Past FPRI Events (2009)

Monday, December 21, 2009

Middle East Lecture Series

President Obama and the Middle East: Two Assessments

Edward Turzanski Senior Fellow, FPRI Ian Lustick Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

In cooperation with the Kehillah of Old York Road

Edward A. Turzanski, a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, is a national security analyst at La Salle University, where he teaches in the Department of Political Science. He has also served with the U.S. Government in the field of intelligence throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Mr. Turzanski is the National Security and Intelligence Analyst for Comcast’s CN-8 Channel; and he has appeared on numerous national television and radio stations including Fox News Network, CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, Canadian Broadcast Corporation news, Turkish National Television from Istanbul, South African National radio, Australian National Radio, WLS in Chicago, KAIRO in Seattle, and KERN in Bakersfield, California. In additional to his academic positions, Mr. Turzanski is the Assistant Vice President for Government and Community Relations at La Salle University. His interests and activities include foreign and domestic political analysis; and foreign affairs, intelligence, and espionage research.

Ian Lustick is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses on Middle Eastern politics. He is a recipient of awards from the Carnegie Corporation, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Sciences Research Council, and the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to Penn, Professor Lustick taught for fifteen years at Dartmouth College and worked for one year in the Department of State. His present research focuses on the politics of Jewish and non-Jewish migration into and out of Palestine/the Land of Israel, and on prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He is a past president of the Politics and History Section of the American Political Science Association and of the Association for Israel Studies, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Lustick received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Asia Briefing

The Trials of Former President Chen Shui-bian: Implications for Taiwan’s Democracy, the Rule of Law and International Stature

Jacques deLisle Director, FPRI Asia Program; Director, UPenn Center for East Asian Studies; and Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania

Taiwan’s first president from the former non-ruling party, Chen Shui-bian, has been convicted of corruption and sentenced to life imprisonment. His pre-trial detention, the severity of his sentence, the broader pattern of investigations and prosecution of political figures in which the former president was the biggest target, and Chen's filing a suit in the United States claiming Taiwan has been legally under U.S. rule since throughout the postwar era have been controversial and have raised doubts—and defenses—concerning their implications for the health of Taiwan’s democratic politics, rule of law and standing in the world.

Jacques deLisle is Director of FPRI’s Asia Program and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in US-China relations, Chinese politics and legal reform, cross-strait relations, and the international status of Taiwan. His pieces have appeared multiple times in FPRI’s journal Orbis included, mostly recently, “After the Gold Rush: The Beijing Olympics and China's Evolving International Roles” (Fall 2009). He also regularly publishes commentaries on Asian affairs as FPRI E-notes and in other media, including “Exceptional Powers in an Exceptional State: Emergency Powers Law in China” in Emergency Powers Law in Asia (Victor V. Ramraj and Arun K. Thiruvengadam, eds., 2009); “The Other China Trade Deficit: Export Safety Problems and Responses” in Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy (Cary Coglianese, David Zaring, and Adam Finkel, eds., 2009); and “Development without Democratization? China, Law and the East Asian Model” in Democratizations: Comparisons, Confrontations and Contrasts (Jose V. Ciprut, ed., 2009).

His articles also have appeared in Sino-American Relations, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law, American Society of International Law Proceedings, and the Harvard Asia Quarterly. He serves regularly as an expert witness on issues of P.R.C., Hong Kong and Taiwan law and government policies. He is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, vice-chair of the Pacific Rim section of the American Society of International Law, and a consultant, lecturer and advisor to foreign-assisted legal reform, development and education programs, primarily in the PRC. He received a J.D. and graduate education in political science at Harvard.

Listen to audio of this briefing.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Study Group on America and the West

Why We Can “Go Small” in Afghanistan

Austin Long Assistant Professor, Columbia University

Austin Long is an assistant professor, teaching security policy at Columbia University. He previously worked as an associate political scientist for the RAND Corporation, serving in Iraq as an analyst and advisor to the Multinational Force Iraq and the U.S. military. He also worked as a consultant to MIT Lincoln Laboratory, on a study of technology and urban operations in counterinsurgency. Long is the author of Deterrence - From Cold War to Long War: Lessons from Six Decades of RAND Research and On “Other War”: Lessons from Five Decades of RAND Counterinsurgency Research. Dr. Long was co-founder of the Working Group on Insurgency and Irregular Warfare at the MIT Center for International Studies and is a participant in the RAND Counterinsurgency Board of Experts. He has also taught on international security at Clark University. Dr. Long received his B.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Monday, November 23, 2009

A New Three-Part Series on the Mideast in the Philly Suburbs

Sponsored by the Kehillah of Old York Road in cooperation with FPRI

Looking Under the Goldstone: How the New Campaign Against Israel is Destroying the Arab World

Barry Rubin Director, Global Research in International Affairs Center, and Senior Fellow, FPRI

On September 29, Justice Richard Goldstone presented his fact-finding report on the conflict in Gaza to the UN Human Rights Council, which then endorsed the report overwhelmingly. The report, which attributed war crimes both to Israel and to Hamas, has been the subject of controversy as the nations supporting the report push for action by the UN Security Council. How will this effort affect Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab world as a whole?

To comment on these issues, we are pleased to feature a lecture by one of the leading writers on Middle Eastern affairs, Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal, and a Senior Fellow of FPRI. The author of numerous books and essays on the Middle East, Rubin has appeared on national media, including CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He has been a Fulbright Fellow, a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, and a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His most recent books include Guide to Islamist Movements (M.E. Sharpe, 2009); Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan); Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East (Routledge); The Israel-Arab Reader (Viking-Penguin, 7th edition), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). He is also the author of a volume on The History of Islam , specially designed for middle and high school students as part of a 10-volume series on “The World of Islam,” just published by Mason Crest Publishers (in cooperation with FPRI).

You can read Rubin's blog at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/

Thursday, November 19, 2009

FPRI-Temple University Consortium on Grand Strategy

NOTE: EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF THE CONSORTIUM

Afghanistan and American Grand Strategy

John Nagl President, Center for a New American Security

John Nagl is a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Military Academy Class of 1988 and served as an armor officer in the U.S. Army for 20 years, retiring with the rank of Lt. Col. His last military assignment was as commander of the 1st Battalion, 34th Armor at Fort Riley, Kansas, training Transition Teams that embed with Iraqi and Afghan units. He led a tank platoon in Operation Desert Storm and served as the operations officer of a tank battalion task force in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He earned his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He taught national security studies at West Point’s Dept of Social Sciences and in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. He served as a Military Assistant to two Deputy Secretaries of Defense and later worked as a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

He also earned a Master of the Military Arts and Sciences Degree from the Command and General Staff College, where he received the George C. Marshall Award as the top graduate. He was awarded the Combat Action Badge by Gen. James Mattis of the United States Marine Corps, under whose leadership he fought in Al Anbar in 2004. Dr. Nagl is the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam and was on the writing team that produced the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. He is a member of the Defense Policy Board and a Visiting Professor in the War Studies Department at Kings College of London.

The FPRI-Temple University Consortium is part of the Hertog Program on Grand Strategy, made possible by a grant from the Hertog Foundation.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Munich 1938: New Revelations from the Czech Archives

Milan Hauner Associate Scholar, FPRI

Historian Milan Hauner is the author and co-editor of ten books and more than 100 scholarly articles on the modern history of India, Central Asia, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Russia.

He grew up in Prague where he studied history at Charles University and completed his PhD. Leaving at the time of the Soviet invasion in 1968 he settled in England, studying for his second PhD at St. John’s College in Cambridge. He then joined St. Antony’s College in Oxford for three years, lived in London from 1974, working in the Research Dept. of Amnesty International.

