Olin Post-doctoral Fellow in National Security at Harvard University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and a year (1990-91) as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California before joining the faculty of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside (1991-1993). He received his B.A. (With honors) in Political Science (1982) from Marquette University and his A.M. in International Relations (1984) and Ph.D. in Political Science (1988) from the University of Chicago.

Practitioners, political leaders, and academics note the increased attention and importance of U.S. public diplomacy in U.S. statecraft since 9/11. Despite this, US public diplomacy continues to be hampered by the same problems faced more than decade ago: an absence of integrated strategy; a clear understanding of what public diplomacy is and what it should do; what role it should play in US statecraft; and uneven, ineffective implementation. This presentation explores past uses of foreign public engagement or public diplomacy throughout US history, to explore the origins of some of the problems confronting present day public diplomacy, as well as putting the practice in the context of US historical tradition.

Caitlin Schindler recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Leeds, under the supervision of Nicholas Cull (University of Southern California) and Simon Popple (University of Leeds). Her thesis examines the history of US public diplomacy from 1776 through 1948 and how the mechanism became a recognized tool of US statecraft. Caitlin graduated from the Institute of World Politics with an MA in Strategic Intelligence in 2010. Prior to starting her Ph.D., Caitlin worked for CACI, Inc. supporting the US Intelligence Community.

Mr. Thomas will discuss his views and opinions of leadership, U.S. government and the private sector in national security affairs, drawing on his 35 years as a Counterintelligence Senior Executive for two different U.S. government agencies. He will emphasize the importance of partnership and information sharing between the US government and the private sector. He will share examples of economic espionage and describe why insider threat trends are going to increase and what this could mean to national and economic security in broader terms than generally viewed. Mr. Thomas will conclude by describing problems caused by the fact that the threat landscape has changed, but our understanding and efforts to mitigate threats have not.

Douglas Thomas is Director of Counterintelligence and Corporate Investigation at Lockheed Martin.