Ford International Professor of Political Science Barry Posen assumed the directorship of the MIT Security Studies Program on July 1, 2006, succeeding Professor Harvey Sapolsky, who has retired after 40 years of teaching at MIT and 15 years directing SSP. Professor Posen, one of the country's leading experts on international security studies, teaches courses on comparative grand strategy and military doctrine, U.S. military power, great power military intervention, and innovation in military organizations. His current research topics include European Union Defense Policy, the role of force in U.S. foreign policy, and innovation in the U.S. Army, 1970-1980. His detailed proposed for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq appeared in the January/February 2006 issue of Boston Review (article).

Francis Mading Deng, Research Professor of International Politics, Law and Society and Director of the Center for Displacement Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, has joined CIS as the Center's 2006-2007 Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow. Ambassador Deng, who served as Sudan's Ambassador to the United States and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, resigned from Sudan's foreign service in 1983 to protest that country's growing orientation toward Islamic fundamentalism. A leading expert on the global crisis of internal displacement, Ambassador Deng has been involved in numerous peace efforts, including in Darfur. CIS's Wilhelm Fellowship is awarded to individuals who have held senior positions in public life (press release).

Barbara Bodine, a former career diplomat who served in 2003 as coordinator for post-conflict reconstruction for Baghdad and the central governates of Iraq-and for several years as U.S. Ambassador to Yemen (including in 2000, when the USS Cole was attacked)-joins CIS as a Visiting Fellow as of May 1, 2006. Ambassdaor Bodine has already participated in the Center's Persian Gulf Initiative, and will expand her involvement during the coming year. ( More on Ambassador Bodine )

MIT-China, one of the eight country programs that make up the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI Program), will be featured at the First Asian MIT-iCampus Conference at Tsinghua University in Beijing June 13-15, 2006. Last year, a team of MISTI students introduced iLabs to China at the Dalian University of Technology. This year's Beijing conference will bring representatives of other leading Chinese universities together to explore ways in which iLabs-with the help of MISTI students-might be used at their institutions.

Huda Ahmed, an Iraqi who is a Baghdad correspondent for the Knight Ridder newspapers, will become the Center's 2006-2007 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow, succeeding freelance reporter Catherine Elton. Covering the war in Iraq, Ms. Ahmed has written about human rights abuses and women in Iraqi politics as well as the conflict itself. She will join CIS in September as a research associate. During her nine-month fellowship, Ms. Ahmed will have opportunities to work at the Boston Globe and the New York Times as well as participate in Center activities. The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, which is administered by the International Women's Media Foundation, is awarded to female journalists who have a demonstrated interest in covering human rights and social justice. It is named for Elizabeth Neuffer, a Globe reporter who was killed on assignment in Iraq in 2003. (Press release.)

The MIT Security Studies Program will offer two summer courses this year. For more information on Promoting Innovation: The Dynamics of Technology and Organizations (July 10-13) and Combating Bioterrorism / Pandemics: Implementing Policies for Biosecurity(July 24-26), contact SSP Assistant Director Magdalena Rieb (mrieb@mit.edu ).

Allison Macfarlane's recently published MIT Press book (edited with Rodney Ewing), Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste, is the first volume to lay out the uncertainties in the analysis of the long-term performance of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The book examines the historical and regulatory context for burying nuclear waste at the site, and includes contributions from experts in the geosciences, industry and government.

Visiting Scholar Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of Iran's parliament who was given a prison sentence for speaking out about women's rights and democratization in that country, was one of the participants in the third Carter Center Human Rights Defenders Policy Forum May 23-24, 2006. In Atlanta, Dr. Haghighajoo warned that the worsening U.S.-Iran relationship has contributed to increased oppression of pro-democracy forces in Iran.

John Dower, Ford International Professor of History and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, has been named the winner of this year's John E. Thayer III Award by the Japan Society of Boston. The award is given for promoting understanding between Japan and the United States. Previous recipients include Seiji Ozawa, former conduction of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Patricia Gercik, Managing Director of the MIT-Japan Program.

