Past FPRI Events (2008)

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Robert A. Fox Lectures on the Middle East

Where is Egypt Headed?

Hon. Daniel C. Kurtzer S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

FPRI Roundtable Discussion

The U.S. Elections and America’s Role in East Asia: Views from the Region

Speakers

Da Wei Associate Research Professor and Washington representative
China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR)

Keiko Iizuka Deputy Political Editor and former chief correspondent covering Japan’s prime minister’s office and foreign ministry, Yomiuri Shimbun and
Visiting fellow, Brookings Institution

Chong-pin Lin Professor of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University and
former Deputy Minister of National Defense and Senior Advisor to the National Security Council of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

Moderator:

Jacques deLisle Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania and
Director of FPRI's Asia Program

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Webcast for Students on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, FPRI will present a 45-minute webcast on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Secondary schools/classes may sign up to view the webcast live online and participate in the Q&A periods.

Lawrence Husick, co-director of FPRI’s Wachman Center Program on the History of Innovation will present a fast-paced webcast that traces these modern systems' roots from from an early form of telegraph, through Napoleon's France, to Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, “Ma” Bell, Bell Labs, and then finally to BitNet, ARPANet, the Internet and World Wide Web.

For complete information, see www.fpri.org/education/innovationwebcast.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Think Tanks, Civil Society and Policy Advice in China: The Promise and the Political Reality

Speakers

Xufeng Zhu Associate professor at Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, China, and a Harvard Yenching Scholar visiting at Harvard Yenching Institute, Harvard University

James G. McGann Assistant director, International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania and Director of Think Tanks and Civil Society Program

This program is being co-sponsored by Penn's International Relations Program, Political Science Department and FPRI’s Think Tanks and Civil Society Program.

Decades of remarkable economic growth have brought dramatic transformations to China. These changes also put the PRC amid a series of unprecedented and complex challenges on both domestic and foreign policy fronts. The role of think tanks in China's policy process has generated great interest within and outside the country. China faces many challenges moving forward in various issue areas, such as the environment, energy resources, the burden of communal ownership of land, housing demand, and government relaxation of the restrained appreciation of the Yuan. These issues create a demand for sound and innovative policy initiatives As a result Chinese think tanks are now rapidly rising in status.

Two of the leading scholars on think tanks in China will explore the growing influence and political limitations of Chinese think tanks, the similarities and differences between these Chinese institutions and their counterparts in Asia, Europe and the US, and the role they play in responding to China´s social stability problems and the multi-faceted integration with the outside world. The dynamic interactions between the Chinese leadership and the country´s prominent think tanks can offer insightful information on China´s future trajectory.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

2008 Annual Dinner

Featuring an Address by

John R. Bolton
Former U.S. Representative to the United Nations

Ambassador Bolton served as the Permanent U.S. Representative to the UN from August 2005 until December 2006. He had previously served as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Securityand in several positions within the State Department, the Justice Department and USAID. Before entering government service Bolton was Senior Vice President for Public Policy Research at the American Enterprise Institute.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Technology and Innovation for World History

Korean Studies Conference for K–12 Teachers in the Greater New York Area

Presented in collaboration with FPRI’s Wachman Center

For details, see www.fpri.org/education/innovation/koreatech.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

BookTalk

The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe

William I. Hitchcock Professor of History, Temple University

In The Bitter Road to Freedom (Free Press, 2008), Prof. Hitchcock tells a part of the story of World War II that is missing from traditional accounts. Told from the point of view of those who were liberated, the book helps explain why even liberated people, grateful for their freedom, generally do not like their liberators, and why liberation achieved even in the most righteous of wars comes at a dire price.

William I. Hitchcock earned his Ph.D. in history from Yale University, where he taught for six years. He is author of France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe (University of North Carolina Press, 1998) and The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945–Present (Doubleday, 2005).

Monday, October 27, 2008

Robert Carr Lecture on Western Civilization

What are We Fightin’ For? Western Civilization in the 21st Century

James Kurth Claude Smith Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College

James Kurth is the Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, where he teaches defense policy, foreign policy, and international politics. Professor Kurth is the author of numerous articles and editor of two volumes in the fields of defense policy, foreign policy, international politics, and European politics. 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 (New York) and of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London).