Two years later he joined the German Historical Institute in London before leaving for the United States in 1980 to join his family. Thereafter he has been affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison (visiting professor and honorary fellow in the dept. of history), with a stint in 1984-85 as the Thornton D. Hooper Fellow at FPRI. He has taught and conducted research at various universities in England (Warwick, L.S.E., Open U.), Germany (Freiburg, Leipzig – as a Fulbright professor) and America (Philadelphia, Berkeley, Hoover Inst. Stanford, Georgetown, Columbia, US Naval War College)— and after 1990, again in Eastern Europe, mostly in the Czech Republic.

In 1990-91 he was director of East European Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Recently he has edited several unpublished manuscripts of the former Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš, and reconstructed President Beneš’s wartime Memoirs 1938-45 in three volumes, which appeared in 2007.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

FPRI Annual Dinner

Keynote Address by Robert Kaplan

Robert D. Kaplan is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He continues to write on a range of foreign policy and national security issues for The Atlantic Monthly and is now writing a book on the future of the Indian Ocean region. His books, several of which were written under grants received through FPRI, include Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground (2007); Imperial Grunts (2005), Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus (2000); and Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (1993).

Kaplan’s essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He has been a consultant to the U.S. Army’s Special Forces Regiment, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Marines, and has lectured at military war colleges, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, major universities, the CIA, and business forums. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman calls Kaplan among the four “most widely read” authors defining the post-Cold War era (along with Francis Fukuyama, the late Samuel Huntington, and Yale Professor Paul Kennedy). He has received the U.S. State Department Distinguished Public Service Award. In July 2009 he was named to the Defense Policy Board.

Audio and video of this address.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Workshop for Educators

Innovation: Instructional Themes in History and Economics

Co-sponsored by

• Broward County Council for the Social Studies
• Wachman Center of the Foreign Policy Research Institute

High school teachers and college faculty are invited to a workshop on innovation at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale-Davie, Florida. Co-sponsored by the Broward County Council for the Social Studies and the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Wachman Center, this fast-paced and practical seminar will leave you excited about innovation and history. You will leave with lesson plans that you can use, and with many ideas about compact, valuable and engaging ways to use innovation to engage your students.

Presenters include Lawrence Husick and Paul Dickler, co-directors of the project on Teaching Innovation of the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Wachman Center.

Husick is a senior fellow of FPRI and a registered patent attorney. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the Whiting Graduate School of Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.

Dickler is a Senior Fellow of FPRI's Wachman Center and a retired teacher with 30 years of experience in teaching AP US History. He is a consultant for the College Board, ETS, and several universities and school districts.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Asia Study Group

China´s “Peaceful Rise,” “Harmonious” Foreign Relations and Legal Confrontation: The Sino-Japanese Territorial Dispute over the East China Sea

Zhang Xinjun
Associate Professor, School of Law, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Cosponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Center for East Asian Studies

China´s rise naturally raises concern among its neighbors about its agenda in international relations. China has emphasized that its “rise” will be “peaceful,” but it also will protect its interest in avoiding impediments to its rise by invoking existing international rules, and actively shaping international rules, to serve its interests. This sometimes leads to legal confrontation with other states. The dispute between China and Japan over territorial claims to the East China Sea is an important case. It shows the potential for using "legal confrontation" in a regime with sophisticated rules to serve China´s agenda of protecting its interests while maintaining harmonious relations. It also shows the risks that political opportunism could undermine that strategy and damage mutual trust in the region.

Dr. Xinjun Zhang is Associate Professor of Public International Law at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He received his doctoral degree from Kyoto University. His research interests include International Environmental Law, the Law of the Sea, Non-proliferation Law and the Law of Treaties. He is a member of International Law Association (ILA), and active participant in the `Committee on The Legal Principles relating to Climate Change´. He is currently a Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The U.S. and Latin America: A Symposium

Sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Cosponsored by the Pan American Association

Featuring a keynote address by

Mary Anastasia O’Grady

Delivering the Michael Radu Memorial Lecture

Mary Anastasia O’Grady joined the paper in August 1995 and became a senior editorial page writer in December 1999. She became a member of the Editorial Board in 2005. She previously worked as an options strategist, first for Advest Inc. and then for Thomson McKinnon Securities in 1983. She moved to Merrill Lynch & Co. in 1984 as an options strategist and was also a product manager and a sales manager for Merrill Lynch Canada and Merrill Lynch International during her 10 years with the company. In 1997 Ms. O’Grady won the Inter American Press Association’s Daily Gleaner Award for editorial commentary, and in 1999 she received an honorable mention in IAPA’s opinion award category. In 2005 she won the Bastiat Prize for journalism, which honors writers who promote the institutions of a free society.

Agenda

• 10:30 am – 12:00 noon Panel Discussion featuring George Grayson, FPRI Senior Fellow, and others TBA.
• 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm Luncheon
• 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Michael Radu Memorial Lecture

Panelists

George W. Grayson, FPRI Senior Fellow, is the Class of 1938 Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary. He is a senior fellow at CSIS, appears frequently on CNN, and lectures regularly at the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State and at universities throughout the U.S. and Mexico. His books and monographs include Mexico’s Struggle with Drugs and Thugs (Foreign Policy Association, 2009), Mexican Messiah (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), Mesías Mexicano (Random House-Mondadori, 2006), Beyond the Mid-term Elections: Mexico Political Outlook: 2003–2006 (CSIS, 2003), Mexico: the Changing of the Guard (Foreign Policy Association, 2001), Strange Bedfellows: NATO Marches East (University Press of America, 1999), and Mexico: From Corporatism to Pluralism? (Harcourt-Brace, 1998). His next book, Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State, will be brought out in 2009 by Transaction Publications.

Susan Kaufman Purcell is Director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami. She was Vice President of the Council of the Americas, a business organization devoted to promoting regional economic integration, and, from 1981 to 1998, she was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before that, she served on the policy planning staff of the State Department. She has written, co-authored, or co-edited eleven books on Latin America and has appeared on national media, including CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and CNBC.

David Danelo, Senior Fellow of FPRI, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served seven years as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. In 2004, then-Captain Danelo served near Fallujah with the First Marine Expeditionary Force as a convoy commander, intelligence officer and provisional executive officer for a rifle company. Danelo’s first book, Blood Stripes: The Grunt’s View of the War in Iraq (Stackpole, 2006), was awarded the 2006 Silver Medal (Military History) by the Military Writers Society of America. His book, The Border: Exploring the US-Mexican Divide (2008), was endorsed by The Economist, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, and Texas Books in Review, which called it “an unequivocally compelling read.” In July, he commenced a year-long study on “Border Nation: A Regional Security Strategy for Northern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest,” which will examine the local and regional dynamics of the states on both sides of the US-Mexican border, and make recommendations for a strategy to defeat the drug-fueled criminal insurgency.

Audio and video of keynote address.

Audio of panel discussion.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Annual Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs

Back to the Future: Pre-modern Religious Policy in Post-secular China

Richard Madsen Professor of Sociology and Director, Council on East Asian Studies, University of California, San Diego

Richard Madsen is the author or co-author of eleven books on Chinese culture, American culture, and international relations. He has also written scholarly articles on how to compare cultures and how to facilitate dialogue among them. His best known works on American culture are those written with Robert Bellah, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton: Habits of the Heart (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995) and The Good Society (New York, Knopf, 1991). These books explore and criticize the culture of individualism and the institutions that sustain it. Habits of the Heart won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was jury nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His books on China include Chen Village under Mao and Deng (co-authored with Anita Chan and Jonathan Unger, Berkeley, UC Press, 1992), Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (UC Press, 1984, winner of the C. Wright Mills Award), Unofficial China (co-edited with Perry Link and Paul Pickowicz, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), China and the American Dream (UC Press, 1994), China’s Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society (UC Press, 1998), and Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society (co-edited with Perry Link and Paul Pickowicz, Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard.

The Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs was established in 1996, with a gift from John M. Templeton, Jr., M.D., president of the John Templeton Foundation. In 1995, Dr. Templeton retired from his medical practice to serve full-time as president of the Foundation. After receiving a B.A. from Yale University, Dr. Templeton earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained in pediatric surgery under Dr. C. Everett Koop at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. After serving two years in the U.S. Navy, in 1977 he returned to CHOP, where he served on the staff as pediatric surgeon and trauma program director. He also served as professor of pediatric surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Templeton has published numerous papers in medical and professional journals, in addition to two books, A Searcher’s Life and Thrift and Generosity: The Joy of Giving.

Audio and video of lecture.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Conference at Johns Hopkins University SAIS

Countering Democratic Regression in a Newly Divided Europe and Eurasia

Co-sponsored by

• S. Richard Hirsch Chair in European Studies, Johns Hopkins University SAIS
• Foreign Policy Research Institute
• German Marshall Fund of the US
• George Washington University Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies

Organizers

• Ambassador Adrian A. Basora, Foreign Policy Research Institute
• Professor Mitchell A. Orenstein, Johns Hopkins University SAIS

A new dividing line has been drawn across the European continent. After the fall of the iron curtain that separated the Soviet Union and its satellite states from Western Europe, there were high hopes that Europe would never again be divided into competing blocs. Yet 20 years after the Berlin Wall crumbled, Europe again faces the threat of division into two distinct political and economic spheres: one democratic and Western-oriented, centered around membership in the European Union and NATO, and another increasingly authoritarian and dominated by Russia. At this point, most postcommunist European and Eurasian countries have joined or lean towards one or the other of these worlds. One group - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Baltic States, made swift and early progress towards democracy and market economies, a trend consolidated by their European Union and NATO membership. A second group, including the Central Asian republics and Belarus, remained or reverted to authoritarianism and statism. Moscow´s own turn towards authoritarian rule since 2000 has accentuated this trend and created a renewed Russian sphere of influence in the “near abroad.”

However, there remains a third group of postcommunist countries perched precariously between these two political and economic spheres. Several key “in between” countries, like Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Bosnia and Serbia have neither fully joined the Western club, nor integrated into the new Russian sphere. Inhabiting a grey zone of political instability and relative poverty, they face stalled democratization, and in some cases regression and potential to return to authoritarian rule.

This conference will focus primarily on these countries "in between." We will review the diverse experiences of postcommunist transition and seek a common understanding of the policy challenges facing the countries perched along Europe´s new divide and their putative allies in the West. The conference will assess the domestic and international causes of democratic progress and regression in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia, in order to shed new light on how the US and democratic Europe should react in policy terms. It is also intended to launch a renewed effort to develop both scholarly analysis and policy thinking regarding US interests in, and operational responses towards, the region. Participants will be drawn from the best analysts in both the academic and policy communities who share an interest in postcommunist democratization.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Special Report

A Muslim Interfaith Initiative Goes Global

Abdallah Schleifer, FPRI Senior Fellow

S. Abdallah Schleifer, professor emeritus at American University of Cairo, was recently appointed to the Executive Board of C-1 World Engagement, a global initiative to improve relations between Muslims and the West. He is former Washington and national bureau chief of Al Arabiya news channel; former NBC News Cairo Bureau Chief; former visiting scholar at St. Antony’s College, Oxford; adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.; Senior Fellow at the Royal Aal Al Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Amman, Jordan and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Washington, D.C.

Audio of briefing.

Thu., October 8, 2009

FPRI-Temple University Consortium on Grand Strategy

NOTE: EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF THE CONSORTIUM

Can America Do Grand Strategy?

Walter A. McDougall Senior Fellow, FPRI, and Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania

Walter McDougall is co-chair, with David Eisenhower, of FPRI’s History Institute for Teachersand chair of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago in 1974 and is a veteran of the Vietnam War. His books include The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, which won a Pulitzer Prize; Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776; Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur; Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585-1828, the first volume of two volumes on the history of the United States; and Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829–1877 (Harpers, March 2008).

The FPRI-Temple University Consortium is part of the Hertog Program on Grand Strategy, made possible by a grant from the Hertog Foundation.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

BookTalk

The Cartoons That Shook the World

Jytte Klausen

Jytte Klausen is a professor of comparative politics at Brandeis University. Her earlier book, The Challenge of Islam: Poltiics and Religion in Western Europe, was published by Oxford University Press in 2005 and subsequently published in German and Turkish. She received the Carnegie Scholars Award (2007-08) for her work on Muslims in Europe and was a Fellow of the United States Institute of Peace in 2003.

The publication of her new book, The Cartoons That Shook the World (Yale University Press), has been accompanied by a controversy over Yale’s decision not to publish the Muhammad cartoons even though they are the subject of the book — inadvertently demonstrating that the cartoons are still shaking the world, and the story is not over.

Klausen gave a talk to FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers on Islam, Islamism, and Democratic Values on Counterterrorism and the Integration of Islam in Europe in July 2006. For essays, vidoes, and lesson plans drawn from the History Institute on Islam, visit

Audio of briefing.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

The Invention and Development of Rotorcraft: A Case Study in the History of Innovation

A Workshop for Teachers

Cosponsored and Hosted by
The American Helicopter Museum and Education Center

Supported by
The Piasecki Family Foundation
Boeing Co.

In Tribute to the Memory of Frank N. Piasecki
FPRI Trustee and Aviation Pioneer

The Sikorsky S-51, used for medical evacuations in the Korean War

• What’s a rotary wing, and why would anyone need such a thing?
• How does a helicopter fly, and what had to be developed to control them?
• Once you have a helicopter, what can you do with it?
• What new things are being developed and how will they affect our lives?

The story of rotary wing flight is one of innovation and heroism, in equal measure. At a time when airplanes were spanning the globe as luxury liners of the air, a small group of visionary engineers set out to develop aircraft for a variety of demanding missions requiring precision control far beyond anything ever envisioned. These pioneering innovators overcame technical challenges through breakthrough designs, careful testing, and sometimes, being willing to try things when others said that they would fail.

The Wachman Center, in partnership with the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center, is presenting this seminar for high school teachers that tells the story of the American rotorcraft industry through the innovations that made vertical flight a reality, and then a necessity, in carrying out vital military and civilian missions. The program will develop curricular materials for high school history and economic classes that will be made available free of charge to teachers worldwide.

Schedule

• 10:15 — Registration and Coffee
• 10:30 — Welcome and Introductions
  • Robert M. Beggs, Chairman, AHMEC
  • Walter A. McDougall, Co-Chair, FPRI History Institute for Teachers
• 10:40 Inventions and Innovations: How Impractical and Curious Machines Came to be Indispensable in our Lives
  Lawrence Husick, Co-Director, FPRI Project on Teaching Innovation
• 10:55 – 12:15 pm Early Helicopter Innovation: Challenges, Pioneers, and Philadelphia
  1. Early history (pre-1923): Bruce Charnov, Hofstra University
  2. Autogyros and pre-WWII craft: Bruce Charnov
  3. Challenges of vertical flight: Bruce Charnov
  4. Pioneer: Igor Sikorsky, Jr. on Igor Sikorsky, Sr.
  5. The Philadelphia Rotor Story: Frederick Piasecki on Frank Piasecki

Audio and video of morning session.

