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| (from left to right: Harold Bass, Barry Posen, Todd Piergrossi, and Louis Lartigue) |
There were laughter and handshakes all round as SSP gathered on May 8 to attend the annual year-end Gala. About 50 people attended this year's dinner held at the Cambridge Marriott. Presentations were given by SSP Director, Barry Posen, and the 2007-2008 military fellows. Grad student Andrew Radin also took the opportunity to hold his first colloquium (um, keep working Andrew!). The Gala is the annual send off for the military fellows and this year they presented the program with a clock for the 6th floor conference room as a token of their year spent with SSP. We wish them all the best.
On March 25, 2008, in a ceremony at Major General Robert Durbin's home at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he commands the First Infantry Division, SSP Director Barry Posen was recognized as a "Noble Patron of Armor," a new award of the U.S. Armor Association. The Noble Patron of Armor Award is presented to recognize those individuals who have significantly contributed to the operational success, or the morale and welfare, of armor and cavalry organizations. MG General Durbin was an SSP Military Fellow, May 1995-May 1996.
Owen Cote organized and hosted a one and a half day conference. “Options for Submarine Force Experimentation”, February 12 -13, 2008 at the Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, MA.
Members of the submarine force, representatives from industry and academics attended the conference, the purpose of which was twofold: to look at opportunities for near term experimentation with new technologies that might support new submarine missions; and to inform decisions concerning longer term issues such as next generation submarine design. Vice Admiral John J. Donnelly, Commander, Naval Submarine Forces, was the luncheon speaker. Admiral Edmund P. Giambastiani, Jr., USN (Ret.) was the featured dinner speaker.
As a result of the conference, the MIT Security Studies Program will publish a report this summer on the conference findings which will be distributed within the Navy and industry, and posted on this website.
Peter Krause has been selected as a Fellow of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) for 2008-09.
Kelly Grieco, Stephane Kaplan, Will Norris, Andrew Radin, Paul Staniland, and Caitlin Talmadge are among the 16 doctoral students who have been awarded 2008 CIS Summer Study Grants.
Paul Staniland has been selected as a 2008-9 predoctoral fellow in the International Security Program and Intrastate Conflict Program at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Peter Krause has received the Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace to attend the Middlebury College Arabic School this summer.
Caitlin Talmadge has been selected as a 2008-2009 Brookings Research Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies. She will work on her dissertation next academic year at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
Llewelyn Hughes and Paul Staniland have both been granted World Politics and Statecraft Fellowships from the Smith Richardson Foundation for dissertation research in 2008.
On Sept. 25, 2008, Professor Stephen Van Evera will give a talk at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. The talk is part of a book launch for Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro, eds., To Lead the World: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine, (Oxford, 2008). His chapter is titled "A Farewell to Geopolitics". Please click here for further information about the event.
Paul Staniland, "When Talking with Terrorists Makes Sense," Christian Science Monitor, May 29, 2008.
Professor Barry Posen was on Chicago Public Radio on May 21, 2008. The topic: "A Realist Foreign Policy Prescription."
Professor Barry Posen was on Wisconsin Public Radio's Kathleen Dunn show on May 13, 2008, discussing the recent increase in violence in Sadr City, Iraq. Click here for show's archives.
Barry R. Posen, “Restraining Order,” The American Interest , Vol. 3, No. 3, January-February 2008, pp. 94-97.
Jim Walsh testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Thursday, April 24, 2008. The hearing was titled "Addressing Iran's Nuclear Ambitions".
Benjamin H. Friedman, "Don't 'Pull an Iraq' in Afghanistan," Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 2008.
Professor Barry Posen was on NPR's "On Point" Tuesday, April 1, 2008, one of several guest commentators on the topic "Basra: Defining Moment?" Juan Cole, an SSP fellow, was also on this show. Click here to listen to the show.
Professor Stephen Van Evera was on Minnesota Public Radio's "Midday," Tuesday, April 1, 2008. The show was titled "Calm Returns to Iraq?" Click here to listen to the show.
Bjoern H. Seibert's paper, "African Adventure? Assessing the European Union's Military Intervention in Chad and the Central Africa Republic," which was published by SSP as a working paper in November 2007, has been quoted in a March 4, 2008 New York Times article titled "European Mission Gets Rocky Start."
William Luers, Thomas Pickering and Jim Walsh, "How to end the US-Iran Standoff," International Herald Tribune, March 3, 2008.
