Current Events
Mon, Sept 8: Robert M. Scher on The Rise of China
Fri, Sept 12: John Osborn on Public Diplomacy
Mon, Sept 15: Dr. James Ludes on National Security beyond the Military
Mon, Sept 22: Dr. Zoltan Feher on Cultural Diplomacy
Mon, Sept 24: Alex Their on The War in Afghanistan
Mon, Sept 29: Brian Katulis on Transnational Security Challenges Thurs, Oct 9: Brigadier General John Johns on U.S.-Iran Relations
Weds, Oct 15: Ray Takeyh and Steve Simon on Trends in Islam
Mon, Oct 27: Lt. Col. (Reserve) Stephen Abraham on American Values and National Security
This fall, the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council has been offered the unique opportunity to bring you speakers through the support of the National Security Network. Many of the speakers on our roster this year are a part of their speaker series in Iowa, noted in the individual descriptions below. ICFRC is a proud co-sponsor of this series.
Founded in 2006, the National Security Network (NSN) is dedicated to developing innovative national security solutions that are both pragmatic and principled. With 2,000 members and a leadership of experienced practitioners, NSN seeks to combine a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the challenges facing the United States with a fresh and innovative perspective on foreign policy. The NSN speakers program is designed to include citizens throughout the country in our national discussion about the future of American foreign policy. In Iowa, active NSN chapters are at work in Des Moines, Muscatine, Davenport, Dubuque, and Iowa City. More information is available at www.nsnetwork.org, by contacting them at 1333 H ST NW, 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20005, 202-289-5999, or at info@nsnetwork.org.
SPEAKER:
Robert M. Scher
China on the Rise: What's Next?
Date: Monday, September 8th
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: Old Brick Church, 26 E. Market St., Iowa City
This lecture has been made possible by the generous support of:
National Security Network
Reservations are due Friday, September 5 at noon. This lecture is free and open to the public, but eservations are required to join us for the catered meal.
Synopsis: As the Beijing Olympics come to a close, policy makers and the American public will begin to focus more than ever on the most important questions about the future of China’s relationship with the United States. As China emerges as a potential economic and geopolitical rival, how should the U.S. balance its trade partnership with China’s human rights record? How can and should the United States engage China on arms control?
Robert Scher, an Associate at Booz Allen,a strategy and technology consulting firm, has over 17 years experience analyzing, formulating and implementing US security and foreign policy at the Departments of Defense and State. He specializes in Asian bilateral security alliances and partnerships and has been deeply involved in US Government decision-making for military force structure and operations in Asia. At Booz Allen, Mr. Scher is a part of the International Defense Cooperation and International Ministries of Defense practices in Washington D.C. where his work focuses on providing assistance to Asian nations on improving their defense and national security decision making analysis and processes. In addition to this work, as a consultant, he has contributed to analytical work supporting the intelligence community and the Office of the Secretary of Defense on Asia and defense policy-related issues.
John Osborn
Projecting American Ideas: The State Department and the Conduct of Public Diplomacy
Date: Friday, September 12th
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: Rockwood Fellowship Hall, Congregational Church, 30 North Clinton St., Iowa City
Reservations are due by Friday, September 5th at noon.
John Osborn graduated from the University of Iowa in 1979, earning a BA with a double major in History and Economics. During his undergraduate years in Iowa City, he wrote for The Daily Iowan, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. John later completed graduate work in international affairs at Johns Hopkins and Princeton, earned his law degree from the University of Virginia, and is currently writing a research dissertation on comparative regulatory policy at the University of Oxford. John was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2007, and confirmed by the United States Senate in 2008, to serve as a member of the bipartisan United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. In 2004, he was appointed by then U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to serve as a national member of the board of governors of the East-West Center in Honolulu, an education and research organization focused on the Asia Pacific region. In 1998, he won an Eisenhower Fellowship and traveled to Northern Ireland to study the peace process following the adoption of the Good Friday Agreement. After working on the 1980 and 1988 presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush, he served from 1989 to 1992 as Special Assistant to the Legal Adviser with the U.S. Department of State.
During the last ten years, John was executive vice president and general counsel for Cephalon, Inc., a Fortune 1000 biopharmaceutical company based near Philadelphia. He now serves on the Board of Directors of Incept BioSystems, an early stage biomedical device company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is an advisor on life sciences policy and regulatory matters with the international consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Early in his career, he worked on Capitol Hill in the offices of former Congressman Jim Leach and the late Senator John Heinz. John has been elected to membership in the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute, and was named to the 2007 Lawdragon Leading Lawyers in America.
Dr. James Ludes
American National Security:
Looking Beyond the Military
Date: Monday, September 15
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: To Be Announced
This lecture has been made possible by the generous support of:
National Security Network
Look for more information about reservations soon! This lecture is free and open to the public, but reservations are required to eat the catered meal.
Synopsis: How can and should the United States develop and apply tool other than the use of military force to achieve its most critical national security and foreign policy objectives? What are the most important of those additional tools? How have they informed the debate about national security and foreign policy issues during the campaign for President? Two issue sets provide important points of departure: Whether the United States is “winning” the “war on terror,” and how the United States will address the national security challenges posed by global climate change.
Dr. James Ludes is the Executive Director of the American Security Project. More biographical information coming soon.
Zoltan Feher, Ph.D.