• 12:30 – 1:15 — Luncheon
• 1:15 – 1:45 — Keynote Address – Helicopters in the Military, the Story of HMX-1
  Mark “Pete” Peterson, Boeing Company

Audio and video of keynote address.

• 1:45 – 2:45 — Military Rotorcraft Innovation – 1940–2009
  Samuel S. Evans, Penn State University
• 3:00 – 4:15 Teaching Innovation: Helicopters as Multifaceted Case Studies in History, Economics, Science and Vocational Education
  1. Science: aerodynamics (gravity and lift; drag and thrust; power and torque) – Bill Grauer, Boeing Company
  2. Inventions and innovations: – Lawrence Husick
  3. History: How the helicopter changed wars and warfare (The Huey in Vietnam, The Hind in Afghanistan) – Samuel Evans
  4. Economics: Military-Civilian Spillover of Helicopter Technology / The Value of Vertical Flight – Paul Dickler
  5. Vocational: Careers in Rotorcraft - Pilot, Maintenance, Engineering, AirEMT, Law Enforcement, and Military - DVIRC
  6. Demystifying Helicopter Cockpits - A layman's guide to having the right stuff – Robert Beggs

Audio and video of afternoon session.

• 4:15 – 4:30 — Concluding Remarks

All teachers who complete the program will receive an FPRI Certificate of Instruction, as well as related curriculum materials. Registration is free but reservations are required. Lunch, parking, and coffee breaks are provided at no cost. RSVP: lux@fpri.org.

For essays, lesson plans, and resources on innovation, visit www.fpri.org/education/innovation.

Speakers include:

Robert M. (Bob) Beggs served in the U.S. Coast Guard as an Electronics Technician. While serving in the USCG Bob earned his private pilot license. He earned a B.S. in Industrial Design at Carnegie-Mellon University with University Honors. He then joined Boeing Vertol as an engineer on the Advanced Rotorcraft Technology Integration program. On the V-22 Osprey, he led the Human Factors Engineering organization and then was named Sr. Manager for Product Assurance and Fleet Safety. He has led Boeing’s Advanced Logistics and currently leads the development, integration and deployment of maintenance management information system solutions for Boeing's Sustainment Data System. Bob holds two U.S. patents. He earned his MBA in Management from Eastern University. Bob is a regional coordinator for Boeing’s Higher Education Integration Board overseeing relationships with twenty-two major universities in the Northeast U.S. region and he serves as Corporate Executive Focal for Lehigh University. He is active in the American Helicopter Society (AHS) and serves on the board of the Vertical Flight Foundation, and is a co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center.

Bruce H. Charnov, Ph.D., J.D., FRAeS, is an Associate Professor in the Management, Entrepreneurship & General Business Department of the Frank G. Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University. He holds a Ph.D. from United States International University in clinical/organizational psychology. He earned his J.D. at Hofstra University School of Law where he was Associate Editor of the Hofstra Law Review, his M.B.A., Magna Cum Laude from Fairleigh Dickinson University; an M.A. with distinction, from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America 1971; and received his B.A. at the University of Michigan. He has served as a consultant regarding rotorcraft history to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; National Geographic Magazine; The History Channel’s series Tactical to Practical; the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation. He is a member of numerous professional associations with both rotorcraft and military focus.

Samuel S. Evans earned his BS in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1985. He served in Army aviation, and after his recent retirement from active duty, assumed the post of Research Associate in the Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence at The Pennsylvania State University.

Bill Grauer started his career at the Boeing Company in 1979 as a co-op student doing wind tunnel flow quality research at the Boeing wind tunnel in Philadelphia. After graduating from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering, Bill returned to the Boeing wind tunnel in Philadelphia as test engineer. In 1986 Bill Grauer earned a masters degrees in Business Administration from Drexel University. Bill worked for six years in the Advanced Aircraft Aerodynamics group at Boeing Philadelphia and is currently the Senior Manager of the Boeing Philadelphia wind tunnel. It is the largest wind tunnel in the Boeing Company and the largest privately owned wind tunnel in the United States. Bill is a licensed professional engineer and is a graduate of the Boeing Senior Manager Leadership Program, the Boeing Engineering Leadership Program, and the Boeing HIPO (High Potential) program.

Mark “Pete” Peterson enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1969, graduated from Parris Island in 1970 and did a tour in Vietnam with 3rd Battalion 1st Marine Division. Following enlistment, he received his B.S. in Education from West Chester University in 1973. He was then commissioned a 2Lt. in the Marine Corps. He served as a Platoon Commander for two years before being accepted into flight school. He earned his wings from Pensacola in 1976 and reported to MCAS New River, Jacksonville, NC where he trained as a CH-46 pilot. During his time in the Fleet Marine Corps Pete spent over six years with deploying squadrons on amphibious ships. During that time he was involved in the Grenada student rescue operation, Beirut, Lebanon, and the first Gulf war, Desert Storm. Throughout his 22 year career Pete spent all of his time in the Fleet except for three years when he served as the Marine Corps Aide to President Reagan. He retired in 1991 as a Lieutenant Colonel and started working for Boeing that same year. During his 18 years at Boeing Pete has been a Logistics Support Manager on the International CH-47 Chinook Program and for the last 9 years has been on the V-22 Program working Sustainment activity and program management. Pete holds two Masters Degrees, one in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College and the other in International Relations from Salve Regina University. He also holds a Commercial pilot certificate with single and multi-engine ratings and an instrument rating.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser Piasecki received a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Boston University in 1987. He has served Piasecki Aircraft as a design engineer, aerodynamicist, flight test engineer, project engineer, and program manager of a number of the Company’s key technology development programs, including the VTDP Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) program. After being made Vice President of Technology in 1991, Mr. Frederick Piasecki has been responsible for all technology development efforts of the Company, including engineering, manufacturing, and test activities. In February, 2008 he assumed the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors, which has responsibility for oversight of Company Management and liaison with Company shareholders. He is the author of a number of technical papers and presentations, and is an active Director of the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center, and is a member of the American Helicopter Society, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Society of Advanced Material Processing Engineers, and Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

Igor Sikorsky, Jr., Esq. received his B.A. in Russian Studies from Yale University in 1951. He served two years in Air Force intelligence as a lieutenant studying Soviet air power and its role in Central Europe. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1956. Sikorsky has long been active in aviation history; he served as a founder and first Chairman of the Board of the New England Air Museum and a member of the Smithsonian Institute Council. He frequently writes and lectures on the aviation history encompassed by his father's career, which spans the beginning of flight in 1909 through his pioneering the development of the helicopter. He serves as Trustee of the American Helicopter Museum in West Chester, PA as well as having served on the Smithsonian Council. He is completing a manuscript on the interaction of Aviation Pioneers Igor Sikorsky and Charles A. Lindbergh.

Paul Dickler, Ed.D. is a Senior Fellow of FPRI’s Wachman Center and Teacher-in-Residence at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is a consultant for The College Board, ETS, and several universities and school districts. He is also on the staff of Camden County College. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and his Master’s and Doctorate degrees from The University of Pennsylvania, as well. He has been the recipient of three Fulbright grants and five NEH grants, among others. Some of his post-doctoral studies have been at Beijing Normal University, St. Andrews (Scotland), Korea University, Princeton, and Stanford. Currently he also is a part-time farmer and factory worker.