William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering and Jim Walsh, "A Solution for the US-Iran Nuclear Standoff," The New York Review of Books, Vol. 55, No. 4, March 20, 2008.
February 29-March 1, 2008, Professor Richard Samuels and SSP graduate student Llewelyn Hughes were moderators for a CIS-sponsored event titled "US-Japan Relations and a Changing Asia." Professor Barry Posen gave the keynote address. Professor Taylor Fravel was one of many speakers at this event. Other speakers included SSP alums Daryl Press and Christopher Twomey. A full report of the event is available at CIS' web site.
February 22-23, 2008, Professor Barry Posen chaired a conference titled "Energy, National Security and the Persian Gulf." The conference was sponsored by the MIT Security Studies Program and The MIT Center for International Studies.
Benjamin H. Friedman, Harvey Sapolsky and Christopher Preble, "Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq," Policy Analysis no. 610, Cato Institute, February 13, 2008.
Cindy Williams has an article in The American Interest, Vol. III, No. 4 (March/April 2008), part of a collection of articles called "Iraq: What If We Win?" Her article, titled "The U.S. Army," is available at their web site. Click here to read the article.
Professor Barry Posen gave a talk on "U.S. Grand Strategy, Consensus & Critique," at MIT on Thursday, March 20, 2008. The talk was part of MIT's Sidney-Pacific Lecture Series.
Cindy Williams has a new report available from the IBM Center for the Business of Government, part of their 2008 Presidential Transition Series. The report is titled "Strengthening Homeland Security: Reforming Planning and Resource Allocation." The report can be dowloaded from their web site as a pdf, or ordered in hardcopy.
Juan Cole, "Iraq's Three Civil Wars," Audits of the Conventional Wisdom, MIT Center for International Studies, February 2008.
Paul Staniland, "The Challenge of Islamist Militancy in India," CTC Sentinal, Vol. 1, No. 2, January 2008, pp. 14-16.
M. Taylor Fravel, "Power Shifts and Escalation: Explaining China's Use of Force in Territorial Disputes," International Security, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter 2007/08), pp. 44-83.
Richard J. Samuels, "New Fighting Power! Japan's Growing Maritime Capabilities and East Asian Security, " International Security, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter 2007/08), pp. 84-112.
SSP is pleased to announce the publication of "African Adventure? Assessing the European Union's Military Intervention in Chad and the Central African Republic," by Bjoern H. Seibert, MALD candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, in our working paper series. Mr. Seibert started this paper in the SSP course 17.482 - U.S. Military Power, taught by Professor Posen. Since the end of the Cold War many papers from this course have been written on operational and tactical military problems related to humanitarian intervention and stability operations. Some have been published as articles or books. Mr. Seibert's paper makes an important and timely contribution to public understanding of the demands of military operations to address security problems arising from the tragic situations in Darfur and Chad.
MIT Alumnus Charles H. Ferguson's new book, No End In Sight: Iraq's Descent into Chaos, (Public Affairs, 2008), is the written version of the previously released award-winning film by the same name. Like the film, which provided Professor Barry Posen with a small portion of his fifteen minutes of fame, the book also quotes Professor Posen. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, a former Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies, is also featured on many of the pages in this book.
Cindy Williams' book, Service to Country: Personnel Policy and the Transformation of Western Militaries, (Cindy Williams and Curtis Gilroy, Eds., MIT Press, 2007) has been reviewed in the October 2007 issue of Military History. Click here for article. The link will probably only work for MIT-affiliates or others with access to Proquest.)
Benjamin H. Friedman, "The Terrible 'Ifs'," Regulation, Vol. 30, No. 4, Winter 2007-2008, pp. 32-40.
Kelly Greenhill and Paul Staniland, "Ten Ways to Lose at Counterinsurgency," Civil Wars , Vol. 9, No. 4 (December 2007), pp. 402-419.
Jim Walsh, "Why believe it this time?" Op-Ed, Boston Globe, December 7, 2007.
Cindy Williams, "The military, and affairs of the State," Letters to the Editor, Boston Globe, December 6, 2007.
Benjamin Friedman, "The Politics of Chicken Littleism," WashingtonPost.com, December 5, 2007.
Professor Barry Posen has a letter in The New York Times, November 23, 2007, on the Violence in Iraq.
