Westminster Institute talks

https://westminster-institute.org/events/one-kim-to-rule-them-all/ Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he researches and writes extensively on demographics and economic development generally, and more specifically on international security in the Korean peninsula and Asia. Domestically, he focuses on poverty and soci...

https://westminster-institute.org/events/russia-and-ukraine-whats-next/ 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 S...

https://westminster-institute.org/events/make-peace-not-war-with-russia/ Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is the Executive Director of Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a Congressional Advisory Board dedicated to achieving protection of the United States from electromagnetic pulse (EMP), cyber-attack, mass destruction terrorism and other threats to civilian critical infrastructures on an accelera...

Dr. Aykan Erdemir , senior director of FDD’s Turkey program, is a former member of the Turkish Parliament (2011 to 2015) who served in the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, EU Harmonization Committee, and the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on the IT Sector and the Internet. As an outspoken defender of pluralism, minority rights, and religious freedoms in the Middle East, Aykan has been at t...

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 reven...

https://westminster-institute.org/events/impact-of-the-american-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-on-central-asia/ S. Frederick Starr is the founding chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a joint transatlantic research and policy center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Institute (AFPC) in Washington (where Starr is Research Professor) and the Institute...

Hassan Mneimneh is Principal at Middle East Alternatives in Washington DC. He is a 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 I...

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-risks-of-investing-in-china/ Dennis Kwok was a founding member of the Civic Party in Hong Kong. Formed in 2006, Civic Party was one of the key political parties in Hong Kong that championed for the protection of the rule of law, greater democracy and human rights. In 2012, Kwok was elected as the member of the Legislative Council (LegCo) representing th...

SHOW LESS Mustafa Akyol is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where he focuses on the intersection of public policy, Islam, and modernity. Since 2013, he has also been a frequent opinion writer for the New York Times, covering politics and religion in the Muslim world. He is the author several books, most recently "Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance" (2021), and...

Kerry K. Gershaneck has been a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies, National Chengchi University, for the past three years.  He is an Adjunct Professor with University of Canberra’s Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis in Australia; a member of The Research Institute for Japan-U.S.-Taiwan Relations security think tank; and the Senior Fellow, Regional Sec...

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 Pacif...

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...

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 Co...

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 S...

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 Fo...

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...

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, r...

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...

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 L...

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....

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 a...

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). S...

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...

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...

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 resear...