On Thursday, June 15, 2006, the Security Studies Program (SSP) will present a workshop on the science and policy of pandemic influenza. The event (Killian Hall, 1:00 until 5:30 p.m.) will discuss what is known about the virology and epidemiology of the influenza virus, what are the key unknowns, and how conclusive the science is for determining policy options for combating pandemics. Speakers will include SSP's Sanford Weiner, Laura Kelly (National Intelligence Council), and Peter Palese (Microbiologist, Mount Sinai Medical Center, NYC). The Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University is the event's co-sponsor.

Read Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift on the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, organized by CIS and the International Women's Media Foundation, and Huda Ahmed, the new awardee. Huda, a Baghdad correspondent for the Knight Ridder newspapers, will join the Center in the fall.

Congratulations to MIT Political Science graduate student Neil Ruiz and his team,
CentroMigrante. They won one of the two grand prizes in MIT's 100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Their project, which combines developmental architecture with a self-help business model, aims to provide clean, safe and affordable urban housing for transient job seekers in the Philippines.

CIS faculty played a prominent part in a special meeting on "MIT and the Changing International Economy," held at the Stata Center on May 17th. The gathering was organized by Provost Rafael Reif to begin a campus-wide conversation about the implications for MIT education and research of the profound changes in the international economy during the past fifteen years. Professor Edward Steinfeld briefed the audience about the MIT-China program, part of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), and Professor Suzanne Berger co-presented the results of a major globalization study recently completed by MIT's Industrial Performance Center. Additional discussions about the ways in which a global university like MIT can help make globalization work for the U.S. economy-and how best to prepare MIT students to live and work in the new economy-will be forthcoming.

Each year, the Program on Human Rights and Justice assists MIT students in funding and arranging internship placements at human rights and related organizations around the world. This summer's interns-Minyoung Jang, Rachel Healy, Poulomi Chakrabarti, Alberto Fuentes, Roberto Pires, Salo Coslovsky, and Christopher McDougal-will work in Bolivia, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Guatemala, Boston, Brazil and India. For more information on PHRJ's internships, see http://mit.edu/phrj/internships.html.

Congratulations to the coordinators of the MISTI Program's seven country programs, this year's winners of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences' Infinite Mile "Innovator" Award. The awardees are Sigrid Berka (MIT-Germany); Sean Gilbert (MIT-China); April Julich-Perez (MIT-France); Amy Kirkcaldy (MIT-Mexico); Deepti Nijhawan (MIT-India); Daniela Reichert (MIT-Japan); Serenella Sferza (MIT-Italy); and Saro Derian (MISTI staff).

In New York on May 17, 2006, CIS Executive Director John Tirman and Visiting Fellow Fatemeh Haghighajoo will join Vali Nasr, Professor of National Security Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School, for a discussion, "Are We Misreading Iran's Nuclear Politics?" (Ms. Haghighatjoo is a well-known Iranian democracy and women's rights activist, and was a member of Iran's reform Majlis.) The panel will convene at the Carnegie Council, an organization that examines ethics in international policy.

On May 10 and 17, 2006, Professors Andrew Krepinevich (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments) and Julie Taylor (Harvard) wind up this year's MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday Seminar Series with talks on Iraq and on strategic interaction between Muslim clerics and Middle Eastern regimes. (Sixth-floor CIS conference room, E38-615, noon to 1:30 p.m.)

Christopher Burnham, Under-Secretary-General for Management at the UN, will address the challenges presented in reforming the UN. The talk, which will be held at Harvard's Kennedy School from 5:00-6:30 p.m. on May 10, 2006, is co-sponsored by CIS, Harvard, the Fletcher School and the UN Association of Greater Boston, and will be chaired by John Haigh, Executive Dean of the Kennedy School.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka's Prime Minister from 1993-1994 and 2001-2004, a Visiting Scholar at CIS, will give a talk on "Beyond a Militarized Approach to Terrorism: Experience from Sri Lanka" on May 8, 2006. Questions will be welcome. This event is co-sponsored by the MIT Program on Human Rights and Justice and CIS.