From Back Channels to the The Colbert Report:
The Changing Face of Transatlantic Diplomacy in the 21st Century
Date: Monday, September 22nd
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: Iowa City Public Library
This program is presented in part with the support of:
University of Iowa International Programs
University of Iowa American Studies Department
Dubbed "the rising star of transatlantic diplomatic relations," Dr. Zoltán Fehér is Chief Creative Officer and Press Attaché at the Embassy of Hungary in Washington, D.C. Fehér holds Master's degrees in Political Science and American Studies from Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary, and a JD from Pazmany Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary. The former president of a Hungarian NGO which discusses current issues with the country's young intelligentsia, Feher has taught Political Science courses at Hungarian universities, and has published on the U.S. foreign policy and Transatlantic relations.
Synopsis: For much of the 20th century, the often uneasy relations between European countries and the United States were not only conducted on the formal governmental level, but they were also shaped through backdoor dealings. The ideological struggle of the Cold War and its attendant cultural propaganda warfare actually necessitated such parallel maneouvers. After the end of the Cold War, the countries of Central Europe had free reign in shaping their own relations with the United States, and even after joining the European Union, they have retained considerable agency in this field. As a result, these young democracies have been eager to strengthen their ties with the United States even in new, experimental forms of diplomacy. Drawing on his own experience of rising through the ranks of the Hungarian diplomatic corps in Washington, D.C., Dr. Zoltán Fehér will identify and define the pioneering new forms of transatlantic diplomacy ranging from the representations of national cultures, art and history through film festivals and museum exhibitions to the creative use of the potential of U.S. mass media for cultural diplomacy (such as the former Hungarian ambassador's several appearances on The Colbert Report) to the diplomatic use of the "new media" such as the Internet and blogging. In his presentation, Fehér hopes to challenge his audience to think outside the box of conventional international relations and identify and pursue alternative and new forms of cultural relations including public/civil diplomacy, cultural exchange, media diplomacy, and intercultural communications through music. Deploying such practices would help redefine both the (shattered) image of the United States in the world and the tools of promoting American interests abroad - for a new understanding of international relations in the 21st century.
Alex Their
Afghanistan: The Forgotten War
Date: Wednesday, September 24
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: Old Brick Church, 26 E. Market St., Iowa City
This lecture has been made possible by the generous support of:
National Security Network
Look for more information about reservations soon! This lecture is free and open to the public, but reservations are required to eat the catered meal.
Alexander Their serves at the United States Institute of Peace as the Senior Rule of Law Advisor for their Rule of Law Program
J Alexander Thier joined the Institute as senior adviser in the Rule of Law program, one of the Centers of Innovation, in 2005. He is director of the project on constitution making, peacebuilding, and national reconciliation and codirector of the International Network to Promote the Rule of Law. He is also responsible for several rule-of-law programs in Afghanistan, including a project on establishing relations between Afghanistan’s formal and informal justice systems.
Thier was the director of the Project on Failed States at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. From 2002 to 2004, Thier was legal adviser to Afghanistan’s Constitutional and Judicial Reform Commissions in Kabul, where he assisted in the development of a new constitution and judicial system.
Thier has worked as a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, as a legal and constitutional expert to the British Department for International Development, and as an adviser to the Constitutional Commission of Southern Sudan. Thier worked as a UN and non-governmental organization official in Afghanistan from 1993 to 1996, where he was the officer-in-charge of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan in Kabul. He also served as coordination officer for the UN Iraq Program in New York. An attorney, Thier was a Skadden fellow and a graduate fellow at the U.S. National Security Council’s Directorate for Near-East and South Asia. He received the Richard S. Goldsmith award for outstanding work on dispute resolution from Stanford University in 2000.
He has a B.A. from Brown University, a master’s in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.
Brigadier General John Johns
U.S. - Iran Relations: Shaky Past, Uncertain Future
Date: Thursday, October 9
Time: 12:00 p.m.
Location: Rockwood Fellowship Hall, Congregational Church, 30 N. Clinton St., Iowa City
Look for more information about reservations soon!
This program is presented in part with the generous support of:
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
University of Iowa International Programs
Brigadier General Dr. John Johns served 26 years as a combat arms officer, retiring in 1978. He served in command positions up to Assistant Division Commander of the 1st Infantry Division and held numerous staff positions, including eight years on the Army General Staff, culminating his career as Director of Human Resources Development.
In 1960, Gen. Johns began a series of assignments focused on counterinsurgency strategy and doctrine: he taught counterinsurgency at Fort Bragg, became senior advisor to the Vietnam Political Warfare School in Vietnam, and returned to serve in a series of staff positions on the Army General Staff.
Serving in positions on the Army General Staff, then Lieutenant Colonel Johns focused on the nation-building role of the U.S. military in counterinsurgency operations and, in a major policy paper, argued that U.S. combat forces should not be used in such roles.
While serving in the office of the army chief of staff, he also served on a committee that
monitored war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Vietnam.
After retirement, General Johns served for 14 years as a professor of political science at
the National Defense University where he taught national security strategy and national
security decision-making. He is currently the Washington area coordinator for national
security strategy seminars conducted by the National War College Alumni Association
and participates in an exclusive internet discussion forum that focuses on national
security issues with over 300 scholars, senior retired and active military officers, media
representatives and policymakers throughout the government.
Dr. Johns is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College, the National
War College, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He has masters' degrees in
psychology and international relations, and a doctorate in sociology.