Spotlight on Central Eurasia Series // Authors and scholars Alexander Cooley and Alexander Kupatadze discuss their research into the interplay of geopolitics and local networks across Central Asia. Cooley explores the dynamics of the new competition between Russia, China and the United States over the region since 9/11, as well as how small states’ interaction with great powers advances our understanding of how world politics actually works in the contemporary era of diminishing Western influence and rising new regional powers. Author Alexander Kupatadze will discuss the diverging trajectories of organized crime in post-Soviet Eurasia focusing on professional criminals (so-called vory-v-zakone) in Georgia and drug smuggling groups in Kyrgyzstan.

This luncheon program will convey the continuing impact of the European Humanities University (EHU) through exchanges with current EHU students and remarks from the university’s founding rector, Anatoli Mikhailov and Eurasia Foundation President, Horton Beebe-Center. The students, a live example of civic education in action, will help to focus the session on the challenges and rewards of educating a rising generation, especially in a state with an authoritarian government.

Transatlantic Relations have always been in the mainstream of international politics. Crucial issues determined by a strong political will and various policy decisions on both sides of the Atlantic have necessitated important transatlantic decision making. Current themes of transatlantic relations include the future of the economy, war and peace in the Mediterranean basin, energy efficiency, the security of energy supplies, and terrorism.

Wilson Center ECNU Scholar Ming Chen will present on Confrontation Controlled: Sino-American Relations and the Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1962