Ranil Wickremasinghe, a lawyer who was Sri Lanka's Prime Minister from 1993-1994 and 2001-2004, has begun a several-week residency at CIS. In 2002, Mr. Wickremasinghe negotiated a ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels, in which the rebels dropped their demand for independence in favor of regional autonomy. Last December, after having been narrowly defeated in Sri Lanka's November 2005 presidential election, Mr. Wickremasinghe, leader of the opposition United National Party, met with Sri Lanka's new president, Mahinda Rajapakse. The two leaders reached an agreement aimed at reviving the peace process. Mr. Wickremasinghe will have an office at CIS until early May and is likely to conduct a seminar with MIT students.

The Starr Forum on the Rise of China series will feature a talk by Mr. Lu Mai, Secretary General of the China Development Research Foundation, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3, 2006 (E38-615). Mr. Lu is the author of numerous publications on economic reform in China, and serves on the UN's World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. He will discuss how effectively "human development" has kept pace with income growth in China. Professor Edward Steinfeld will host the event.

Ford International Professor of Political Science Barry Posen will discuss U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil with MIT Professor of Physics Ernest Moniz, Under Secretary of Energy from 1997 until 2001, on Friday, April 28. The event, which is co-sponsored with the Laboratory for Energy and Environment and Human@MIT, will be held from noon until 1:00 p.m. in E51-335.

The Program on Human Rights and Justice (PHRJ) is sponsoring summer internships for students seeking placement with inter-governmental, non-governmental and business organizations, as well as social movements worldwide that have a direct relation to human rights and justice concerns. This year's awards will focus on work that lies at the intersection between human rights and sustainable development issues. For details and information on applying, see http://mit.edu/phrj/internships.html. The deadline is April 30, 2006.

The MIT Security Studies Program continues its Wednesday Seminar Series in April with Risa Brooks on the civil-military politics of strategic assessment (April 5); Alan Kuperman on history's lessons for keeping the peace in Bosnia (April 12); Benjamin Valentino on the fate of civilians in times of war (April 19); and Sharon Weiner on controlling the proliferation of nuclear knowledge from the Former Soviet Union (April 26). All talks run from noon until 1:30 in E38-615.

Fifteen doctoral students will receive CIS Summer Study Grants under the MIT-Japan International Studies Fund: Matthew Amengual, Catherine Ashcraft, Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Michael Glosny, Llewelyn Hughes, Rajendra Kumar, Xin Li, Nora Libertun de Duren, Akshay Mangla, Reo Matsuzaki, Apiwat Ratanawaraha, Robert Reardon, Neil Ruiz, Peter Shulman, Jessica Wattman.

The Inter-University Committee on International Migration will feature two talks this spring that touch on Latin American issues, as part of its Myron Weiner Seminar Series. The Committee, which is chaired at CIS, will present a lecture on March 30 by UC/San Diego economics Professor Gordon Hanson. The topic: illegal migration from Mexico to the United States. And on April 11, the Center's 2005-2006 Neuffer Fellow, Catherine Elton, will challenge some of the prevailing notions about remittances that Latin American immigrants to the United States send to their families back home.

Robert Art, Christian Herter Professor of International Relations at Brandeis University, a Senior Fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program and Director of CIS's Seminar XXI Program, has received the 2006 distinguished scholar award from the International Studies Association. The ISA, which cited Prof. Art's lifetime achievement in security studies, will honor him at its annual convention in late March.

The Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Mustafa Ceric, will speak on "European Muslim Identity in the New Millenium" in 54-100 from 7:30-9:00 on April 4. He will examine the integration of Europe's large Muslim population into its social, political and cultural structures. CIS, a co-sponsor of the event, will host a reception for the Grand Mufti from 3:00-4:30 in the second floor conference room in E38.

The MIT Security Studies Program has launched a new website, with easier-to-locate news and information about SSP research, publications, courses and lectures and an upgraded directory. A list of SSP Wednesday Seminars can also be found on the site. The spring 2006 lineup includes talks by Bonnie Glaser of CSIS on China; Tom McNaugher of RAND on the future of the Army; and Andrew Krepinevich of the CSBA on Iraq. Other speakers will include former MIT Political Science graduate students Fred Kaplan (Slate), Benjamin Valentino (Dartmouth), and Alan Kuperman (Univ. of Texas/Austin).

