Politics and Governance

This event is by invitation only. For inquiries, please email Ms. Lisa Treiling at fes.associate@fesny.org.

Watch the live stream here starting at 9:15AM EST: 

The Changing Middle East - Implications for Regional and Global Politics

The recent turmoil in the Middle East has added an unsettled new dynamic to the long-standing policy challenges in the region. Against the backdrop of perennial concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and capabilities and the Middle East peace process, key regional and international actors are grappling with how to address these new instabilities while assuring regional allies and domestic constituencies that the new dynamic does not need to lead to a further, and possibly irreparable, escalation of tension. And as the U.S. presidential election draws near, President Obama faces a daunting task of balancing election year politics, securing U.S. interests in a shifting Middle East while guaranteeing Israel’s security, and de-escalating tensions with Iran through the framework of the P5+1 negotiations.

MANAGING BUSINESS RISK THROUGH POLICY ENTREPRENEURSHIP

October 3 – 5, 2011 | Brussels

SELECTED TOPICS

> Emergency Preparedness for an International Crisis in Cyberspace

> Confidence-Building Measures in Cybersecurity

> Measuring the Cybersecurity problem: towards a trusted international entity

> Building National Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arabian Peninsula

> The G20 and Economic Security: Global Policies and Local Actions

> Meeting the Costs of Collective Security in Southwest Asia to 2020

CRAFTING NEW SOLUTIONS

The eighth annual Worldwide Security Conference (WSC8) aimed to:

> continue EWI’s tradition of articulating new goals for global security and the steps needed to achieve them,

> stimulate progressive improvement in the way global security is managed and reviewed,

> bring together leading policy makers, specialists, business executives, community leaders and journalists from around the world for debate and networking.

INTERNATIONAL PROMINENCE

The World Customs Organization has hosted and co-sponsored the Worldwide Security Conference for the last 6 years. The French Government, in its capacity as Chair of the G8, has agreed to co-sponsor the WSC8. This will continue the trend of G8 Presidential support from the Russian, German, Japanese, Italian and Canadian Governments in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively. The WSC is unique for its emphasis on bridging East-West divides by ensuring that fresh voices from Asia are prominent in the debates. The Council of Europe co-sponsored several workshops of WSC 6 and the Australian and Japanese Governments co-sponsored as special session of WSC 7.

WSC8 EVENTS

> Click here for the image gallery.

> Click here for conference's main day live blog.

> Click here for conference media coverage.

> Conference updates: Update #1 | Udate #2

SELECTED SPEAKERS

Francis Finlay, Co-Chairman, EastWest Institute
General (ret.) Harald Kujat, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of German Armed Forces and former Chair of NATO’s Military Committee
Christian Masset, Director General of Globalisation, Development and Partnerships, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Paul Nicholas, Senior Director, Global Security Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
Ambassador Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, Former Secretary General, OSCE
Dr. Jaroslaw Pietras, Director-General, Climate change, environment, health, consumers, education, youth, culture, audiovisual, Council of the European Union
Dr. Armen Sarkissian, President, Eurasia House International; Vice-Chairman, EWI’s Board of Directors
Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges Division, NATO HQ  
Vladislav P. Sherstuyk, Adviser to the Secretary of the Security Council of  the Russian Federation; Director of Lomonosov Moscow State University Institute of Information Security Issues
Dr. Goran Svilanović, Co-Ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities
Ambassador Yaşar Yakış, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Turkey
Dimitri Zenghelis, Associate Fellow, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Energy, Environment and Development Programme
 

Security Park | AllConferences.Com

The EastWest Institute will bring together leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the EU, and the U.S. on February 17, 2010 to determine new strategies to ensure security in Afghanistan and its region. This consultation, part of the seventh annual Worldwide Security Conference, is the third in a series of consultations EWI has convened since February 2009 on alternative futures for the stability of Afghanistan and Southwest Asia.

The consultation is an invitation-only event for high-level participants. If you would like to participate, please contact us for more information.

PARIS. October 13. At the EastWest Institute’s second consultation on “Alternative Futures for Afghanistan and the Stability of Southwest Asia,” hosted by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speakers pleaded for a more determined process of national reconciliation and a more focused international aid effort in Afghanistan.

The purpose of the event, which builds on the first consultation in Fbreuary 2009, was to highlight views from Afghanistan and its neighbors about measures necessary for stability in the region. It included participants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and international stakeholders including the United States, France, Germany and Russia.

In his keynote speech, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner urged top Afghan politicians Hamid Karzai and opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah to put aside their differences and work together to tackle the current crisis. "Yes, for a national unity government," he said.

In telling the untold story behind the fall of the Berlin Wall, Michael Meyer will also describe EWI’s role in the momentous events of 1989. His account of the revolutions in 1989 rewrites our conventional understanding of how the Cold War came to an end and holds important lessons for America’s current geopolitical challenges. He provides a refutation of American political mythology and a misunderstanding of history that seduced the United States into many of the intractable conflicts it faces today.

Michael Meyer was Newsweek’s bureau chief for Germany, Central Europe and the Balkans between 1988 and 1992, and wrote more than a dozen cover stories on the breakup of communist Europe and German unification. He is the winner of two Overseas Press Club Awards and has appeared regularly as a commentator for MSNBC, CNN, FOX, C-SPAN, NPR and other broadcast networks. Meyer is a member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations and is currently Director of Communications in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, visited the EastWest Institute on Tuesday, September 22, for an off-the-record discussion on the OIC’s role in preventive diplomacy around the world.

