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This week’s peace picks

Quiet until Thursday, when there is a boom of interesting events:

1.  Domestic Politics and Cross-Taiwan Strait Relations: A Perspective of Taiwan, Johns Hopkins/SAIS, 812 Rome, noon-2 pm March 12.

2.  Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists, Rumi Forum, noon-1:30 March 13.

Considerable effort has been devoted to understanding the process of violent Islamist radicalization, but far less research has explored the equally important process of deradicalization, or how individuals or groups abandon extremist groups and ideologies. Proactive measures to prevent vulnerable individuals from radicalizing and to rehabilitate those who have already embraced extremism have been implemented, to varying degrees, in several Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and European countries. A key question is whether the objective of these programs should be disengagement (a change in behavior) or deradicalization (a change in beliefs) of militants.

Dr. Rabasa will discuss the findings of the RAND monograph, Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists. The study analyzes deradicalization and counter-radicalization programs in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe assesses the strengths and weaknesses of these programs, and makes recommendations to governments on ways to promote and accelerate processes of deradicalization.

BIO:

Dr. Angel M. Rabasa is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He has written extensively about extremism, terrorism, and insurgency. He is the lead author of The Lessons of Mumbai (2009); Radical Islam in East Africa (2009); The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey (2008); Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks (2007); Building Moderate Muslim Networks (2007); Beyond al-Qaeda, Part 1: The Global Jihadist Movement and Part 2: The Outer Rings of the Terrorist Universe (2006); and The Muslim World After 9/11 (2004). He has completed the research on patterns of Islamist radicalization and terrorism in Europe, and is currently working on a project on deradicalization of Islamist extremists.  Other works include the International Institute for Strategic Studies Adelphi Paper No. 358, Political Islam in Southeast Asia: Moderates, Radicals, and Terrorists(2003); The Military and Democracy in Indonesia: Challenges, Politics, and Power(2002), with John Haseman; and Indonesia’s Transformation and the Stability of Southeast Asia (2001), with Peter Chalk. Before joining RAND, Rabasa served in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the International Studies Association, and the American Foreign Service Association.
Rabasa has a B.A. and Ph.D. in history from Harvard University and was a Knox Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University.

3.  Sudan and South Sudan: Independence and Insecurity, Dirksen 419, 10 am March 14.

Panel One

4.  Two New Publications Examining Iran, Stimson Center, 10-11:30 am March 15

Iran in Perspective:

Holding Iran to Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technology

By Barry Blechman

Engaging Iran on Afghanistan:

Keep Trying

By Ellen Laipson

Stimson scholars, co-founder and distinguished fellow Barry Blechman and president and CEO Ellen Laipson have completed new studies that consider how to engage Iran in constructive negotiations.  Dr. Blechman will discuss how to achieve greater progress on the nuclear front, while Laipson will outline ways to engage Iran over the future of Afghanistan.

** This event is on the record **

Please RSVP to RSVP@stimson.org – or call April Umminger at (202) 478-3442.

5.  Why Does Russia Support the Assad Regime?  Middle East Institute, noon-1 pm March 15

Location:

1761 N Street, NW

Washington

District of Columbia

20036

Register

Russia’s relations with Syria – even under the Assad regime – have been more troubled than current press accounts of Moscow-Damascus ties indicate.  But despite the internal and external opposition to the Assad regime that has risen up over the past year, the Russian government has defended it staunchly via its Security Council veto and other means.  In his talk, Mark Katz will discuss why Moscow supports the Assad regime so strongly as well as why it is willing to incur the costs of doing so.

Bio: Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University who writes and lectures extensively on Russia and its relations with the Middle East.  He is the author of Leaving without Losing: The War on Terror after Iraq and Afghanistan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), Reflections on Revolutions (St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan, 1999),  Revolutions and Revolutionary Waves (St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan, 1997) and Russia and Arabia:  Soviet Foreign Policy toward the Arabian Peninsula (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), among other publications.

6.  The U.S. Role in the World, featuring Robert Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, 3-4:30 pm March 15 

The American Enterprise Institute, the Center for a New American Security, and the New America Foundation are pleased to introduce Election 2012: The National Security Agendato this presidential campaign season. On March 15, the three organizations will launch a series of four campaign-season events aimed to illuminate the critical U.S. foreign and defense policy issues central to the 2012 presidential election. RSVPs are now open for the first seminar, which will explore America’s role in the world and what strategies this might suggest for the elected commander-in-chief.The U.S. Role in the World, featuring Robert Kagan
Moderated by NPR’s Tom Gjelten
1:00-2:30 p.m., March 15, 2012
American Enterprise Institute, 1150 17th St. NW #1100 Washington, DC
CNN.com will livestream each event. On Twitter? Follow #natsecurity2012for updates throughout the series.7.  South China Sea in High Resolution, CSIS 1:30-2:30 March 15

CSIS Southeast Asia Program is pleased to present the inauguration of its innovative new policy tool “South China Sea in High Resolution”.

