Westminster Institute talks

Transcript: The National Security and Human Rights Dimensions of China’s Presence in the U.S. Capital Markets – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) For over 40 years, Mr. Robinson has been evaluating the intersection of global economics and finance and national security concerns. He was formerly Senior Director of International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council and Executive Secretary of the Cabinet-level Senior Inter-Governmental Group for International Economic Policy (SIG-IEP) under President Reagan. Prior to his government service, Mr. Robinson was a Vice President in the International Department of the Chase Manhattan Bank with responsibilities for the bank’s loan portfolios in the former Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe and Yugoslavia. He also served as a personal assistant to former Chase Chairman David Rockefeller for two and a half years. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Robinson served as Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Congressionally U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He co-founded the Prague Security Studies Institute in early 2002 and incorporated PSSI Washington Inc. in October 2006.

Never Speak to Strangers: David Satter on Russia and the Soviet Union – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent, is a long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Satter was born in Chicago in 1947 and graduated from the University of Chicago and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a B.Litt degree in political philosophy. He worked for four years as a police reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, in 1976, he was named Moscow correspondent of the London Financial Times. He worked in Moscow for six years, from 1976 to 1982, during which time he sought out Soviet citizens with the intention of preserving their accounts of the Soviet totalitarian system for posterity. After completing his term in Moscow, Satter became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for The Wall Street Journal, contributing to the paper’s editorial page. In 1990, he was named a Thornton Hooper fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and then a senior fellow at the Institute. From 2003 to 2008, he was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. In 2008, he was also a visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He teaches a course on contemporary Russian history at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced Academic Programs. Satter has written three books about Russia: Russia: It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past (Yale, 2011); Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Knopf, 1996; paperback, Yale 2001); and Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale 2003). His books have been translated into Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Czech, Portuguese and Vietnamese. His first book, Age of Delirium, has been made into a documentary film in a U.S. – Latvian – Russian joint production. Satter has testified frequently on Russian affairs before Congressional committees. He has written extensively for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. His articles and op-ed pieces have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The National Interest, National Review, National Review Online, Forbes.com, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, The New York Sun, The New York Review of Books, Reader’s Digest and The Washington Times. He is frequently interviewed in both Russian and English by Radio Liberty, the Voice of America and the BBC Russian Service and has appeared on CNN, CNN International, BBC World, the Charlie Rose Show, Al Jazeera, France 24, Fox News, C-Span and ORT and RTR, the state run Russian television networks.

The founding of the American Republic is on trial. Critics say it was a poison pill with a time-release formula; we are its victims. Its principles are responsible for the country's moral and social disintegration because they were based on the Enlightenment falsehood of radical individual autonomy. In this well-researched book, Robert Reilly declares: not guilty. To prove his case, he traces the lineage of the ideas that made the United States, and its ordered liberty, possible. These concepts were extraordinary when they first burst upon the ancient world: the Judaic oneness of God, who creates ex nihilo and imprints his image on man; the Greek rational order of the world based upon the Reason behind it; and the Christian arrival of that Reason (Logos) incarnate in Christ. These may seem a long way from the American Founding, but Reilly argues that they are, in fact, its bedrock. Combined, they mandated the exercise of both freedom and reason. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/r9jqfJXriRs

Read the transcript: Is There a New Path to Peace in Afghanistan? – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) Ambassador Ali Jalali served as Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Germany and designated Special Envoy to NATO. He served as Interior Minister from 2003-2005, overseeing the creation of a trained force of 50,000 Afghan National Police and 12,000 Border Police to work effectively in counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, and criminal investigation. He recently served as a Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University in Washington D.C. His most recent book is A Military History of Afghanistan from the Great Game to the Global War on Terror (2017). A former officer in the Afghan Army, Col. Jalali served as a top military planner with the Afghan Resistance (Mujahedin) following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He graduated from high command and staff colleges in Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.A published writer in three languages (English, Pashto, Dari/Farsi), Ali A. Jalali is the author of numerous books and articles on political, military and security issues in Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia. He is the author of The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War (2010).

