Westminster Institute talks

https://westminster-institute.org/events/are-we-heading-towards-world-war-iii/

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-future-of-ukraine-a-debate/

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.

Dr. Bryen has 50 years of experience in government and industry. He has served as a senior staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the Executive Director of a grassroots political organization, as the head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, as the founder and first director of the Defense Technology Security Administration, as the President of Finmeccanica North.

In 1982, Herman Pirchner, Jr. became the founding President of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), a non-profit public policy organization headquartered in Washington, DC.

Under his leadership, AFPC has hosted Washington events for hundreds of foreign officials ranging from the Prime Minister of Malta to the Prime Minister of Russia; conducted hundreds of briefings for Members of Congress and their staffs and, organized dozens of fact-finding missions abroad for current and former senior American officials. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey, as well as the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dick Myers are among those who have participated in this program.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/has-wokeness-weakened-the-u-s-military/

Col. (Ret.) 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 Pacific and was the U.S. Marine attaché, US Embassy Tokyo on two occasions. Grant Newsham has more than 20 years of experience in Japan and elsewhere in Asia so he is well able to offer the Asian perspective on the strategic challenges China presents to Japan and Taiwan, and how the two of them may face that threat.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/warfare-in-peacetime-proxies-and-state-powers/

Warfare in Peacetime: Proxies and State Powers

Dr. Christopher Harmon is a professor at The Institute of World Politics.

He formerly held the Bren Chair of Great Power Competition at Marine Corps University (MCU) in Quantico. Dr. Harmon also directed the counterterrorism course at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. He directed academics in the counter-terrorism program of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. Earlier, he was Legislative Aide for Foreign Policy on a congressional staff.

He taught for years on the strategy and policy faculty at the Naval War College, and then served at length as a professor of international relations at the Marine Command and Staff College in Virginia. From 2005 to 2007 Dr. Harmon held an endowed chair for Insurgency and Terrorism Studies at Marine Corps University. He held another chair there from 2010 to 2014, researching low intensity conflicts in Asia and writing A Citizen’s Guide to Terrorism and Counterterrorism.

Dr. Harmon has edited or written eight books, including Toward A Grand Strategy Against Terrorism and The Terrorist Argument. Modern Advocacy and Propaganda. The latter book’s thesis was presented by him at a Westminster Institute lecture back in 2017. He also spoke at the Westminster Institute on How Terrorist Groups End. Dr. Harmon spoke on the subject of his latest book: Warfare in Peacetime: Proxies and State Powers, published by the Marine Corps University Press.

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, and human rights abuses. He has also made TV appearances on Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, 20/20, FOX and CNN news, as well as being a regular guest on talk radio shows across the nation.

He is also the author of the best-selling A Mother’s Ordeal: One Woman’s Fight Against China’s One-Child Policy. Other books include Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World, China Attacks, China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality, Journey to the Forbidden China, and Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese.

Articles by Steve have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, The New Republic, The Washington Post, National Review, Reason, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Freedom Review, Linacre Quarterly, Catholic World Report, Human Life Review, First Things, and numerous other publications.

Cleo Paskal is a non-resident senior fellow at FDD focusing on the Indo-Pacific region. Cleo works with academia, government, the defense community and others in order to better understand, explain, anticipate and resolve today’s complex challenges. She is particularly interested in the strategic implications of the intersection of geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geophysical change.

Cleo has briefed government departments of the United States, United Kingdom, the European Union, India and many others. She has lectured at, among many others, the US Army War College, Center for Homeland Defense & Security (Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey), Inter-American Defence Board (D.C.), the Royal College of Defence Studies (UK), the National Defence College (India), Centre for National Security Studies (Canadian Forces College), and the National Defence College (Oman). She participates in closed-door meetings with defense, intelligence, national security, and non-government experts who engage in strategic level, unclassified dialogue and research to better anticipate transnational threats.

Cleo is widely published and a regular media commentator. Her books include the award-winning Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map and the best-selling Spielball Erde. Recent academic book chapters and research papers include: “Is New Zealand Creating Global Disruptions” (The Law of the Jungle: How Can New Zealand Navigate Global Disruptions); “India: The Challenge of Reform” (CÉRIUM); “The Modi Phenomenon: Rebooting Indian Foreign Policy” (The Modi Doctrine: New Paradigms in India’s Foreign Policy); and “The ‘Three Geos’” (Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific). In addition, she has contributed chapters to academic books published by Elgar, Routledge and many others and was the Guest Curator/Editor of the influential East-West Center (D.C.) series Oceania in 2018.