Presented by
Ernest Z. Bower
Senior Adviser & Director, Southeast Asia Program, CSIS

Followed by an expert panel featuring:
Lieutenant General Wallace “Chip” Gregson
U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)

Admiral Timothy J. Keating
Former PACOM Commander, U.S. Department of the Navy (Retired)

The Hon. Stapleton J. Roy
Former U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, China, and Indonesia

Thursday, March 15, 2012
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
CSIS B1 A/B Conference Facility
1800 K ST NW, Washington DC

We are honored to invite you to witness the inauguration of the innovative new CSIS policy tool called “The South China Sea in High Resolution”  presented by Ernest Bower, the senior adviser and director of the CSIS Southeast Asia program.  An outstanding panel of experts will discuss the presentation and key trends in the South China Sea and its importance to the United States.

The South China Sea in High Resolution presentation will address the myriad issues — ranging from geopolitical to economic to legal — arising from the disputes in the sea. The South China Sea is a topic of vital importance for the Asia-Pacific.  American foreign policy rebalance towards Asia has further emphasized the significance of this region. The South China Sea connects the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, but it contains sizeable natural resources and hosts the world’s busiest trade routes. Concerns about maintaining peace in the sea were raised by President Obama and other Southeast Asian leaders during the ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit in 2011.

Ernest Z. Bower is senior advisor and director of CSIS’s Southeast Asia Program.

Lieutenant General Wallace “Chip” Gregson (USMC, Ret.) most recently served as assistant secretary of defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs.

Admiral Timothy J. Keating (retired) is former commander of Pacific Command (PACOM) and the U.S. Navy’s U.S. Northern Command.

The Hon. Stapleton J. Roy is former U.S. ambassador to Singapore, China, and Indonesia. He is currently the director of the Kissinger Institute on China at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars.

Please RSVP to the Southeast Asia Program by noon on March 14.  If you have questions, please contact Mary Beth Jordan at (202) 775 3278.

8.  Religious Freedom and Religious Extremism: Lessons from the Arab Spring, Georgetown Berkley Center, 10:15 am-3:30 pm March 16Copley Formal Lounge

»rsvp required

The success of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi parties in the recent Egyptian elections highlights the complex relationship between religious freedom, religious extremism, and democracy in the region. Democratization has meant freedom for Islamic groups to participate in the political life of the new Egypt. At the same time, the success of Salafi parties and ongoing tensions with the military threaten the viability of the fledgling democratic institutions that might guarantee religious freedom, religious pluralism, and civil peace in the new Egypt.

In Egypt and elsewhere, what is the relationship between religious freedom and religious extremism, defined as religious political engagement hostile to constitutional democracy and open to the use of violence? Can religious freedom limit religious extremism? How should US foreign policy seek to promote democratic institutions and regimes of religious freedom that best counter religious extremism in practice?The Religious Freedom Project (RFP) at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs is convening a symposium on March 16, 2011, to address these questions.A first panel will address the relationship between religious freedom and religious extremism. Experts will discuss a growing body of work on two issues: whether and how the denial of religious freedom encourages violent and extremist forms of religious political engagement; and the conditions under which greater religious freedom undermines religious extremism in practice.A second panel will explore the implications of the religious freedom-religious extremism relationship for US policy towards Egypt and other nations affected by the Arab Spring. Experts will discuss the outlines of a smart religious freedom agenda designed to more effectively contain religious extremists and safeguard democracy into the future.

Event Schedule
10:15-10:30am: Welcome

10:30am-12:00pm: Panel 1, How Repression Breeds Religious Extremism – and How Religious Freedom Does the Opposite
Panelists: Johanna Kristin Birnir, Brian Grim, Mohammed Hafez, and Monica Duffy Toft (moderator)

12:00-12:30pm: Lunch

12:30 – 2:00pm: Keynote Discussion, Religious Freedom, Religious Extremsim, and the Arab Spring: Bush and Obama Administration Perspectives
Participants: Dennis Ross, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, and William Inboden (moderator)

2:15-3:30pm: Panel 2, Fostering Religious Freedom & Curbing Religious Extremism in the Arab Spring – Lessons for US Policy
Panelists: Jillian Schwedler, Samer Shehata, Samuel Tadros, and Thomas Farr (moderator)

Featuring

Stephen Hadley

Stephen Hadley is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Adviser for international affairs at the United States Institute of Peace. He served as the National Security Adviser to the president for four years until 2009 and as the assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser from 2001 to 2005. During his office, Hadley specializes in security issues including U.S. relations with Russia, the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, developing a strategic relationship with India and ballistic missile defense. Prior to this position, Hadley was both a partner in the Washington D.C. law firm of Shea and Gardner and a principal in The Scowcroft Group. Hadley graduated from Cornell University and received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School.

