Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Speaker Series

Speakers: Laurel Miller, Director, Asia Program, International Crisis Group; William Ruger, Vice-President, Charles Koch Institute

President Biden has announced that U.S. combat forces will leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, ending America's longest war. What lies ahead? How will the end of America's military role affect conditions in Afghanistan, and what impact will this have on U.S. interests in the region and beyond?

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Please register before the event:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sdeqgpj4rGd0EAlEmMUutvJVQWARBB9xw 

Speaker: Caitlin Talmadge, Associate Professor of Security Studies, Georgetown University

A new nuclear era is emerging, defined by the presence of both a competitive relationship among three nuclear-armed great powers—the United States, Russia, and China—as well as multiple regional nuclear competitors. Drawing on international relations theory, strategic nuclear thought, and the historical record, this seminar will examine the potential implications of this emerging nuclear environment for strategy and policy.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEsdeuqpjMqE9zGCkAKwECP6lWxsAhaarxP

This seminar is being held under the auspices of the joint HKS/MIT Program on Strategy, Security, and Statecraft.

Speaker: Steven Simon, Professor in the Practice of International Relations, Colby College

Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Speaker Series, co-sponsored with MIT's Security Studies Program.

Everyone is welcome! Please join us! Light refreshments provided.

Speaker: Patrick Porter, Professor of International Security and Strategy, University of Birmingham

How should political realists view the United States' role in the Middle East? Political realists disagree on what America should "do" and "be" in the Middle East. They are united in their scepticism towards extravagant geopolitical projects such as the "Global War on Terror" and attempts to transform the region along democratic, capitalist lines. Yet they divide over other fundamental questions: how important is the Middle East to U.S. national interests? Is America's patronage of Israel and the Saudi bloc prudent? What military posture is needed, if any, and for what purpose? This seminar offers a genealogy of these intramural arguments within realism, in order to surface the disagreements and evaluate the choices they offer. The speaker identifies two strands: "primacy" realism, that advocates continued pursuit of hegemony with the United States as an effective stabilizer, and "shield of the republic" realism, which views the region as an unruly place that both entangles and corrupts the republic, involving interests that are either manageable from a remove or only generated by being there in the first place. The speaker makes the case for the second tradition, arguing that the time for abandonment has come.

Please join us! Coffee, tea, and refreshments provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

This seminar is being held under the auspices of the joint HKS/MIT Program on Strategy, Security, and Statecraft.

Speaker: Charles Kupchan, Professor of International Affairs, School of Foreign Service and Government Department, Georgetown University; Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Speaker Series, co-sponsored with MIT's Security Studies Program

Location: MIT Building 66, Room 110

Everyone is welcome! Please join us!

Speaker: Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr., Senior Fellow, Watson Center for International and Public Affairs, Brown University

This seminar will explore the nature of diplomacy and its strategic, tactical, and risk management roles in American statecraft. Case studies to be discussed include those of U.S. Cold War diplomacy in southern Africa and on the Taiwan issue as well as examples from European history, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Please join us! Coffee, tea, and refreshments provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

This seminar is being held under the auspices of the joint HKS/MIT Program on Strategy, Security, and Statecraft.