Slowest Washington week for war and peace events in a long time:
1. Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: On Life Support or an Imminent Threat?
A Conversation with Eli Lake, Thomas Joscelyn and Cliff May
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Registration and lunch will begin at 11:45 am
RSVP below.
Twelve years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and more than two years after Osama bin Laden was killed, how great of a threat is al Qaeda to the U.S. homeland and America’s interests abroad? Has the instability in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and throughout Africa allowed al Qaeda to grow in size and power? How should the latest threats against America’s diplomatic facilities, paired with the recent prison breaks in Pakistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere impact U.S. counterterrorism strategy?
Please join FDD for a conversation with Eli Lake, Thomas Joscelyn, and Cliff May.
Eli Lake is the senior national-security correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He previously covered national security and intelligence for The Washington Times. Eli has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic since 2008 and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the Senior Editor of The Long War Journal. Most of Thomas’s research and writing focuses on how al Qaeda and its affiliates operate around the world. He is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard and his work has been published by a variety of other publications.
Clifford D. May is President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has had a long and distinguished career in international relations, journalism, communications and politics. Cliff spent nearly a decade with The New York Times as a reporter in both New York and Washington, an editor of The New York Times Sunday Magazine and as a foreign correspondent. He is a frequent guest on national and international television and radio news programs including CNN and MSNBC, providing analysis and participating in debates on national security issues. He writes a weekly column that is nationally distributed by Scripps Howard News Service and is a regular contributor to National Review Online, The American Spectator and other publications.
Please feel free to share this invitation.
Open press coverage. Advance RSVP required.
Camera setup at 11:00 am
1726 M Street, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
– See more at: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/events/al-qaeda-and-its-affiliates-on-life-support-or-an-imminent-threat/#sthash.BDqNrXD8.dpuf
2. The Coming Asian Arms Race?
Thursday, August 22, 2013 / 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Ely Ratner, Randall Schriver, Barry Pavel
A discussion with:
Dr. Ely Ratner
Deputy Director, Asia-Pacific Security Program
Center for a New American Security
Mr. Randall Schriver
President and Chief Executive Officer
Project 2049 Institute
Moderated by:
Mr. Barry Pavel
Vice President and Director, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security
Atlantic Council
Please join the Brent Scowcroft Center of the Atlantic Council for a panel discussion on the recent uptick in defense spending in the Asia-Pacific region, what it means for US strategy, and what it portends for the future of regional rivalries.
Last year, Defense News published a special report showing that the locus of military spending in the world is shifting to Asia as when European defense budgets are decreasing. According to an IHS Jane’s study, defense spending in the Asia-Pacific will overtake North American defense budgets by 2021. In addition, three of the world’s top five arms importers are in Asia: China (#1), South Korea (#3), and Singapore (#5). In addition, once dormant military powers, like Japan, are remilitarizing, prompting a changing geopolitical landscape that could lead to rising tensions between China and Taiwan, both Koreas, and other regional rivals. These changes in Asian defense have important implications for the United States as its posture looks east during the so-called “pivot” or “rebalance.” To discuss these strategically vital developments, the Atlantic Council has invited prominent scholars and practitioners in this field to discuss what increasing Asian defense budgets mean for the United States, the region, and the world.
Dr. Ely Ratner is the deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. He recently served in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs at the State Department as the lead political officer covering China’s external relations in Asia. He was an international affairs fellow sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. His portfolio included China’s activities in and relations with North Korea, Japan, Burma, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Mr. Randall Schriver is the president and chief executive officer of the Project 2049 Institute. He is also a founding partner of Armitage International LLC, based in Arlington, Virginia, and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, DC. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2003 to 2005, and as chief of staff and senior policy advisor to then-deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, from 2001 to 2003.
The moderator for this event, Mr. Barry Pavel, is a vice president of the Atlantic Council and the director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, he was a career member of the Senior Executive Service in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for almost eighteen years. From October 2008 through July 2010, he served as the special assistant to the president and senior director for defense policy and strategy on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, serving both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.
This event is part of the Asia Security Initiative’s Cross-Straits series, which examines strategic and current affairs surrounding cross-straits relations.
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