2011 National Security Seminars
December 13, noon - 1:30 p.m. — Under Secretary of the Navy Robert O. Work will brief on the Air Sea Battle concept
Confirmed in May, 2009, Robert O. Work serves as the deputy and principal assistant to the Secretary of Navy and acts with full authority of the secretary in the day-to-day management of the Department of the Navy.
Before entering the administration, Secretary Work was vice president for strategic affairs at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) where he focused on defense strategy and programs, revolutions in war, Department of Defense transformation and maritime affairs. In addition, he studied and prepared several reports of future defense challenges and was an adjunct professor at the George Washington University.
Robert O. Work was a distinguished graduate of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Course at the University of Illinois and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1974. During his 27-year career in the Marine Corps, he held a wide range of command, leadership and management positions. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Illinois, an M.S. in Systems Management form USC, an M.S. in Space Systems Operations from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a master's degree in International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
November 22, noon-12:30 p.m. – Eliot Cohen, Ph.D. will discuss his book Conquered Into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Warpath That Made the American Way of War.
Dr. Eliot Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he directs both the SAIS Strategic Studies Program and the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. From 2007-2009 he was Counselor of the Department of State, serving as Secretary Condoleeza Rice's senior advisor on strategic issues including those relating to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Russia. He is also the author of Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime (2002). Dr. Cohen has served as an officer in the United States Army Reserve, and as a member of the Defense Policy Board as well as other government advisory bodies. He holds a B.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard.
November 3, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. – CNA Senior Fellow, Dov S. Zakheim, Ph.D. will discuss "Funding Government Oversight and Management in Contingencies." Dr. Zakheim will draw on his experience a member of the independent, bipartisan legislative Commission on Wartime Contracting established to study wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The Commission. presented its final report to Congress in September 2011. )
Dr. Zakheim was Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and CFO for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 serving as principal advisor on financial and budgetary matters. From 2002 to 2004 he was DOD's coordinator of civilian programs in Afghanistan. From 2004 to 2010, he was Senior Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton where he was a leader of the firm's defense practice. Dov Zakheim holds doctorates in economics and politics from St Antony's College, Oxford.
October 13, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. -- CNA Vice President and Director of CNA China Studies, David Finkelstein Ph.D. will discuss "The Role of the People's Liberation Army in PRC National Security Policy Making."
A retired U.S. Army officer, Dr. Finkelstein is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, and the Army War College. He held command and staff positions at the platoon, company, battalion, and major Army command levels. He also held significant China-related positions at the Pentagon as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, in addition to serving on the faculty at West Point, where he taught Chinese history. He received his Ph.D. in Chinese history from Princeton University and studied Mandarin at Nankai University in Tianjin, China.
September 12, 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. – Dr. Richard Danzig will address "Talking with Terrorists about WMD: Lessons from Interviews with Leaders of the Aum Shinrikyo Cult." Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, USN (Ret), President of CNA's Institute for Public Research, will guest chair.
Dr. Danzig, who served as the 71st Secretary of the Navy from November 1998 to January 2001, and as Under Secretary of the Navy from 1993 to 1997, is a consultant to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security on terrorism. He is a member of the Defense Policy Board and the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and serves as a Senior Advisor at CNA and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also the Chairman of the Center for a New American Security's Board of Directors. Dr. Danzig a BA from Reed College, a JD from Yale Law School and Bachelor of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
July 19, 6:30 p.m. – Jeffery Bader, Ph.D. former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council, will discuss the Obama Administration and East Asia.
Jeffery Bader, Ph.D. formerly Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council was the founding director of the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, bringing to that role his expertise in U.S. foreign policy and Asian security gained from 30 years experience at the Department of State, with the National Security Council, and in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Bader joined the State Department in 1975 and spent most of his diplomatic career focused on China. He served in Taipei, Beijing, and Hong Kong and spent several tours in State's East Asia Bureau.
In 1996, he was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and, the following year, joined the National Security Council staff for the first time as Director for Asian Affairs with responsibility for U.S. relations with the PRC and Taiwan. From 1999-2001, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Namibia. Dr. Bader returned to Washington in 2001 serving as assistant U.S. Trade Representative responsible for the PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mongolia. Jeffrey Bader is a graduate of Yale College and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in European History from Columbia University.