In the popular media, Cleo has contributed to The Diplomat, The World Today, The Telegraph (UK), The Independent (UK), South China Morning Post, BBC radio, Australian Financial Review, New Zealand Herald, and Times of India, among many others. She is regularly interviewed by US and international media, including the John Batchelor Show. She is currently North America Special Correspondent for the Sunday Guardian (India).

https://westminster-institute.org/events/did-lockdowns-work-the-verdict-on-covid-restrictions/

Steve H. Hanke is a Senior Fellow, Contributing Editor of The Independent Review, and a Member of the Board of Advisors at the Independent Institute. Hanke is professor of applied economics and founder and co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, senior adviser at the Renmin University of China’s International Monetary Research Institute in Beijing, and a special counselor to the Center for Financial Stability in New York. Hanke is also a contributing editor at Central Banking in London and a contributor at National Review. In addition, Hanke is a member of the Charter Council of the Society for Economic Measurement.

In the past, Hanke taught economics at the Colorado School of Mines and at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as a member of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers in Maryland in 1976–77, as a senior economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1981–82, and as a senior adviser to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress in 1984–88. Hanke served as a state counselor to both the Republic of Lithuania in 1994–96 and the Republic of Montenegro in 1999–2003. He was also an adviser to the presidents of Bulgaria in 1997–2002, Venezuela in 1995–96, and Indonesia in 1998. He played an important role in establishing new currency regimes in Argentina, Estonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, Ecuador, Lithuania, and Montenegro. Hanke has also held senior appointments in the governments of many other countries, including Albania, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yugoslavia.

Hanke has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees by the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (2003), the Free University of Tbilisi (2010), Istanbul Kültür University (2012), the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2013), Varna Free University (2015), the Universität Liechtenstein (2017), and the D.A. Tsenov Academy of Economics (2018) in recognition of his scholarship on exchange‐rate regimes. He is a distinguished associate of the International Atlantic Economic Society, a distinguished professor at the Universitas Pelita Harapan in Jakarta, Indonesia, a professor asociado (the highest honor awarded to international experts of acknowledged competence) at the Universidad del Azuay in Cuenca, Ecuador, a profesor visitante at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (the UPC’s highest academic honor), and the Gottfried von Haberler Professor at the European Center of Austrian Economics Foundation in Liechtenstein. In 1998, he was named one of the 25 most influential people in the world by World Trade Magazine. In 2020, Hanke was named a Knight of the Order of the Flag by Albanian President Ilir Meta.

Hanke is a well‐known currency and commodity trader. Currently, he serves as chairman of the Supervisory Board of Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. in Amsterdam and chairman emeritus of the Friedberg Mercantile Group Inc. in Toronto. During the 1990s, he served as president of Toronto Trust Argentina in Buenos Aires, the world’s best‐performing emerging market mutual fund in 1995.

Hanke received his B.S. in Business Administration (1964) and his Ph.D. in Economics (1969), both from the University of Colorado Boulder.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/what-president-erdogans-election-victory-means-for-turkey-and-the-world/

Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at FDD and an expert on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy.

He is also an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at Marine Corps University (MCU). Prior to joining MCU, Sinan was the Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, based at Georgetown University (2011-2020). Between 2008-2011 he established the Turkish Studies program at the University of Florida’s Center for European Studies. He continues to serve as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Sinan was born in Turkey and educated in the United Kingdom. He was previously an instructor at Sabanci University between 2004-2008 and completed his Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the same institution between 2007-2008. Distinct from his articles and opinion editorials, his book titled Kemalism in Turkish Politics: The Republican People’s Party: Secularism and Nationalism (Routledge, January 2009) focuses on the electoral weakness of the Republican People’s Party.

He obtained his Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2007 in the field of Political Science. He continues to author scholarly articles, opinion pieces and book chapters on contemporary Turkish politics and foreign policy, as well as participate in media appearances.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/should-the-u-s-or-europe-make-nato-great-again/

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times.

Bandow speaks frequently at academic conferences, on college campuses, and to business groups. Bandow has been a regular commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. He holds a JD from Stanford University.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/are-japan-australia-the-united-states-and-others-prepared-militarily-to-meet-the-ccp-threat/

Col. (Ret.) 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 Pacific and was the U.S. Marine attaché, US Embassy Tokyo on two occasions. Grant Newsham has more than 20 years of experience in Japan and elsewhere in Asia so he is well able to offer the Asian perspective on the strategic challenges China presents to Japan and Taiwan, and how the two of them may face that threat.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/how-to-think-strategically-about-russia-and-china/

Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century; America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics, and War; and Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey through the Second World War. He is a contributor to Population Decline and the Remaking of Great Power Politics and The Conduct of American Foreign Policy Debated. He has also written introductions to four books on U.S. foreign policy.

