Eurasian Online Seminar

Ezra F. Vogel is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard. Professor Vogel succeeded John Fairbank to become the second Director (1972-1977) of Harvard's East Asian Research Center and Chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies (1977-1980). He was Director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at the Center for International Affairs (1980-1987) and, since 1987, Honorary Director. He was Director of the Fairbank Center (1995-1999) and the first Director of the Asia Center (1997-1999). He taught courses on communist Chinese society, Japanese society, and industrial East Asia. The Japanese edition of Professor Vogel's book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (1979) remains the all-time best-seller in Japan of non-fiction by a Western author. He officially retired in 2000 but takes part in researches and East Asia related activities. His more recent influential books include Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) and China and Japan: Facing History (2019).

In his lecture, Professor Ezra Vogel described the main periods of cooperation between Japan and China after the end of World War II, and made a forecast regarding the further development of relations between the countries in the next decade.

Andrew Kuchins received his M.A. (1985) and Ph.D. (1992) in Soviet Studies and International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and his B.A. magna cum laude in Russian Studies from Amherst College in 1981. Dr. Kuchins has held faculty, research, and administrative positions at the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, and the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS). Most recently, from 2015-2019, Dr. Kuchins was a Research Professor at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service where he taught and ran the Russia Futures program. Before that he directed the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC (2007-2015) and directed the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, including running the Carnegie Moscow Center for three years, from 2000-2007. He has authored, edited, and co-authored seven books on the region, more than 150 book chapters, monographs, reports, journal articles, and op-eds on the region and is frequently called upon by global media, governments, and leading private sector companies and investors for consultation. His most recent article “What is Eurasia to Us (the U.S.)?” was published in a special issue of Strategic Analysis journal and then turned into a book chapter of The Roads and Belts of Eurasia edited in our Laboratory by its head Professor Alexander Lukin and published earlier this year by Palgrave Macmillan.

In his lecture titled “The US Approach to Eurasia” Andrew Kuchins described the U.S. policy in Eurasia from the collapse of the Soviet Union up to the present. In conclusion, the researcher assesses whether the United States achieved the geoeconomic goals that it set in Eurasia.

Mark Beeson is the Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia. Before rejoining UWA at the beginning of 2015, he taught at Murdoch, Griffith, and Queensland universities in Australia, and the Universities of York and Birmingham in the UK. His work is centered on the politics, economics and security of the broadly conceived Asia-Pacific region. He is the author of more than 200 journal articles and book chapters, co-editor of Contemporary Politics, and the founding editor of Critical Studies of the Asia Pacific (Palgrave). Recent books and edited volumes include China's Regional Relations: Evolving Foreign Policy Dynamics (Lynne Rienner, 2014); Regionalism & Globalization in East Asia: Politics, Security & Economic Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Rivalry and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: The Dynamics of a Region in Transition, Volume 1 and 2 (World Scientific, 2019); Rethinking Global Governance ( Palgrave Macmillan, 2019); Environmental Populism: The Politics of Survival in the Anthropocene (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

In his speech, Professor Beeson focused on the development of Indo-Pacific strategic concept which replaced Australia’s foreign policy concept of the Asia-Pacific and described the main reasons behind such international shift. Professor Beeson also emphasized that the new concept will face a number of difficulties on the road to implementation, which include the uncertainty of the relations with the United States, possible contradictions between countries in the region, and the need for a more accurate conceptualization of the new concept.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., is University Distinguished Service Professor and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, studied at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard where he joined the faculty in 1964. In 2008, a poll of 2700 international relations scholars listed him as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011 Foreign Policy listed him among the 100 leading global thinkers.

From 1977-79, Professor Nye was a deputy Undersecretary of State and chaired the National Security Council Group on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In 1993-94 he chaired the National Intelligence Council which prepares intelligence estimates for the president, and in 1994-95 served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

Nye has published fourteen academic books, a novel, and more than 200 articles in professional and policy journals. His recent books include Soft Power, The Powers to Lead, The Future of Power, Is the American Century Over?, and Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump.

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and an honorary fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He is the recipient of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award, the Charles Merriam Award from the American Political Science Association, France’s Palmes Academiques, Japan's Order of the Rising Sun and various honorary degrees.

Professor Nye has made a significant contribution to IR theory. He is the co-founder, along with Robert Keohane, of the international relations theory of neoliberalism, developed in their 1977 book Power and Interdependence. Together with Keohane, he developed the concepts of asymmetrical and complex interdependence. They also explored transnational relations and world politics in an edited volume in the 1970s. In the late 1980s he coined the term soft power and it first came into widespread usage following a piece he wrote in Foreign Policy in 1990. More recently his notion of "smart power" ("the ability to combine hard and soft power into a successful strategy") became popular among both experts and politicians.

Dr Bates Gill is the Professor of Asia-Pacific Security Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, and Senior Associate Fellow with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. He has a 30-year career as a scholar, policy advisor and author, focusing on Asia-Pacific politics, foreign policy and security, with a particular focus on China and U.S.-China relations.  An academically-trained and internationally-respected China specialist, he has led a global top-ten think tank and held academic and research positions at world-leading universities and public policy research institutions in the United States, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific in a 30-year international career.

Dr. Gill received his Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia.  He has previously held positions at the Australian National University and the University of Sydney (2012-2017). He was Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) (2007-2012) and held the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C (2002-2007). He also served as a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and inaugural Director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution (1998-2002). Among his international honours, he holds the Royal Order of the Commander of the Polar Star and was named a top-ten American China expert by the Chinese Foreign Affairs University in 2015.