June 14, noon – 1:30 p.m. – Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen. Stephen Seche, will offer his personal views on "fixing" Yemen following the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Stephen Seche, who served as Ambassador to Yemen from September 2007 to August 2010 knows many of the Yemenis vying for leadership positions in the new regime, his views of “the ideal,” i.e. what should be done to prevent Yemen from becoming a failed state like Somalia, and “the real,” i.e. : pragmatically, what can be done to achieve those ends. From 2004 to 2007, Seche served as Deputy Chief of Mission and then Charge d'Affaires at the US Embassy in Syria; his second tour in Damascus. From 2002 to 2004 he was the Director of the Office for Egypt and Levant Affairs at the Department of State. Seche is currently detailed from the State Department to the Georgetown U. Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
May 25, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. – Chas W. Freeman Jr., who served as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and later was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, will discuss the strategic implications of the Arab revolutions.
Freeman was President of the Middle East Policy Council for more than a decade and is author of America’s Misadventures in the Middle East as well as The Diplomat’s Dictionary (Revised Edition) and of Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. He is the Chairman of Projects International, a DC-based development firm specializing in international joint ventures, acquisitions, and other business operations for American and foreign clients; a member of the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a member of the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council of the United States and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Security Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Freeman is fluent in Chinese, French, Spanish, and conversational Arabic and served as the principal interpreter during President Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972.
May 10, noon - 1:30 p.m. — Richard Kauzlarich, who recently stepped down as the DNI's National Intelligence Officer for Europe, will discuss current stresses within the EU and NATO as these organizations deal with events resulting from the democratic revolts across the Arab world: the Allied military campaign in Libya, a major influx of economic refugees from North Africa, disruption of energy supplies etc.
Ambassador Kauzlarich served as National Intelligence Officer for Europe from September 2003 to April 2011. From 2002 to 2003, he was Director of the Special Initiative on the Muslim World at the U.S. Institute of Peace. During a his 30-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Azerbaijan. Earlier he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European Affairs and then Senior Deputy to the President's Special Representative to the Newly Independent States. Ambassador Kauzlarich holds a BA from Valparaiso University and MA degrees from the universities of Indiana and Michigan. He is a visiting fellow at the Joint Forces Staff College.
April 21, noon - 1:30 p.m. — Journalist, scholar and Middle East analyst David Ottaway, Ph.D. will discuss recent events in Saudi Arabia. Ottaway first visited Saudi Arabia in 1973 when he was based in Addis Ababa for the Washington Post and he has returned there regularly as he assumed the positions of the Post's National Security Correspondent and Investigative/Special Projects Reporter. He was a Woodrow Wilson Center Senior Scholar from December 2006 to December 2011, and is the author of King's Messenger: Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and America's Tangled Relationship with Saudi Arabia as well as articles on the US-Saudi relationship published in Foreign Affairs and the Wilson Quarterly. Ottaway holds a BA from Harvard University and a Ph.D in political science from Columbia University.
March 22, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. — Pakistani political/military analyst and author Ahmed Rashid will give his perspective on the current situation in Afghanistan and in Pakistan where he resides. Rashid is the author of the best-selling books Taliban, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia and Descent into Chaos: U.S. Policy and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. He is a frequent commentator in the international media and his views are sought by thought leaders around the globe. Rashid was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 1948, and was educated at Malvern College in England, Government College University, Lahore and at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University.
March 10, noon – 1:30 p.m.— Vice Admiral John M. Bird, Director Navy Staff will discuss "Command and Control of Maritime Forces" drawing on his experience as Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet from July 2008 to September 2010. A career submarine officer, Vice Admiral Bird has served on both fast attack and ballistic missile submarines in the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets. Following a two-year assignment as commander, Submarine Group, commander Task Force 74 and commander Task Force 54 in Yokosuka, Japan, he assumed duties as the deputy commander and chief of staff, U.S Pacific Fleet before becoming commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet in 2008. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he also holds a Master of Science degree in engineering management from Catholic University.
February 8, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. — Robert O. Work, Under Secretary of the Navy. Work serves as the deputy and principal assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and acts with full authority of the Secretary in the day-to-day management of the Department of the Navy. A distinguished graduate of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Course at the University of Illinois, Work was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1974. During his 27-year military career, he held a wide range of command, leadership and management positions. Following his retirement from the Marine Corps, he joined the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, first as the senior fellow for maritime affairs, and later as the vice president for strategic studies. In addition to his degree from the University of Illinois, Under Secretary Work holds a Master of Science in Systems Management from USC, a Master of Science in Space Systems Operations from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Master in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins SAIS.
January 11, noon-1:30 p.m. — Cameron R. Hume, former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia 2007-2010, will discuss: "Indonesia: A Strategic Partner for the U.S. in 21st Century Asia?" During his career in the foreign service, Hume has served the U.S. State Department in Italy, Syria, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Holy See and at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and, prior to his assignment in Jakarta, served as U.S. Chief of Mission three times – as Ambassador to Algeria, South Africa, and as Charge d' Affaires in Sudan. He has published three books and numerous articles on foreign policy and been a resident scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University. Currently, he is an independent consultant working on land-use policy issues.