His articles and book reviews on historical and foreign policy topics have appeared in Orbis, the University Bookman, Joint Force Quarterly, The Diplomat, American Diplomacy, the Asian Review of Books, Strategic Review, National Review, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Human Rights Review, the Claremont Review of Books, the Washington Times, the South China Morning Post, the International Social Science Review, Caixin Online, Real Clear History, and The American Spectator.

He is an Assistant United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a former contributing editor to American Diplomacy.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/understanding-chinese-engagement-in-latin-america/

Dr. R. Evan Ellis is a research professor of Latin American Studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western Hemisphere actors, as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region.

Dr. Ellis has published over 400 works, including the 2009 book China in Latin America: The Whats and Wherefores, the 2013 book The Strategic Dimension of Chinese Engagement with Latin America, the 2014 book China on the Ground in Latin America, and the 2018 book Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. He most recent book is China Engages Latin America: Distorting Development and Democracy?

Dr. Ellis previously served on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff (S/P) with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean (WHA), as well as International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) issues.

Dr. Ellis has also been awarded the Order of Military Merit José María Córdova by the Colombian government for his scholarship on security issues in the region.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-russia-ukraine-conflict-is-there-a-way-out/

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 Foreign Relations Committee, as the Executive Director of a grassroots political organization, as the head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, and as the founder and first director of the Defense Technology Security Administration. He is the author of Technology Security and National Power: Winners and Losers, and of three volumes of Essays in Technology, Security and Strategy. Dr. Bryen was twice awarded the Defense Department’s highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Service Medal.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/what-chinas-handling-of-the-crisis-tells-us-about-the-ccp/

Miles Yu is a senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute. He is also a professor of East Asia and military and naval history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Dr. Yu specializes in Chinese military and strategic culture, US and Chinese military and diplomatic history, and US policy toward China.

Dr. Yu joined the Trump administration and served as the China policy adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In that capacity, he advised the secretary on all China-related issues, helped overhaul US policy toward China, and participated in key US government interagency deliberations on major policy and government actions with regard to China and other East Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. He is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution as a member of the Military History/Contemporary Conflict Working Group. From 2011 to 2016, he wrote the weekly column “Inside China” for the Washington Times. Since 1996, he has been an editorial consultant to Radio Free Asia, and a contributor to various media outlets including the Wall Street Journal and PBS News Hour.

Dr. Yu has published widely on topics in his field. His books include OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War (Yale University Press, 1997) and The Dragon’s War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937–1947 (Naval Institute Press, 2006). He is the author of many scholarly articles on China, military and intelligence history, and newspaper columns about contemporary Chinese political and military affairs. His numerous awards include the US Naval Academy’s top researcher award, US Navy Special Action Awards, and US Navy Meritorious Service Award.

Dr. Yu received a doctorate in history from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree from Swarthmore College, and a bachelor’s degree from Nankai University.

The Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI (Fr. Joseph Fessio and Robert Royal, January 12, 2023)

Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. was a doctoral student under Benedict XVI when the future Pope was known as Joseph Ratzinger, a professor and priest at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Father Fessio taught philosophy and theology at Gonzaga University, the University of Santa Clara, and at the University of San Francisco. He also served as Chancellor at Ave Maria University. In 1978, he founded Ignatius Press, a major Catholic publisher that has brought out most of the English translations of the works of Cardinal Ratzinger and later Benedict XVI. He is also the publisher of the Catholic World Report.

Dr. Robert Royal is the founder and president of Faith & Reason Institute in Washington D.C. and editor-in-chief of “The Catholic Thing,” a publication he founded with Michael Novak in 2008. Dr. Royal holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America. The author of many books, his most recent ones include Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the 20th Century.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/was-americas-founding-fatally-flawed-by-the-provenance-of-its-ideas/

In early December, Westminster director Robert Reilly gave a talk to the Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. Troubled by the ample evidence of a moral decline in the United States, some Christian and other thinkers trace the problem to what they see as a fatal flaw in the American Founding: a reliance on the philosophical principles of the Enlightenment – to wit, the assertion of radical individual autonomy. Reilly, the author of America on Trial, disagrees. He argues that the genealogy of the ideas that made the founding conceivable is grounded in classical Greek philosophy, Jewish revelation, and Christianity. The founders’ principles come from pre-Enlightenment sources. They are compatible with—and indeed derived from—the tradition of respect for Reason and Revelation, Church and State, developed and refined by philosophers of the Middle Ages. After a period of state absolutism, the founders restored these principles. Reilly shows on what basis political scientist Ellis Sandoz could claim that “the whole of medieval Christian constitutional and political theory . . . lay squarely behind the American determination [to achieve independence].”

