Jeffrey Mankoff
Center for Strategic and International Studies

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Friday, Februay 28
12:20pm Eastern US Time - Meet and Greet
12:30pm - 2:00pm Eastern US Time - Talk / Q&A

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Abstract
The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been felt all across the Eurasian landmass. The diversion of Russian attention and resources to Ukraine has contributed to a vacuum around Russia’s borders that has both empowered local actors and created new opportunities for rival powers such as Turkey, Iran, China, and the European Union. In places like the South Caucasus, this vacuum has led to the unfreezing of previously intractable conflicts, creating new facts on the ground as well as new suffering for civilians. At the same time, it has provided space for a country like Moldova to accelerate its political transformation and integration with the West. Russia has, meanwhile, adapted to this new reality by shifting its objectives in much of its immediate neighborhood, leveraging geoeconomic tools and forging new partnerships to limit the damage to its reputation and influence. How have Moscow’s relations with its former dependencies in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and with other regional powers shifted as a result of the war in Ukraine? Will these shifts prove enduring once the war ends?

Advanced Readings

• The End of the Post-Soviet Order
• Turkey's Evolving Geopolitical Strategy in the Black Sea
• Ukraine war: Putin’s failure will pave the way for China’s rise to pre-eminence in Eurasia
• Implications of Russia’s War Against Ukraine for Central Asia
• Prisoner of the Caucasus? Toward a U.S. Strategy for the South Caucasus

• How The Ukraine War Could Revamp Trade In Eurasia

Biography

Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff is a Distinguished Research Fellow at National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies and a Non-Resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 

His research focuses on Russian foreign policy, Eurasian geopolitics, and the role of history and memory in international relations. He is the author of the books Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security (Yale, 2022) and Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, 2012). He also writes frequently for Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks and other outlets.

Dr. Mankoff was previously a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS and served as an adviser on U.S.-Russia relations at the U.S. Department of State as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. From 2008 to 2010, he was associate director of International Security Studies at Yale University and an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also held the John M. Olin National Security Fellowship at Harvard University (2006-07) and the Henry Chauncey Fellowship at Yale University (2007-08). Dr. Mankoff received undergraduate degrees in international studies and Russian from the University of Oklahoma, and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Yale University. He is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Wednesday, March 12
12:00pm Eastern US Time - Meet and Greet
12:10pm - 1:45pm Eastern US Time - Talk / Q&A

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Susan. Smith-Peter, Ph.D.
College of Staten Island

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Wednesday, March 26
12:20pm Eastern US Time - Meet and Greet
12:30pm - 2:00pm Eastern US Time - Talk / Q&A

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Susan Smith-Peter is professor of history and director of the public history program at the College of Staten Island/ City University of New York. She has written widely about the history of regionalism in Russia, including a monograph, Imagining Russian Regions, published with Brill in 2018. She is currently working on a synthetic history of regionalism in Russia, with a particular focus on Siberia, from the 1830s to the Russian Civil War, with an epilogue bringing the most crucial threads up to the present.

Wednesday, April 9
12:00pm Eastern US Time - Meet and Greet
12:10pm - 1:45pm Eastern US Time - Talk / Q&A

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Ariel (Eli) Levite
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Wednesday, February 12
12:00pm Eastern US Time - Meet and Greet
12:10pm - 1:45pm Eastern US Time - Talk / Q&A

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Abstract
The Iranian nuclear program currently presents both a major threat to regional stability in the broader Middle East and an acute challenge to the non proliferation regime. The strategic collaboration between Russia, playing out in Ukraine and influencing Iran's fortunes,  further clouds the picture.  While timing is of the essence to address both challenges diplomatically, before the last remaining diplomatic leverage over Iran's nuclear program dissipates in the fall of 2025. Importantly, though, the contours of the Iranian nuclear program might not be unique, due to a critical lacuna in the global regime governing nuclear non proliferation. Its one whose global significance is rapidly growing due to the renewed enthusiasm for diverse nuclear power applications while the prospects for constructive P-5 collaborations in addressing  have been diminishing. The presentation will explore both the unique Iran specific issues and options for ad hoc solutions to address it and reflect on the bigger picture that affects not merely the prospects for an Iran deal but also the broader challenge of confronting nuclear proliferation it sheds light on. 

Advanced Readings

• How to Avert a Looming Nuclear Crisis With Iran
• A path toward a nuclear off-ramp with Iran
• Iran’s Nuclear Threshold Challenge
• Why security assurances are losing their clout as a nuclear nonproliferation instrument
• The Nonproliferation Regime Is Breaking

Biography

A Colin Gray Memorial Lecture 
Steven W. Mosher, President
Population Research Institute

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Wednesday, January 22
12:00pm Eastern US Time - Meet and Greet
12:10pm - 1:45pm Eastern US Time - Talk / Q&A

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Abstract
The rapid rise of China over the past three decades spawned a cottage industry of pundits who predicted that the country would soon overtake the United States in both economic power and military might.  The 21st Century, they predicted, would be known as the Chinese Century, as the 20th had been known as the American Century.  In recent years, however, demographic trends, the misallocation of resources, and CCP corruption and infighting have darkened China's prospects.  At the same time, President Trump appears poised to unleash American energy, encourage innovation, rebuild America's industrial base, and reduce the size of government.  Which country will be preeminent in 2100?