Lawrence A. Husick is a senior fellow at FPRI, where he co-directs its project on teaching innovation. A consultant to both government and private organizations in the fields of systems analysis and design engineering, Husick has taught at the University of Pennsylvania's organizational dynamics master's program and the Whiting Graduate School of Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University. He co-founded Infonautics Corporation (now HighBeam Research, Inc.) and served as its principal system architect, where he was awarded five U.S. patents. In addition to his work at FPRI, Husick currently serves as chief innovation officer of TeraDisc, LLC, a pioneering company in the field of in silico drug research.

This conference is supported by grants from the Piasecki Family Foundation and Boeing Company. FPRI's Project on Teaching Innovation was launched with a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; core support for our History Institutes is provided by the Annenberg Foundation and Mr. H. F. Lenfest.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Second Annual Rocco Martino Lecture on Innovation

Innovation and the World Economy

Robert E. Litan Senior Fellow in Economic Studies, Brookings Institution, and Vice President for Research and Policy, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Robert Litan is the vice president for Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. He is co-author of Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity, which has been translated into ten languages and is used as a college text around the world. His other books include Financial Statecraft (Yale University Press, 2006) and Worldwide Financial Reporting (Oxford University Press, 2006). Dr. Litan has served in several capacities in the federal government: he was associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, 1995-96; Deputy Assistant Attorney General, 1993-1995; staff specialist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 1977-79. He received his B.S. in economics from the Wharton School, his J.D. from Yale Law School; and his Ph.D. in Economic from Yale University.

In 2007, Dr. Martino founded the Rocco Martino Lectures on Innovation to promote studies and education in innovation. An FPRI Senior Fellow, Dr. Martino has been in the forefront of computer applications and process innovation almost from the inception of the computer. Prior to founding XRT and then CyberFone, he held key positions with Booz Allen & Hamilton, Olin Mathieson, and Mauchly Associates, where he worked in partnership with Dr. John Mauchly, one of the developers of ENIAC and the co-inventor of electronic computers. Dr. Martino earned his Doctorate in Astrophysics from the Institute of Aerospace Studies for his work on the re-entry of space vehicles.

The first lecture in the Martino Lectures on Innovation was given by Paul Bracken on Technological Innovation and National Security.

Audio and video of lecture.

Read "Innovation and the World Economy".

Mon. Sept. 21, 2009

FPRI Study Group on America and the West

The Soldier, the State, and the Clash of Civilizations: The Legacy of Samuel Huntington

James Kurth Claude Smith Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College

James Kurth is Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, where he has taught defense policy, foreign policy, and international politics. He has been a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, New Jersey), visiting professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego, and visiting professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. His recent publications have focused upon the interrelations between the global economy, cultural conflicts, foreign policy, and military strategy. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Thu. Sept. 17, 2009

Program on National Security Research Briefing

Afghan Police Reform and the Future of Afghanistan

Featuring: Michael Clarke, Director, Royal United Services Institute (London) and Andrew Garfield, Senior Fellow, FPRI

Jointly sponsored by the Royal United Services Institute, Reserve Officers Association, and FPRI

Achieving a minimum level of stability in any post-conflict society is an absolute prerequisite for effective and durable reconciliation and reconstruction. To achieve even the most basic level of stability requires a well managed, competent and impartial police force operating within an institutional framework defined by law. Evidence strongly suggests that the Afghan National Police (ANP) has not achieved even a minimum acceptable standard expected of a police force in a democratic society. Without reform, the ANP will be incapable of maintaining law and order in Afghanistan or of becoming an institution capable of underpinning and protecting Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy. The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) have just completed a study on how best to reform the Afghan National Police and will present their findings in a report to be released at the September 17 briefing and on both organizations’ websites.

Wed., September 16, 2009

BookTalk

The Iraq Wars: Consequences for the Past, Present, and Future of U.S.Foreign Policy

Richard Haass President, Council on Foreign Relations

From January 2001 to June 2003, Dr. Richard Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, Dr. Haass also served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process. For his efforts, he received the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award.

From 1989 to 1993, he was special assistant to President George H. W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. In 1991, Dr. Haass was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for his contributions to the development and articulation of U.S. policy during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

A Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Haass holds a BA from Oberlin College and the Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford University. He is the author or editor of eleven books on American foreign policy.

Audio and video of lecture.

Tue., September 15, 2009

Cosponsored with the UPenn Center for East Asian Studies, the UPenn International Relations Program and UPenn Law School

Becoming Modern: Hong Kong’s Road to Democracy

Regina Ip Legislative Council Member, Hong Kong geographical constituency

Regina Ip worked for the Hong Kong Government from 1975 to 2003. During that time, she served in a wide range of areas including democratization of local government, international trade, industry and security. She was the first woman to be appointed the head of a disciplined service (Immigration Department, 1996-98) and as Secretary for Security of Hong Kong (1998-2003). In 2003 she resigned her position as Secretary for Security to take her daughter to the U.S. for education and to pursue higher studies herself. In June 2006 she returned to Hong Kong after completing the MA program in East Asian Studies at Stanford University.

In July 2006, she established a think tank, Savantas Policy Institute, focused on tackling the twin structural constitutional and economic problems of Hong Kong. The core vision of Savantas is to transform Hong Kong into a knowledge-based economy. In July 2007, Mrs. Ip was appointed by the Government as a member of the Commission on Strategic Development. In September 2008, Mrs. Ip was elected Legislative Council Member in the Hong Kong Island geographical constituency. In the same year, she was appointed by the China Reform Council as Vice Chairperson (2008-2010). She was also awarded the title of “Outstanding Person for Chinese Entrepreneurial Innovation 2008” by the Chinese Entrepreneurial Innovation Forum.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Dinner for Platinum Partners

7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores the 21st Century

Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. President, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. is President of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking about defense planning and investment strategies for the 21st century. His recent works include Strategy for a Long Peace; Transforming America’s Alliances; The Quadrennial Defense Review: Rethinking the U.S. Military Posture, and How to Win in Iraq. His work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, Issues in Science and Technology, Joint Forces Quarterly, The Naval War College Review, and Strategic Review, among other scholarly and public interest journals. He frequently contributes to media including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on each of the major networks, NPR, and The McLaughlan Group.

Dr. Krepinevich has served in the DoD’s Office of Net Assessment, on the personal staff of three secretaries of defense, and as a member of the National Defense Panel, the Defense Science Board Task Force on Joint Experimentation, and Joint Forces Command’s Transformation Advisory Board. He will speak on his book, 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores the Changing Face of War in the 21st Century (Bantam, Jan. 2009).

Thu., September 10, 2009

FPRI-Temple University Consortium on Grand Strategy

NOTE: EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF THE CONSORTIUM

What is Grand Strategy?

John Lewis Gaddis Yale University

John Lewis Gaddis, who received his PhD from the University of Texas in 1968, has published numerous books, including: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (1972); Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security (1982); The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (1987); We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (1997); The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (2002); Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (2004); and The Cold War: A New History (2006).

Tue., September 8, 2009

An Address by Benny Begin

Minister without Portfolio, Government of Israel

Benny Begin was born in Jerusalem and is the son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He received his Ph.D. in geology from Colorado State University.

He was first elected to the Knesset in 1988 and served as Science Minister in the Netanyahu government from 1996 to 1997, when he resigned in protest against the Hebron Agreement. He subsequently founded a new political party but, due to his party's poor showing in the 1999 elections, Begin resigned his seat and quit politics. He was then appointed Director of the Geological Survey of Israel. On November 2, 2008, he announced his return to politics and returned to the Knesset after the 2009 elections.

Audio of briefing.