The Westminster Institute is grateful to the Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture for the use of this video.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/will-the-war-in-ukraine-be-a-turning-point-for-the-east-mediterranean/

Dr. Basem Shabb served in the Lebanese Parliament from 2005 to 2018. During his tenure, he served on several committees addressing important challenges such as defense, economic policy, and human rights. He was also a member of the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as well as the Congressional US-Lebanon Friendship Caucus. He was a parliamentary representative at the EU-Lebanese security committee on illicit firearms, small arms and light weapons, and served as Lebanon’s representative at the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law.

Additionally, Dr. Shabb was part of the Lebanese parliamentary delegation that visited Norway to gather more information about oil and gas exploration and legislation. He is a surgeon and a clinical associate professor of surgery at the Lebanese American University. He is a founding member of the Euro-Asian Bridge Society of Cardiac Surgeons and as well as that of the Lebanese Association for Biosafety, Biosecurity, and Bioethics.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/will-negotiations-end-the-war-in-ukraine/

Emma Ashford is a Senior Fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center. She works on a variety of issues related to the future of U.S foreign policy, international security, and the politics of global energy markets. She has expertise in the politics of Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. Ashford is also a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.

Her first book, Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates, was published by Georgetown University Press in 2022, and explored the international security ramifications of oil production and export in states such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela.

Prior to joining the Stimson Center, Ashford was a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s New American Engagement Initiative, which focused on challenging the prevailing assumptions governing US foreign policy. She was also a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, where she worked on a variety of issues including the US-Saudi relationship, sanctions policy, and US policy towards Russia, and US foreign policy and grand strategy more broadly.

Ashford writes a bi-weekly column, “It’s Debatable,” for Foreign Policy, and her long-form writing has been featured in publications such as Foreign Affairs, the Texas National Security Review, Strategic Studies Quarterly, the York Times, the Washington Post, the National Interest, and War on the Rocks, among others. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds a PhD in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-world-turned-upside-down/

Clyde Prestowitz is a leading analyst and commentator on foreign affairs, globalization, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Mexico, technology, and international economics. He has spent many years living and working abroad as a sales, marketing, and corporate planning manager for companies like Scott Paper and American Can Company in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Hong Kong.

He was a White House adviser in the Obama administration and served as Vice Chairman of President Clinton’s Commission on Trade and Investment in the Asia-Pacific region. He was also a director of the Export Import Bank of the United States under Clinton and served at the same time as the President of the Pacific Basin Economic Council. Earlier, during the Reagan Administration he served as Counselor to the Secretary of Commerce with a special focus on Japan with which he was the lead U.S. negotiator. He was a leader of the first U.S. Trade Mission to China in 1982 and helped to arrive at agreements that enabled U.S. companies to establish operations in China.

Clyde Prestowitz writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, The Washington Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect, The Spectator, and other leading journals and newspapers.

Aside from writing, he has served as a member of the Policy Advisory Board of Intel under Andy Grove, as an advisor to FedEx Chairman Fred Smith, as an advisor to former AIG Chairman Hang Greenberg, member of the Board of Lanxide Corporation, and advisor to Form Factor Inc.

His major books are: Trading Places: How We Are Giving Our Future to Japan (1988), Rogue Nation (2003), Five Billion New Capitalists: How Wealth and Power are Flowing to the East (2005), The Betrayal of American Prosperity (2010) and Japan Restored (2016). His new book is The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/is-the-united-states-in-terminal-decline-an-assessment/

Larry P. Arnn is the 12th president of Hillsdale College, where he is also a professor of politics and history. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. He also studied at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 to 2000, he served as president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. In 1996, he was the founding chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative, which prohibited racial preferences in state hiring, contracting, and admissions.