Monday, October 27, 2008

Press Briefing
co-sponsored by FPRI, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, London (RUSI) and the Reserve Officers’ Association, Washington D.C.

Afghanistan: Is It Winnable?

Panelists:

Prof. Michael Clarke Director, RUSI

Rear Adm. Chris Parry CBE former Director General of the UK Ministry of Defence

Friday, October 24, 2008

Sponsor Forum at Pepper LLP

Algeria: A Trip Report

John Calvert Fr. Henry W. Casper SJ Associate Professor of History, Creighton University

A noted expert on Islamism, John Calvert is co-translator and co-editor of “A Child from the Village” by one of the most significant philosophers of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb (Syracuse Univerity Press, 2004). Calvert´s books also include Islamisms: A Documentary and Reference Guide (Greenwood, 2007) and The Arabian Peninsula in the Age of Oil (Mason Crest, 2007), the latter a volume in a series on for high school students on The Making of the Modern Middle East (FPRI, Editorial Consultant). His essay “Mythic Foundations of Radical Islam,” appeared in Orbis, Winter 2004.

Saturday-Sunday, October 18-19, 2008

Teaching the History of Innovation: A History Institute for Teachers

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Robert A. Fox Lectures on the Middle East

Will Saudi Arabia Survive?

Rachel Bronson Vice President, Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Asia Study Group

Taiwan Update: Domestic Developments amd Cross-Strait Relations

Thomas B. Lee Associate Director, Center for International Affairs and National Security, Tamkang University, Taipei, and Senior Fellow, FPRI

Monday, October 6, 2008

West Study Group

Future Warfare and US Defense Policy

Michael Horowitz University of Pennsylvania

Michael Horowitz is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Horowitz spent the 2006-07 academic year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, where he completed his Ph.D. He was the Sidney R. Knafel Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in 2005–06. He has also served as a consultant for the Department of Defense on a range of international security issues. His work has been published in The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, and The Washington Quarterly. He teaches courses on warfare, religion, the international security environment, and the use of statistics to study international conflict.

Friday, October 3, 2008

BookTalk

The Border: Exploring the US-Mexican Divide

David Danelo

For the past two years, David Danelo (www.danelo.com) traveled expensively along the entire length of the US- Mexico border, exploring both sides of the international line from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. He interviewed Border Patrol agents, local politicians, immigration activists, deported migrants, religious officials, and ordinary citizens, discovering in the process many things worth sharing. Danelo served for seven years in the US Marine Corps, serving in 2004 near Fallujah in Iraq with the First Marine Expeditionary Force. His articles have appeared in Parade Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, and the Marine Corps Gazette; his first book, Blood Stripes: The Grunt’s View of the War in Iraq, was published in 2006.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Sponsor Briefing
Open EXCLUSIVELY to FPRI Members at the Sponsor Level and to Faculty Members of FPRI Study Groups.

The US, China, and India in the World Economy

David H. McCormick Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs

Sorry, this event has been canceled. No further information is available.

For the past .In August 2007, David H. McCormick was sworn in by Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. as Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department. In this capacity, he is principal advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on international economic issues and oversees U.S. investment policy, international finance, trade in financial services, and economic development. He also leads U.S. coordination of financial market policy with the Group of Seven industrialized countries.

Before assuming the role of Under Secretary, Mr. McCormick was Deputy National Security Advisor to the President responsible for U.S. international economic policy, foreign assistance, and humanitarian affairs. In this capacity, he was also the President’s personal representative to the Group of Eight industrialized countries. Prior to the White House, Mr. McCormick served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration with global policy and law enforcement responsibilities for high technology trade and controls.

Earlier in his career, Mr. McCormick was President and CEO of FreeMarkets and President of Ariba, two publicly-traded software and services companies. He also worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company. Mr. McCormick received a mechanical engineering degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is a former Army officer and a veteran of the first Gulf War.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Trilateral Symposium

Perspectives from China, Japan, and the U.S.

