Westminster Institute Talks

Grant Newsham is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. He is also a Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, focusing on Asia/Pacific defense, political, and economic matters. He is a retired U.S. Marine Colonel and was the first U.S. Marine Liaison Officer to the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. He also served as reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces Pacific and was the U.S. Marine attaché, US Embassy Tokyo on two occasions. Grant Newsham has more than 20 years of experience in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.

Farahnaz Ispahani is a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC and the author of the book Purifying The Land of The Pure: The History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities (Oxford University Press, 2017). In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she worked on women and extremist groups with a particular focus on the women of ISIS. A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012. She returned to Pakistan with Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 after opposing the Musharraf dictatorship in the preceding years. In Parliament she focused on the issues of terrorism, human rights, gender based violence, minority rights and US-Pakistan relations. The most notable pieces of legislation enacted with her active support include those relating to Women’s Harassment in the Workplace and Acid Crimes and Control, which made disfiguring of women by throwing acid at them a m

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxAOCDKdsPw&ab_channel=WestminsterInstitute In late 2020 the U.S. State Department added Nigeria to its list of Countries of Particular Concern, which names governments that have “engaged in or tolerated systematic ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.” Apparently, Nigeria is the first democracy ever added to the list. Also, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has warned of a potential “Christian genocide.”  Joining me today to discuss this troubling situation are two guests. Robert Destro is Professor of Law and founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion at the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. He has recently served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy Human Rights and Labor. Professor Destro also served as a Commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is the co-author of the book Religious Liberty in a Pluralistic Soci

Ambassador Ali Jalali served as Afghanistan's Interior Minister from 2003 to 2005, overseeing the creation of a trained force of 50,000 Afghan National Police and 12,000 border police to work effectively in counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, and criminal investigation. He also served as Afghan Ambassador to Germany and Designated Special Envoy to NATO. He is a Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. His most recent book is a military history of Afghanistan from the Great Game to the Global War on Terror. A former official in the Afghan Army, Col. Jalali served as a top military planner with the Afghan resistance after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Dr. Stephen Bryen is a leading expert in security strategy and technology. He has held senior positions in the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill and as the President of a large multinational defense and technology company. Currently, Dr. Bryen is a Senior Fellow at the American Center for Democracy, the Center for Security Policy. He has served as a senior staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the Executive Director of a grassroots political organization, as the head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, and as the founder and first director of the Defense Technology Security Administration. He is the author of Technology Security and National Power: Winners and Losers, and of three volumes of Essays in Technology, Security and Strategy. Dr. Bryen was twice awarded the Defense Department's highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Service Medal.

The Hundredth Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) Chen Guangcheng is a blind Chinese civil rights activist, known internationally as “the barefoot lawyer.” Blind since infancy, illiterate until his late teens, he taught himself law and became a fierce advocate for his country’s voiceless poor. For his trouble, he spent more than four years in prison on charges of “disturbing public order” and was then held under strict house arrest in his heavily guarded home in Shandong province from 2010 to 2012. In a daring escape that captured worldwide headlines, he fled to the U.S. embassy in Beijing. After high-level negotiations between the U.S. and China, Mr. Chen was allowed to leave for America. Since 2013, he has been a senior research fellow at Catholic University of America, the Witherspoon Institute, and the Lantos Foundation. Chen has written a riveting memoir and a revealing portrait of modern China, titled The Barefoot Lawyer: A B

Andrei Illarionov is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington. From 2000 to 2005 he was the chief economic adviser of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the president’s personal representative in the G-8. Dr. Illarionov was the driving force behind the adoption of a 13% flat income tax, the Russia’s government’s creation of a Stabilization Fund for windfall oil revenues, reduction in the size of government and the early repayment of Russia’s foreign debt. At the end of 2005, he resigned from his post as a Presidential Advisor for what he said were three main reasons: the transformation of Russia into a politically non-free country, the capture of the Russian state by the corporation of secret police officers (“siloviki”), and horrific corruption within the Russian leadership. Earlier, in 1992, Dr. Illarionov had served as an Economic Advisor to Russia’s Acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. And from 1993 to 94 he was Chief Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin. Dr. Illa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtzHLM5Aocc Robert Spalding is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. His work focuses on U.S.-China relations, economic and national security, and the Asia-Pacific military balance.  Spalding has served in senior positions of strategy and diplomacy within the Defense and State Departments for more than 26 years, and is an accomplished innovator in government and a national security policy strategist. As Senior Director for Strategy to the President, he was the chief architect of the framework for national competition in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS). He has earned recognition for his knowledge of Chinese economic competition, cyber warfare, and political influence, as well as for his ability to forecast global trends and develop innovative solutions.  Spalding’s relationship with business leaders, fostered during his time as a Military Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, allowed him to recommend pragmatic solutions to complex forei

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbL3lw7cewc Lieutenant General (Retired) Ben Hodges holds the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis. He joined CEPA in February 2018.  A native of Quincy, Florida, General Hodges graduated from the United States Military Academy in May 1980 and was commissioned in the Infantry. After his first assignment as an Infantry Lieutenant in Garlstedt, Germany, he commanded Infantry units at the Company, Battalion, and Brigade levels in the 101st Airborne Division, including Command of the First Brigade Combat Team “Bastogne” of the 101st Airborne Division in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2003-2004). His other operational assignments include Chief of Operations for Multi-National Corps-Iraq in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2005-2006) and Director of Operations, Regional Command South in Kandahar, Afghanistan (2009-2010).  General Hodges has also served in a variety of Joint and Army Staff positions to include Tactics Instructor; Chief of Plans, 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MgfKJiY-I4&ab_channel=WestminsterInstitute Nury Turkel is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and who serves as a Commissioner to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Mr. Turkel was born in a re-education camp at the height of China's Cultural Revolution and spent the several first several months of his life in detention with his mother. He came to the United States in 1995 as a student and was later granted asylum by the U.S. government. Mr. Turkel received an M.A. in International Relations and a J.D. from the American University here in Washington, D.C. In addition to his professional career, he has promoted Uyghur human rights and universal democratic norms. He is the Chairman of the Board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project, which he co-founded in 2003. Previously he served as the President of the Uyghur American Association. Since 2011 Mr. Turkel has successfully represented a substantial number of political refugees with their asylum applicati

Transcript: The National Security and Human Rights Dimensions of China’s Presence in the U.S. Capital Markets – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) For over 40 years, Mr. Robinson has been evaluating the intersection of global economics and finance and national security concerns. He was formerly Senior Director of International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council and Executive Secretary of the Cabinet-level Senior Inter-Governmental Group for International Economic Policy (SIG-IEP) under President Reagan. Prior to his government service, Mr. Robinson was a Vice President in the International Department of the Chase Manhattan Bank with responsibilities for the bank’s loan portfolios in the former Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe and Yugoslavia. He also served as a personal assistant to former Chase Chairman David Rockefeller for two and a half years. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Robinson served as Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Congressionally U.S.-China Economic and Secur

Never Speak to Strangers: David Satter on Russia and the Soviet Union – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent, is a long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Satter was born in Chicago in 1947 and graduated from the University of Chicago and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a B.Litt degree in political philosophy. He worked for four years as a police reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, in 1976, he was named Moscow correspondent of the London Financial Times. He worked in Moscow for six years, from 1976 to 1982, during which time he sought out Soviet citizens with the intention of preserving their accounts of the Soviet totalitarian system for posterity. After completing his term in Moscow, Satter became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs

The founding of the American Republic is on trial. Critics say it was a poison pill with a time-release formula; we are its victims. Its principles are responsible for the country's moral and social disintegration because they were based on the Enlightenment falsehood of radical individual autonomy. In this well-researched book, Robert Reilly declares: not guilty. To prove his case, he traces the lineage of the ideas that made the United States, and its ordered liberty, possible. These concepts were extraordinary when they first burst upon the ancient world: the Judaic oneness of God, who creates ex nihilo and imprints his image on man; the Greek rational order of the world based upon the Reason behind it; and the Christian arrival of that Reason (Logos) incarnate in Christ. These may seem a long way from the American Founding, but Reilly argues that they are, in fact, its bedrock. Combined, they mandated the exercise of both freedom and reason. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/r9jqfJXriRs

Read the transcript: Is There a New Path to Peace in Afghanistan? – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) Ambassador Ali Jalali served as Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Germany and designated Special Envoy to NATO. He served as Interior Minister from 2003-2005, overseeing the creation of a trained force of 50,000 Afghan National Police and 12,000 Border Police to work effectively in counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, and criminal investigation. He recently served as a Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University in Washington D.C. His most recent book is A Military History of Afghanistan from the Great Game to the Global War on Terror (2017). A former officer in the Afghan Army, Col. Jalali served as a top military planner with the Afghan Resistance (Mujahedin) following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He graduated from high command and staff colleges in Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.A published writer

Transcript: The Sources of Russian Conduct – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org) Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. While there, he launched the “Window on Eurasia” series.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/challenges-facing-christian-communities-in-turkey-today/ Dr. Hratch Tchilingirian is a sociologist (with a  particular reference to sociology of religion) and Associate Faculty  Member of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. He has published  extensively and lectures on minorities in contemporary Middle East;  inter-ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus, the Armenian Church, Diaspora,  and Turkish-Armenian relations. From 2002 to 2012 he taught and held  various positions at University of Cambridge, and was co-founder of the  Eurasia Research Centre at Judge Business School. Dr.  Tchilingirian is the author of numerous studies, articles and  publications and has lectured internationally in leading universities,  academic institutions and international NGOs (see www.hratch.info). His  television, radio and newspaper interviews have appeared in  international media outlets, including the New York Times, Fina

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-armenian-azerbaijani-crisis/ Svante E. Cornell is Director of the American Foreign Policy  Council’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, and a co-founder of the  Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. His main  areas of expertise are security issues, state-building, and  transnational crime in Southwest and Central Asia, with a specific focus  on the Caucasus and Turkey. He is the Editor of the Central  Asia-Caucasus Analyst, the Joint Center’s bi-weekly publication, and of  the Joint Center’s Silk Road Papers series of occasional papers. Dr. Cornell is the author of four books, including Small Nations and  Great Powers, the first comprehensive study of the post-Soviet conflicts  in the Caucasus. His articles have appeared in numerous leading  academic and journals such as World Politics, the Washington Quarterly,  Current History, Journal of Democracy, Europe-Asia Studies, etc. His  comm

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-nature-of-putins-regime-and-the-reasons-for-its-foreign-policy/ David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent, is a  long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is a senior  fellow at the Hudson Institute and a fellow of the Foreign Policy  Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International  Studies (SAIS). Satter was born in Chicago in 1947 and graduated from the University  of Chicago and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and  earned a B.Litt degree in political philosophy. He worked for four years  as a police reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, in 1976, he was named  Moscow correspondent of the London Financial Times. He worked in Moscow  for six years, from 1976 to 1982, during which time he sought out  Soviet citizens with the intention of preserving their accounts of the  Soviet totalitarian system for posterity. After completing his term in Moscow, Sat

https://westminster-institute.org/events/how-china-sees-the-world/ Dean Cheng is The Heritage Foundation‘s  research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. He  specializes in China’s military and foreign policy, in particular its  relationship with the rest of Asia and with the United States. He is  fluent in Chinese, and uses Chinese language materials regularly in his  work. Prior to joining Heritage, he was a senior analyst with the China  Studies Division at Center for Naval Analyses from 2001-2009, where he  specialized on Chinese military issues, and authored studies on Chinese  military doctrine, Chinese mobilization concepts, and Chinese space  capabilities. Before joining CNA, he was a senior analyst with Science Applications  International Corporation (SAIC). He has also served as an analyst with  the US Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment in the International  Security and Space Division, where he studied the Chinese defen

Harun Maruf is a reporter and writer at VOA Africa Division with an extensive experience in working in conflict zones. He also covers security, extremism, piracy, human rights, politics and other current affairs issues. He secured the first radio interview with the late American jihadist Omar Hammami.  Maruf has also reported on the emergence of pro-Islamic State militants in Somalia; the travels of Somali youth from Minnesota to Syria to fight alongside ISIS and has presented hundreds of original radio documentaries about Al-Shabab, extremism, corruption, piracy, and human rights. In addition, Maruf is the author of hundreds of articles, papers and scholarly works about Somalia and the Horn of Africa and he's frequently invited to speak on these subjects at international events, conferences, round-table discussions and town halls. Prior to VOA, Maruf worked for BBC and Associated Press as a reporter in Somalia, and as a researcher for Human Rights Watch. He holds a Master of Arts in international journa