Dr. Arnn is on the board of directors of The Heritage Foundation, the Henry Salvatori Center of Claremont McKenna College, the Philadelphia Society, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Claremont Institute. He served on the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors for two years, for which he earned the Department of the Army’s “Outstanding Civilian Service Medal.” In 2015, he received the Bradley Prize from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Dr. Arnn is the author of three books: Liberty and Learning: The Evolution of American Education; The Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It; and Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/looking-for-inflation-in-all-the-wrong-places/

Steve H. Hanke is a professor of applied economics and founder and co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at the Johns Hopkins University.  Hanke is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., a senior fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, a senior adviser at the Renmin University of China’s International Monetary Research Institute in Beijing, and a special counselor to the Center for Financial Stability in New York. Hanke is also a contributing editor at Central Banking in London and a contributor at National Review. In addition, Hanke is a member of the charter council of the Society for Economic Measurement and of the Euromoney Country Risk’s experts panel.  In the past, Hanke taught economics at the Colorado School of Mines and at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as a member of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers in Maryland from 1976 to 1977, as a senior economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1981 to 1982, and as a senior adviser to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress from 1984 to 1988. Hanke served as a state counselor to both the Republic of Lithuania from 1994 to 1996 and the Republic of Montenegro from 1999 to 2003. He was also an adviser to the presidents of Bulgaria from 1997 to 2002, Venezuela from 1995 to 1996, and Indonesia in 1998. He played an important role in establishing new currency regimes in Argentina, Estonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, Ecuador, Lithuania, and Montenegro. Hanke has also held senior appointments in the governments of many other countries, including Albania, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yugoslavia.  Hanke is a well‐known currency and commodity trader. Currently, he serves as chairman of the supervisory board of Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. in Amsterdam and chairman emeritus of the Friedberg Mercantile Group Inc. in Toronto. During the 1990s, he served as president of Toronto Trust Argentina in Buenos Aires, the world’s best‐performing emerging market mutual fund in 1995.  Hanke’s most recent books are Currency Boards: Volume 1. Theory and Policy (2020), Currency Boards: Volume 2. Studies on Selected European Countries (2020), Currency Boards for Developing Countries: A Handbook (2021), Public Debt Sustainability: International Perspectives (2022), and The Hong Kong Linked Rate Mechanism: Monetary Lessons for Economic Development (2022).

https://westminster-institute.org/events/europes-energy-crisis/

Peter Hoekstra was U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration, and he served eighteen years in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the 2nd District in Michigan. He served as Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors and a Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

During his tenure as Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, The Hague hosted the Department of State Global Entrepreneurial Summit in June of 2019, which was attended by over 2000 entrepreneurs, investors, and other business leaders. The Dutch Parliament created the American Friendship Group at his urging. He continues to aggressively and effectively promote United States foreign policy goals and objectives.

Pete served in the United States Congress for 18 years, representing Michigan’s 2nd Congressional District from 1993 to 2011. He served as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 2004 until January 2007. He was a member of the Gang of Eight from 2004 until 2011 receiving the most highly classified information available in the U.S. government.

Prior to his service in the U.S. Congress, Pete had a successful career at Herman Miller, Inc. of Zeeland, Michigan—a company frequently cited as one of the most admired in America and one of the best places to work. Over his 15 year career at Herman Miller, Pete worked in a variety of positions rising through the ranks to become the Vice President of Marketing.

In 2008, Pete was appointed as an Officer in the Order of the Orange-Nassau, a royal honor from the Dutch government. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) awarded Pete with its “Agency Seal Medal” and the Director of National Intelligence awarded him with the “National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal”.

Pete earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hope College and a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-legacy-of-gorbachev/

David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent, is a long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He was 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).

https://westminster-institute.org/events/what-is-the-state-of-america/

Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice-President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). He was previously President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN), which provides news and information in Arabic to the Middle East and North Africa. He is a member of the board of directors at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security (CCHS) at George Washington University. He is also a non-resident Fellow in Middle East Politics and Media at the TRENDS research and advisory center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy.  He worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency and is a graduate of Georgetown University.  In 1994, he joined IRD to found its United Methodist project (UMAction) and became IRD President in 2009. He is the author of Taking Back The United Methodist Church (2008), Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century: From William McKinley to 9/11 (2012), and The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War (2015).

