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A Conversation
with Suat Kiniklioglu
On April 26, the
Center hosted an
off-the-record dinner discussion with Suat Kiniklioglu,
former chairman of the Turkish parliament's committee on
foreign affairs and a leading member of the governing
Justice and Development Party (AKP). Mr. Kiniklioglu
spoke on Turkey's foreign and domestic policy, relations
with the United States, and its approach to Syria and
other regional powers in the Robert F. Ellsworth Study
Group on U.S. Foreign Policy. Dov Zakheim, Vice Chairman
of the Center, moderated the discussion.
War with Iran
On April 18,
the Center held a discussion of the new book War With Iran: Political, Military and
Economic Consequences by Geoffrey Kemp, Director for
Regional Security Programs, and John Allen Gay,
Assistant Editor for The National Interest
magazine. The book provides a history of Iran's
relationship with the West and expert assessments of the
political, human and financial costs of a potential war
with Iran. Panelists Michael Eisenstadt of the
Washington Institute on Near East Policy and Suzanne
Maloney of the Brookings Institution spoke and Dov
Zakheim, Vice Chairman of the Center and a former Under
Secretary of Defense, moderated.
A summary of
the event is available
here. The book
can be purchased on
Amazon.
Distinguished
Service Award Dinner
On April 10, 2013, the Center for the National
Interest honored Gen. Charles G. Boyd, USAF (Ret.) and
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. "Buck"
McKeon at its annual Distinguished Service Award Dinner
in Washington. Center Chairman Maurice R. Greenberg
introduced Gen. Boyd; Vice Chairman Dov S. Zakheim
introduced Chairman McKeon. Other speakers included
Center President Dimitri K. Simes, former Ambassador to
Iraq, Afghanistan and the United Nations Zalmay
Khalilzad, Susan Eisenhower, and PFC Energy Chairman J.
Robinson West.
Video recordings of Gen. Boyd's and
Chairman McKeon's speeches are available on the
Center's YouTube page (Boyd
and
McKeon). The full texts are available on
the Center's webpage (Boyd and
McKeon) as well as
remarks by Dimitri Simes, Maurice Greenberg, and Dov
Zakheim.
Task Force on U.S.
Policy Towards China
On April 2, 2013, the
Center for the National Interest hosted the second
meeting of its Task Force on U.S.-China Relations. Task
Force co-chairs Maurice Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of
C.V. Starr & Co. (second from left) and former National
Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft (third from left) led
the session. Also shown are Task Force members Admiral
(Ret.) Michael Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff (left), and General (Ret.) Michael
Hayden, former Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency (right).
A Conversation
with European Union Ambassador Vale de Almeida
On March 21, 2013, the
Center for the National Interest hosted an
off-the-record dinner discussion with H.E. Joao Vale de
Almeida, Ambassador of the European Union to the United
States. The ambassador assessed U.S.-EU trade talks, the
EU's financial assistance to Cyprus, and other timely
topics for participants in the Robert F. Ellsworth Study
Group on U.S. Foreign Policy. Jacob Heilbrunn, the
Center's Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy,
moderated the meeting.
War with Iran:
Political, Military and Economic Consequences
The Center
for the National Interest is pleased to announce the
publication of War With Iran: Political, Military and
Economic Consequences by Geoffrey Kemp, Director for
Regional Security Programs, and John Allen Gay,
Assistant Editor for The National Interest
magazine. The book provides a history of Iran's
relationship with the West and expert assessments of the
political, human and financial costs of a potential war
with Iran.
The book is
available on
Amazon.
Interview with
Kishore Mahbubani
On March 8, Robert W.
Merry, editor of The National Interest, conducted
an exclusive interview with Kishore Mahbubani, former
Singaporean Ambassador to the United Nations, Dean of
the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National
University of Singapore, and author of the new book,
The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of
One World. The interview is available on the
Center's
YouTube page and will soon be available
online at
http://nationalinterest.org/.
Afterward, Mahbubani,
considered an iconoclast by many but also a very
important and provocative thinker in Southeast Asia, sat
down with some of the Center for the National Interest’s
staff to discuss why now is the time for the United
States to craft the international community’s “rules of
the road” while we are still “Number One.” A summary of
his remarks is available
here.
Legislative
Irrelevance
On March 7, former U.S.
Senator Jim Webb gave remarks on his article in The
National Interest about the role of Congress
in today’s foreign policymaking environment during a
lunch discussion moderated by Robert Merry, Editor of
The National Interest. Drawing upon his six years in
the Senate, along with his experiences as a House
committee counsel and as assistant secretary of defense
and secretary of the navy, Webb's article paints a vivid
portrait of a Congress that is abdicating its role in
U.S. foreign policy and war making as the executive
branch becomes increasingly assertive on those matters.