Biography

Steven W. Mosher is an internationally recognized authority on China and population issues, as well as an acclaimed author, speaker. He has worked tirelessly since 1979 to fight coercive population control programs and has helped hundreds of thousands of women and families worldwide over the years.

In 1979, Steven was the first American social scientist to visit mainland China. He was invited there by the Chinese government, where he had access to government documents and actually witnessed women being forced to have abortions under the new “one-child policy.” Mr. Mosher was a pro-choice atheist at the time, but witnessing these traumatic abortions led him to reconsider his convictions and to eventually become a practicing, pro-life Roman Catholic.

Steven has appeared numerous times before Congress as an expert in world population, China, and human rights abuses. He has also made TV appearances on Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, 20/20, FOX and CNN news, as well as being a regular guest on talk radio shows across the nation.

He is also the author of the best-selling A Mother’s Ordeal: One Woman’s Fight Against China’s One-Child Policy. Other books include Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World, China Attacks, China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality, Journey to the Forbidden China, and Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese.

Articles by Steve have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, The New Republic, The Washington Post, National Review, Reason, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Freedom Review, Linacre Quarterly, Catholic World Report, Human Life Review, First Things, and numerous other publications.

Steven Mosher lives in Virginia with his wife, Vera, and their nine children.

"Deterrence:  What Went Wrong?  What Can Be Done Now?"
A Colin Gray Memorial Lecture 

Dr. Keith B. Payne

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Wednesday, January 8
12:20pm Eastern US Time - Meet and Greet
12:30pm - 2:00pm Eastern US Time - Talk / Q&A

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Abstract
Contemporary U.S. plans for the modernization of nuclear forces are an approximately 15-year- old legacy of the Obama Administration.  They were established at a time when many U.S. officials believed that U.S. relations with Russia and China were relatively benign and would remain so, or improve further.  Correspondingly, these plans reflected no sense of urgency and, with the exception of a modified B61 bomb, nothing is soon-to-be operational.  How a new presidential administration and Congress decide to (or not) adapt the U.S. nuclear posture given
the unmistakable reality of a much more dangerous than expected contemporary threat environment will affect the U.S. nuclear force posture for decades, and, consequently, U.S. deterrence strategies and options.

The United States and allies face unprecedented threats:  a Sino-Russian entente, a Russo-North Korean alliance, and emerging Russo-Iranian cooperation.  This represents a grouping of authoritarian powers coalescing to overturn the existing liberal global order led by the United States.  What decisions and moves must a new president and Congress make in the near term to provide credible deterrence given unprecedented looming threats?  The 2023 report of the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission repeatedly called for “urgent” action to address these threats.  That urgency, however, is far from apparent to this point.  The next president and Congress must get beyond deeply divided domestic politics to address an unprecedented level of threats to the United States and allies.

Advanced Readings

• The Pernicious Effects of Arms Control Misconceptions on Extended Deterrence and Assurance
• Deterrence via Intentional Civilian Targeting: A Dangerous Cold War Anachronism
• “A Time for Choosing”:  Urgent Action or Continuing Folly
• Arms Control: Past Practices Threaten Extended Deterrence Today
• U.S. Nuclear Deterrence: What Went Wrong and What Can Be Done?
• President-Elect Trump and Extended Nuclear Deterrence: WhitherGermany?Biography
• Deterrence in the Emerging Threat Environment:  What is Different and Why it Matters

Biography
Keith Payne is a co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, a nonprofit research center located in Fairfax, Virginia. He also is professor emeritus teaching doctoral courses at the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University (Washington Campus) where he previously served as Department Head for 14 years. He earlier served on the faculty of the graduate National Security studies Program at Georgetown University for 21 years.

Dr. Payne most recently served in the Department of Defense as a Senior Advisor to OSD and was tasked with helping to draft the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and the 2019 Missile Defense Review. In 2019 he was awarded OSD’s Outstanding Achievement Award for this work. Previously he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Forces Policy for which he received the Distinguished Public Service Medal. In 2005 he was awarded the Vicennial Medal from Georgetown University for his many years on the faculty of the National Security Studies Program, and in August 2018 he received the 2018 General Larry D. Welch Deterrence Writing Award from U.S. Strategic Command; his 1987 co-authored book, A Just Defense, was nominated for the Gold Medallion Award.

Dr. Payne served for many years as the Chairman of the U.S. Strategic Command’s Senior Advisory Group, Strategy and Policy Panel. He also served as a Commissioner on the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board, as co-chairman of the Department of Defense’s Deterrence Concepts Advisory Group, and also as a participant or leader of numerous governmental and private studies, including White House studies of U.S.-Russian cooperation, Defense Science Board Studies, and Defense Department studies of deterrence, missile defense, arms control, and proliferation.

Dr. Payne is the author or co-author of over 250 published articles and book chapters, and an author or editor of 48 books and monographs, some of which have been translated into German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Japanese. These publications are used widely in professional military education and civilian universities. His most recent book is, Chasing a Grant Illusion: Replacing Deterrence With Disarmament (National Institute Press, 2023). His most recent monograph, co-authored, is, The Pernicious Effects of Arms Control Misperceptions on Extended Deterrence and Assurance (National Institute Press, 2024).

Dr. Payne received an A.B. (honors) in political science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976, studied in Heidelberg, Germany, and in 1981 received a Ph.D. (with distinction) in International Relations from the University of Southern California.