He has published eight books and over 200 other publications, including most recently, Rising Star: China’s New Security Diplomacy (Brookings Institution Press, 2007) and China Matters: Getting it Right for Australia (Black Inc/LaTrobe University Press, 2017) (with Linda Jakobson).  His current research projects include a focus on the modernisation of Chinese strategic forces (nuclear, cyber, space) and the fundamental drivers motivating PRC foreign policy under Xi Jinping.

Bilahari Kausikan is the Chairman of the Middle East Institute, an autonomous institute of the National University of Singapore. He was educated at Raffles Institution, the University of Singapore and Columbia University in New York. Mr Kausikan was Permanent Secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2013, having served as Second Permanent Secretary since 2001. He was subsequently Ambassador-at-Large until May 2018. His earlier appointments at the Ministry include Deputy Secretary for South-east Asia, Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, and Ambassador to the Russian Federation. He is often referred to as "Singapore's undiplomatic diplomat" for his insightful and comments and analyses on Singaporean and world politics. He has been known in recent years for commenting extensively on Singapore's foreign affairs in newspaper articles, public lectures and social media. 

Mr Kausikan is the other of many articles and several books including: Dealing with an Ambiguous World (a collection of his lectures given in 2016) and Singapore is not an Island (2019).

Barry Buzan is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the LSE (formerly Montague Burton Professor); honorary professor at Copenhagen, Jilin, and China Foreign Affairs Universities; a Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas; and a Fellow of the British Academy. He took his first degree at the University of British Columbia (1968), and his doctorate at the London School of Economics (1973). From 1988 to 2002 he was Project Director at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI). From 1995 to 2002 he was research Professor of International Studies at the University of Westminster, and before that Professor of International Studies at the University of Warwick. He was Chairman of the British International Studies Association 1988-90, Vice-President of the (North American) International Studies Association 1993-4, and founding Secretary of the International Studies Coordinating Committee 1994-8. From 1999-2011 he was general coordinator of a project to reconvene the English school of International Relations, and from 2004-8 he was editor of the European Journal of International Relations.

Professor Buzan has made a significant contribution to IR theory. His thought has helped to shape International Security Studies since the 1980s, and the English School and International Historical Sociology since the 1990s. Being a leading figure of the Copenhagen school, he developed regional security complex theory, and helped to develop and promote Ole Wæver’s theory of securitization. He is considered to be a major figure in the English school of international relations theory, where he is identified with clarifying structural approaches to the study of international and world society.

Professor Buzan has written, co-authored or edited over twenty-five books, written or co-authored nearly one hundred and fifty articles and chapters, and lectured, broadcast or presented papers in over twenty countries. His more recent books include: An Introduction to the English School of International Relations: The Societal Approach (2014, with George Lawson), The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations (2015); Global International Society: A New Framework for Analysis (2018, with Laust Schouenborg); The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at its Centenary (2019, with Amitav Acharya) and Rethinking Sino-Japanese Alienation: History Problems and Historical Opportunities (2020, with Evelyn Goh).

Professor Buzan is currently working with Tarak Barkawi on a new IR periodisation from a global military history perspective. The point of his new paper is to question the standard, West-centric benchmark dates that are widely used to structure teaching and thinking about IR: 1648, 1815, 1919, 1945, 1989. These are all hinged around big wars centred on Europe, and take little or no account of the global South. The paper asks what sort of benchmark dates we would get, and why, if we took a perspective from global, rather than European, military history. The relevance of this is that we are rapidly moving out of the Western era in IR, and need to start thinking about how to periodise IR in terms relevant to global international society as a whole. Professor Buzan has agreed to present the preliminary results of this paper as a thought experiment.

Professor Yang is currently a Senior Fellow and Chairman of the Academic Affairs Council at Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS) and a Counsellor of Shanghai Municipal People's Government. He received his B.A. from the Shanghai Normal University, M.A. from the Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS) and another M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and defended his Ph.D. at the Shanghai International Studies University. He later worked as SIIS Vice President and President.

Prof Yang also serves on the boards of the China National Association for International Studies, the Chinese People Institute of Foreign Affairs, the National Association of China-U.S. Friendship, the National Association of American Studies, Shanghai Association of International Relations, Shanghai Institute for International Strategic Studies, Shanghai Association of Taiwan Studies and many other organizations.

Dr. Yang is also a guest professor/fellow at the PLA National Defense University, Shanghai International Studies University and Tongji University. His honors include National Special Awards, Shanghai Outstanding Talent Award and several Shanghai Awards in Social Sciences. He has published numerous articles and books on international relations and American foreign policy. His most recent books include: International Systemin Transition and Multilateral Organization Developments (Beijing: Shishi Publishing House, 2007); Grand System: Toward Multi-Polar & Multi-Actor (Tianjin: Tianjing People's Publishing House, 2008); Global Climate Change Diplomacy and China’s Policy (Beijing: Shishi Publishing House, 2009); Poliferation of International Crisis and Sino-US Joint Response (Beijing: Shishi Publishing House, 2010); China’s Expo Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (Beijing: Shishi Publishing House, 2011)

Thomas Graham is a managing director at Kissinger Associates, Inc., where he focuses on Russian and Eurasian affairs and a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007 and Director for Russian Affairs on that staff from 2002 to 2004. From 2001 to 2002, he served as the Associate Director of the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State. From 1998 to 2001, Mr. Graham was a senior associate in the Russia/Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From 1984 to1998, he was a Foreign Service Officer. His assignments included two tours of duty at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, where he served as head of the political/internal unit and acting political counselor. Between tours in Moscow, he worked on Russian and Soviet affairs on the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State and as a policy assistant in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

Graham is one of the founders and co-Directors of the Russian Studies Project at Yale University. He was a lecturer in global affairs and political science at Yale from 2011 to 2019, teaching courses on U.S.-Russian relations and Russian foreign policy, as well as cybersecurity and counterterrorism. He served as a Senior Fellow at Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs from 2011 – 2017. 

