Security and Defense Events
Fighting Transnational Organized Crime
March 23, 2012 // 9:00am — 10:30am
Latin American Program
General Douglas Fraser discusses international efforts to tackle the complex challenge of organized crime and restore citizen security in Central and South America.
Regional Perspectives on the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit
March 21, 2012 // 3:00pm — 5:30pm
Asia Program
On March 26-27, Seoul will host the second Nuclear Security Summit, an initiative established by the Obama administration in Washington in 2010. Fifty world leaders, as well as scores of NGOs and industry and business representatives on the periphery of the central meeting, will discuss the summit’s main aim: to prevent loose nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. Naturally, different regional actors will have different agendas and priorities for the summit, and it is therefore important to consider the issues and concerns for Northeast Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, and former Soviet states and stakeholders.
China and Coexistence: Beijing's National Security Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
March 12, 2012 // 4:00pm — 5:15pm
Asia Program
"Peaceful coexistence," long a key phrase in China’s strategic thinking, is a constructive doctrine that offers China a path for influencing the international system. So argues Liselotte Odgaard in this timely analysis of China's national security strategy in the context of its foreign policy practice. China’s program of peaceful coexistence emphasizes absolute sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. Odgaard suggests that China’s policy of working within the international community and with non-state actors such as the UN aims to win for China greater power and influence without requiring widespread exercise of military or economic pressure.
Book Discussion--U.S. Government Counterterrorism: A Guide to Who Does What
February 27, 2012 // 12:00pm — 1:00pm
International Security Studies
Michael Kraft, former senior advisor, State Department Counterterrorism Office, and Edward Marks, former U.S. ambassador, Department of State discuss their new book, U.S. Government Counterterrorism: A Guide to Who Does What.
The Last Time We Were at Nuclear Zero
February 23, 2012 // 12:00pm — 1:30pm
International Security Studies
With George Quester, Chairman of the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Visiting Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.
Laws, Sentencing, and Prisons: What Helps and Doesn’t Help Citizen Security?
February 21, 2012 // 5:00pm — February 22, 2012 // 8:45pm
Latin American Program
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Latin America Program, Institute of Legal Defense, and the Corporation of Andean Development hosted an event in Lima, Peru on laws, sentencing, and prisons to discuss what helps or doesn’t help citizen security in the Andean region.
Dependent America? How Canada and Mexico Construct U.S. Power
February 21, 2012 // 9:00am — 11:00am
Canada Institute
In Dependent America?, Stephen Clarkson and Matto Mildenberger explore the extent to which U.S. power is a function of its capacity to mobilize other states’ material and moral support. The authors presented the book, and discussants commented on it.
Landmark Kennan Biography Chronicles Complex Life of Early Cold Warrior
February 15, 2012 // 3:00pm — 4:30pm
Cold War International History Project
Official biographer John Lewis Gaddis paints a fascinating and multidimensional portrait of George Kennan, the post-war diplomat who set forth containment doctrine, presaged the collapse of the Soviet Union, and, in later years, became an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, including of the war in Vietnam. At the launch Wednesday of George F. Kennan: An American Life, Gaddis revealed the personality behind one of the 20th century’s great policy minds.
Georgian-South Ossetian Confidence Building Processes
February 06, 2012 // 12:00pm — 1:00pm
Kennan Institute
Dr. Susan Allen Nan will discuss the Georgian-South Ossetian relationship, including insights from the 14 Georgian-South Ossetian confidence building workshops she has convened over the past three years, the most recent of which was in January. The series of unofficial dialogues catalyze other confidence building measures and complement the Geneva Talks official process.
Two Decades after El Salvador’s Peace Accords: Current Challenges
January 30, 2012 // 9:00am — 11:30am
Latin American Program
In the twenty years since the signing of the Peace Accords, El Salvador has made impressive progress in expanding political and media freedoms, reforming the military and security forces, lowering rates of poverty and inequality, improving respect for human rights, and reforming electoral institutions. Today, however, El Salvador faces unprecedented security and economic challenges. An upsurge in transnational crime, including narcotics, weapons, and human trafficking, has intersected with longstanding problems of gang violence such that El Salvador suffers one of the highest homicide rates in the world. El Salvador’s economy continues to struggle amidst the global recession and weak economic recovery in the United States, the country’s largest export market.