January 28, 2015
Russia 2015: Economic Outlook
Date: January 28, 9:30am
Location: Johns Hopkins SAIS, Room 500, 1717 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington DC
Russia’s economy has endured a tumultuous year: falling oil prices, international sanctions and a declining ruble have pressed the Kremlin to answer questions about the long-term sustainability of its current growth model. What opportunities and challenges face the Russian economy in 2015? What are the Kremlin’s economic priorities and how will it craft policy to reach these ends in the coming year? On Wednesday, January 28, CGI will host a half-day conference featuring top Russian and American experts to discuss the outlook for Russia’s economic future.
Full event agenda available here. Register here.
The Third U.S. Offset Strategy and its Implications for Partners and Allies
Date: January 28, 11:30am
Location: Willard InterContinental Hotel, 1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC
The Center for a New American Security and the NATO Allied Command Transformation is hosting Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, who will present his view for how the new U.S. Offset Strategy will impact U.S. alliances and partnerships, including NATO. Following his remarks, there will be a discussion moderated by Michèle Flournoy, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at CNAS. She will be joined by distinguished guest, General Jean-Paul Paloméros, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. An audience Q&A session will follow the panel.
RSVP here.
Australia and the Bomb
Date: January 28, 2:00pm
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, 6th Floor, Washington DC
Right up until 1973, Australia made serious efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, but it gave up these attempts once the Asia-Pacific became more stable. We are once again at a critical juncture in the Asia-Pacific, with major powers jockeying for power. Nuclear strategy, extended deterrence, and proliferation have risen to the top of the policy agenda in the region, generating sharp debate even in Australia. The historical origins of the Asian nuclear landscape have profound consequences for contemporary policy regarding US extended deterrence and proliferation by allies.
Join us at the Wilson Center as Christine Leah speaks on her new book, Australia and the Bomb, based on new archival material from the Australian National Archives and interviews with former and current senior defense officials.
RSVP here.
Department in Transition: Challenges and Opportunities Facing SecDef Nominee Ashton Carter
Date: January 28, 2:00pm
Location: Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium, 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington DC
With President Obama nominating Ashton Carter, a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, for the top job at the Pentagon, the Department of Defense (DoD) is at a crossroads. Carter, slated to become President Obama’s fourth Secretary of Defense, will face a number of institutional and national security challenges – all of which will require him to draw from his vast experience in the department. Obvious objectives will include the formulation of a more effective strategy against ISIS, a determination on how to counter a revanchist Russia, tackling elements of defense reform, and the restoration of budgets that are consistent with the unpredictable strategic operating environment in which U.S. forces find themselves.
Join us for a discussion of the defense and foreign policy issues that Ashton Carter is sure to face as Secretary of Defense and what to look for during his confirmation hearing.
Register to attend in person or watch live online here.
Global Security and Gender – A Forum with Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom
Date: January 28, 4:00pm
Location: United States Institute of Peace, 2301 Constitution Ave NW, Washington DC
The integration of gender perspectives as a core value in foreign policy is not just fundamental for establishing long-term peace and security; it is also crucial for reaching development goals and prosperity. Today’s security environment holds massive challenges for women and girls as a result of extremism, humanitarian crises, and conflict. At the same time, Beijing+20 and the post-2015 agenda provides an unprecedented opportunity to take a fresh look at how we can create a new, inclusive framework for global security and development.
In Sweden, Minister Wallström is reviewing how her nation’s foreign policy can be strengthened further with attention to gender perspectives. At the forum, Minister Wallström will present her government’s vision of how gender perspectives can inform foreign policy in the current security context.
Following her remarks, Minister Wallström will be joined by former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Ambassador Johnnie Carson, a USIP senior advisor, who will moderate a discussion with the Minister, as well as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Catherine Russell, and U.S. Ambassador Donald Steinberg (retired), a former deputy administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development who now serves as President and CEO of World Learning. Join the conversation on Twitter with #GenderDiplomacy.
Register here.
January 29, 2015
Asia Pacific Forecast 2015
Date: January 29, 8:00am
Location: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2nd Floor Conference Room, 1616 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington DC
What should we expect from the U.S. strategic rebalance to Asia in 2015? What are the prospects for economic reform in China and Japan? How should we interpret leadership changes in India and Indonesia? Are new strategic alignments emerging in Asia as the United States focuses on crises elsewhere?
Join CSIS experts for a preview of political, security, and economic developments across Asia in 2015.
Register here.