Professor Mahbubani is a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute of National University of Singapore (NUS). He was with the Singapore Foreign Service for 33 years (1971-2004), where he served twice as Singapore’s Ambassador to the United Nations and held the position of President of the United Nations Security Council between January 2001 and May 2002. He was Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry from 1993-1998. He was also the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy from 2004-2017. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of seven books, including Can Asians Think?, Beyond The Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World, and The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. His research interests are in the resurgence of Asia, ASEAN, public policies in Singapore, global geo-politics and global governance. His latest book on US-China relations entitled Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy was published in March 2020.

James B. Steinberg is University Professor of Social Science, International Affairs and Law at Syracuse University, where he was Dean of the Maxwell School from July 2011 until June 2016.

Mr. Steinberg received his A.B from Harvard College and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Prior to becoming Dean he served as Deputy Secretary of State, the principal deputy to Secretary Hillary Clinton, from 2009-2011. From 2005-2008, Steinberg was Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Steinberg was vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

Mr. Steinberg was deputy national security advisor to President Clinton from 1996 to 2000. During that period he also served as the president’s personal representative to the 1998 and 1999 G-8 summits. Prior to becoming deputy national security advisor, Mr. Steinberg held positions as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Analysis in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Steinberg’s most recent books are A Glass Half Full? Rebalance, Reassurance and Resolve and Strategic Reassurance and Resolve: US-China Relations in the 21st Century (both with Michael O’Hanlon). 

Professor Westad specializes in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. He is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University, where he teaches in the Yale History Department and in the Jackson Institute of Global Affairs. Previously, he held the S.T. Lee Chair of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University, teaching in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Westad has also taught at London School of Economics, where he served as director of a foreign policy think tank LSE IDEAS. In the spring semester 2019 Westad was Boeing Company Chair in International Relations at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy.

Originally from Ålesund on the Norwegian coast, he studied history, philosophy, and modern languages in Oslo before doing a graduate degree in US/international history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Westad has published 16 books, most of which deal with twentieth century Asian and global history. His three key works include The Global Cold War, which argues for ways of understanding the Soviet-American conflict in light of late- and post-colonial change in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean; Restless Empire, which discusses broad trends in China’s international history since 1750; and The Cold War: A World History, which summarizes the origins, conduct, and results of the conflict on a global scale.

Professor Westad published an article “The Sources of Chinese Conduct: Are Washington and Beijing Fighting a New Cold War?” in the September/October 2019 issue of Foreign Affairs. The title is an obvious allusion to George Kennan’s article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” based on his famous “Long Telegram,” which was published in the same journal in 1947. Kennan’s thoughts had a great impact on the US policy during the Cold War, although Prof Westad seems to argue that Kennan was not understood well enough. Will Americans understand Prof Westad and China this time and are we looking into a new Cold War?

Kevin Rudd was born in Nambour, Queensland. He has a degree in Chinese studies from the Australian National University, and is fluent in Mandarin. Before entering politics, he worked as a diplomat, political staffer, and public servant.

Mr. Rudd joined the Asia Society Policy Institute as its inaugural President in January 2015. He served as Australia's 26th Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, then as Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2012, before returning as Prime Minister in 2013.

Mr. Rudd is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute, and Chair of Sanitation and Water for All. He is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House in London, a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Paulson Institute in Chicago. Mr. Rudd is a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s Group of Eminent Persons. He serves on the International Advisory Board of the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University, and is an Honorary Professor at Peking University.

Sergey Karaganov is Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. He is also Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Russia in Global Affairs journal, co-founder and former deputy director of the Institute of Europe of Russian Academy of Sciences. He authored more than 25 books and around 500 articles.

Professor Karaganov is a member of the Academic Council of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Member of the Academic and Advisory Council of the Russian Security Council, and Member of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of Russia. In 1990s he was a member of the Presidential Council of Russia and in 2014-2015 - of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project under the OSCE (2014–2015). In the 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll he was the only intellectual from the former Soviet Union and only one of four from Eastern Europe of 100 people listed.

Thierry de Montbrial is the Executive Chairman of the French Institute of International Relations (Institut français des relations internationales, Ifri) which he headed since 1979. In 2008, he launched the World Policy Conference.

Professor de Montbrial graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Mines, and received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He was Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique since 1974 and chaired its Department of Economics between 1974 and 1992. He is Professor Emeritus at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. He was also the Chairman of the French-Austrian Center for European Economic Convergence (1985-2015).

Professor de Montbrial serves on the International Advisory Board of Lafarge and chairs the International Advisory Board of OCP Group (Morocco). He is on the Board of Directors of Renault Foundation. He sits on the editorial advisory board of Foreign Policy, Washington, the editorial board of Russia in Global Affairs, Moscow, and the editorial board of The South African Journal of International Affairs, Johannesburg. He is also a Visiting Professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing.

