The Institute of World Politics

U.S. Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis addressed the Class of 2018 at The Institute of World Politics Commencement Ceremony at the Fairmont Hotel on Saturday, May 19.

Mamadou Niang presented a lecture on "Terrorist Threat in the Mali and Sahel Region" during the student symposium at The Institute of World Politics on May 17, 2018.

David Stoffey presented his paper "Chinese Economic and Security Statecraft in Central Asia" during the student symposium at The Institute of World Politics on May 17, 2018.

Erik Khzmalyan presented a lecture on "Russia's Pacific Fleet: History, Strategy, and Attempts for Revival" during the student symposium May 17, 2018 at the Institute of World Politics.

About the Panel: In August 2017, the White House unveiled a new South Asia Strategy presenting a narrow definition of victory through increased military firepower against ISIS, al-Qaida, and Taliban. While the President called for an expansion of rules of engagement for US military in Afghanistan, he also promised a harsher stance on Pakistan and a closer reliance on India in Afghanistan’s future....

The Lost Kingdom: Memoir of an Afghan Prince A lecture at The Institute of World Politics, May 8, 2018. About the Book: His Royal Highness Prince Ali Seraj, a member of the royal family of Afghanistan, brings four decades of history to life—from the Cold War era when his famed nightclub in Kabul was a hotspot for global celebrities, jetsetters, and spies, to the communist Soviet takeover that kill...

Russian Lobby in Belarus: Could Belarus be the Next after Ukraine? A lecture at The Institute of World Politics, May 8, 2018 About the lecture: After the occupation of Crimea, Russia began to expand its presence in Belarus. Hundreds of Russia-backed initiatives, formally cultural, media, or educational, emerged. Besides that, Sputnik opened its office in Minsk and had almost 1400% audience growth...

About the Lecture: Edward Snowden is a polarizing figure in the world today, known by millions and the press as a champion of freedom and a whistle blower exposing extensive activities on the part of the US intelligence community to violate the civil rights of millions of Americans. This one of the many myths that surround this case. In fact, almost all the information in the public domain about S...

About the Panel: The 2016 U.S. presidential election provides an extensive database for scholars. Not only was the election characterized by a dramatic increase in “nasty politics,” but also by the rise of populism and political showmanship that strategically employed character attacks to shock the audience. Other ongoing political developments urge researchers to address many questions. Among the...

About the Lecture: Brigadier General Pekka Toveri discussed Finland's history and concentrated on the current structure, tasks, and development programs.

About the Lecture: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Daniel Golden will expose how academia has become the center of foreign and domestic espionage—and why that is troubling news for our nation's security through his book Spy Schools: How The CIA, FBI, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America's Universities. Grounded in extensive research and reporting, Spy Schools reveals how academia ha...

This event was sponsored by Walter Thinfen, President and CEO at Visioneer Inc. About the Lecture: The purpose of this discussion is to better understand the perspective of the President of the United States regarding cyber conflict. Primary sources will be reviewed including speeches, tweets, and actions. About the Speaker: Joe Billingsley is the founder of the Military Cyber Professionals Associ...

About the lecture: Based on a large-scale survey and a choice experiment, this presentation will discuss energy-related preferences and climate change beliefs in Western Estonia and Southern Ukraine. Special attention will be given to the issues of social acceptance of large wind energy projects, since the surveyed regions have a high potential for wind power development. About the speaker: Dr. An...

About the Book: Reagan’s 1968 Dress Rehearsal: Ike, RFK, and Reagan’s Emergence as a World Statesman is an inspiring never-before-told history of how Ronald Reagan first began to restore pride in America when he first ran for president in the late 1960s. Against the back-drop history of Reagan’s first campaign for the presidency, it can now be revealed that behind the scenes, none other than forme...

About Dr. Russell Kirk: For more than forty years, Russell Kirk was in the thick of the intellectual controversies of his time. He is the author of some thirty-two books, hundreds of periodical essays, and many short stories. Both Time and Newsweek have described him as one of America’s leading thinkers, and The New York Times acknowledged the scale of his influence when in 1998 it wrote that Kirk...

About the Book: "Putin Watches Russian Economy Collapse along with His Economic Stature,” blared a headline in Time in late 2014. Yet three years have passed since the price of oil crashed in 2014, halving earnings on the product which once funded half of Russia’s government budget. That same year, the West imposed harsh economic sanctions on Russia’s banks, energy firms, and defense sector, cutti...

About the Lecture: Rarely in history has a political movement and its leaders promised more and produced less than Communism and its dictators from Lenin, Stalin and Mao to Castro, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Un. As chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Dr. Lee Edwards has long studied communism and is considered one of the nation’s leading authorities on the victims and crimes of com...

About the Lecture: Francis Bacon once opined: "Augustus Caesar would say, that he wondered that Alexander feared he should want work, having no more worlds to conquer: as if it were not as hard a matter to keep as to conquer." Many societies have found that the process of converting military success into a consolidated conquest was harder than they expected. Oddly, historians have not spent that m...

About the Lecture: Whether in the military, government or private sector we all admire great leaders and leadership. But what’s the difference between good and great leadership? Based on observation of some of the greatest military leaders of our generation, it's “Teamwork, Tone, Tenacity,” a simple, memorable, actionable framework that can be applied anywhere to improve individual performance and...

About the Speaker: Predrag Bošković, MSc, Minister of Defence of Montenegro was born in Pljevlja (Montenegro) on March 12, 1972. He finished primary and secondary school in Podgorica. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics, the University of Montenegro, in 1996. He received his MA in Econometrics and Politics from the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade in 1999. He published numerous research pap...

About the Lecture: In a modern democracy, state and society occupy separate spheres, so that neither the state oppresses society, nor society dispenses with the state and descends into anarchy. The boundary zone between the two is provided by the rule of law. Among the many attributes of Abraham Lincoln as a democratic leader, his respect for the rule of law is the paramount characteristic of his...

The Reporter Who Spilled the Secret behind the U.S. Navy's Victory at Midway by The Institute of World Politics

About the Lecture: This lecture will discuss what moral relativism is and is not, touch briefly on how it became so predominant in the West, and consider its effects. Is there a way out? About the Speaker: Joseph R. Wood is a retired Air Force colonel. He served in the White House as a senior appointee from 2005 until 2008 as Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, with res...

About the Lecture: George Washington was inaugurated as the nation's first president on April 30, 1789, taking the helm of an executive branch with a mandate to execute, and more importantly, define, the nebulous powers of article two of the United States Constitution. What was true of the founding of America as a nation was especially true of the American presidency – George Washington was the “i...

Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley is an adjunct professor at IWP, where she teaches a course on Economics for Foreign Policy Makers. She is the Vice President of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, where she develops and commissions research toward a systematic biblical theology of economic freedom. She is a visiting professor at Georgetown University and has previously t...