Wednesday, September 18, 2024 Hybrid Luncheon, Union Club of Boston and via Zoom
Simon Saradzhyan
Founding director of the Russia Matters Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
“Drivers of Russia’s Military Interventions: When Does Vladimir Putin Send Troops Abroad?”
Dr. Saradzhyan is the founding director of the Russia Matters Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Dr. Saradzhyan also helps advance the center’s U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism.
Prior to joining the Belfer Center in 2008 as a full-time research fellow, he worked as a researcher, consultant, and journalist in Russia. He was an editor at Moscow Times, a senior fellow at the East-West Institute, and a consultant for the World Bank.
Saradzhyan has written articles for The Times of London, Financial Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Foreign Affairs, and has appeared on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and Al Jazeera, as well as on Russian and Armenian TV and radio. He has also testified before Congress on nuclear terrorism and violent extremism.
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Monday, October 7 lunch meeting at the Union Club of Boston
Khalil Shikaki
Founder and Director, Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research, and Senior Fellow, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University
“One Year After October 7: How the War Affected the Prospects for Palestinian-Israeli and Regional Peace“
Khalil Shikaki is founder and director of the Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, Palestine, and senior fellow at Brandeis’ Crown Center for Middle East Studies. He has also been a visiting fellow at Brookings and taught at Najah University in Nablus and at several American universities. Shikaki has written numerous articles and reports on the Arab Spring, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and Palestinian politics and governance. Since 1993, he has designed and directed over 300 surveys of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Results of recent surveys on Palestinian attitudes toward Hamas, the war in Gaza, a two-state solution, and other topics are available at https://www.pcpsr.org/en
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Tuesday, December 3rd lunch meeting at the Union Club of Boston
Karen Elliot House
Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and former journalist and managing editor at the Wall Street Journal.
“Saudi Arabia: New and Improved“
Karen Elliott House has served as a reporter, assistant foreign editor, foreign editor, vice president, president, and publisher at the Wall Street Journal. In 1984 she received a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the Middle East, and she has also received several other journalism awards for her reporting on foreign affairs. House has served on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, Boston University, the Asia Society, the Rand Corporation, and the Trilateral Commission. Her book, On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines – and Future was published in 2012. House is currently a senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2024 (Zoom only meeting)
Amos Yadlin
former Israeli Air Force General
“Israel’s Seven-Front War: Strategic Insights from the Past Year, and the Path Forward” 1
Amos Yadlin served as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force (IAF), flying 250 combat missions in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, in Operation Opera, which destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, and in the Lebanon War in 1982. Later, he was the head of the IAF’s planning department, IAF deputy commander, and commander of the Israeli Defense Force’s National Defense College and its Military Intelligence Directorate. Yadlin also served as military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Washington. After retiring from the IAF, he has been a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, executive director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, and senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
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Friday January 17, 2025 lunch meeting at the Union Club of Boston
David Logan
Asst. Prof. of Security Studies, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
“The Growing Risks of Nuclear Competition in US-China Relations”
David Logan is assistant professor of security studies at Tuft’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has also taught at the Naval War College and has been a fellow at MIT’s Security Studies Program and Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies. Logan has published numerous articles in professional journals on the Chinese military and US-China relations.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2025 lunch meeting at the Union Club of Boston
Joseph Nye
former Assistant Secretary of Defense and former Chair of the National Intelligence Council
“What will Trump mean for the American Century?”
Joseph Nye is University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He has also been dean of its Kennedy School of Government, director of its Center for International Affairs, and associate dean of its Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Nye served as Deputy Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and chair of the National Intelligence Council. He has served on the boards of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies and as a member of the executive committee of the Trilateral Commission. A 2008 survey of 1700 international relations scholars ranked Nye as the sixth most influential scholar of the previous 20 years and the most influential on American foreign policy. Nye has written numerous books, including Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics; Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era; The Future of Power; Is the American Century Over?; and Do Morals Matter? Foreign Policy and the President from FDR to Trump. His most recent book is A Life in the American Century.