In June 1992, he was elected as a member of the Institut de France (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques) of which he was elected chairman for the year 2001. He is also a founding member of the Académie des Technologies. He is also a foreign member of a number academies including the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Professor de Montbrial is the author of many professional articles and of twenty books (several of them translated in various languages) in economics and international affairs.

Sujan R. Chinoy is the Director General of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, since 3 January 2019. A career diplomat of the Indian Foreign Service from 1981-2018, he was India’s Ambassador to Japan and the Republic of the Marshall Islands from 2015-2018, and earlier, the Ambassador to Mexico and High Commissioner to Belize.

A specialist with over 25 years of experience on China, East Asia and the Asia-Pacific, he served in Indian Missions in Hong Kong and Beijing and as Consul General in Shanghai and Sydney. He also served as India’s representative to the First Committee at the United Nations in New York dealing with Disarmament & International Security Affairs and in the Indian Mission in Riyadh. At Headquarters, in the Ministry of External Affairs, he served as Director (China) as well as Head of the Expert Group of Diplomatic & Military Officials tasked with CBMs and boundary-related issues with China.  He also served on the Americas Desk dealing with the USA and Canada, and as Officer on Special Duty in charge of press relations in the External Publicity Division. On deputation for four years with the National Security Council Secretariat under the Prime Minister’s Office, he worked on internal and external national security policy and anchored strategic dialogues with key interlocutors around the world.

He is fluent in English, Chinese (Mandarin) and conversant in French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Arabic, Urdu and French-Creole. He also speaks Hindi and Gujarati.

Ambassador Raghavan is Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), which advises India’s National Security Council on strategic and security issues.

In a diplomatic career of over 36 years, he has served as India’s Ambassador to Russia (2014-16), Czech Republic and Ireland.  He has also held other diplomatic positions in USSR, Poland, UK, Vietnam and South Africa.

He was Joint Secretary [Director General] in the Prime Minister's Office (2000-2004) dealing with foreign affairs, nuclear energy, space, defence and national security, during a period of transformation in India’s foreign and national security policies.

As Secretary [Deputy Foreign Minister] in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), he handled India’s external economic relations and oversaw Administration, Security and e-governance. He also headed the Development Partnership Administration, which coordinates India’s economic partnership programme in developing countries, with an annual budget of US $1-1.5 billion.

He was Chief Coordinator of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi (March 2012). From 2012 to January 2014, he was Special Envoy of Government of India to Sudan and South Sudan.

As Chairman NSAB, he engages with government departments and think tanks in India and outside on India’s strategic perspectives. He writes widely on these issues.

Kazuhiko Togo (Ph.D. 2009, Leiden University) is a Visiting Professor at Kyoto Sangyo University and Advisor for External Relations for the Shizuoka Prefecture.

He graduated from Tokyo University, Faculty of International Relations in 1968 and served in the Japanese Foreign Ministry until 2002. Half of his career was devoted to Russia, including his positions as Director of the Soviet Union Division (1988-91), Director-General of Treaties Bureau (1998-99), Director-General of European Bureau (1999-2001), and three times services at the Japanese Embassy in Moscow altogether amounting to eight years and a half.

 Professor Togo’s last posting was Ambassador to the Netherlands (2001-02). Since then, he taught at universities abroad, including those in Leiden, Princeton, and Seoul National University GSIS before joining Kyoto Sangyo University in 2009, where he assumed the post of Professor and Director of the Institute for World Affairs, for 10 years.

His current research interests include (1) International politics and Japanese foreign-security policy in East Asia, (2) Territorial problems and historical memory in North-East Asia and (3) Identity and civilizational dialogue.

His recent publication in English includes “Japan's Foreign Policy 1945-2009（2010)”; “(co-editor) East Asia’s Haunted Present: Historical Memories and the Resurgence of Nationalism (2008)”; “(editor) Japan and Reconciliation in Post-war Asia: The Murayama Statement and its Implications (2013)”; “(co-editor) Building Confidence in East Asia: Maritime Conflicts, Interdependence and Asian Identity Thinking (2015)”. For other books and articles refer to http://kazuhiko-togo.com

Dmitry Suslov serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies and Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Relations at HSE University.  He regularly consults Russian government agencies and private companies on various international issues. He co-authored several books and policy papers, including The U.S. Policy in Asia Pacific, Non-Military Instruments of the Russian Foreign Policy: Regional and Global Mechanisms; Russia: a Strategy for the New World; Russia vs. Europe. Confrontation or Alliance?; Russia and the World: a New Epoch. He teaches courses in US Domestic and Foreign Policy, Introduction to International Relations, Global Governance, US-Russia Relations, and Russia-EU Relations at HSE University. He is frequently interviewed by leading Russian and foreign newspapers and invited as a guest to various TV programs to comment on international politics, American politics and US-Russian relations.

Richard Weitz is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia as well as U.S. foreign and defense policies. Before joining Hudson in 2005, Dr. Weitz worked for shorter terms for other research institutions and the U.S. Department of Defense, where he received an Award for Excellence from Office of the Secretary of Defense. Dr. Weitz is a graduate of Harvard University (Ph.D. in Political Science), Oxford University (M.Phil. in Politics), the London School of Economics (M.Sc. in International Relations), and Harvard College (B.A. with Highest Honors in Government), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He is proficient in Russian, French, and German.

Dr. Weitz has authored or edited several books and monographs, including Assessing the Collective Security Treaty Organization (2018); Promoting U.S.-Indian Defense Cooperation (2017); Enhancing the Georgia-US Security Partnership (2016); Parsing Chinese-Russian Military Exercises (2015); China and Afghanistan After the NATO Withdrawal (2015); Reforming U.S. Export Controls Reforms (2015); Turkey's New Regional Security Role: Implications for the United States (2014); Rebuilding American Military Power in the Pacific (2013); Global Security Watch—China (2013); War and Governance: International Security in a Changing World Order (2011); The Russian Military Today and Tomorrow (2010); Global Security Watch—Russia (2009); China-Russia Security Relations (2008); Mismanaging Mayhem: How Washington Responds to Crisis (2008); The Reserve Policies of Nations (2007); and Revitalising U.S.–Russian Security Cooperation: Practical Measures (2005); and two volumes of National Security Case Studies (Project on National Security Reform, 2012 and 2008).

Dr. Weitz has also published in such journals as Survival, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst, The Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, NATO Review, Global Asia, Arms Control Today, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Defense Concepts, Pacific Focus, Asan Forum, Journal of Defence Studies, Small Wars Journal, WMD Insights, Parameters: US Army War College Quarterly, Naval War College Review, World Affairs, China Brief, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, and Yale Journal of International Affairs.

Fyodor Lukyanov is a world-renowned expert on Russian foreign policy and a famous journalist. He holds a degree in German Linguistics from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Philology (1991). He currently serves as Research Professor at Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Editor of Russia in Global Affairs – one of Russia’s most influential IR journals. The aim of the journal is to provide a platform for Russian as well as international experts and politicians for discussing challenges facing the world nowadays. Mr. Lukyanov is also a Research Director at the Valdai International Discussion Club – a Russian think tank where President Putin often speaks – and Chairman of the Presidium of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy – an influential Russian non-governmental public association. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council.

Mr Lukyanov is a prolific writer. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on various aspects of international relations and Russia’s foreign policy. He is also a frequent guest of various TV and radio shows.

Professor Shambaugh is an internationally recognized authority and award-winning author on contemporary China and the international relations of Asia. He currently is the Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science & International Affairs, and the founding Director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He was also a formerly a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at The Brookings Institution and Director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He also worked in the U.S. Department of State and National Security Council. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Asia-Pacific Council, and other public policy and scholarly organizations. Before joining the GW faculty Professor Shambaugh was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Reader in Chinese Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) from 1986-1996, where he also served as Editor of The China Quarterly.

Professor Shambaugh has been selected for numerous awards and grants. An active public intellectual and frequent commentator in the international media, he serves on numerous editorial boards, and has been a consultant to governments, research institutions, foundations, universities, corporations, banks, and investment funds. 

As an author, Professor Shambaugh has published more than 30 books, including most recently Where Great Powers Meet: America & China in Southeast Asia and China & the World (both 2020), China’s Future and The China Reader: Rising Power (both 2016). China’s Future was selected by The Economist first on the list of “Best Books of the Year.” His China Goes Global: The Partial Power (2013) was selected by The Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Bloomberg News as one of the “Best Books of the Year” and was runner-up for the Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Prize. Other books include Tangled Titans: The United States and China (2012, selected by Choice as a “Best Academic Book of the Year”); Charting China’s Future: Domestic & International Challenges (2011); China’s Communist Party: Atrophy & Adaptation (2008); and International Relations of Asia (2008, 2014); Power Shift: China & Asia’s New Dynamics (2005). He has also authored more than 20 reports, 200 scholarly articles and chapters, more than 150 newspaper op-eds, and more than 50 book reviews.

Charles E. Ziegler is Professor and University Scholar at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He is also Director of Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Professor Ziegler received his Ph.D in Political Science from University of Illinois. He worked as a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University in Republic of Korea and a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He was also a National Fellow at Hoover Institution of Stanford University. His major teaching and research interests are International Relations, Foreign Policy, Comparative Politics, Security, Russian Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics, East Asia, Central Asia, and Democratization in Asia. 

Professor Ziegler has authored and edited several books as well as numerous articles in top academic journals. His most recent books include Civil Society and Politics in Central Asia, (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015); The History of Russia, revised and expanded edition (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2009); The Russian Far East: A Region at Risk (with Judith Thornton) (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002).

Nobuo Shimotomai is Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Law and Politics at Hosei University in Tokyo and a Specially invited professor at Kanagawa University. Professor Shimotomai was born in Sapporo in 1948. In 1971 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo and in 1978 received his Legum Doctor (LL.D.) from the same faculty. He taught at Seikei and Tokyo Universities and did research in Moscow and the UK (University of Birmingham). From 1988 until 2019 he was professor at Hosei University. In 1992-1994 he was a Visiting Fellow at Russian Research Center (currently Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies) at Harvard University and The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. In 1998-2001 he was Associate Writer at Asahi Shimbun. In 2002-2004 he served as President of the Japanese Association of the International Relations, and in 2005 – Vice President of Asian Political Science Association.

Professor Shimotomai has authored about 30 books and more than 100 articles and monographs. His major publications include: Soviet Politics and Trade Unions: A Political History of the NEP (Tokyo University Press, 1982); Gendai Soren Seiji [Contemporary Soviet Politics in Japanese] (Tokyo University Press, 1987); Moscow under Stalinist Rule 1931-34 (Macmillan, 1991);  Tou ga syoyuusita kokka [The state owned by the party (Kodansya, 2002); Moskva i Kim Il Sung (Iwanami, 2006; Russian version from MGIMO, 2009); A.Torkunov, Iokibe, Streltsov, and Shimotomai, A History of Russo-Japanese Relations (Brill, 2019). 

Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of Trustees of The International Crisis Group and is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.

Mr Krastev is a member of the global advisory board of Open Society Foundations, New York, and a member of the advisory council of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). He is also associate editor of Europe’s World and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy and Transit – Europäische Revue. From 2004 to 2006 he was the executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans chaired by the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. He was the editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian Edition of Foreign Policy and was a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London (2005-2011).  He has held fellowships at St. Antony’s College (Oxford); the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars (Washington, D.C.); the Collegium Budapest; the Wissenschaftskolleg (Berlin); the Institute of Federalism at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland); and the Remarque Institute at New York University.

Mr Krastev is the author of Is it tomorrow, yet? How the Pandemic Changes Europe (Penguin, October 2020); The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Allen Lane, 2019), co-authored with Stephen Holmes - won the 30th Annual Lionel Gelber Prize; After Europe (UPenn Press, 2017); Democracy Disrupted. The Global Politics on Protest (UPenn Press, 2014) and In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don't Trust Our Leaders? (TED Books, 2013). Ivan Krastev is the winner of the Jean Améry Prize for European Essay Writing 2020.

Our guest was one of the leading Russian experts on International Relations Ambassador Vladimir Petrovich Lukin. The topic of his talk is “A Multilevel World and a Flat Worldview.” Ambassador Lukin discussed various ideological approaches to the processes of globalization and deglobalization in contemporary world. His talk was based on an article written for an upcoming special issue of Russian Politics journal which was prepared in our laboratory.

Vladimir Lukin was born in 1937 in Omsk, he worked as a research fellow in the Institute of US studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and deputy department head in the Soviet Foreign Ministry. In 1990 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. In 1992-1994 he served as the Russian Ambassador to the US.  From 1993 to 2004 he was a deputy of the State Duma serving as Chairman of its International Relations Committee and the Deputy Speaker. From 2004 to 2014 he worked as the Russian Federation Human Rights Commissioner. From 2014 until 2021 he was a member of the Federation Council and Deputy Chairman of its International Relations Committee. Ambassador Lukin is currently a research professor at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the Higher School of Economics. He has authored several books and numerous articles on International Politics, Russian Foreign Policy and Human Rights issues. The last volume of the four-volume collection of his works was published in Russian this year.

Our distinguished panelists were:

1. Alexander Lukin, Head, Department of International Relations, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
   “Coved 19 Pandemic: competition instead of cooperation”
2. Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, UK
   “The Politics of Pandemic in Europe”
3. Igor Pellicciari, Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Urbino, Italy, Ambassador of San Marino to Jordan
   “The Vaccine Diplomacy: The Cases of Italy versus San Marino”
4. Andrej Krikovic, Associate Professor, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
   “The Covid-19 and International Relations Theory”
5. Vasily Kashin, Deputy Director at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
   “The Covid-19 Pandemic and US-China Confrontation”.

Moderator: Olga Puzanova, Senior Lecturer, Department of International Relations, HSE University, Moscow, Russia

Anatol Lieven is senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College London. He is a member of the academic board of the Valdai discussion club in Russia, and a member of the advisory committee of the South Asia Department of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He holds a BA and PhD from Cambridge University in England.

From 1985 to 1998, Anatol Lieven worked as a British journalist in South Asia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and covered the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya and the southern Caucasus. As a journalist, he reported from both sides of the Afghan war in the 1980s, and have visited the country frequently since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. From 2000 to 2007 he worked at think tanks in Washington DC.

Dr Lieven is author of several books on Russia and its neighbours including “The Baltic Revolutions: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence” and “Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry.” His book “Pakistan: A Hard Country” is on the official reading lists for U.S. and British diplomats serving in that country. His latest book, “Climate Change and the Nation State,” was published in March 2020.

1. Sergei Karaganov, Academic Supervisor, Faculty of World Economy and International Relations, HSE University
2. Anastasia Likhacheva, Dean, Faculty of World Economy and International Relations, HSE University
3. Alexander Lukin, Head, Department of International Relations, HSE University
4. Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, UK
5. Andrej Krikovic, Associate Professor, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
6. Iain Ferguson, Assistant Professor, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
7. Vladimir Ryzhkov, Professor, HSE University, Moscow, Russia

Special Issue Contents:

Introduction. Authors: Andrej Krickovic and Richard Sakwa

Russian Foreign Policy: Three Historical Stages and Two Future Scenarios. Author: Sergei Karaganov

A Multilevel World and a Flat Worldview: A Realist and Progressive Synthesis for Russia. Author: Vladimir Lukin

The Politics of Russian Revisionism: Diplomacy of a Worldview, 2011–Authors: Iain Ferguson and Sergei Akopov

Russia and Sanctions: The Transformational Domestic and International Effects of Unilateral Restrictive Measures. Author: Anastasia Likhacheva

Russia’s Policies in the Post-Soviet Space: Between Constructive Relations and Fighting the New Cold War. Authors: Andrei Kazantsev, Sergei Lebedev, and Svetlana Medvedeva

Russia’s China Policy: Growing Asymmetries and Hedging Options. Authors: Igor Denisov and Alexander Lukin

From ‘Greater Europe’ to Confrontation: Is a ‘Common European Home’ Still Possible? Author: Vladimir Ryzhkov

Professor Sakwa joined the School of Politics and International Relations in 1987, was promoted to a professorship in 1996 and was Head of School between 2001 and 2007, and in 2010 he once again took over as Head of School until 2014. While completing his doctorate on Moscow politics during the Civil War (1918-21) he spent a year on a British Council scholarship at Moscow State University (1979-80), and then worked for two years in Moscow in the 'Mir' Science and Technology Publishing House. Before moving to Kent he lectured at the University of Essex and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prof. Sakwa is a Leading Research Fellow at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow and an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Political Science, Moscow State University.