AlterNet, a project of the Independent Media Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting independent and alternative journalism, has begun to run CIS's "Audits of the Conventional Wisdom" series on its site. AlterNet will occasionally feature one of the CIS Audits as their lead article; the first is graduate student Ben Friedman's piece on homeland security. "We welcome this partnership with AlterNet, which will vastly expand the size and diversity of our audience," says CIS Executive Director John Tirman. In coming weeks, look on the CIS site as well as AlterNet for new Audits on the military budget, withdrawing from Iraq, and suicide bombers.

CIS Executive Director John Tirman will extend the Center's reach to Washington, D.C. on Monday, March 13, when he moderates a panel on "Turkey's Turbulent Road to the EU" at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Speakers will include Zehra Arat (SUNY/Purchase), Lenore Martin (Emmanuel College; Harvard), John Sitilides (Woodrow Wilson Center), and Mario Zucconi (Princeton; University of Urbino). Contact: mep@wilsoncenter.org (seating is limited).

Ford International Professor of Political Science Barry Posen published a New York Times op-ed on February 27, 2006, "We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran," in which he argues that deterrence and containment can still work.

Political Science Professor and CIS affiliate Roger Petersen has received a grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, which supports scholarly research on violence and aggression, including their effect on international relations. Professor Petersen, an expert on ethnic conflict, is studying the strategic use of emotion in violent conflict.

The Stanley Foundation, Dr. Cindy Williams, principal research scientist at the MIT Security Studies Program, calls for the United States to increase its budgetary emphasis on conflict prevention. Among other things, she urges the country to double its spending for nonmilitary foreign aid; place more of an emphasis on poverty reduction in the world's poorest countries; and increase capacity at the State Department. Dr. Williams is a former associate director for national security in the Congressional Budget Office and in the directorate of program analysis and evaluation at the Pentagon.

Ford International Professor of Political Science Barry Posen lays out his Iraq exit strategy in the January/February issue of Boston Review. "The war is at best a stalemate; the large American presence now causes more trouble than it prevents," he writes. "We must disengage from Iraq—and we must do it by removing most American and allied military units within 18 months." The details of his plan—and its implications—are available online, as are responses from Senators Joseph Biden and Russell Feingold, Ambassador Barbara Bodine, Vivek Chibber, Helena Cobban, Helena Cobban, Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis, Randall Forsberg, Chris Preble, Nir Rosen and Eliot Weinberger.

On Tuesday, March 7, a crew from C-Span's "Book TV" will tape a talk and slide show on "U.S., Iraq and the Future of Kurdistan," by photojournalist, writer and television producer Kevin McKiernan, author of "The Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland." The talk will be held in the CIS 7th floor conference room (E38-714) at 4:00 p.m. Check the Book TV website for the airdate.

The Center has released a report stemming from the initial workshops and forums organized under the Persian Gulf Initiative, a series developed by CIS Executive Director John Tirman to help make up for the shortfall in scholarship on this critical region. "The Crisis of Governance in the Gulf: Legitimacy and Stability in a Dark Time" reports on the discrete crises in governance currently faced by Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. Events on this topic were held at the Center during the spring and fall of 2005. For a hard copy of the report, contact Casey Johnson-Houlihan (caseyj@mit.edu).

On January 18th, 2006, MIT President Susan Hockfield lent her support to a Tokyo symposium on "Globalization and the Future of the National Economy" organized by Japan's Keizai Koho Center and the MIT Japan Program, one of the seven MISTI country programs. The event featured a keynote by MISTI Director Suzanne Berger, author of How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make It In Today's Global Economy. Other participants included Japan scholar and CIS Director (on sabbatical) Richard Samuels and Robert Madsen, a CIS Senior Fellow. (Article in The Japan Times)

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the U.S., will speak at MIT's Bartos Theater on Thursday, Feb. 16. Prince Turki served as Director General of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Directorate from 1977 to 2001. Institute Professor John Deutch, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, will moderate this CIS Starr Forum.

Political Science Professor Mark Tessler of the University of Michigan will lead off the spring 2006 Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar Series, with a Feb. 14 talk on what ordinary Arabs think about religion and politics.

Suzanne Berger, Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science and Director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), has published a thought-provoking book on globalization, competitiveness, and what makes companies succeed in the new economy. "How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today's Global Economy" stems from a five-year study conducted by Professor Berger and a team of engineers and social scientists at MIT's Industrial Performance Center. Among her conclusions, gleaned from hundreds of interviews conducted at companies around the world: the economic playing field has not been 'flattened,' and there is more than one route to success; simplistic notions about globalization need to be jettisoned.