Summer School Session 2: Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Exclusively for Members of FPRI and their guests

Al Qaeda´s Palestinian Dilemma

Barak Mendelsohn Assistant Professor of Political Science, Haverford College

While its ability to operate in the heart of the Middle East is in decline, al Qaeda has issued increasing numbers of statements dedicated to the Palestinian arena. The increased attention is not coincidental. In distress, al Qaeda is seeking to use the Palestinian question to improve its image by presenting itself as the Palestinians' true defender. However, Hamas's control over the Gaza Strip presents a serious dilemma for al Qaeda. It is finding that there is no easy way to back its promises with action and that confronting Hamas may actually have undesirable consequences.

Barak Mendelsohn is author of Combating Jihadism: American Hegemony and International Cooperation in the War on Terrorism (University of Chicago Press, 2009). He teaches courses at Haverford on Jihadi movement and on the Middle East. He served in the Israeli army for five years and received his Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University.

Summer School Session 1: Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Exclusively for Members of FPRI and their guests

What’s Wrong with our Intelligence, and How Can We Make It Right?

Richard Immerman Marvin Wachman Director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University and Edward Turzanski, Senior Fellow, FPRI

Richard H. Immerman is professor of history and the Marvin Wachman Director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy at Temple University. He served as Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analytic Integrity and Standards and Analytic Ombudsman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from Sept.2007-Dec. 2008. In this capacity he was responsible for ensuring that all finished intelligence products are timely, objective, independent of political considerations, based upon all sources of available intelligence, and employ proper analytic tradecraft. Among Immerman’s publications are The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (1981); John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War (1990); Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy for National Security (1998), coauthored with Robert R. Bowie; and John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (1998). He was a co-author of The Central Intelligence Agency: Security under Scrutiny (2006).

Edward A. Turzanski, a Senior Fellow in FPRI’s Center on Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Homeland Security, is a national security analyst at La Salle University, where he is Counsel to the President. He is a member of the U.S. Department of Justice Anti-Terror Advisory Committee for Region III and the DHS Port Security Committee for the Port of Philadelphia. Prior to his work at La Salle, he served with the U.S. government in the field of intelligence throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Mr. Turzanski appears frequently on television and radio including Fox News Network, CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, Canadian Broadcast Corporation news, Turkish National Television from Istanbul, South African National radio, Australian National Radio, WLS in Chicago, KAIRO in Seattle, and KERN in Bakersfield, California. He is also an on-air National Security Analyst for ABC affiliate WPVT TV6 and The Dom Giordano show on WPHT 1210AM in Philadelphia, and Comcast CN8 Network.

Tues.-Weds., July 14–15, 2009

FPRI Program on National Security

The Foreign Fighter Problem

Thu.–Sat., June 25–27, 2009

History Institute for Teachers

U.S. Foreign Policy and the Modern Middle East

Sponsored by FPRI’s Wachman Center and the American Institute for History Education

Monday, June 22, 2009

Briefing

China’s Toxic Exports

Jacques deLisle Director of FPRI's Asia Program and Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania

China's toxic exports-from lead-laden toys to melamine-tainted milk-based products to poison pet food to industrial chemical-laced toothpaste to counterfeit pharmaceuticals and beyond-have become an issue of global concern. Consumers around the world are worried about the risks they face when they use products, well beyond those labeled “made in China.” Reaction abroad imperils markets for China's exports and threatens harm to China's still-export-dependent economy, especially amid broader declines in demand triggered by the global economic crisis. What explains China's dangerous export problem? What can be, and is being, done about it? What are the prospects for success?

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Members’ Briefing

Trip Report on Pakistan and Afghanistan

Trudy Rubin Columnist, Philadelphia Inquirer

Trudy Rubin’s “Worldview” column in the Philadelphia Inquirer runs on Wednesdays and Sundays. In the past five years she has visited Iraq nine times and has also written from Iran, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, China and South Korea. She is the author of Willful Blindness: the Bush Administration and Iraq, a book of her columns from 2002-2004. In 2001 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary and in 2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Interactive Symposium on China-Taiwan Relations
(with participation in person or over the Internet)

Cross-Strait Relations One Year into the Ma Administration

Relations between mainland China and Taiwan have developed rapidly in the year since Ma Ying-jeou became president of the Republic of China. Regular quasi-official negotiations, suspended for more than a decade, have resumed. Building on foundations laid under Ma's two predecessors, the two sides have forged new accords on key economic issues, following an agenda of “economics first, politics later” and “easy first, difficult later.” At the same time, Ma faces domestic troubles, including the political consequences of a struggling economy and charges from Taiwan's principal opposition party that rapprochement with Beijing is imperiling Taiwan's de facto independence or sovereignty and its security.

On the PRC side, the policy, closely associated with Hu Jintao, of long-term tolerance for the cross-Strait status quo and providing enough progress to make Ma's agenda politically viable faces uncertainty after the harvesting of early, easy gains and amid continuing skepticism about the wisdom of extensive accommodation. Both the recent progress and the unsettled future raise policy challenges for the United States as well.

To discuss these issues, FPRI has assembled a distinguished group of experts:

• Zhou Zhongfei is Director of Department of World Economy, Shanghai Institute of International Studies and is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, working on US- China-Taiwan economic relations.
• Shih-chung Liu is visiting fellow at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, Brookings Institution. He was counselor and senior counselor to the President of Taiwan (2000-06) and vice-chair of the Research and Planning Committee in Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006-08).
• Emerson Niou is professor of political science and director of the Program in Asian Security Studies at Duke University. He is co-author of The Balance of Power (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
• Shelley Rigger (bio | essays) is Professor of East Asian Politics at Davidson College and Senior Fellow at FPRI.
• Jacques deLisle (bio | essays) is director of FPRI's Asia Program and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Asia Study Group

Asian Geopolitics and American Power: An Australian Perspective

Michael Evans

Dr. Michael Evans is the ADC Fellow at the Australian Defence College in Canberra. Between 2002-05 he was Head of the Australian Army´s think tank, the Land Warfare Studies Centre at the Royal Military College, Duntroon. Dr. Evans has also served on the staff of Land Headquarters in Sydney (1994-95) and in the Directorate of Army Research and Analysis in Army Headquarters in Canberra (1996-98). He has been a Sir Alfred Beit Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King's College, University of London and has held Visiting Fellowships at the University of York in England and in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

Dr. Evans´ saw military service in Africa as a member of the Rhodesian security forces during the civil war in that country and was later a regular officer in the post-civil war Zimbabwe Army. With the rank of Major, he headed a war studies program and was closely involved with the British Army in the integration of two rival guerrilla armies into a conventional land force.

His books and monographs include The Human Face of Warfare: Fear, Killing and Chaos in Battle (2000); Future Armies, Future Challenges: Land Warfare in the Information Age (2004); The Continental School of Strategy: The Past, Present and Future of Land Power (2004); The Tyranny of Dissonance: Australia´s Strategic Culture and Way of War, 1901-2005 (2005); From the Long Peace to the Long War: Armed Conflict and Military Education and Training in the 21st Century (2007); and City Without Joy: Urban Military Operations into the 21st Century (2007). Dr. Evans is also a specialist in military doctrine and was the lead author of Australian Army´s October 2008 publication Land Warfare Doctrine 3-0-1, Counterinsurgency: Developing Doctrine.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

What Happened to Democracy in China?

