Dear all,
Perhaps thankfully, 2016 is now finally beginning to draw to an end. There is still plenty to watch, however – not least last week’s spectacle of a Russian aircraft carrier battle group making its way out the English Channel to bombard Syria. You can read my take on that here in my latest column for Reuters.
A couple of really great events coming up next couple of weeks in New York and London. Many thanks to all those who supported us and helped us get PS21 this far.
Pete
NEW YORK
America in the World After the Election
Wednesday, October 26, seven p.m. Millennium Room, Thomson Reuters, Times Square
As we near the end of perhaps the most contentious presidential election in recent history and the end of a turbulent year for international security and diplomacy, PS21 pulls together a panel of international affairs experts and journalists to discuss the security challenges the next president will face on the world stage. What crises might loom on the horizon in 2017? How should the next president prioritize global security concerns and assess threats to US interests? How will the US find its footing again after the dislocations, reversals and upheavals of 2016?
Arlene Getz (moderator) – Editor In Charge, Reuters Digital
Charley Cooper – Managing Director, R3; Former Special Advisor to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Asha Castleberry – PS21 Global Fellow; Fellow Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Fordham University; Army Veteran
Mohamad Bazzi – Associate Professor of Journalism, New York University; Former Middle East Bureau Chief, Newsday
LONDON
Fifteen Years of the Afghan War
Wednesday, November 2, six p.m. Kings College London
A decade and a half after US-led forces first entered the country in the aftermath of 9/11, the Afghan war still simmers on. What are the lessons of the initial intervention, which ousted the Taliban from Kabul with little more than a handful of special forces and local fighters? How did it evolve into the troop-heavy NATO mission that followed, and what can we expect now most foreign troops have gone? PS21 and the Afghan Society at KCL pulls together an expert panel to discuss what for the West has been one of the defining conflicts of the century so far.
Emma Graham-Harrison – former Afghanistan Bureau chief, Guardian
Professor Theo Farrell – Dean of Arts and Social Sciences, City University. Researching and co-authoring a book on the history of the Taliban’s war in Afghanistan
Robert Johnson – Pembroke College Oxford, Director of the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme
Christopher Kolenda – Senior Military Fellow, Kings College London. Former Senior Advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Department of Defense senior leadership and has served four tours of duty in Afghanistan with the US military
Project for the Study of the 21st Century 