Dennis Ross

Dennis Ross, currently a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process for more than twelve years. A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross served two years as special assistant to President Obama as well as National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, and a year as special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, focusing on Iran. He was directly and extensively involved in the peace process of the region in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. Ross has published extensively on the former Soviet Union, arms control, and the greater Middle East. His articles appeared in Foreign Policy, National Interest, Washington Quarterly, and Foreign Affairs. His books include The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (2004) and Statecraft, And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World (2007). He holds a PhD from UCLA.

Elliott Abrams

Elliott Abrams is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served in the George W. Bush administration from June 2001 – January 2009, ultimately holding the office of deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser. From 1999 – 2001 he was a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and served as chairman in 2001. Abrams has also been president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration. His single-authored works include Undue Process (1993), Security and Sacrifice (1995), and Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America (1997); he has also edited books on contemporary just war theory and religion and American foreign policy. Abrams has degrees from Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School.

Participants

Johanna Birnir

Jóhanna Birnir is a Associate Professor in the Department of Government and Politics and the Research Director of the Center of International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland. Her research is in the field of…

Thomas Farr

Thomas F. Farr is Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign…

Brian Grim

Brian J. Grim is Senior Researcher and Director of Cross-National Data at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and a principle investigator for the international religious demography project at Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion…

Mohammed Hafez

Mohammed Hafez is Associate Professor and Chair of the Doctoral Committee at the naval Postgraduate School. His research interests include the politics of the Middle East and North Africa, Islamic social movements, Jihadism, terrorism and suicide…

William Inboden

Dr. William Inboden is Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Distinguished Scholar at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow with the German…

Jillian Schwedler

Jillian Schwedler is an Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts Amherst since 2007, after seven years of teaching at the University of Maryland. Dedicated in teaching, her current academic interests include…

Samer Shehata

Samer Shehata is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. He teaches courses on Islamist politics, comparative and Middle East politics and political economy, US policy toward the Middle East,…

Samuel Tadros

Samuel Tadros is a Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Tadros was a Senior Partner at the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth, an organization that aims to spread the ideas of classical liberalism in Egypt. Before joining the Hudson Institute,…

Monica Duffy Toft

Monica Duffy Toft is the assistant director of the Olin Institute at Harvard University. She is also an associate professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, where she is the director of the Initiative on Religion and…

9.  The United States and Egypt: Where Do We Go from Here?  Brookings, 2-3:30 March 16

For thirty years, the U.S.-Egyptian partnership has been an anchor for American policy in the Middle East. However, in the wake of Egypt’s revolution, this strategic partnership is in question. The two countries may continue to share common interests in Egypt and the wider region, but Egypt’s political trajectory is uncertain and the transitional period has proved a bumpy one in bilateral relations. Egypt’s crackdown on civil society organizations, including legal charges against U.S. citizens, and heated rhetoric over American military and economic assistance to Egypt are just two manifestations of the complex challenges facing U.S.-Egyptian relations as the revolution unfolds.

Falk Auditorium

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Event Materials

Reuters/Eric Thayer

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

Email: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

Khaled Elgindy

The Brookings Institution
August 04, 2011

On March 16, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will host a discussion on the prospects for U.S.-Egyptian relations. Panelists will include Visiting Fellow Khaled Elgindy; Fellow Shadi Hamid, director of research of the Brookings Doha Center; and Senior Fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center. Senior Fellow Daniel Byman, director of research for the Saban Center, will moderate the discussion.After the program, panelists will take audience questions.

Participants

Moderator

Daniel L. Byman

Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

Panelists

Khaled Elgindy

Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

Shadi Hamid

Director of Research, Brookings Doha Center

Tamara Cofman Wittes

10.  Russia’s Energy Policy: Domestic and Foreign Dimensions, GWU Lindner Family Commons, 3-5:45 pm March 16

Energy is a key driver for Russia’s domestic and foreign policy. Regardless of the political situation in the country, Russia will continue to rely on this sector as its main source of revenue. This panel discussion will provide an overview of the current state of the international oil and gas markets and Russia’s place within them. It will also examine how energy affects the Russian environment and its relations with its nearest neighbors in the west, south, and east.

3:00 to 4:00 Panel 1: Domestic Issues
Scott Shemwell, Retired Business Professional, “Challenges for the International Oil and Gas Markets: A Business Perspective”
Xu Liu, Institute of European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies Visiting Scholar, GW; Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, “The Environmental Factor in Russian Energy Policy”

4:00 to 4:15 Coffee Break

4:15 to 5:45 Panel 2: Foreign Policy
Keun-Wook Paik, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, ”East Asia Energy Cooperation”
Dicle Korkmaz, Institute of European, Russian, and Eurasian Visiting Scholar, GW; University of Tampere, “Russian-Turkish Energy Relations”
Oleksandr Sukhodolia, Institute of European, Russian, and Eurasian Visiting Scholar, GW; Fulbright Scholar, “Russian-Ukrainian Energy Relations”

Discussion Chair: Robert Orttung, Institute of European, Russian, and Eurasian Assistant Director, GW

RSVP at: http://tinyurl.com/PanelGWU

Sponsored by the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies