Westminster Institute Talks

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-chinese-communist-partys-plan-to-dominate-asia-and-the-world/ Steven W. Mosher is an internationally recognized  authority on China and population issues, as well as an acclaimed  author, speaker. He has worked tirelessly since 1979 to fight coercive  population control programs and has helped hundreds of thousands of  women and families worldwide over the years. In 1979, Steven was the first American social scientist to visit  mainland China. He was invited there by the Chinese government, where he  had access to government documents and actually witnessed women being  forced to have abortions under the new “one-child policy.” Mr. Mosher  was a pro-choice atheist at the time, but witnessing these traumatic  abortions led him to reconsider his convictions and to eventually become  a practicing, pro-life Roman Catholic. Steven has appeared numerous times before Congress as an expert in  world population, China,

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-crucifix-on-meccas-front-porch/ David Pinault received his B.A. in French literature from Georgetown University and his M.A.and Ph.D in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include comparative Christology and the status of Christian populations in Muslim-majority societies. Among the countries in which he has done fieldwork are Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. A recipient of Santa Clara University’s Public Intellectual Award and the Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence, he has served since 2007 as director of SCU’s interdisciplinary program in Arabic, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies (AIMES). He is also involved in wildlife rescue and animal trafficking issues in Southeast Asia and is a member of the advisory board of ProFauna Indonesia. About the book His 2018 book The Crucifix on Mecca’s Front Porch: A Christian’s Companion for the Study of Islam has an

https://westminster-institute.org/events/who-lost-afghanistan/ Hy Rothstein recently retired from the faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Hy spent considerable time in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines observing the conduct of those wars. Dr. Rothstein has written and edited books about Afghanistan (Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare (2006) and Afghan Endgames – Strategy and Policy Choices for America’s Longest War (Feb 2012), Iraq (The Three Circles of War (2010)), an anthology that explores the similarities between insurgency and gang violence (Gangs & Guerrillas (2011), a comprehensive volume on deception titled, The Art and Science of Military Deception (2013) and, Assessing War, which addresses the challenges of measuring success and failure during war.  Dr. Rothstein also served in the US Army as a Special Forces officer for more than twenty-six years. When not working, Hy single-hands his 40 foot sail boat on California’s central coast.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/you-will-be-assimilated-chinas-plan-to-sino-form-the-world/ David Goldman is an American economist, music critic, and author, best known for his series of online essays in the Asia Times under the pseudonym Spengler. He is the Wax Family Fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, and a member of the Board of Advisors of Sino-Israel Government Network and Academic Leadership (SIGNAL). According to the Claremont Review of Books, the “Spengler” columns in the Asia Times have attracted readership in the millions.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/iraq-past-present-and-pivotal-future/ Hassan Mneimneh is Principal at Middle East  Alternatives in Washington DC. He is Scholar at the Middle East  Institute and Contributing Editor at Fikra Forum at the Washington  Institute for Near East Policy. He was previously Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall  Fund of the United States (GMF), Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute,  Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Director  of the Center for Global Engagement at the Institute for American  Values. Between 1999 and 2008, Mneimneh assumed leading functions at the  Iraq Memory Foundation, the Iraq Foundation, and the Iraq Research and  Documentation Project. Mneimneh specializes in the affairs of the Middle East, North Africa,  and the wider Islamic world with a particular emphasis on radicalism  and factionalism. In previous capacities, he has focused on the  significance of

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/china-and-us-strategic-competition/ Seth Cropsey is a senior fellow and director of the Center for American Seapower at Hudson Institute. He specializes in defense strategy, U.S. foreign and security policy in the Middle East and East Asia, and the future of U.S. naval power. Cropsey began his career in government at the U.S. Department of Defense as assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and subsequently served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, where he was responsible for the Navy’s position on efforts to reorganize DoD, development of the maritime strategy, the Navy’s academic institutions, naval special operations, and burden-sharing with NATO allies. In the Bush administration, Cropsey moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to become acting assistant secretary, and then principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity confli

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/analysis-of-the-geopolitics-of-the-libya-conflict-june-2020/ Dr. Walid Phares served as a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump and Mitt Romney and is Fox News national security expert. Dr. Phares is an engaging and highly sought after Middle East expert  and pacesetter, often predicting trends and situations on the ground  years before they occur. He is a Fox News Expert, advisor to the US  Congress and the European Parliament and served as a senior advisor on  national security foreign policy to presidential candidate Mitt Romney  2012. Dr Phares is the only expert/author who predicted the Arab Spring a year before it occurred in his pacesetting book, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (Threshold,  a division of Simon and Shuster 2010). Dr Phares holds an extensive CV  and noteworthy achievements in the fields of academia, government  strategies, media and publishing critical a

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-reemergence-of-civilizations-including-russias-as-the-defining-factor-in-the-future-of-the-middle-east/ Dr. David Wurmser is a Senior Analyst at the Center  for Security Policy. He has over 35 years of experience in foreign  policy with the State Department, Department of Defense, the National  Security Council and the American Enterprise Institute.  He is a  well-known expert on Middle East issues, especially the U.S.- Israel  relationship. From December 2018 until September 2019, Wurmser also served as  senior advisor to U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton. Recently  he was credited for authoring a series of memoranda for the White House  to provide the rationale for striking hard at the Iranian regime,  including the elimination of Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani.  Wurmser served as Middle East Adviser to former Vice President Dick  Cheney from 2003-2007.  He also

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/inside-iran-what-forces-will-decide-its-future-and-how/ Mehdi Khalaji is the Libitzky Family fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on the politics of Iran and Shiite groups in the Middle East. A Shiite theologian by training, Mr. Khalaji has also served on the editorial boards of two prominent Iranian periodicals and produced for the BBC as well as the U.S. government’s Persian news service. From 1986 to 2000, Mr. Khalaji trained in the seminaries of Qom, the traditional center of Iran’s clerical establishment. There he studied theology and jurisprudence, earning a doctorate and researching widely on modern intellectual and philosophical-political developments in Iran and the wider Islamic and Western worlds. In Qom, and later in Tehran, Mr. Khalaji launched a career in journalism, first serving on the editorial board of a theological journal, Naqd va Nazar, and then the daily Entekhab. In addition to his own

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/is-the-muslim-brotherhood-still-a-threat-today/ Cynthia Farahat is a Writing Fellow at the Middle  East Forum and a founder of the Egyptian Liberal party, which was the  first secular classical liberal political party in the history of modern  Egypt. She co-authored Desecration of a Heavenly Religion, which  analyzed and criticized Egypt’s blasphemy law. The book was officially  banned in Egypt by al-Azhar University in Cairo in 2008. Cynthia’s work  on countering Islamic terrorism has lead Lebanon’s intelligence  officials to officially bar her from entering the country. She also  received hundreds of death threats from Islamists and was placed on an  al-Qaeda affiliated hit list. Recently she has briefed over 120  Congressional offices on the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood by  discussing her personal story as well as her research, from a cache of  thousands of previously und

https://westminster-institute.org/events/total-competition-the-china-challenge-in-the-south-china-sea/ Patrick M. Cronin is the Asia-Pacific Security Chair  at Hudson Institute. Dr. Cronin’s research program analyzes the  challenges and opportunities confronting the United States in the  Indo-Pacific region, including China’s total competition campaign, the  future of the Korean peninsula, and strengthening U.S. alliances and  partnerships. Dr. Cronin was previously senior advisor and senior  director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New  American Security (CNAS), and before that, senior director of the  Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense  University, where he simultaneously oversaw the Center for the Study of  Chinese Military Affairs. Dr. Cronin has a rich and diverse background in both Asian-Pacific  security and U.S. defense, and foreign and development policy. Prior to  leadi

https://westminster-institute.org/events/saudi-arabias-unpredictable-future/ Dr. Ali Alyami is the founder and Executive Director  of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, based in  Washington, D. C. He is a native of Saudi Arabia and has been an avid  advocate for political reforms in Saudi Arabia. The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR)  focuses on Saudi domestic and foreign policies and their impact on, and  implications for, the Saudi people and the international community,  especially U.S. economic and national security interests. Due to its  centrality to Islam and possession of large quantities of fossil fuel  energy sources, Saudi Arabia plays a major religious and economic role  in the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims worldwide. CDHR was established  in 2004 to promote institutionalized democratic and human rights reforms  as the best way of achieving long term stability in Saudi Arab

https://westminster-institute.org/events/iraqi-freedom-confronts-iranian-domination/ Dr. Bilal Wahab is the Nathan and Esther K. Wagner fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he focuses on governance in the Iraqi Kurdish region and in Iraq as a whole. He has taught at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani, where he established the Center for Development and Natural Resources, a research program on oil and development. Dr. Wahab earned his Ph.D. from George Mason University. He received his M.A. from American University, where he was among the first Iraqis awarded a Fulbright scholarship. His master’s thesis was on How Iraqi Oil Smuggling Greases Violence. He earned his B.A. from Salahaddin University in Erbil. He has also taught at Salahaddin University in the Political Science and English Language Departments. Along with numerous scholarly articles, he has written extensively in the Arabic and Kurdish media. Dr. Wahab has contributed