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-evolution-of-chinas-grand-strategy-as-it-applies-to-today/

Andrew Latham is a professor of International Relations specializing in the politics of international conflict and security. He teaches courses on international security, Chinese foreign policy, war and peace in the Middle East, Regional Security in the Indo-Pacific Region, and the World Wars. He was formerly the Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament Fellow at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and a lecturer at the Canadian Armed Forces School of Aerospace Studies. Professor Latham regularly writes — and speaks to the media and community groups — about war, disarmament, and strategic affairs, with a special focus on issues related to arms control and weapons of mass destruction (North Korea), great power rivalries (U.S. vs. China; U.S. vs. Russia), conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the transformation of war (cybersecurity, space, hybrid war), and U.S. defense policy.

Read the transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-legacy-of-shinzo-abe-and-the-future-of-the-indo-pacific/

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 Pacific and was the U.S. Marine attaché, US Embassy Tokyo on two occasions. Grant Newsham has more than 20 years of experience in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/blasphemy-murders-in-nigeria/

Douglas Burton is a veteran reporter and news content producer based in Greenbelt, Maryland. In recent years he has put his energies into reporting terrorism in Nigeria, where he mentors a team of grassroots conflict reporters. Burton and some of his team were featured in a Fox Nation documentary on Nigeria produced by war correspondent Lara Logan in 2021. Burton put in decades as an assignment editor with the Washington Times corporation before heading to Iraq to help the occupation effort from 2005 dot 2007 and later reported the campaign to remove Islamic State from its base in Mosul, Iraq. Burton switched to Nigerian terrorism in 2019.

Masara Kim, 35, is a widely watched conflict reporter in Jos, the capital of Plateau State, from which he has contributed as a reporter to Fox Nation, The Epoch Times and other news media.  Kim overcame a lost limb in his childhood and manages his print and photography output with only one arm. He recently published a groundbreaking investigation of mass rape as a tool of governance by terrorists in so-called ungoverned spaces of Nigeria’s Northwestern States.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-economic-consequences-of-the-russia-ukraine-war/

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.  His analyses of global events have become highly regarded. Former C.I.A. National Intelligence Council Vice Chairman Herbert E. Meyer said, “Ask anyone in the intelligence business to name the world’s most brilliant intelligence service, and we will all give the same answer: Spengler. David P. Goldman’s ‘Spengler’ columns provide more insight than the CIA, MI6, and the Mossad combined.” Goldman concealed his identity under the “Spengler” pseudonym until 2009, when he revealed his identity in the Asia Times article, “And Spengler is…” and the First Things article “Confessions of a Coward”.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-war-in-ukraine-how-will-it-end/

Andrew Latham is a professor of International Relations specializing in the politics of international conflict and security. He teaches courses on international security, Chinese foreign policy, war and peace in the Middle East, Regional Security in the Indo-Pacific Region, and the World Wars.  He was formerly the Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament Fellow at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and a lecturer at the Canadian Armed Forces School of Aerospace Studies. Professor Latham regularly writes — and speaks to the media and community groups — about war, disarmament, and strategic affairs, with a special focus on issues related to arms control and weapons of mass destruction (North Korea), great power rivalries (U.S. vs. China; U.S. vs. Russia), conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the transformation of war (cybersecurity, space, hybrid war), and U.S. defense policy.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-war-in-ukraine-how-will-it-end/

Andrew Latham is a professor of International Relations specializing in the politics of international conflict and security. He teaches courses on international security, Chinese foreign policy, war and peace in the Middle East, Regional Security in the Indo-Pacific Region, and the World Wars. He was formerly the Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament Fellow at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and a lecturer at the Canadian Armed Forces School of Aerospace Studies. Professor Latham regularly writes — and speaks to the media and community groups — about war, disarmament, and strategic affairs, with a special focus on issues related to arms control and weapons of mass destruction (North Korea), great power rivalries (U.S. vs. China; U.S. vs. Russia), conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the transformation of war (cybersecurity, space, hybrid war), and U.S. defense policy.

He previously spoke at Westminster on the subject of: “Russia and Ukraine: What’s Next?“

A Center for Security Policy specially organized Panel of Experts, all of whom have extensive experience in the Pacific and with the US Pacific command, believe the US can deter China from attacking Taiwan. The Panel’s work resulted in 34 Findings and Recommendations in the study Stopping a Taiwan Invasion. The proposals, if adopted, will discourage any attack from China and strengthen peace and security in the Pacific.

The Panel undertook the task of reviewing Pacific security in light of the constant threats to Taiwan coming from Beijing, the massing of air and naval power around the island, and “think tank” reports, now debunked by the Panel, that the US was weak and unable to maintain the balance of power around Taiwan, Japan, Korea and elsewhere in the Pacific.