Professor Sakwa is a prolific writer. He has written multiple books and articles about Russia, Central and Eastern European communist and post-communist politics and international relations including Russian Politics and Society (5th edition, 2020), The Putin Paradox (2020), Russia Against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order (2017); Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (2014); Putin Redux: Power and Contradiction in Contemporary Russia (2014); Soviet Politics in Perspective (2012); The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (2005). His most recent book Deception: Russiagate and the New Cold War was published earlier this year by Lexington Books. Professor Sakwa’s writings and opinions are always timely and often run against the main tide of orthodox views.

Professor Kazantsev talked about a number of pressing issues including Russia’s policy in Afghanistan after the US troops withdrawal and Russia’s position on the current crisis in Kazakhstan. Professor Kazantsev analyzed the main components of the “winter revolution” in Kazakhstan and emphasized the importance of the issue of Islamic radicalism. Professor Kazantsev identified two Russian policies towards the Taliban*: a policy of dialogue with the moderate wing and a policy of defense in Central Asia.

Professor Kazantsev joined the HSE in 2019. He was born in Ashgabad, Turkmenistan where he received secondary education. After graduating from Moscow State University for the Humanities in 1997, he worked as an expert at the International Institute for the Humanities and Political Studies, Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer at Russian State University for the Humanities and MGIMO University and research fellow at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security of MGIMO University. From 2012 until 2019, he was Director of the Analytical Center and then the Center for Central Asian and Afghanistan Studies at MGIMO University. In 1996, he spent 10 months as an intern in Turkmen National Institute of Manuscripts which was beginning the work on what later became Ruhnama (the “Book of the Soul”), a two-volume work written by Saparmurat Niyazov, the President of Turkmenistan. In 2009–2010 he was a Jean Monnet Fellow in the Robert Shuman Center for Advanced Studies of European University Institute (Florence, Italy), and in 2012-2013 research fellow at George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany).

Professor Kazantsev has written extensively on Central Asian politics, Russian and Western policy in the region. His most recent article “Russia's Policies in the Post-Soviet Space: Between Constructive Relations and Fighting the New Cold War” was published as part of “Russian Politics” special issue that was discussed at the last seminar.

Dr. Hammes is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies of National Defense University. He joined INSS in June 2009. His areas of expertise include future conflict, the changing character of war, military strategy, operational concepts, and insurgency. Dr. Hammes earned a Bachelor of Science from the Naval Academy in 1975 and holds a Masters of Historical Research and a Doctorate in Modern History from Oxford University. He is a Distinguished Graduate from the Canadian National Defence College. He has published three books: Deglobalization and International Security; The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century; and The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, the Corps’ Ethos, and the Korean War. He has also published over 160 articles. His publications have been used widely in staff and defense college curricula in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Singapore. Dr. Hammes has lectured extensively at leading academic and military institutions in the United States and abroad. Prior to his retirement from active duty, Dr. Hammes served 30 years in the Marine Corps to include command of an intelligence battalion, an infantry battalion and the Chemical Biological Response Force. He participated in military operations in Somalia and Iraq and trained insurgents in various locations.

Dr. Hussein Solomon holds a D.Litt et Phil (Political Science) from the University of South Africa. Currently, he is Senior Professor and Academic Head of Department at the Department of Political Studies and Governance, University of Free State. His previous appointments include being Executive Director of the International Institute of Islamic Studies (2009-2010); Professor and Director of the Centre for International Political Studies, University of Pretoria (2000-2010), Research Manager at the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (1998-2000), Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (1996-1998) and Research Fellow at the Centre for Southern African Studies, University of the Western Cape (1993-1995).

His research interests include conflict and conflict resolution in Africa; South African Foreign Policy; international relations theory; religious fundamentalism and population movements within the developing world. His publications have appeared in South Africa; Nigeria; the United States; the United Kingdom; Switzerland; The Russian Federation; Greece; The Netherlands; Norway; Denmark; Egypt; Ethiopia; Israel, Lebanon; India; Bangladesh; Spain and Japan.

His most recent books include Directions in International Terrorism: Theories, Trends and Trajectories (Palgrave, 2021), Terrorism in Africa: New Trends and Frontiers (with Glen Segell and Sergey Kostelyanets), Institute for African Studies, Moscow, 2021), Arab MENA Countries: Vulnerabilities and Constraints Against Democracy on the Eve of the Global COVID-19 Crisis (with Arno Tausci, Springer, 2021), Exporting Global Jihad (with Tom Smith, IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2020), Islamism, Crisis and Democratization: Implications of the World Values Survey for the Muslim World (with Arno Tausch, Springer, 2020), African Security in the Twenty-First Century: Challenges and Opportunities (with Stephen Emerson, Manchester University Press, 2018).

He is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAF), South African Academy of Science and Art.