This session is the public portion of a four-day conference (Sept. 21-24) sponsored by the Shanghai Institute of International Relations, the Japan Institute of International Affairs, the New World Institute (VA), and FPRI. The fifth in a series of annual conferences, the program offers an opportunity to explore on an unofficial basis key security and economic issues affecting the three countries.

Friday, September 19, 2008

FPRI Impromptu Briefing
Exclusively for FPRI Members at the Sponsor Level and for Faculty Members of FPRI Study Groups

Russia, Georgia, Moldova, and Beyond

Vladimir Socor Senior Fellow, Jamestown Foundation

Vladimir Socor is a Senior Fellow of The Jamestown Foundation and a regular contributor to Eurasia Daily Monitor. He is one of the foremost experts on NATO enlargement, as well as political, diplomatic and energy affairs in the Baltics, Belarus-Ukraine-Moldova, the South Caucasus and the Caspian.

He also covers Russian and Western policies, security and military issues and inter-ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Socor is a frequent guest lecturer at Harvard University´s National Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government and a member of the Euro-Atlantic Security Study Group, sponsored by NATO PFP´s Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes.

For the past five years, he has written a fortnightly op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal Europe. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies (IASPS) in Washington. He also worked for many years at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute. Mr. Socor is a U.S. citizen and currently lives in Munich, Germany.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Robert A. Fox Lectures on the Middle East

The Future of Iran

Kenneth Pollack Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution

Ken Pollack is an expert on national security, military affairs and the Persian Gulf. He was Director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council. He also spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst.

Thu., September 11, 2008

What Students Should Know About 9/11 and the War on Terrorism

45-minute webcast

Secondary schools/classes may sign up to view the webcast live online and participate in the Q&A periods. All questions not answered during the session will be answered by email shortly thereafter. The webcast will feature panelists drawn from FPRI’s Center on Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Homeland Security.

• Resources from last year’s 9/11 webcast

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Dinner for Platinum Partners ($10,000)

How to Maintain the Strategic Advantage

Bruce Berkowitz Research Fellow, Hoover Institution

Bruce Berkowitz is the author of Strategic Advantage (forthcoming), which assesses the current strategic environment and lays out recommendations for how the United States may best maintain the strategic advantage. Berkowitz is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He began his career at the CIA and since served throughout the U.S. intelligence community. Most recently, he was the Director, Forecasting and Evaluation at the Department of Defense (2004–5). His books include The New Face of War (Free Press, 2003); Calculated Risks (1987); and American Security (1986).

His articles have appeared in such journals as Foreign Affairs, The American Interest, Foreign Policy, and Issues in Science and Technology. He also publishes frequently in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post, and is a contributing editor of Orbis.

Summer School at FPRI

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Terrorism Briefing

De-funding Terrorism

Jonathan Weinberger former Senior Counselor for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, US Treasury

Jonathan R. Weinberger served in 2007-08 as the Senior Counselor for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the U.S. Treasury. In this position, Mr. Weinberger served as Treasury´s representative to the Senior Interagency Strategy Team at the National Counterterrorism Center, a policy-making committee comprised of a senior representative from each agency in the Intelligence community. He was installed as Executive Secretary and Associate General Counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in April 2008. In his capacity at Treasury, he managed and coordinated legal issues with respect to the Financial Action Task Force, the premier international body that combats money laundering and terrorist financing and served as senior liaison to the National Counterterrorism Center, NSC, and other interagency groups.

Mr. Weinberger received his J.D. from the Washington College of Law at American University and a Masters of Law (LL.M) in international finance and national security law with distinction from The Georgetown University Law Center.

