Saturday, June 11, 2016

This week we kicked off our weekly seminar exclusively for FPRI summer interns. Here's the lineup for the summer:

• June 10 - Barak Mendelsohn on Jihadism
• June 17 - Tally Helfont on Careers in Foreign Policy
• June 24 - Ron Granieri on What is Geopolitics? 
• July 1 - Mike Noonan: Assessing Threats to U.S. National Security
• July 8 - Lawrence Husick:  Cyber Security: A Layman's Guide  
• July 15 - Jacques deLisle: China: How Great a Threat?
• July 22 - Maia Otarashvili: Russia and the West  
• July 29 - Sam Helfont:  Religion and Politics in Iraq 

New Publications

Lithuania Reinstates Conscription: Implications on Security, National Identity, and Gender Roles
Agne Cepinskyte, Ph.D. candidate, King’s College London
Baltic Bulletin, June 2016

"Conscription plays a role in strengthening defense capabilities, but its symbolic value—demonstrating Lithuanian patriotism, self-confidence and courage—is equally important."

Turkey’s Parliamentary System has a Presidential Stage-Manager
Tamar Friedman, Junior Robert A. Fox Fellow, FPRI
Geopoliticus: The FPRI Blog, June 7, 2016

A Backlash Against Chinese Military Activity in Djibouti — and Why It Matters
Joseph Braude, Senior Fellow, FPRI
Tyler Jiang, Intern, FPRI
Geopoliticus: The FPRI Blog, June 6, 2016

"But in this first Chinese experiment at military deployment on the continent, the possibility of a political backlash will especially concern Beijing. It should also interest Washington."

Modi has Consolidated India’s Relationships in West Asia
Sumit Ganguly, Senior Fellow, FPRI
India Abroad, June 2016

"...the government has been able to pursue a far more expansive agenda and has had its share of successes. That said, it has also displayed a surprising degree of naivete on a host of fronts, has stumbled in its efforts on others and remains to follow up on some promising initiatives."

FPRI Scholars in the News

FPRI’s Sumit Ganguly Interviewed on PBS NewsHour about PM Modi’s Visit

Unlike a host of other Indian prime ministers who had cut their political teeth during the Cold War, and thereby harbored all manner of misgivings about the United States, Modi does not carry the same sort of political baggage.”

Taipei Times Covers FPRI and Brookings Conference on the Taiwan Elections

President Tsai Ing-wen has a “cool charisma,” but the policy demands on her new administration are 'daunting.'"

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Paul Weston vs. FPRI's Ronald Granieri on the Brexit

Compound Media and The Gavin McInnes Show present The Greatest Fight In History, "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" featuring Paul Weston vs. Ronald Granieri.

FPRI Bookshelf

Welcome to the FPRI Bookshelf! In this section of our weekly insights, we highlight recent and upcoming books by our scholars.
 

Middle Kingdom and Empire of the Rising Sun
June Teufel Dreyer, Senior Fellow, FPRI

Japan and China have been rivals for more than a millennium. In more recent times, China was the more powerful until the late nineteenth century, while Japan took the upper hand in the twentieth. Now, China's resurgence has emboldened it even as Japan perceives itself falling behind, exacerbating long-standing historical frictions.

The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep
David Satter, Senior Fellow, FPRI
Yale University Press, May 24, 2016

Deadly Impasse: Indo-Pakistani Relations at the Dawn of a New Century
Sumit Ganguly, Senior Fellow, FPRI
Cambridge University Press, March 29, 2016

Events in the Week Ahead

Geopolitics with Granieri

The Future of Taiwan
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Jacques deLisle, Director, FPRI Asia Program

On May 20, Taiwan inaugurated a new president, Tsai Ing-wen, who has been described as the most powerful woman in the Chinese-speaking world. It was a historic election not just because Taiwan elected its first female president but because the opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party, won both the presidency and a majority in the Legislative Yuan.   What does the new administration intend for Taiwan's future and for the future of cross-strait relations, how will China respond, and what role is there for the US to play to promote regional security? DeLisle will discuss this in detail, in light of his attendance at the recent inauguration.

Audio/Video of Past Events

Stanley and Arlene Ginsburg Lecture Series

The Two-State Solution: Dream or Delusion?
Shai Feldman, Director, Judy and Sidney Swartz Director, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University

Shai Feldman analyzes the prospect of a two-state solution in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict by exploring four crucial dimensions: international, regional, domestic, and the role of individual leaders.

BookTalks

Middle Kingdom and Empire of the Rising Sun
June Teufel Dreyer, Senior Fellow, FPRI

Japan and China have been rivals and intermittent antagonists for more than a millennium.  In this talk on her new book (Oxford University Press, June 2016), Dreyer provided a historical overview of one of the world's great civilizational rivalries and illuminate key issues affecting the geopolitics of the region today: economic rivalry, disparate memories of World War II, resurgent nationalism, military factors, Taiwan, and globalization.

FPRI in DC

Taiwan’s 2016 election and prospects for the Tsai administration
Conference

The Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings and the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) co-hosted a conference on the future of Taiwan under the Tsai administration. In the fall, Orbis: FPRI’s Journal of World Affairs, will publish a special Taiwan issue with the conference papers plus other specially commissioned essays.

Founded in 1955, the Foreign Policy Research Institute is dedicated to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the foreign policy and national security challenges facing the United States. It seeks to educate the public, teach teachers, train students, and offer ideas to advance U.S. national interests based on a nonpartisan, geopolitical perspective that illuminates contemporary international affairs through the lens of history, geography, and culture.

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