The Findings and Recommendation are supported by a paper reviewing the disposition of US, allied and friendly forces in the region including US Air Force, US Navy, US Marines and US Army components.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/isis-from-near-state-to-persistent-problem/

David Des Roches is an associate professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies. Prior to this, he was the director responsible for defense 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 the DoD Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, as the senior country director for Pakistan, as the NATO operations director, and as the deputy director for peacekeeping. His first job in government was as a special assistant for strategy and later as the international law enforcement analyst in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-chinese-russian-relationship-its-complicated/

Dean Cheng is a Senior Research Fellow on Chinese political and security affairs at the Heritage Foundation, where he specializes in China’s military and foreign policy, in particular its relationship with the rest of Asia and with the United States. He is fluent in Chinese. Prior to joining Heritage, he was a senior analyst with the China Studies division of the Center for Naval Analyses, where he specialized on Chinese military issues and authored studies on Chinese military doctrine, Chinese mobilization concepts, and Chinese space capabilities. Before joining CNA, he was a senior analyst at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). He also served as an analyst with the U.S. Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment in the International Security and Space Division, where he studied the Chinese defense industrial complex. Dean is the author of Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and Cyber Operations. He studied at Princeton University and at MIT.

https://westminster-institute.org/events/western-survival-depends-on-the-sacred/

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.

His analyses of global events have become highly regarded. Former C.I.A. National Intelligence Council Vice Chairman Herbert E. Meyer said, “Ask anyone in the intelligence business to name the world’s most brilliant intelligence service, and we will all give the same answer: Spengler. David P. Goldman’s ‘Spengler’ columns provide more insight than the CIA, MI6, and the Mossad combined.” Goldman concealed his identity under the “Spengler” pseudonym until 2009, when he revealed his identity in the Asia Times article, “And Spengler is…” and the First Things article “Confessions of a Coward”.

Goldman regularly appears as a guest on CNBC’s Larry Kudlow Program, where he has been an outspoken critic of Federal Reserve efforts to resuscitate the American economy. He is the author of How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam is Dying Too) and It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You: The Great Extinction of the Nations.

He previously spoke at Westminster on the subject of: "Will China overtake the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower?"

https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-historical-context-of-the-ukrainian-conflict/

Joseph Adamo Mussomeli was Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia from November 2010 until January 2015 and the Ambassador to the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia from June 2005 to August 2008. He was the Assistant Chief of Mission in Kabul from May 2009 to May 2010. Prior to that assignment, Mr. Mussomeli served as the Director of Entry Level Career Development and Assignments. He received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award in 2009 and the Raphel Award in 2010 for developing, mentoring, and supporting his staff. Since his retirement in April 2015 he has given lectures on a variety of topics including leadership, foreign policy, and interagency cooperation at FSI, DOD, and various universities.

Mr. Mussomeli was born in New York City on May 26, 1952. He graduated from Camden Catholic High School in 1970. He then went to Rutgers University for two years before dropping out and becoming an upholsterer, and then spending several months hitch-hiking through Europe. Upon returning to the United States, he attended Trenton State College and graduated summa cum laude in 1975, earning a BA in Political Science. In 1978, he earned a Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers Law School. Following law school Mr. Mussomeli served as a law clerk to the Appellate Court of New Jersey from 1978-1979, and then worked as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Mussomeli entered the Foreign Service in September 1980 and began his career serving in Cairo, Egypt, as a General Service Officer. Following Cairo, Mr. Mussomeli served in the Department as staff assistant to the Undersecretary for Security Assistance. He then served in Manila, Philippines as a consular officer from 1984-1986. His subsequent tours included: North Korea Desk Officer (1986-1988), Senior Watch Officer (1989-1990), Economic Counselor in Colombo, Sri Lanka (1990-1992), Office of Inspector General (1992-1994), Political Counselor in Rabat, Morocco (1995-1998), Deputy Chief of Mission in Manama, Bahrain (1998-2001), and as a member of the Senior Seminar (2001-2002). He served as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Philippines (2002-2005).

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 social well-being. Dr. Eberstadt is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR).

His many books and monographs include “Poverty in China” (IDI, 1979); “The Tyranny of Numbers” (AEI Press, 1995); “The End of North Korea” (AEI Press, 1999); “The Poverty of the Poverty Rate” (AEI Press, 2008); and “Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis” (NBR, 2010). His latest book is “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis” (Templeton Press, 2016).