Saturday-Sunday, May 17–18, 2008

America in the Civil War Era: A History Institute for Teachers

This year sees the publication of a wealth of important new literature on America in the 19th century, including History Institute co-chair Walter McDougall’s Throes of Democracy: America in the Civil War Era, 1829–77. This abundance of excellent new contributions to the scholarship on these important years is an exciting opportunity to revisit what we all think we know about America in the 19th century, and to rethink what our students need to know.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Asia Study Group

Problems of Perception and Misperception in US-China Relations

Peter Gries Chair in US-China Issues and Director, Institute for US-China Issues, University of Oklahoma Author of China’s New Nationalism (Univ. of California Press, 2004)

Monday, May 12, 2008

Rocco Martino Lecture on Innovation

Technological Innovation and National Security

Paul Bracken Professor, Yale School of Organization and Management

Paul Bracken is Professor of Management and Professor of Political Science at the Yale School of Management. Professor Bracken is a leading expert in global competition and the strategic application of technology in business and defense. He has devoted his research and teaching to developing solutions for senior management as it deals with rapidly changing strategic developments under conditions of intense uncertainty.

This lecture is the first of the Rocco Martino Lectures on Innovation, founded by FPRI Senior Fellow Rocco L. Martino in 2007 to promote studies and education in innovation.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Asia Study Group

Implications of China's Military Buildup

Jacqueline Newmyer, Long Term Strategy Group LLC

Dr. Jacqueline Newmyer is President and CEO of the Long Term Strategy Group, a Cambridge, MA-based defense consultancy. For the last five years, she has worked with the Director of the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Net Assessment on projects related to East Asia. Recent studies include an analysis of the security implications of alternative Chinese futures, an assessment of China’s capacity for technological innovation, and a book chapter on China’s energy security strategy. Newmyer has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies in the Government Department of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She has been published in the New York Times, Policy Review, the Weekly Standard, and War in History, and she has been cited in a range of media outlets including Newsweek. Prior to entering the national security field, she worked as a journalist and an investment analyst.

Monday, April 28, 2008

FPRI BookTalk

The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace

Aaron David Miller

Aaron David Miller is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC; his latest book, America and the Much Too Promised Land, will be published Mar. 25, 2008 (Bantam/Dell). Between 2003 and 2006 Miller served as president of Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the leadership skills required to advance coexistence and reconciliation.

For the previous two decades, he served at the Department of State as an adviser to six Secretaries of State, where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process. In 1984 he served a temporary tour at the American Embassy in Amman, Jordan. Between 1998 and 2000, Mr. Miller served on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. His articles have appeared in newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The International Herald Tribune. His recent appearances include CNN, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, FOX News, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, National Public Radio, BBC, Canadian Broadcast Network, Al Arabiya, Al-Jazeera and Israeli Radio.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations

with local co-sponsors the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the University of Pennsylvania Law School

Nationwide China Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections

Thursday, April 17, 2008
Webcast: 7:00-7:45 p.m. ET
On-Site Briefing: 7:45-8:30 p.m. ET

Attendees for the webcast and on-site briefing need to show up at 6:45 p.m.

University of Pennsylvania Law School, Gittis Room 214
(enter on Sansom Street midway between 34th and 36th Streets)
3400 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102 [display map]

• For more information contact 215 732 3774, ext 303 or lux@fpri.org.
• Become an FPRI Partner

In this year of presidential and Congressional elections, the role of China, and its effect on the lives of every American, has a central place in discussions of U.S. foreign policy. CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections, a nationwide event being conducted in 40 cities, will provide an opportunity for Philadelphia-area residents to learn about the importance of China’s relationship with the U.S. and have the questions that matter to them answered by leading China specialists.

CHINA Town Hall will feature Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. After his talk, he will respond to questions from audience members throughout the country in a conversation moderated by Stephen A. Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Following the national portion of the program, each venue will have an on-site China specialist who will address China-related topics of particular interest to the local community. In Philadelphia, the on-site specialist will be Adam Segal, the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow of China Studies of the CFR and author of “Digital Dragon: High Technology Enterprise in China.”

(To view the webcast subsequently, visit: www.ncuscr.org/cth).