David Weinberg has published an article on Congress and the Iraqi refugee crisis in Denver University's Human Rights & Human Welfare, October 2007.
Barry R. Posen, “Stability and Change in U.S. Grand Strategy,” Orbis, Vol. 51, No. 4, October 2007, pp. 561-567.
Paul Staniland, "Pakistan on the Brink: Regional Perspectives and Implications", Audits of the Conventional Wisdom, MIT Center for International Studies, November 2007.
Barry Posen's recent article in The American Interest is discussed in a November 5, 2007 blog entry at The Washington Note.com, titled "The Case for Restraint -- and Disaggregation."
Barry R. Posen, " The Case for Restraint," The American Interest, Vol. 3, No. 1, November-December 2007.
Professor Barry Posen was on Chris Lydon's "Open Source" radio show October 24, 2007, discussing Iraq and Iran. Click here to read about it and access audio links.
Professor Stephen Van Evera was on Chris Lydon's "Open Source" radio show on October 26, 2007, discussing Iraq and Iran. Click here to read about it and access audio links.
Professor Barry Posen was on KUOW, Seattle Public Radio, on October 22, 2007. The topic: "Can the U.S. live with a nuclear Iran?"
SSP fellow Robert Art was on Chris Lydon's "Open Source" radio show October 19, 2007 discussing Iraq and Iran. Click here to read about it and access the audio link.
David A. Weinberg, "America the generous or America the stingy?" first-person political analysis, Daily Star (Lebanon), September 14, 2007.
Stephanie Kaplan has received a fellowship from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. See article on page 5 of MIT Tech Talk, September 19 issue, for further details.
Professor Barry Posen was on WBUR radio's "On Point" 9/11/07, providing commentary during the Petraeus-Crocker Hearings. Click here to access the show.
Professor Steve Van Evera appeared on Minnesota Public Radio on 9/6/2007. The topic of the broadcast: "Congress hears assessments of Iraq war".
Paul Staniland is the author of a new CIS Persian Gulf Initiative workshop report entitled "The United States, India, and the Gulf: Convergence or Divergence in a Post-Iraq World."
P.R. Goldstone, "Pax Mercatoria: Does Economic Interdependence Bring Peace?" Audits of the Conventional Wisdom, CIS, August 2007.
David A. Weinberg, "Re-open the U.S. Embassy in Tehran," op-ed, Ha'aretz, August 24, 2007.
Richard J. Samuels, Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia,Cornell University Press, 2007. Click here for a review of the book.
Professor Richard J. Samuels, "The more muscular Japan," op-ed, Boston Globe, August 7, 2007.
M. Taylor Fravel, "Securing Borders: China's Doctrine and Force Structure for Frontier Defense," Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4-5, August 2007.
Professor Barry Posen was on Minnesota Public Radio's "Midmorning" July 17, 2007. The topic: Defining the Defense authorization bill.
"More Troops for What?" by Benjamin Friedman, ForeignPolicy.com, July 2007.
"Fewer Missions, Not More Troops," Benjamin Friedman, Audits of the Conventional Wisdom, CIS, July 2007.
M. Taylor Fravel, "Securing Borders: China's Doctrine and Force Structure for Frontier Defense," Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4-5, August 2007.
Professor Stephen Van Evera, "The War on Terror: Forgotten Lessons from WWII," Middle East Policy (Vol. XIV, No. 2, Summer 2007).
Professor Stephen Van Evera was on WBUR's "On Point" June 19, 2007. The topic: "Critiquing America at War." Click here to listen to the show.
Professor Stephen Van Evera, "Iraq: Canary in a Coal Mine ," MIT International Review, Spring 2007.
Service to Country: Personnel Policy and the Transformation of Western Militaries, Cindy Williams and Curtis Gilroy, Eds., MIT Press, 2007. Click here for press release.
"Iran's Nuclear Program: Motivations, Options, Consequences," by Jim Walsh, in Terrorist Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation: Strategies for Overlapping Dangers, Demetrios James Caraley and Loren Morales Kando, eds., (New York: The Academy of Political Science, 2007) pp. 181-205.
The project is titled "Organizing for a Complex World: Designing, Developing and Deploying Complex Weapon and Net-Centric Systems - Lessons of the Past and the Way Forward." Please click here for detailed information (PDF). For more information please contact Judy Siegal at 202-775-3128 or jsiegal@csis.org.