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The United States’ approach to China since the Communist regime in  Beijing began the period of reform and opening in the 1980s was based on  a promise that trade and engagement with China would result in a  peaceful, democratic state. Forty years later the hope of producing a  benign People’s Republic of China has evaporated. The Communist Party of  China deceived the West into believing that its system and the  Party-ruled People’s Liberation Army were peaceful and posed no threat.  In fact, these misguided policies produced the emergence of a 21st century challenge that may be as dangerous to the United States and its  allies as the Soviet Union was. How can it meet this challenge? About the speaker Bill Gertz is an award-winning national security journalist and author of seven books, including Breakdown: How America’s Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 and The China Threat: How the People’s Republic Targets America. He last spoke at t

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/indonesias-muslim-counter-radicalization-movements/ Paul Marshall is Wilson Distinguished Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor University and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Leimena Institute,  Jakarta, Indonesia, and Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of  Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta. Mr. Marshall is the author and editor of more than twenty books on  religion and politics, especially religious freedom, including Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (2013, with Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (2011, with Nina Shea), Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion (2009), Religious Freedom in the World (2007), Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharia Law (2005), The Rise of Hindu Extre

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-ongoing-war-in-the-persian-gulf-why-does-it-matter-to-the-us/ David Des Roches is Associate Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies at  National Defense University. Prior to this, he was the Defense  Department director responsible for policy concerning Saudi Arabia,  Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Prior  to this assignment, he has served in the Office of the Secretary of  Defense as Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, as senior  country director for Pakistan, as NATO operations director, and as  deputy director for peacekeeping. An Airborne Ranger in the Army Reserve, he was awarded the Bronze  Star for service in Afghanistan.  He has commanded conventional and  special operations parachute units and has served on the US Special  Operations Command staff as well as on the Joint Staff. He graduated  from the

https://westminster-institute.org/events/liberty-in-the-things-of-god-the-christian-origins-of-religious-freedom/ Robert Louis Wilken is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the  History of Christianity emeritus at the University of Virginia. He is an  elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, past  president of the American Academy of Religion, the North American  Patristics Society, and the Academy of Catholic Theology. He is chairman  of the board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, the  publisher of First Things. His new book is Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of  Religious Freedom. (It will be available at his lecture for purchase and  signing.) Dr. Wilken states: “Religious freedom rests on a simple  truth: religious faith is an inward disposition of the mind and heart  and for that reason cannot be coerced by external force.” Chronicling  the history of the struggle for religious freedom from the e

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-art-of-peace-engaging-a-complex-world/ Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon is a Senior Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, and teaches at American University. For several decades, she has been one of the finest analysts and best proponents of public diplomacy in the war of ideas. Her new book is The Art of Peace: Engaging a Complex World (Routledge). Her others books relevant to this topic are Cultural Intelligence for Winning the Peace and Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.) says, “Juliana Geran Pilon explains disconnects between the instrumental use of violence and objectives in recent and ongoing conflicts. The neglect of the political and human nature of war has been a common cause of strategic failure as well as a common flaw in theories that oftentimes contribute to those failures. Indeed, recent wartime plans

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-fertile-crescent-after-isis-between-russia-iran-and-israel/ Dr. Shmuel Bar served for thirty years in the Israeli government, first in the IDF Intelligence and then in the analytic and operational positions in the Israeli Office of the Prime Minister. Since the mid 1980s, he has specialized in the ideology and operational codes of Islamic fundamentalist movements and particularly the Jihadi movement that later evolved into al-Qaeda. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute and the author of Warrant for Terror: The Fatwas of Radical Islam and the Duty to Jihad. He holds a Ph.D. in History of the Middle East from Tel-Aviv University. From 2003 and June 2013, Dr. Bar served as Senior Research Fellow and then Director of Studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel and on the steering team of the annual “Herzliya Conference”. In addition to being an Adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, he is als