Thursday, April 17, 2008

FPRI Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security

The Failure of the Imagination: 9/11 and Beyond

Gunnar Olson

Thursday, April 17, 2008
11:00 am-12:00 pm

FPRI Library
1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610
Philadelphia, PA 19102 [display map]

• For more information contact 215 732 3774, ext 303 or lux@fpri.org.
• Become an FPRI Partner

Gunnar Olsson is professor of economic geography and planning at the Nordic Institute for Studies in Urban and Regional Planning in Stockholm. He was professor of geography at the University of Michigan and has been a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. His books include Distance and Human Interaction and Birds in Eggs/Eggs in Bird; his most recent book is Abysmal, A Critique of Cartographic Reason.

Monday, April 14, 2008

FPRI Asia Program Conference

Elections, Political Transitions and Foreign Policy in East Asia

Detailed conference information.

Monday, April 7, 2008

FPRI Study Group on America and the West

European Perspectives on Jihadist Terrorism

Michael Burleigh

Michael Burleigh has held posts at New College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Cardiff, where he was Distinguished Research Professor in Modern History. He has also been Raoul Wallenberg Chair of Human Rights at Rutgers University, William Rand Kenan Professor of History at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, and Kratter Visiting Professor at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and founded the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

His books include Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror (HarperCollins, Feb. 2007), Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War (HarperCollins, 2006), The Third Reich: A New History (2001), and Ethics and Extermination: Reflections on Nazi Genocide (Cambridge University Press 1997). He won the British Film Institute Award for Archival Achievement in 1991 for the Channel 4/Domino Films documentary Selling Murder: The Killing Films of the Third Reich and a 1993 New York Film and Television Festival Award Bronze Medal for Heil Herbie: The Story of the Volkswagen Beetle (Channel 4/Domino Films).

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Exclusively for 2008 partners (Bronze level and above)

4th Annual Champagne Brunch

Honoring Irvin Borowsky
with the first Robert Strausz-Hupé Award

and featuring a keynote talk by

Robert Kaplan

Irvin Borowsky is the Founder/Chairman of both the American Interfaith Institute and the National Liberty Museum, hailed organizations which foster scholarly studies and initiatives within a framework of research, exhibitions, teaching resources, symposia, publishing and distribution of instructional materials.

Robert Kaplan, Senior Fellow, is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and the Class of 1960 Distinguished Visiting Professor in National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. His recent books include Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (Random House, 2005).

Thursday, March 13, 2008

FPRI BookTalk

Throes of Democracy: America in the Civil War Era, 1829–1877 (HarperCollins)

sequel to McDougall’s Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585–1828

Walter A. McDougall
Co-chair, FPRI History Institute and Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania

Walter A. McDougall is Co-chair of FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers and Co-chair of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West. He is also the Allyn-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. 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; and, most recently, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585-1828, the first volume of a trilogy on the history of the United States.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 (rescheduled)

FPRI Asia Study Group

The Evolution of Capitalism and Innovation in China

Andrew Mertha Assistant Professor of Political Science, Washington University

Andrew Mertha is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Washington University. He is author of China´s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (Cornell University Press, forthcoming 2008) and The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China (Cornell, 2005).

Saturday-Sunday, March 1–2, 2008

China Encounters the West: A History Institute for Teachers

cosponsored by University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Asia Program

China’s rapid economic development — made possible in part by institutions and policies it implemented based on its two-century encounter with the West — has led to its emergence as a great power. The PRC’s interaction with the West — and the U.S. especially — has become and will remain a central concern of international relations. FPRI’s Marvin Wachman Center for International Education is therefore pleased to cooperate with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Asia Program in sponsoring a weekend-long History Institute for Teachers that will provide teachers cutting-edge scholarship on the origins and current state of China’s encounter with the West.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

East Asian Security: A Trip Report

Arthur Waldron Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania
Senior Fellow, FPRI

To be held at the Union League of Philadelphia, the lecture will be given in two-parts:

• 4:00 p.m. Lecture (Part I)
• 4:45 p.m. Break with Refreshments
• 5:00 p.m. Lecture (Part II)
• 5:45 p.m. Q&A

FPRI Senior Fellow Arthur Waldron was a guest in Japan of the Foreign Ministry for two weeks in early December. During this time he met dozens of top officials in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, as well as key journalists, members of parliament, and academics and researchers.