He has offered invited testimony before Congress on numerous occasions and has served as consultant or adviser for a variety of units within the US government. His appearances on radio and television range from NPR to CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

Mr. Eberstadt has a PhD in political economy and government, an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government, and an AB from Harvard University. In addition, he holds a master of science from the London School of Economics.

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 Security Policy. He has served as a senior staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the Executive Director of a grassroots political organization, as the head of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Trade Security Policy, and as the founder and first director of the Defense Technology Security Administration. He is the author of Technology Security and National Power: Winners and Losers, and of three volumes of Essays in Technology, Security and Strategy. Dr. Bryen was twice awarded the Defense Department’s highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Service Medal.

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 accelerated basis.  Dr. Pry is also the Director of the United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, a Congressional Advisory Board dedicated to developing policies to counter Weapons of Mass Destruction.  In 2015, Dr. Pry testified in Denver on Colorado’s first attempt to pass EMP/GMD legislation.  Dr. Pry also continues to serve on the Congressional EMP Commission, like his fellow commissioners, despite the current lack of Congressional funding.

Dr. Pry often appears on TV and radio as an expert on national security issues.  The BBC made his book War Scare into a two-hour TV documentary titled Soviet War Scare 1983.  His book Electric Armageddon was the basis for another TV documentary by National Geographic titled Electronic Armageddon.  He also holds a certification in nuclear weapons design.

Dr. Pry has served as contributing editor on several articles for Family Security Matters and has written numerous articles regarding current events and their impact on America.

Dr. Pry served on the staffs of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (2008-2009); the Commission on the New Strategic Posture of the United States (2006-2008); and the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack (2001-2008).  He served as Professional Staff on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) of the U.S. Congress, with portfolios in nuclear strategy, WMD, Russia, China, NATO, the Middle East, Intelligence, and Terrorism (1995-2001).

While serving on the HASC, Dr. Pry was chief advisor to the Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the Vice Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and to the Chairman of the Terrorism Panel.  Dr. Pry played a key role in running hearings in Congress that warned terrorists and rogue states could pose an EMP threat; establishing the Congressional EMP Commission; helping the Commission develop plans to protect the United States from EMP; and working closely with senior scientists who first discovered the nuclear EMP phenomenon.

Dr. Pry was an Intelligence Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency responsible for analyzing Soviet and Russian nuclear strategy, operational plans, military doctrine, threat perceptions, and developing U.S. paradigms for strategic warning (1985-1995).  He also served as a Verification Analyst at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency responsible for assessing Soviet compliance with strategic and military arms control treaties (1984-1985).

He previously addressed the Westminster Institute on the subjects of Hagia Sophia: The Latest Target of Erdogan’s Supremacist Policies (2020) and How Erdogan Consolidates Power: The Weaponization of Turkish Media and the Scapegoating of Minorities (2018).

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 for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. Dr. Starr is Distinguished Fellow for Eurasia at AFPC.

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 the Hong Kong legal profession. The legislature in Hong Kong is divided into geographical seats and functional seats. Each member of the legal profession has one vote and is entitled to elect their representative in LegCo.

Johnny Patterson is the co-founder and Policy Director of Hong Kong Watch. Johnny was the founding Director of the organisation between 2017 and 2020, and is now responsible for overseeing our research and policy work. He has authored a number of Hong Kong Watch’s in-depth reports, including our research on why Hong Kong matters to China as an international financial hub and our report on the abuse of the Public Order Ordinance. He is a regular commentator on Hong Kong in international media.

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 Security & Geopolitical Trends, Global Risk Mitigation Foundation in Honolulu, Hawaii.  He was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy and the Royal Thai Naval Academy as well as a Senior Research Associate at the Thammasat University Faculty of Law (CPG) in Thailand for a total of eight years.
Read the transcript and get the books:
Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China’s Plan to "Win Without Fighting" https://amzn.to/31muvth
Media Warfare: Taiwan's Battle for the Cognitive Domain https://amzn.to/31y38N7

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 Commission on International Religious Freedom has warned of a potential “Christian genocide.”  Joining me today to discuss this troubling situation are two guests. Robert Destro is Professor of Law and founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion at the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. He has recently served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy Human Rights and Labor. Professor Destro also served as a Commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is the co-author of the book Religious Liberty in a Pluralistic Society.  Joining us from Nigeria, Mark Jacob is a barrister in Abuja. He is the former Attorney General of Kaduna State and former national legal adviser of the then-ruling People Democratic Party from 2007 to 2009 afterwards he was director of legal services federal airports authority. He is currently engaged in private legal practice and advocacy for the rights of minority indigenous people.