Calendar of Upcoming Events

Monday, September 13, 2010

Study Group on America and the West

A Tale of Four Crises: The Politics of Great Depressions and Recessions

James Kurth Senior Fellow, FPRI, and Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College

James Kurth is Professor of Political Science and Senior Research Scholar at Swarthmore College, where he teaches defense policy, foreign policy, and international politics; as well as a Senior Fellow at FPRI. He has been a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), visiting professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego, and visiting professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the recipient of the Naval Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, for his contributions to U.S. maritime strategy. He is the author of over 100 professional articles and editor of three 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. Professor Kurth is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York) and of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London). He received his Bachelor’s in History from Stanford University and his Master’s and Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, where he also taught as an assistant and associate professor of government.

Monday, September 20, 2010

BookTalk

The Diffusion of Military Power

Michael Horowitz Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow, FPRI

The Diffusion of Military Power looks at some of the most important military innovations throughout history, including the advent of the all-big-gun steel battleship, the development of aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, and the use of suicide terror by nonstate actors. He shows how expensive innovations can favor wealthier, more powerful countries, but also how those same states often stumble when facing organizationally complicated innovations. Innovations requiring major upheavals in doctrine and organization can disadvantage the wealthiest states due to their bureaucratic inflexibility and weight the balance of power toward smaller and more nimble actors, making conflict more likely. This book provides vital insights into military innovations and their impact on U.S. foreign policy, warfare, and the distribution of power in the international system.

Michael Horowitz, a Senior Fellow in FPRI’s National Security Program, is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent the 2006-07 academic year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Government at Harvard University, where his dissertation examined the diffusion of military power and the consequences for international politics. Prof. Horowitz was the Sidney R. Knafel Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in 2005–06. During the 2004–05 academic year, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard. He has previously worked at Science Applications International Corporation and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as a Research Assistant in the International Security Program. He has also served as a consultant for the Defense Department on a range of international security issues.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Platinum Partners Dinner

Confronting Al Qaeda and the New Terror Networks

Marc Sageman Author of “Understanding Terror Networks” and “Leaderless Jihad”

• Forensic psychiatrist and FPRI Senior Fellow
• Former CIA case officer who served in Afghanistan in 1987-89
• Former scholar-in-residence for the NY City Police Department
• Testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appeared on PBS Newshour, and has been cited in the NY Times and in media all over the world.
• Regularly consulted by U.S. government agencies.

What The Reviewers Say About Sageman’s Books

“The most sophisticated analysis of global jihadis yet published.” -- NY Review of Books

“It stands what you think you know about terrorism on its head and helps you see the topic in a different light.” – Washington Post

Thursday, October 21, 2010

BookTalk

Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power

Robert D. Kaplan

Cosponsored by the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia

Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, in Washington, D.C. His latest book is Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (Random House, 2010). Kaplan is the best-selling author of twelve previous books on international affairs and travel, translated into many languages.

In the 1980s, he was the first American writer to warn in print about a future war in the Balkans. Balkan Ghosts was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the “best books” of 1993, and by Amazon.com as one of the best travel books of all time. The Arabists, The Ends of the Earth, An Empire Wilderness, Eastward to Tartary, and Warrior Politics were all chosen by The New York Times as “notable” books of the year.

Kaplan is a provocative essayist whose more than three-decades’ worth of traveling and reporting experience, much of which he has accumulated in the world's most difficult and dangerous places, informs even his briefest contributions. His article, “The Coming Anarchy,” in the February 1994 Atlantic, about how population rises, urbanization, and resource depletion are undermining governments, was widely translated and debated. So was his December 1997 Atlantic cover story, “Was Democracy Just A Moment?”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman calls Kaplan among the four “most widely read” authors defining the post-Cold War. In addition to his written work, Kaplan has been a consultant to the U.S. Army’s Special Forces Regiment, the U.S. Air Force, and the U. S. Marines. From 2006 to 2008, he was the Class of 1960 Distinguished Visiting Professor in National Security at the United States Naval Academy. He has also lectured at the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, major universities, the CIA, and business forums.

Kaplan is a member of FPRI's Board of Advisors.

Monday, November 15, 2009

FPRI Annual Dinner

Power, Money, and American National Security— Today and Tomorrow

Niall Ferguson

Named one of the world’s hundred most influential people
-- Time Magazine

Current Positions

• The Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University
• The William Ziegler Professor, Harvard Business School
• Contributing Editor, Financial Times (London)
• Regular Contributor, Newsweek Magazine

Books by Ferguson

• The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Penguin, 2008)
• War of the World: 20th Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006)
• Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (Penguin, 2004)
• Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order (Basic, 2003)