The highlight was an unusual visit to Okinawa and the Sakishima Islands, the chain that runs southwest of Japan almost to Taiwan—the island of Yonaguni is only sixty miles from the west coast of that country. The Japan Self Defense Forces also provided a Chinook helicopter and crew to take Dr. Waldron and his Japanese colleagues on a rare fly-over of the Senkaku islands, roughly 100 miles north of the Sakishima chain—also claimed by China, which regularly sends submarines and fighters into the area. Dr. Waldron also spent four days in Taiwan, where he met with top strategic analysts, and visited the Penghu/Pescadores Islands in the Taiwan Strait, historically the "key" to Taiwan itself.

Dr. Waldron's presentation will describe his visit and what he learned—with accompanying maps, photographs, and video, but more importantly, it will also present some new insights into the politics and strategic significance of the northeast Asian group of states: Russia. the Koreas, China, Japan, and Taiwan.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Abraham Lincoln Foundation of The Union League of Philadelphia presents its 11th Annual Lincoln Symposium for educators and students

The Image of the Great Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Battle for Public Memory

Harold Holzer Co-Chairman, United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (1809–2009)

Co-sponsored by FPRI’s Wachman Center

• 4:00 p.m. Reception
• 4:30 p.m. Lecture
• 5:45 p.m. Optional tour of the Union League

Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. He serves as co-chairman of the United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, appointed by President Clinton in september 2000, and elected co-chairman in 2001. Holzer has authored, co-authored, and edited 30 books. His book Lincoln At Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President (2004), won a 2005 Lincoln Prize, the most prestigious award in the field.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Discussion and Luncheon

Paul Hockenos Author and Political Analyst

Revisiting the German Autumn: Leftwing Terrorism in Postwar Germany

Co-sponsored by The Philadelphia Eric M. Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany

Paul Hockenos is an American author and political analyst based in Berlin who has written about Germany and Southeastern Europe since 1989. His articles and commentaries have appeared in World Policy Journal, The New Statesman, The Nation, The Boston Review, Internationale Politik, Die Tageszeitung, Christian Science Monitor, as well as many other periodicals in Europe and North America. He is the author of Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (1993), Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism and the Balkans Wars (2003) and Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic: An Alternative History of Postwar Germany (2007). From 1997–99 he worked with the OSCE in Bosnia and in 2003-04 for the UN in Kosovo. Since then, Hockenos has been a visiting fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and the European Journalism College at the Free University Berlin. He is presently editor of Internationale Politik-Global Edition.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Members’ Seminar

The Iranian Nuclear Challenge

Efraim Inbar Director, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University (Israel)

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

FPRI Study Group on America and the West

Conservative Versus Liberal Views of Europe and the EU

Ronald J. Granieri

Ronald J. Granieri is Assistant Professor of Modern European History at the University of Pennsylvania. He teaches courses on European International Politics and Diplomacy, with special attention to the period after 1945. He received his Ph.D. (1996) from the University of Chicago, and has also studied at the Universities of Heidelberg and Cologne in Germany. He is the author of The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 (Berghahn Books, 2003).

Monday, February 4, 2008

FPRI BookTalk

Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism

George Weigel

George Weigel is a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. His other books include Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (HarperCollins, 1999), The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God (Basic Books, 2005), and God’s Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church(HarperCollins, 2005).

Monday, January 14, 2008

FPRI Members’ Briefing

Hizballah’s Military Strategy

Andrew Exum, King’s College, London

Andrew Exum served in the US Army from 2000-04, leaving active duty as a captain. He was decorated for valor in 2002 while leading a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan. Subsequently, he led a platoon of Army Rangers into Iraq in 2003 and into Afghanistan in 2004. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he has lived in Beirut, where he studied at the American University. He is author of This Man’s Army: A Soldier’s Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism (Gotham, 2004).

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Members’ Briefing on Iraq

Iraq War Update

Trudy Rubin Columnist, Philadelphia Inquirer