A Panel Discussion with Leading Chinese Experts on Electoral and Political Reform

Co-sponsored by Penn Law, the University of Pennsylvania Center for East Asian Studies, and FPRI

Participants:

Li Fan, Director, World and China Institute, Beijing

Jiang Shan, Independent Candidate for Shenzhen Local People’s Congress

Zhou Meiyan, Professional Staff Member, Minhang District People’s Congress, Shanghai

Qiu Jiajun, Researcher, Election and People’s Congress Study Center, Fudan University, Shanghai

Moderated by:

Jacques deLisle, Professor of Law, Penn Law, and Director, FPRI’s Asia Program

In the 1990s, Chinese experiments with grassroots direct elections appeared to be laying a foundation for broader democratic reform. In 1998, Buyun Township in Sichuan Province held a landmark election for local magistrates, which was initially welcomed by the central leadership. Subsequently, the Buyun experiment was declared “unconstitutional” and, in the decade since, momentum for electoral reform has sputtered. Authorities have made it increasingly more difficult for independent candidates to get elected and reformers have shifted their attention from direct elections to increasing transparency in governance, especially with regard to budgeting and public financing. Publicly, China’s leaders steadfastly reject “Western-style democracy.” Internally, however, the Communist Party’s elite thank tank, the Central Party School, recommended in 2008 that the Party pursue political liberalization over the next decade or else face economic disarray, worsening corruption, and growing protests. What happened to democracy in China? What will happen to democracy in China? Please join four leading Chinese experts who will analyze recent developments in political reform and comment on the direction of reform over the next few years.

Sat.–Sun., May 2–3, 2009

History Institute for Teachers

What Students Need To Know About America’s Wars, Part II: 1920–Present

Sponsored by The Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Wachman Center and the Cantigny First Division Foundation

FPRI’s Wachman Center, in association with the Cantigny First Division Foundation, is proud to be presenting over 2008-09 a two-part series on What Students Need To Know about America’s Wars. The first part, in July 2008, covered the colonial wars through World War I; the second part, scheduled for May 2–3, 2009, will cover World War II through the present.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Postponed

The Iranian Threat: What are the Options?

Jack Thomas Tomarchio Senior Fellow, FPRI

Jack Thomas Tomarchio, a Senior Fellow in FPRI´s Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security, is the President of Agoge Group, LLC. In 2005 he was appointed the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis; in 2007 he was promoted to Deputy Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Operations. In his work at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Mr. Tomarchio was the primary senior official in charge of the intelligence directorate´s partnership with state and local governments to build a domestic intelligence sharing network.

He began his career as an attorney in the U.S. Army, where he served as a paratrooper with the 82d Airborne Division. He served in the Grenada invasion in 1983 and also served as counsel to a multinational peacekeeping force in the Sinai, Arab Republic of Egypt. Leaving active duty in 1985, Mr. Tomarchio became a litigator for two national law firms in Philadelphia. In 1991, Mr. Tomarchio was recalled to active duty and served in the Persian Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He currently serves as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Tomarchio is a television commentator, writer and speaker on national security issues and has testified before both houses of Congress on homeland security and intelligence matters..

Monday, April 27, 2009

FPRI Study Group on America and the West

Hostages and U.S. Foreign Policy

Dominic Tierney Visiting Professor, Harvard University

Dominic Tierney is assistant professor of political science at Swarthmore College; in 2009, he is Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, JFK School of Government, Harvard University. He is the author of Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (Harvard, 2006), with Dominic Johnson, which won the International Studies Association award for the best book on international affairs published in 2006. He is also the author of FDR and the Spanish Civil War (Duke, 2007) and articles in the Journal of Cold War Studies, Survival, Review of International Studies, Security Studies, Journal of Contemporary History, and the New York Times.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Public Lecture

China: Rethinking Economic Reforms after 30 Years

Yasheng Huang Sloan School of Management, MIT Author of “Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics”

Prof. Yasheng Huang teaches political economy and international management at the Sloan School of Management, MIT. His book Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics (Cambridge University Press) was selected by The Economist as one of the best books published in 2008. In collaborations with other scholars, Prof. Huang is conducting research on a range of research projects including production of scientific knowledge in China and India, on entrepreneurship, ethnic andlabor-intensive FDI. His research has been profiled in many publications,including the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Businessworld, Le Monde, Economic Times, Daily Telegraph, Bloomberg, Businessweek, and the Guardian. At MIT Sloan, Prof. Huang founded and runs the China Lab and India Lab, which aim to help entrepreneurs in China and India improve their management.

He has held or received prestigious fellowships such as National Fellowship at Stanford University and Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Fellowship. He is a member of MIT Entrepreneurship Center, a fellow at Center for Chinese Economic Research and Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, a fellow at William Davidson Institute at Michigan Business School, a World Economic Forum Fellow, and a non-resident fellow for the OECD's global development outlook project. His other books include Inflation and Investment Controls in China (1996), FDI in China (1998), Selling China (2003), and Financial Reform in China (2005, co-edited with Tony Saich and Edward Steinfeld).

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Annual Champagne Brunch for Bronze Partners

A Look Back at the Surge in Iraq and a Look Ahead to the War in Afghanistan

Thomas E. Ricks Center for a New American Security

Thomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He also writes an online blog for ForeignPolicy.com, “The Best Defense,” is a contributing editor for Foreign Policy, and serves as a special military correspondent for the Washington Post; he previously covered the same beat at the Wall Street Journal. He was part of a Wall Street Journal team that won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2000 for a series on how the U.S. military might meet the demands of the 21st century and a Washington Post team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for reporting about the U.S. counterterrorism offensive. His books include Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Penguin, 2006) and The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 (Penguin, Feb. 2009), complimentary copies of which will be given out at the Brunch.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Innovation Workshop for Teachers

Co-sponsored by FPRI, the Goethe-Institut, and the Heinrich Boell Foundation

This workshop will cover the History of Technology Innovation, Teaching Innovation in the Classroom, and Green Innovation in Germany.

Lunch will be catered. Mileage / parking stipends available. Attendees will receive free materials. For more information, visit www.fpri.org/education/innovation and www.goethe.de/top.

Sat.–Sun., March 28–29, 2009

History Institute for Teachers

Teaching the Nuclear Age

Hosted by the Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada

Sponsored by The Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Wachman Center, the Atomic Testing Museum, and the American Academy of Diplomacy

Over 60 years ago, the nuclear age began with weapons that could destroy a city in a single strike. Although nuclear weapons have not been used since their first and only use in 1945, the prospect that nuclear weapons will find their way into the hands of terrorists or rogue regimes is arguably the greatest threat to the world today. This weekend-long program will enable teachers to understand— and teach— the nuclear age with historical perspective.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Lessons for Negotiators from the Middle East Experience: First Hand Perspectives

Daniel Taub, Senior Deputy Legal Advisor, Israeli Foreign Ministry

Moderated by Harvey Sicherman, President, Foreign Policy Research Institute

Daniel Taub is Senior Deputy Legal Adviser of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His main areas of responsibility include counterterrorism, international organizations and humanitarian law. He has served as a member of Israel's negotiating teams with both Syria and the Palestinians, and currently serves as head of the Israeli side of the Israeli-Palestinian Culture of Peace negotiations.

He has represented Israel at many multilateral fora, including the hearings over Israel's security fence at the International Court of Justice and the negotiations for the entry of Magen David Adom into the Red Cross Movement, and has served as legal adviser to Israel's Mission to the UN. He has taught extensively in the fields of international law, negotiation theory and Middle Eastern issues at universities and policy institutes in Israel and abroad, including the U.S. State Department, Chatham House, and the Lauterpacht Center for International Law. Within Israel's foreign ministry he has developed and taught training programs for Israeli diplomats in negotiation strategies and communications skills. He holds degrees from the universities of Oxford (University College), London (University College) and at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (Wexner Fellow).

Mr. Taub is visiting Philadelphia under the auspices of the Consulate General of Israel in Philadelphia and the Anti-Defamation League Eastern Pennsylvania/Delaware Regional Office.