Dr Michael Tai is the author of US-China Relations in the 21st Century: A Question of Trust (Routledge 2015) and China and her Neighbors (Bloomsbury 2019) and book chapters and scholarly articles about China’s external relations. He taught at the University of Cambridge, the Belarusian State Economics University, the American University in Central Asia, and the Beijing Institute of Technology. He earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in engineering from Cornell University, MBA from the University of Cambridge, MA in theology from Regent College, and PhD in international relations from the University of Cambridge where he explored US-China relations in the areas of finance, climate policy and security.

Michael Tai has rich experience as a management consulting and later CEO of companies in the steel and public transportation sectors in Malaysia.  He is a contributor to the South China Morning Post, CGTN and The Diplomat.International relations theory seeks to explain causal and constitutive effects of international politics. Theories put forth by Western scholars such as Hans J. Morgenthau (1904-1980) and Edward H. Carr (1892-1982) are based largely on modern European experience and yet considered to be universally applicable. Michael Tai revisits this assumption with his current research focusing on China’s Warring States period (c. 476-221 BCE) with a view to develop a theory of international relations which may better explain China’s foreign policy.

Prof. Makkhan Lal taught in Banaras Hindu University and Aligarh Muslim University before moving to Delhi in 1998 as the Founder Director of Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management. He was also Senior Fellow (2011-2014) and then a Distinguished Fellow (2015-2017) at the Vivekananda International Foundation, New Delhi, a leading independent think tank of India.

Prof. Makkhan Lal has published 18 books and about 200 research papers in national and international journals on Indian history, archaeology and Civilization. He is regular contributor to various Newspapers on current affairs. Some of his books are: Rise of Civilization in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab, Archaeology of Population, Ancient India, India and the World in Ancient Times, Educating to Confuse and Disrupt, History of Jana Sangh, Gandhi's Assassination: What the Documents Say? and Secular Politics Communal Agenda. He is also Co-Editor of the first five volumes of Eleven Volume series on History of Ancient India, being brought out by Vivekananda International Foundation. In recognition of his outstanding academic works Prof. Makkhan Lal has been awarded Jawaharlal Nehru Senior Fellowship which he is expected to join soon.

Askar Akayev is a Soviet and Kyrgyz political and academic figure, President of the Kyrgyz SSR and the first President of the Kyrgyz Republic. He won presidential elections four times after extending his term via national referendums in 1994 and 2003.

Dmitri Trenin, PhD (Hist.), Research Professor, HSE University, member of Russia’s Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. Member of the delegation at the Geneva talks on nuclear and space weapons. Senior research fellow at the NATO Defense College and fellow at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 1994 to 2022, IISS member, Member of the Russian International Affairs Council and the Russian International Studies Association, author and coauthor of What Is Russia Up to in the Middle East? (Polity: 2018), Should We Fear Russia? (Polity: 2016), Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story (Washington, DC: 2011).

Alexander Zhebit, D.Sc. (Hist.), Assoc. Professor of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Fellow of the Center for the Study of Public Policies on Human Rights, Coordinator of the International Policy Research Group and of the Laboratory of Studies of the Caucasian countries, CAPES (Brazil) senior research fellow at the NRU-HSE (2023), editor and coauthor of Brasil - China : construindo o BRICS (UFRJ, 2013); Brasil - Índia - África do Sul : emergência do Sul Global (Gramma, 2010); Brasil - Rússia : história, política, cultura (Gramma, 2009); Neoterrorismo : reflexões e glossário (Gramma, 2009); Ordens e pacis: abordagem comparativa das relações internacionais (Mauad, 2008). Medal of Marechal Cordeiro de Farias.

Pawan Anand, Major General (veteran), saw active operations on Line of Control and in Counter Insurgency operations, awarded Ati Vishisht Seva Medal by President of India. Qualifications- PhD (Management), Double Masters (Master’s in Strategic & Security Studies; and Master’s in Management Studies), BTech in Mechanical Engineering. Currently- a Mentor at the Indian National Defence College (Strategic Studies), Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Distinguished Fellow and Head of Atma Nirbhar Bharat Initiative, United Service Institution of India. Publications: “Mission Adherence or Force Protection–Lessons from The USS Theodore Roosevelt Episode” (Strategic Perspectives Journal, 2020); “Industry 4.0 : India’s Defence Industry needs Smart Manufacturing”; (Scopus journal Sep 2019); “Indo-US Military Industrial Relations: Strategic or Transactional?”, (Conference Papers, Simsarc 2017); “Infrastructure Development on India’s Northern Borders in the Backdrop of Security Concerns”, 2013.

Ruslan Pukhov, Master’s in Political Science, a defense analyst and Director of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), publisher of the journal Arms Exports. Executive director of the Russian Armorers’ Union. Member of the Public Council of the Russian Ministry of Defense, moderator of the Ogarkov Readings conference. Author of Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (CAST, 2014), The Tanks of August (CAST, 2010), The Turkish Military Machine (CAST, 2019).

Dr. Da Wei is Director of the Center for International Strategy and Security (CISS) and professor in the department of International Relations of the School of Social Science at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.  He received his BA and MA from the University of International Relations in Beijing, and his Ph.D. from China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. 

Dr. Da’s research expertise covers China-US relations and US security and foreign policy. Da Wei has been working in China’s academic and policy community for more than two decades, he has written numerous policy papers for the Chinese government and published dozens of academic articles in the journals in China, the US and other countries.