Confirmed in May, 2009, Robert O. Work serves as the deputy and principal assistant to the Secretary of Navy and acts with full authority of the secretary in the day-to-day management of the Department of the Navy.
Before entering the administration, Secretary Work was vice president for strategic affairs at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) where he focused on defense strategy and programs, revolutions in war, Department of Defense transformation and maritime affairs. In addition, he studied and prepared several reports of future defense challenges and was an adjunct professor at the George Washington University.
Robert O. Work was a distinguished graduate of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Course at the University of Illinois and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1974. During his 27-year career in the Marine Corps, he held a wide range of command, leadership and management positions. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Illinois, an M.S. in Systems Management form USC, an M.S. in Space Systems Operations from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a master's degree in International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
November 22, noon-12:30 p.m. – Eliot Cohen, Ph.D. will discuss his book Conquered Into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Warpath That Made the American Way of War.
Dr. Eliot Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he directs both the SAIS Strategic Studies Program and the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. From 2007-2009 he was Counselor of the Department of State, serving as Secretary Condoleeza Rice's senior advisor on strategic issues including those relating to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Russia. He is also the author of Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime (2002). Dr. Cohen has served as an officer in the United States Army Reserve, and as a member of the Defense Policy Board as well as other government advisory bodies. He holds a B.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard.
November 3, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. – CNA Senior Fellow, Dov S. Zakheim, Ph.D. will discuss "Funding Government Oversight and Management in Contingencies." Dr. Zakheim will draw on his experience a member of the independent, bipartisan legislative Commission on Wartime Contracting established to study wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The Commission. presented its final report to Congress in September 2011. )
Dr. Zakheim was Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and CFO for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 serving as principal advisor on financial and budgetary matters. From 2002 to 2004 he was DOD's coordinator of civilian programs in Afghanistan. From 2004 to 2010, he was Senior Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton where he was a leader of the firm's defense practice. Dov Zakheim holds doctorates in economics and politics from St Antony's College, Oxford.
October 13, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. -- CNA Vice President and Director of CNA China Studies, David Finkelstein Ph.D. will discuss "The Role of the People's Liberation Army in PRC National Security Policy Making."
A retired U.S. Army officer, Dr. Finkelstein is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, and the Army War College. He held command and staff positions at the platoon, company, battalion, and major Army command levels. He also held significant China-related positions at the Pentagon as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, in addition to serving on the faculty at West Point, where he taught Chinese history. He received his Ph.D. in Chinese history from Princeton University and studied Mandarin at Nankai University in Tianjin, China.
September 12, 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. – Dr. Richard Danzig will address "Talking with Terrorists about WMD: Lessons from Interviews with Leaders of the Aum Shinrikyo Cult." Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, USN (Ret), President of CNA's Institute for Public Research, will guest chair.
Dr. Danzig, who served as the 71st Secretary of the Navy from November 1998 to January 2001, and as Under Secretary of the Navy from 1993 to 1997, is a consultant to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security on terrorism. He is a member of the Defense Policy Board and the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and serves as a Senior Advisor at CNA and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also the Chairman of the Center for a New American Security's Board of Directors. Dr. Danzig a BA from Reed College, a JD from Yale Law School and Bachelor of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
July 19, 6:30 p.m. – Jeffery Bader, Ph.D. former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council, will discuss the Obama Administration and East Asia.
Jeffery Bader, Ph.D. formerly Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council was the founding director of the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, bringing to that role his expertise in U.S. foreign policy and Asian security gained from 30 years experience at the Department of State, with the National Security Council, and in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Bader joined the State Department in 1975 and spent most of his diplomatic career focused on China. He served in Taipei, Beijing, and Hong Kong and spent several tours in State's East Asia Bureau.
In 1996, he was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and, the following year, joined the National Security Council staff for the first time as Director for Asian Affairs with responsibility for U.S. relations with the PRC and Taiwan. From 1999-2001, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Namibia. Dr. Bader returned to Washington in 2001 serving as assistant U.S. Trade Representative responsible for the PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mongolia. Jeffrey Bader is a graduate of Yale College and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in European History from Columbia University.
June 14, noon – 1:30 p.m. – Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen. Stephen Seche, will offer his personal views on "fixing" Yemen following the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Stephen Seche, who served as Ambassador to Yemen from September 2007 to August 2010 knows many of the Yemenis vying for leadership positions in the new regime, his views of “the ideal,” i.e. what should be done to prevent Yemen from becoming a failed state like Somalia, and “the real,” i.e. : pragmatically, what can be done to achieve those ends. From 2004 to 2007, Seche served as Deputy Chief of Mission and then Charge d'Affaires at the US Embassy in Syria; his second tour in Damascus. From 2002 to 2004 he was the Director of the Office for Egypt and Levant Affairs at the Department of State. Seche is currently detailed from the State Department to the Georgetown U. Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
May 25, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. – Chas W. Freeman Jr., who served as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and later was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, will discuss the strategic implications of the Arab revolutions.