Monday, March 16, 2009

BookTalk

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

Niall Ferguson Professor of History, Harvard University

Niall Ferguson is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and the William Ziegler Professor at the Harvard Business School. He is author of several critically acclaimed books, including Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation, 1897-1927 (Cambridge University Press, 1995); The Pity of War: Explaining World War One (Basic Books, 1998); The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild (Penguin, 1998); The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000 (Basic, 2001); Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (Basic, 2003); Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (Basic, 2004); and War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (Basic, 2006). A contributing editor of the Financial Times, Ferguson was named in 2004 by Time Magazine of one of the world's hundred most influential people.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

The American Academy of Diplomacy and FPRI present

Diplomacy and Nonproliferation

part of the Arthur Ross Discussions of American Diplomacy Series

Panelists: Ambassador Avis Bohlen, Joseph Cirincione
Moderator: Ambassador Marc Grossman
Luncheon Speaker: Ambassador Max Kampelman

Joseph Cirincione joined Ploughshares Fund as president in March 2008. He is author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and served previously as senior vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and as director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a professional staff member of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Operations, and served as staff director of the bipartisan Military Reform Caucus. He teaches at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ambassador Marc Grossman was sworn in as Under Secretary for Political Affairs in March 2001. He has been a career Foreign Service Officer since 1976. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources, from June 2000 to February 2001, and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, from August 1997 to May 2000. From November 1994 to June 1997, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. Prior to this, from January 1993 to September 1994, he was Special Assistant to the Secretary of State and Executive Secretary of the Department of State.

Ambassador Max M. Kampelman is former head of the American delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. He served as Ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe from 1980-83, Ambassador and Head of the United States Delegation to the Negotiations with the Soviet Union on Nuclear and Space Arms in Geneva from 1985-1989, and as Counselor to the Department of State from 1987-1989. He then rejoined the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, & Jacobson LLP, which he is now of counsel.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Program on Teaching Innovation

Innovation and Economic Growth: Lessons from the Story of ENIAC

Rocco L. Martino Senior Fellow, FPRI, and CEO, Cyberfone Technologies, Inc.

The development of the entire computer industry was a significant innovation. It was centered about Philadelphia with the creation of ENIAC. In a very short time, the computer became the catalyst for the largest increase of international wealth in history. How did this come about? What lessons can be carried forward into the future as America, and the world, struggles to find ways to reignite the growth cycle.

Dr. Rocco L. Martino’s career spanned the creation and growth of the computer and information industry as we know it today. He knew and worked with many of the early pioneers of the computer industry, and himself created many systems in use today, most especially in astrophysics, system security, computer languages, instant mobile communication, and international commerce and finance.

For information about FPRI’s program on Teaching Innovation, visit www.fpri.org/education/innovation.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Teaching Innovation in World History: Asia as a Case Study

A Program for K–12 Teachers

Sponsored by Wachman Center of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Asia Program.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Webcast for Students

What Students Need to Know About War, and Why

Jeremy Black Professor of History, University of Exeter
Senior Fellow, FPRI

Jeremy Black is professor of history at Exeter University. His numerous books include Rethinking Military History (Routledge, 2004), America as a Military Power 1775-1882 (Praeger, 2002), The World in the Twentieth Century (Longman, 2002), Visions of the World: A History of Maps (Mitchell Beazley, 2003), War: An Illustrated World History (Sutton, 2003).

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Public lecture

The US and Europe in 2009

Jeremy Black Professor of History, University of Exeter
Senior Fellow, FPRI

Jeremy Black is professor of history at Exeter University. His numerous books include Rethinking Military History (Routledge, 2004), America as a Military Power 1775-1882 (Praeger, 2002), The World in the Twentieth Century (Longman, 2002), Visions of the World: A History of Maps (Mitchell Beazley, 2003), War: An Illustrated World History (Sutton, 2003).

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Program on National Security Conference

Defense Showstoppers: National Security Challenges for the Obama Administration

A Conference Sponsored by Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Reserve Officers Association

The Obama Administration will face numerous challenges to U.S. national security. Among these, several stand out for their potential as “showstoppers,” where, if the challenge is not met, the U.S. may suffer a strategic loss of capability:

• What is the proper balance between counterinsurgency and traditional military formations in our planning?
• With respect to the procurement process, the defense industrial base, and the budget, are we short-changing the future?
• Can the U.S. meet its responsibilities with the current active-reserve structure? And if not, how?
• Seven years into the Long War, how can we improve coordination among Defense, State, the CIA, and others?

In this conference, our objective is to set forth clearly the actions needed to sustain America’s defense capability.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Public lecture in celebration of Lincoln’s Bicentennial

Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

Mackubin T. Owens Senior Fellow, FPRI and Editor, Orbis
Professor of Strategy and Force Planning, Naval War College

Participants may also be interested in Owen’s January 2009 monograph entitled Abraham Lincoln: Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime (271K PDF), or the shorter E-Note version, Abraham Lincoln: Leadership in Wartime.

Mackubin T. Owens is Professor of Strategy and Force Planning at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel in 1994. Dr. Owens is a contributing editor to National Review Online. His articles on national security issues have appeared in publications including International Security, Orbis, Armed Forces Journal, Joint Force Quarterly, The Public Interest, The Weekly Standard, Defence Analysis, US Naval Institute Proceedings, Marine Corps Gazette, Comparative Strategy, National Review, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Jerusalem Post, St. Louis Lawyer, the Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He is co-editor of the textbook, Strategy and Force Planning, now in its fourth edition.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

BookTalk

Alliance Curse: How America Lost the Third World

Hilton L. Root George Mason University

In his new book Alliance Curse (Brookings, 2008), Hilton Root draws on the lessons of the Cold War and the East Asian development success to develop a critique of American foreign policy and foreign aid policy, with a view to crafting a new strategy for success in the developing world. Root is a professor at George Mason University’s School of Public Policy and a senior fellow with the Mercatus Center. He has served as adviser to the U.S. Treasury and the Asian Development Bank and has taught at Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania. Root’s books include Capital and Collusion: the Political Logic of Global Economic Development (Princeton, 2006), Governing for Prosperity, edited with Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (Yale, 2000), and The Key to the Asian Miracle, with J.E. Campos (Brookings, 1996).

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

FPRI Study Group on America and the West

POWs in American Film

Paul J. Springer Assistant Professor of History, U.S. Military Academy

Paul Springer, an Assistant Professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy, is currently at work on a book on the history of U.S. Prisoner of War policy.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Delegation of Chinese Policy Leaders

Hosted at the invitation of the Natonial Committee on U.S.-China Relations

The delegation consists of 14 Chinese diplomats stationed at the Chinese embassy, consulate, and permanent mission to the UN. The meeting will discuss the role of think tanks in public policy.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Hosted Dialogue for Egyptian and Saudi Scholars on the U.S. and the Muslim World

Held at the invitation of the Dept. of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware. The visiting scholars represent institutions such as Riyadh University and Al Azhar University and are experts in Islam, law, political science, sociology and inter-faith issues.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

BookTalk

Pacific Currents: The Responses of US Allies and Security Partners in East Asia to China’s Rise

Evan Medeiros RAND Corporation

China’s economic, military, and diplomatic power has been on the rise, and many worry that it is nudging aside U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region. A new RAND Corporation study examines six U.S. allies and partners – Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand— and their responses to China’s rise, with an analysis of implications for U.S. interests in the region. Evan Medeiros, its lead author, is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. His publications have appeared in The China Quarterly, Current History, Issues and Studies, The Nonproliferation Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, Defense News, Asia Times, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.