A summary will soon be
available in this space.
U.S.-Russia
Dialogue in Washington
On February 26-28, the
Center for the National Interest organized a U.S.-Russia
dialogue program to discuss American and Russian
differences over Russia's governance and the impact of
those disagreements on relations between Washington and
Moscow. During the first panel, Vladimir Pligin,
Chairman of the State Duma's Committee on Law and the
Constitution, and former National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski presented alternative perspectives
on Russia's evolving political system. Former Under
Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs
Paula Dobriansky moderated. Other Russian speakers
included Konstantin Remchukov, editor-in-chief of the
opposition-leaning newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta; Igor
Yurgens, head of the Institute for Contemporary
Development, a liberal think tank; and Andranik
Migranyan, director of the Institute for Democracy and
Cooperation, an informal Kremlin advisor. The Russian
group also met with senior U.S. officials and key
members of Congress.
The AIG Story
On February 21, the
Center for the National Interest hosted a reception for
the book launch of "The AIG Story" co-authored by
Maurice R. Greenberg and George Washington University
law professor Lawrence Cunningham. Mr. Greenberg is
Chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr & Co. and Chairman of the
Center for the National Interest’s Board of Directors.
As AIG’s long-time Chairman and CEO, he transformed the
company into a global insurance and financial
institution. At the session, he discussed AIG's
remarkable rise to become a company with nearly $1
trillion in assets as well as its near-destruction by
regulators and government officials.
The event was streamed live on C-SPAN and will be
available for viewing shortly on
BookTV.
Going to Tehran
On February 21, Flynt and
Hillary Mann Leverett, authors of "Going to Tehran,"
spoke at the Center for the National Interest. In their
remarks, the Leveretts suggested that the United States
is in relative decline in the Middle East and that Iran
is the principal beneficiary of Washington's loss of
power. To arrest this decline, they argued, the United
States must attempt to re-engage with Tehran and to
overcome many of the myths about the Islamic Republic
that have proliferated in recent years. Ambassador
Richard Burt, member of the Center's Board of Directors,
moderated.
A summary is available
here.
Abe's Japan:
Opportunities and Challenges
On February 21, the
Center for the National Interest hosted a small
delegation of next-generation Japanese scholars and
professionals featuring Mr. Hiroaki Kuwajima, a
specialist in Japanese economics and business, who
discussed his ideas on "Abenomics" and Dr. Shingo
Yoshida, a specialist in the U.S.-Japan alliance, who
discussed the Alliance's recent "institutionalization."
Their visit to Washington DC was part of an inaugural
Japan-U.S. exchange project funded by the Sasakawa Peace
Foundation. The delegation also discussed the upcoming
meeting between Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and
President Obama, the continuing dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands in the East China Sea, as well as the future of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
American
Defense Policy
On February 20, the
Center for the National Interest hosted former Under
Secretary for Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy for a
dinner conversation as part of the Robert F. Ellsworth
Study Group on U.S. Foreign Policy. Flournoy gave remarks on issues related to
defense expenditure, force posture and long-term
strategic challenges. Dov Zakheim, Vice Chair of the
Center, chaired the event.
The Changing
Global Energy Landscape
On February 8, former US
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham spoke at a lunch
event at the Center for the National Interest on the
implications of developing energy trends for the United
States. Secretary Abraham gave remarks on the
development of non-traditional energy sectors, on the
geopolitical context of America's future energy
challenges and opportunities, and on the role of
government in the national resource market.
A summary is available
here. Video excerpts from the event are available
here.
The Israeli
Elections and Iran
On
January 28, the Center hosted the Director of the Crown
Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University,
Shai Feldman, for a lunch discussion of the impact of
the recent Israeli elections on the country's Iran
policy. Dr. Feldman spoke and led discussion on the
events of the elections and the future of political
discourse in
Israel's
domestic political arena. He gave remarks on the future
of the US-Israeli relationship, on Prime Minister
Netanyahu's mandate for tackling the Iran problem during
this term in office and on the domestic challenges to be
faced by the new government. Geoffrey Kemp, Director of
Regional Security Programs at the Center, moderated.
A
summary is available
here.
The United Kingdom
and the European Union
On January 9, noted
conservative British journalist and author Geoffrey
Wheatcroft spoke at the Center for the National Interest
on the role of the United Kingdom in European and
Transatlantic affairs. He gave remarks on Britain’s
culture of Euro-skepticism, the future shape of the
country’s domestic politics and relationships with
Germany and the United States. Dov Zakheim, Vice
Chariman of the Center and a former Under Secretary of
Defense, moderated.
A summary is available
here.
Commentary on the event by the Senior Editor of the
National Interest, Jacob Heilbrunn, is available
here.
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