Report Launch: “Scripts of Sovereignty: The Freezing of the Russia-Ukraine Crisis and Dilemmas of Governance in Eurasia”
Date: January 29, 10:00am
Location: Johns Hopkins SAIS, Room 500, 1717 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington DC
With a possible frozen conflict developing in eastern Ukraine, Russia has begun to consolidate neighboring breakaway territories into a distinct group of semi-sovereign entities that frustrate Western efforts in the region. This Russian strategy, based on six identifiable “scripts of sovereignty,” has exposed a contradiction in the West’s own approach: that of promoting both Western integration and the preservation of existing borders in states that remain deeply divided on the issue. What steps can both sides take to turn the region into an area of cooperation – and will it require a new model for governance in Eurasia?
Please join us for a discussion with Alexander Cooley, Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Deputy Director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, on the future of territorial arrangements in the post-Soviet space. The event will mark the release of Dr. Cooley’s report as the first publication for CGI’s After Ukraine program, which examines the long-term implications of the Ukrainian crisis. Thomas de Waal, Senior Associate for Russia and Eurasia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, will join as the discussant. Konstantin Avramov, Program Director at CGI, will moderate the Q&A.
Register here.
Interrogation in the 21st Century
Date: January 29, 12:15pm
Location: New America Foundation, 1899 L Street NW, Suite 400, Washington DC
Ever since reports of abusive tactics surfaced in the early 2000s, the efficacy of interrogation methods used by the U.S. military and intelligence services has been an issue of contention. Over the past 15 years, the debate has focused largely on whether or not abusive tactics were necessary to elicit intelligence. The discussion has been largely among politicians, with little input from scientists who have relevant data, or from practitioners who can speak to the efficacy of ethical, science-based methods that treat detainees with respect. Until now.
New America is pleased to welcome Col. (ret.) Steven Kleinman, a career military intelligence officer with expertise in human intelligence and strategic interrogations; Mark Fallon, a national security consultant and former deputy assistant director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service; Christian Meissner, a professor at Iowa State University who has coordinated a five-year research program for the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group; and Melissa Russano, associate professor of criminal justice at Roger Williams University who has interviewed interrogators with experience of questioning high-value targets, for a discussion about the methods that are really used in these kinds of interrogations, and the value of the intelligence that they elicit.
RSVP here.
A New Foreign Policy Agenda: Looking Toward 2016
Date: January 29, 3:00pm
Location: Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium, 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington DC
2014 seemed like a year of foreign policy crises – Ukraine, Russia, the Middle East. While most of these may have moved from the top of the news cycle, by no means have they been solved permanently. It is a little under two years before the next presidential election, but foreign policy might figure more prominently in the 2016 cycle than it has in recent elections. World events are deteriorating rapidly, and national security is more on people’s minds. There is widespread popular discontent with the conduct and outcome of current U.S. foreign policies. Democrats are raising significant questions about the direction of U.S. strategy. Republicans are searching for a consistent foreign policy vision. The time is ripe to begin thinking about what an alternative U.S. foreign policy should be and the principles behind its successful conduct.
Join us as Dr. Kim Holmes and Dr. William Inboden discuss their recent four-part series in Foreign Policy, outlining the way forward for a reinvigorated U.S. foreign policy.
Register to attend in person or watch live online here.
PS21 Event: Avoiding Disaster in a New Era of Superpower Tension
Date: January 29, 6:30pm
Location: FHI Conference Center, 8th Floor, 1825 Connecticut Ae NW, Washington DC
A quarter of a century after the end of the Berlin Wall, in both Europe and Asia great power tensions are on the rise again. With a joint event with Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, new global think tank the Project for Study of the 21st Century looks at the risks and the ways of avoiding a truly dangerous confrontation.
Register here.
January 30, 2015
Towards a Transatlantic Strategy for Europe’s East
Date: January 30, 8:30am
Location: Atlantic Council, 1030 15th Street NW, 12th Floor, West Tower, Washington DC
The Ukraine crisis and Russia’s renewed assertiveness in Europe’s eastern neighborhood have vast implications for the region. The situation in Ukraine underscores the need for a reinvigorated transatlantic strategy which effectively addresses the most pressing political, economic, and security challenges facing the countries that remain on the margins of democratic transformation in Europe’s East.
Organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia and anchored by Latvia’s Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs, this conference will also mark the beginning of Latvia’s 2015 EU Presidency and will help inform efforts to reassess the EU’s Eastern Partnership, shape the role of the United States in the region, and advance an effective neighborhood policy in advance of the May 2015 Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga.
In addition to Minister Rinkēvičs, prominent European Union officials and high-level US representatives will participate in the conference, including several other ministers of foreign affairs from the region and prominent architects of the Eastern Partnership policy.
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