CIS Visiting Scholar Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, an Iranian human rights activist and democracy advocate who was a member of Iran's 6th Majlis (reform parliament), contends that there is reason for optimism when it comes to political reform in Iran, although she acknowledges the hurdles that must be overcome. In a newly-published CIS Audit of the Conventional Wisdom, Dr. Haghighatjoo argues that President Ahmadinejad won the last election by plugging into discontent about the economy; also, because little was known about him. His election, she writes, does not mean that most Iranians support hard-line policies. Dr. Haghighatjoo also argues that Iran's reform movement is not dead, as some fear, but she urges reform groups to work together in order to counter the country's conservatives more effectively.

The Center's always-eclectic offerings during MIT's Independent Activities Period (IAP) continue in January 2006 with a series of talks about the future of the global power structure assuming a decline of U.S. superpower status; a workshop in Berlin on designing technology for an aging population; an expert's guide to the art and science of Dogfighting; a Marine's-eye look at the Al Anbar insurgency; and discussions on the July 2006 presidential election in Mexico and on the role of U.S. Special Operations forces. Also in the mix: a Japanese film series, Chinese calligraphy lessons, Japanese archery lessons (kyudo), and Japanese flower arranging. Click here for the list and sign-up instructions.

Francis Mading Deng, Research Professor of International Politics, Law and Society and Director of the Center for Displacement Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, will join CIS on May 1, 2006, as the Center's Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow. The Robert E. Wilhelm Fellowship is awarded to individuals who have held senior positions in public life. Professor Deng served from 1992-2004 as the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons and was Sudan's Ambassador to the United States as well as its Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. He is a leading scholar of indigenous cultures and the role of tradition in development, the politics and conflicts of identity in the Sudan, conflict management and the challenges of nation building in Africa, and the global crisis of internal displacement. (Press release.)

Ford International Professor of Political Science Barry Posen will become director of the MIT Security Studies Program on July 1, 2006.  He will succeed Professor Harvey Sapolsky, who is retiring after 40 years of teaching at MIT and 15 years directing SSP. "I am honored to have been chosen by my colleagues to direct the Security Studies Program. SSP has been my intellectual home for nearly twenty years. I could not have found a better one," said Professor Posen, a longtime SSP faculty member. "I have profited greatly from the diverse community of senior scholars and motivated graduate students who have made this institution one of the premier places in the United States to think about and to learn about all aspects of the role of military power in international politics, and the problems of disciplining that power." Professor Sapolsky, a leading scholar of organizations and U.S. defense politics, will keep his office in E38. He plans to continue writing and working with students and colleagues. (In other SSP news, the program will launch its revamped Web site at or near the start of the spring '06 semester.)

December 9, 2005 is the deadline for the research fellowship program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Each year, 8-10 students who have graduated within the past year but have not started graduate school are matched with a senior associate at the Endowment to work on international affairs issues. CIS will nominate two candidates for the fellowships that begin on August 1, 2006. For an application packet, contact Fellowship Coordinator Casey Johnson-Houlihan at caseyj@mit.edu. (Click here for details on other fellowship competitions.

The Turkish government is prosecuting a Turkish book publisher for distributing a translated version of CIS Executive Director John Tirman's 1997 book, "Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade." The book documents the harm caused to Kurkish civilians via the use by Turkey of Black Hawk helicopters and other weapons in its fight against the PKK. Because he published a book critical of Turkey, Fatih Tas is accused (among other things) of humiliating the Turkish identity. Fearful that Mr. Tas will soon face a jail sentence, Tirman and Human rights groups like PEN International are seeking urgently to exert pressure on Turkey to drop the charges. An op-ed by Tirman appeared in the International Herald Tribune on Nov. 22, and a New York Times story was published on Nov. 19. (Click here for a story by the MIT News Office.)

The CIS Starr Forum on the Rise of China series continues on November 28 with a talk by Minxin Pei, Senior Associate and Director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The topic will be the political and economic risks of governance trends in China.