Freeman was President of the Middle East Policy Council for more than a decade and is author of America’s Misadventures in the Middle East as well as The Diplomat’s Dictionary (Revised Edition) and of Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. He is the Chairman of Projects International, a DC-based development firm specializing in international joint ventures, acquisitions, and other business operations for American and foreign clients; a member of the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a member of the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council of the United States and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Security Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Freeman is fluent in Chinese, French, Spanish, and conversational Arabic and served as the principal interpreter during President Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972.
May 10, noon - 1:30 p.m. — Richard Kauzlarich, who recently stepped down as the DNI's National Intelligence Officer for Europe, will discuss current stresses within the EU and NATO as these organizations deal with events resulting from the democratic revolts across the Arab world: the Allied military campaign in Libya, a major influx of economic refugees from North Africa, disruption of energy supplies etc.
Ambassador Kauzlarich served as National Intelligence Officer for Europe from September 2003 to April 2011. From 2002 to 2003, he was Director of the Special Initiative on the Muslim World at the U.S. Institute of Peace. During a his 30-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Azerbaijan. Earlier he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European Affairs and then Senior Deputy to the President's Special Representative to the Newly Independent States. Ambassador Kauzlarich holds a BA from Valparaiso University and MA degrees from the universities of Indiana and Michigan. He is a visiting fellow at the Joint Forces Staff College.
April 21, noon - 1:30 p.m. — Journalist, scholar and Middle East analyst David Ottaway, Ph.D. will discuss recent events in Saudi Arabia. Ottaway first visited Saudi Arabia in 1973 when he was based in Addis Ababa for the Washington Post and he has returned there regularly as he assumed the positions of the Post's National Security Correspondent and Investigative/Special Projects Reporter. He was a Woodrow Wilson Center Senior Scholar from December 2006 to December 2011, and is the author of King's Messenger: Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and America's Tangled Relationship with Saudi Arabia as well as articles on the US-Saudi relationship published in Foreign Affairs and the Wilson Quarterly. Ottaway holds a BA from Harvard University and a Ph.D in political science from Columbia University.
March 22, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. — Pakistani political/military analyst and author Ahmed Rashid will give his perspective on the current situation in Afghanistan and in Pakistan where he resides. Rashid is the author of the best-selling books Taliban, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia and Descent into Chaos: U.S. Policy and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. He is a frequent commentator in the international media and his views are sought by thought leaders around the globe. Rashid was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 1948, and was educated at Malvern College in England, Government College University, Lahore and at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University.
March 10, noon – 1:30 p.m.— Vice Admiral John M. Bird, Director Navy Staff will discuss "Command and Control of Maritime Forces" drawing on his experience as Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet from July 2008 to September 2010. A career submarine officer, Vice Admiral Bird has served on both fast attack and ballistic missile submarines in the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets. Following a two-year assignment as commander, Submarine Group, commander Task Force 74 and commander Task Force 54 in Yokosuka, Japan, he assumed duties as the deputy commander and chief of staff, U.S Pacific Fleet before becoming commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet in 2008. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he also holds a Master of Science degree in engineering management from Catholic University.
February 8, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. — Robert O. Work, Under Secretary of the Navy. Work serves as the deputy and principal assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and acts with full authority of the Secretary in the day-to-day management of the Department of the Navy. A distinguished graduate of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Course at the University of Illinois, Work was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1974. During his 27-year military career, he held a wide range of command, leadership and management positions. Following his retirement from the Marine Corps, he joined the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, first as the senior fellow for maritime affairs, and later as the vice president for strategic studies. In addition to his degree from the University of Illinois, Under Secretary Work holds a Master of Science in Systems Management from USC, a Master of Science in Space Systems Operations from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Master in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins SAIS.
January 11, noon-1:30 p.m. — Cameron R. Hume, former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia 2007-2010, will discuss: "Indonesia: A Strategic Partner for the U.S. in 21st Century Asia?" During his career in the foreign service, Hume has served the U.S. State Department in Italy, Syria, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Holy See and at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and, prior to his assignment in Jakarta, served as U.S. Chief of Mission three times – as Ambassador to Algeria, South Africa, and as Charge d' Affaires in Sudan. He has published three books and numerous articles on foreign policy and been a resident scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University. Currently, he is an independent consultant working on land-use policy issues.
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