Peace picks, October 14-18

Today is officially a holiday and the government is still “shut down,” but there are good war and peace events this week in DC:

1. U.S. Policy in the Arab: World Perspectives from Civil Society

In collaboration with the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND)

Monday, October 14, 2013 – 11:15am – 12:45pm

New America Foundation

The United States has long shaped developments in the Arab world, but the 2011 popular uprisings and subsequent period of unrest have diminished U.S. influence and credibility in the region. More recently, Washington’s reluctance to militarily intervene in Syria and passive reaction to political changes in Egypt have further damaged its image in the eyes of Arab populations. While media coverage of regional events focuses on governments and street protests, the voices of civil society organizations are often marginalized or unheard.

On October 14, the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force and the Arab NGO Network for Development will host a distinguished panel of researchers, academics, and activists from Arab civil society organizations. The panelists will present civil society priorities and perspectives on U.S. policies in the region, and will specifically debate whether these policies advance popular aspirations for democracy and sustainable development.

PARTICIPANTS

Kinda Mohamadieh

Policy Advisor, Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND).

Mahinour El-Badrawi

Researcher, Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR)

Mohamad Loutfy

Campaign Coordinator, The Campaign on World Bank Safeguards and Disability

Senior Advisor, The Lebanese Physical Handicapped Union (LPHU)

Rana Khalaf

Activist, Syrian League for Citizenship

Moderator:

Joshua Haber

Research Associate, Middle East Task Force, New America Foundation

RSVP: http://www.newamerica.net/events/2013/us_policy_in_the_arab_world

2. The End of Overkill? Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

12:00pm

Cato Institute – Hayek Auditorium

Featuring Benjamin Friedman, Research Fellow in Defense and Homeland Security Policy, Cato Institute; Elbridge Colby, Center for Naval Analyses; Hans M. Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists; and Matt Fay, PhD Program, Temple University History Department; moderated by Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute.

President Obama recently voiced his ambition to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to as few as 1,000 deployed warheads. Yet while the United States has cut the arsenal’s size greatly since the Cold War’s end, its missions and composition have barely changed. Around 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons remain tied to a triad of systems — bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles — that are designed for preemptive strikes against enemy arsenals. Current plans call for modernizing all three systems, which could cost taxpayers over $100 billion. A new Cato White Paper — The End of Overkill? Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy — argues for getting rid of the triad by basing U.S. nuclear weapons exclusively on submarines. It explains how the triad came from bureaucratic compromises, not strategic necessity; punctures the myths that sustained it; and shows how its burden on taxpayers is increasingly unjustified.

Please join us for a discussion of these issues at a forum featuring the paper’s authors and two leading experts on U.S. nuclear policy.

RSVP: https://ssl.cato.org:8443/catopublic/#MtgDetail/00000540

3. Palestinian Political Factions in Lebanon: An Everyday Perspective

Tuesday, October 15 at 12:30pm to 2:00pm

Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Intercultural Center, CCAS Boardroom, ICC 241 37th and O St., N.W., Washington

featuring Perla Issa

PhD candidate, University of Exeter; MAAS alumna

How are Palestinian political factions, such as Fatah or Hamas, (re)produced in everyday practices despite their unpopularity in Lebanon? Perla Issa’s research, based on a year of participant observation and action research in Nahr el-Bared camp in the north of Lebanon led her to realize that what binds Palestinian refugees to political factions is not ideology, or the regional or international alliances of these factions. Issa’s ethnographic work focuses on social factors that are largely overlooked in the extant literature on Palestinian political factions in Lebanon. Her findings have led to a re-conceptualization of political factionalism within Palestinian society.

Perla Issa is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Exeter University in England. She holds an MA in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University. She co-Directed and co-Produced a six-part independent documentary film series “Chronicles of Refugee” that looks at the global Palestinian experience since 1948.

RSVP: http://perlaissa.eventbrite.com/

4. Turkey and the Syrian Crisis:
 Unending Challenges of an Unending War

October 16, 2013 from 1:00pm-3:00pm
 McShain Lounge (McCharty Hall), Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Moderator: Dr. Kemal Kirisci, Brookings Institute
Panelists: Dr. Denise Natali, National Defense University
 Dr. Soner Cagaptay, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
 Dr. Ihsan Dagi, Middle East Technical University

A light lunch will be served.

Enrollment: syriapanel.eventbrite.com

5. Miscalculated Ambiguity? Assessing the Strategic Implications of Conventional Prompt Global Strike

Thursday, October 17, 2013 / 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM

Elliott School of International Affairs, Lindner Family Commons

James Acton, Senior Associate, Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

For over a decade the United States has sought to develop non-nuclear weapons that could hit distant targets in a short period of time. Debate about this Conventional Prompt Global Strike Program has been dominated by one issue-the possibility that Russia (or another observing state) might mistake one of these weapons for a nuclear weapon and launch a nuclear response. Unfortunately, this narrow focus ignores other, more serious strategic risks as well as strategic benefits. James Acton will discuss these risks and benefits, and analyze the extent to which the risks can be mitigated by unilateral and cooperative approaches.

RSVP: go.gwu.edu/acton

6. Negotiating for Peace in the Middle East: Egypt and Israel in 1978

Time: October 17, 2013 from 1pm to 3pm
 Location: School of International Service, Founder’s Room, American University

Join us for a lecture by Professor William B. Quandt, former National Security Council staffer under Presidents Nixon and Carter and Edward R. Stettinius Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. He will be discussing his experiences during the landmark Camp David Negotiations, which paved the way for decades of peaceful relations between Egypt and Israel, and answering questions about the intricacies of making peace at the international level.

RSVP: http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/events/negotiating-for-peace-in-the-middle-east-egypt-and-israel-in-1978?xg_source=activity#.UlbyhM3fmSO

7. Afghanistan: Past, Present and Future

Friday, October 18, 2013

Center for International Policy 2000 M Street NW
 Conference Room A

3:00pm – 4:30pm
 RSVP Here

Light refreshments will be provided

Please join us in a lively discussion on how Afghanistan’s rich history will affect its future with two experts who have over 80 years of combined experience analyzing the country’s historical and socio-political context.  Both will emphasize the urgent need for a negotiated peace settlement involving all sectors of Afghan society to avoid a slow descent into chaos and intensified civil war.

William Polk is an eminent historian who was sent to Afghanistan in 1962 as a member of President Kennedy’s Policy Planning Council to carry out a strategic assessment and has since written extensively on Afghanistan’s “living history”.

Martine van Bijlert is co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network and has lived and worked in Afghanistan since the late 1990s when the Taliban occupied most of the country. She often serves as the first point of contact for journalists arriving in Kabul seeking to understand Afghan politics.

For any questions, contact Meg Kiernan at (202) 232-3317 or Meg@ciponline.org.
RSVP Here