Ford International Professor of Political Science and Security Studies Program faculty member Barry Posen was a guest on Christopher Lydon's public radio program, Open Source, on November 9.   The program, called "Stuck in the Pottery Barn," addressed the question of what the US should do now vis-à-vis Iraq, and also featured retired Lt. General (Army) William Odom. (webstream)

Cindy Williams, Principal Research Scientist in the Security Studies Program, has received a two-year, $150,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation. She will undertake a major project on national security strategy and resource planning, entitled "Improving the Nation's Security Decisions." Dr. Williams will partner with Gordon Adams, Director of Security Policy Studies at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Together, Williams and Adams will fill write the first comprehensive resource to examine how the government sets priorities for national security budgets. In addition, SSP recently published an Occasional Paper by Dr. Williams, "Transforming the Rewards for Military Service." It draws on her edited volume, "Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System" (2004).

On November 15, the Center will co-sponsor a policy debate on the militarization of space with MIT's Technology and Culture Forum.  The speakers will be Lt. General Daniel P. Leaf, Vice Commander of the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, and Theresa Hitchens, Director of the Center for Defense Information.

The MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday seminar series continues in November with talks on U.S. and European counterterrorism strategies (Jeremy Shapiro), uncertainties relating to an emerging China (David Finkelstein), and the "The Other Proliferation Problem': Conventional Weapons and Technologies" (Jo Husbands).  All events are in the Center's 6th floor conference room in E38.

Monday, November 14 is this year's deadline for the Luce Scholars Program, which is open to seniors, graduate students, alumni from recent classes and junior faculty.  The program places young scholars from a wide variety of intellectual fields in 10-month internships in selected countries in East and Southeast Asia, and is aimed at those with no prior experience in Asia.

Political Science Professor and former CIS Director Kenneth Oye participated in MIT's response to hurricane Katrina during a forum called "How Can We Improve Disaster Response?"  He spoke about how FEMA became a "hollow agency" after a post-9/11 reshuffling, and expressed concern about disasters that are "not in the play book," e.g., nuclear or biological terrorist attacks. Also on the panel were Professor Yossi Sheffi of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics and Professor Richard Larson from Civil and Environmental Engineering.  The event is webstreamed at MIT World.

Click here to stream Ford International Professor of Political Science and Security Studies Program faculty member Barry Posen's interview on the NPR magazine program "Here and Now" (produced at WBUR Boston).  Professor Posen discusses the 2,000 U.S. deaths in Iraq, and the debate over whether the U.S. should develop a disengagement strategy. (The program aired on October 26, 2005.)

The Security Studies Program's Wednesday seminar series continues in late October with talks on Japanese Defense Strategy for the 21st Century (Oct. 19, with CIS visiting scholar Yumi Hiwatari) and The Second Goldwater-Nichols Act, on defense reform (Oct. 26, with Clark Murdock of the Center for Strategic and International Studies). Both talks are at noon in E38-615.

All are welcome to a special CIS Starr Forum, "The Big Question: How and When to Leave Iraq."  The event will be held from 4:00-5:30 on Thursday, October 27, at Morss Hall in MIT's Walker Memorial.  Ford International Professor of Political Science Barry Posen will chair, and will propose a withdrawal strategy. The guest speakers will be Phebe Marr, a leading U.S. historian of Iraq; Jonathan Schell, peace and disarmament correspondent for The Nation; and Bill Kristol, Editor of The Weekly Standard.

Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's Ambassador to the United States, will offer an Egyptian perspective on "Winds of Change in the Middle East" during a talk at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 18 (Building 66, Room 100).  Ambassador Fahmy has participated in numerous Egyptian delegations dealing with peace in the Middle East, and is a specialist on disarmament and regional security issues in the region.

Barbara Bodine, former Ambassador to Yemen and coordinator in 2003 for post-conflict reconstruction for Baghdad and the central provinces of Iraq, will give a talk on "Reflections on the Arab World: From Baghdad to Sanaa and Back" on October 18 at 4:30 (Building E51, Room 095).  Ambassador Bodine is Executive Director of the Middle East Governance Initiative at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.  Her talk is part of CIS's Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar Series.