Transcript: The Sources of Russian Conduct – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. While there, he launched the “Window on Eurasia” series.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/challenges-facing-christian-communities-in-turkey-today/ Dr. Hratch Tchilingirian is a sociologist (with a  particular reference to sociology of religion) and Associate Faculty  Member of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. He has published  extensively and lectures on minorities in contemporary Middle East;  inter-ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus, the Armenian Church, Diaspora,  and Turkish-Armenian relations. From 2002 to 2012 he taught and held  various positions at University of Cambridge, and was co-founder of the  Eurasia Research Centre at Judge Business School. Dr.  Tchilingirian is the author of numerous studies, articles and  publications and has lectured internationally in leading universities,  academic institutions and international NGOs (see www.hratch.info). His  television, radio and newspaper interviews have appeared in  international media outlets, including the New York Times, Financial  Times, BBC News, Al-Jazeera and Radio Vaticana. A transcript is unavailable for this talk. Dr. Tchilingirian’s remarks will be a chapter of Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East (eds. Mitri Raheb and Mark A. Lamport). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-armenian-azerbaijani-crisis/ Svante E. Cornell is Director of the American Foreign Policy  Council’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, and a co-founder of the  Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. His main  areas of expertise are security issues, state-building, and  transnational crime in Southwest and Central Asia, with a specific focus  on the Caucasus and Turkey. He is the Editor of the Central  Asia-Caucasus Analyst, the Joint Center’s bi-weekly publication, and of  the Joint Center’s Silk Road Papers series of occasional papers. Dr. Cornell is the author of four books, including Small Nations and  Great Powers, the first comprehensive study of the post-Soviet conflicts  in the Caucasus. His articles have appeared in numerous leading  academic and journals such as World Politics, the Washington Quarterly,  Current History, Journal of Democracy, Europe-Asia Studies, etc. His  commentaries and op-eds appear occasionally in the U.S., European, and  regional press. Cornell is Associate Professor (Docent) in Government at Uppsala  University and Associate Research Professor at Johns Hopkins  University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Dr.  Cornell holds a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala  University, a B.Sc. with High Honor in International Relations from the  Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and an honorary  doctoral degree from the Behmenyar Institute of Law and Philosophy of  the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. He is a member of the  Swedish Royal Academy of Military Science.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-nature-of-putins-regime-and-the-reasons-for-its-foreign-policy/ David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent, is a  long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is a senior  fellow at the Hudson Institute and a fellow of the Foreign Policy  Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International  Studies (SAIS). Satter was born in Chicago in 1947 and graduated from the University  of Chicago and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and  earned a B.Litt degree in political philosophy. He worked for four years  as a police reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, in 1976, he was named  Moscow correspondent of the London Financial Times. He worked in Moscow  for six years, from 1976 to 1982, during which time he sought out  Soviet citizens with the intention of preserving their accounts of the  Soviet totalitarian system for posterity. After completing his term in Moscow, Satter became a special  correspondent on Soviet affairs for The Wall Street Journal,  contributing to the paper’s editorial page. In 1990, he was named a  Thornton Hooper fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in  Philadelphia and then a senior fellow at the Institute. From 2003 to  2008, he was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. In 2008, he  was also a visiting professor at the University of Illinois at  Urbana-Champaign. He teaches a course on contemporary Russian history at  the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced Academic Programs.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/how-china-sees-the-world/ Dean Cheng is The Heritage Foundation‘s  research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. He  specializes in China’s military and foreign policy, in particular its  relationship with the rest of Asia and with the United States. He is  fluent in Chinese, and uses Chinese language materials regularly in his  work. Prior to joining Heritage, he was a senior analyst with the China  Studies Division at Center for Naval Analyses from 2001-2009, where he  specialized on Chinese military issues, and authored studies on Chinese  military doctrine, Chinese mobilization concepts, and Chinese space  capabilities. Before joining CNA, he was a senior analyst with Science Applications  International Corporation (SAIC). He has also served as an analyst with  the US Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment in the International  Security and Space Division, where he studied the Chinese defense  industrial complex. He is the author of the book Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and Cyber Operations,  as well as a number of papers and book chapters examining various  aspects of Chinese security affairs. He has been interviewed by or  provided commentary for publications such as Time magazine, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, Jane’s Defense Weekly, and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Mr. Cheng earned a bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University and has done doctoral studies at MIT.

Harun Maruf is a reporter and writer at VOA Africa Division with an extensive experience in working in conflict zones. He also covers security, extremism, piracy, human rights, politics and other current affairs issues. He secured the first radio interview with the late American jihadist Omar Hammami.  Maruf has also reported on the emergence of pro-Islamic State militants in Somalia; the travels of Somali youth from Minnesota to Syria to fight alongside ISIS and has presented hundreds of original radio documentaries about Al-Shabab, extremism, corruption, piracy, and human rights. In addition, Maruf is the author of hundreds of articles, papers and scholarly works about Somalia and the Horn of Africa and he's frequently invited to speak on these subjects at international events, conferences, round-table discussions and town halls. Prior to VOA, Maruf worked for BBC and Associated Press as a reporter in Somalia, and as a researcher for Human Rights Watch. He holds a Master of Arts in international journalism from the City, University of London.  One of the most powerful Islamic militant groups in Africa, Al-Shabaab exerts Taliban-like rule over millions in Somalia and poses a growing threat to stability in the Horn of Africa. Somalis risk retaliation or death if they oppose or fail to comply with Al-Shabaab-imposed restrictions on aspects of everyday life such as clothing, media, sports, interpersonal relations, and prayer. Inside Al-Shabaab: The Secret History of Al-Qaeda's Most Powerful Ally recounts the rise, fall, and resurgence of this overlooked terrorist organization and provides an intimate understanding of its connections with Al-Qaeda.