Gary Hart, former U.S. Senator from Colorado, a candidate for president in 1984 and 1988, and Co-Chair of the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (which warned of vulnerabilities to homeland security prior to 9/11), will host a "Report Card on the War on Terror" with Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, co-authors of the new book, The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Blueprint for Getting it Right. Benjamin and Simon previously co-authored the best-seller, The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America. Benjamin is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Simon is a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation.  They are former director and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

The Center's ongoing series of short essays that examine and challenge well-accepted notions about U.S. foreign policy continues this fall with pieces by Ali Mostashari (editor, Iran Analysis Quarterly), CIS Research Associate Gary Troeller and Security Studies Program Visiting Fellow and Lecturer Robert Vickers. These articles look at whether Iran is a rogue state, what the value of the U.N. is, and how U.S. policymakers should view European integration. PDFs of all the articles in the "Audits of the Conventional Wisdom" series are available online.

Klaus Leisinger, vice president and executive director of the Novartis Foundation, will talk about "Business and Human Rights: Corporate Opportunities, Business Risks and Entrepreneurial Dilemmas" on October 4, from 4:30-6:00 (54-100). Dr. Leisinger, a professor of development sociology at the University of Basel, will be hosted by the MIT Program on Human Rights and Justice and Students for Global Sustainability.

Political Science Professor Kenneth Oye, former director of CIS, will talk about "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Explaining Federal Response to Katrina"  as part of an MIT symposium, "How Can We Improve Disaster Response", to be held from 4:00 to 6:00 today at the Kirsch Auditorium in the Stata Center (E32). Today's events are part of MIT's campus-wide symposia series, "Big Questions After Big Hurricanes."  See MIT's Katrina Response Web page for additional details on the symposia and for information on how to help.

Two recent MIT political science PhDs with ties to CIS and the Security Studies Program have published an article in the September 2005 issue of Current History (pdf) critiquing U.S. policy in Asia. Christopher Twomey (an assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School) and Eric Heginbotham (a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations) argue that current policy amounts to an abdication of American leadership in shaping Asia's security environment, enables nationalist agitation and contributes to regional tensions.

• Journalist Laurie Garrett on "The Potential for and Implications of an Avian Flu Pandemic" (Monday, 9/26)
• Johns Hopkins Professor Francis Deng, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, on "The Sudan Crisis and Human Security" (Tuesday, 9/27)
• Visiting Professor (Foreign Languages and Literature) Nilufer Gole on "Europe's Encounter with Islam." (The first in this year's Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar series.) (Tuesday, 9/27)
• Israeli TV anchor Chaim Yavin on his controversial documentary series, "Land of the Settlers" (Wednesday, 9/28)

MISTI Week—a series of events organized by the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives to celebrate international education at MIT—continues on Friday, September 23 with:

• MISTI photo contest and barbecue
• MISTI soccer tournament finale

MISTI Week Schedule

MISTI Week—a series of events organized by the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives to celebrate international education at MIT—continues on Thursday, September 22 with:

• "Asian Promise/Yellow Peril": A talk by Pultizer Prize-winning MIT historian John Dower
• "The Future of the Car/The Car of the Future": A panel discussion on hybrids and other fuel reduction options, and congestion in urban areas (MIT Professors John Heywood and Dan Roos; Karl-Ernst Noreikat of DaimlerChrysler; PhD student Erica Fuchs)
• A screening of the Indian film Veer Zaara

MISTI Week Schedule

MISTI Week—a series of events organized by the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives to celebrate international education at MIT—continues on Wednesday, September 21 with:

• "Is There a Global Communication Culture?" Members of MIT Foreign Languages and Literature discuss the impact of globalization on communication flows in media, education, business, writing and culture.
• Sanskrit lessons, a faculty reception and a soccer tournament

MISTI Week Schedule

The Inter-University Committee on International Migration (IUCIM) has named its seminar series after the late political scientist Myron Weiner.  Professor Weiner, who chaired the MIT Political Science Department and the Center for International Studies, was one of the founders of the IUCIM—and was one of the world's experts on political change in developing countries and on global migration.  This year's IUCIM seminar series begins on Tuesday, September 20th, with a talk by Dr. Michael Teitelbaum, Program Director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  MIT Chemical Engineering Professor Alice Gast, Vice President for Research and Associate Provost of MIT, will be the discussant.