Ihsanoglu discussed ways in which the OIC and the West can work together to resolve and prevent conflicts of common concern. Brewing conflicts in the Muslim world have a significant impact on the West. Western policies - both domestic and international - have an equally significant impact on the Muslim world. The secretary general discussed strategies that can help build trust, not only between the Muslim world and the West, but also between conflicting parties within the Muslim world. He also spoke about the roles governments, militaries, businesses and civil society can play in this process, as well as the role of international organizations such as the OIC, NATO and the U.N.

Among the topics of discussion:

The OIC

Ihsanoglu emphasized the importance of the new OIC charter, adopted in April 2008, and the changing role it envisages for the organization.  The OIC has set out to address conflicts between the Muslim world and the West, and also conflicts within the Muslim world.

Ihsanoglu stressed the importance of resolving conflicts within the Muslim world as a means to bridge divides between the Muslim world and the West. Any conflict in the Muslim world will always have an impact on the West, and vice versa.

He pointed to recent OIC successes resolving sectarian conflicts in Iraq. The OIC intervened during severe tensions in 2006 to bring Shiite and Sunni Muslims back together around a common set of agreed principles. This common agreement between the two communities helped start a process of rapprochement between the two and helped reduce sectarian violence in Iraq.

“Some Muslim conflicts can be solved locally, rather than at the global level,” he said, stressing the importance of organic, on-the-ground solutions.

The OIC is now engaged in a similar process in Somalia, where rival factions of Muslims are engaged in a bloody struggle for power.

Turning to Afghanistan, Ihsanoglu urged the creation of a new plan based on socio-economic development and cultural and political reconciliation. The OIC can play a constructive role in promoting such a solution, he suggested, as it is trusted and knowledgeable of local customs.

Socio-economic development

Ihsanoglu briefed participants on recent meetings of the OIC, including a summit in Saudi Arabia that “addressed the challenges faced by the Muslim world in a new, objective way.”

He stressed moderation and modernism as fundamental preconditions for lasting peace in the Muslim world. “We have to modernize to defeat radicalism,” he said.
Ihsanoglu pointed to OIC efforts to cooperate with the U.K. and other western governments to promote socio-economic development, but stressed that different levels of development in most Muslim countries pose unique sets of challenges. “When industrial society completes its development, the challenges change,” he said. “Rural and nomadic societies cannot be expected to behave the same way as in New York or Stockholm. The hotbeds of conflict in the Muslim world will take many years to solve.”

The changing meaning of East and West

Ihsanoglu pointed out that the meaning of East and West has evolved over time, from Goethe’s conception of the East as a source of romance, to Samuel Huntington’s idea of a clash of civilizations. “Why are we always trying to speak about them as different from each other?” asked Ihsanoglu. “Can we not speak also of their affinity?”

Ihsanoglu urged a new approach to East-West relations based on their “affinity and proximity.”

The U.S. and the Obama Administration

Ihsanoglu described the transition of power to the Obama Administration as an important new phase for U.S. relations with the Muslim world. “In Obama, we have a new strategy, new language, good intentions,” he said. “The question now is how to transform good intentions into policies.”

“Our common goal should be making our small fragile planet a haven of peace and prosperity for all,” he said. 

On June 4, the Swiss Mission in New York hosted a briefing for members of the U.N. Security Council and other select member states on EWI’s U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Iran’s nuclear and missile potential.

Ambassador Peter Maurer, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations and member of EWI’s Board of Directors, moderated the briefing. Other participants included Leonid Ryabikhin of the Committee of Scientists for Global Security and Arms Control who represented the Russian team, Ted Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who represented the American team, and Professor Gary Sick of Columbia University.

Key findings of the J.T.A. described in the briefing and discussed in the question-and-answer period were:

• The time it would take for Iran to develop a roughly 2,000 km range ballistic missile armed with a nuclear warhead is determined by the time it takes Iran to build a nuclear warhead that is sufficiently light and compact to fly on a ballistic missile.
• Unless Iran receives substantial external assistance, it would take Iran years to produce with indigenous technology missiles of substantially longer range without major new innovations in missile technology.
• In the event that Iran builds such long-range missiles, with or without external assistance, these missiles would be very large and cumbersome and would have to be launched from well-known, specialized launch locations. Such missiles would be highly vulnerable to preemption.
• If Iran takes the political decision to manufacture nuclear devices, it will have to remove IAEA control and monitoring—thus alerting the international community to its intentions. It would take Iran about six years to build nuclear weapons compact and light enough to be used on a ballistic missile. This conclusion assumes that Iran does not have clandestine enrichment capabilities.

At an EastWest Institute consultation on Afghanistan, leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the EU, and the U.S. agreed that the world can and must reverse the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and the region.

“There have been some positive developments, but things have in certain ways changed for the worst in the last three years,” said Hekmat Karzai, Director of Conflict and Peace Studies in Afghanistan. “We have not had a political strategy to solve the problem.”

David Kilcullen, senior fellow at the EastWest Institute and former advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq, added: “The situation in Afghanistan is extremely serious, but it is possible to turn it around provided we make some changes now.”

According to the meeting participants, the most significant change required to improve conditions in Afghanistan is the active participation of the Afghan people.

“It’s all about empowering the Afghan people,” said EastWest Institute Distinguished Fellow Hank Crumpton. “Get the Afghans to protect themselves, build their roads, and grow their food. They want to do it.”

Karzai added: “Many donors do not fund projects that are demand driven – they are desire driven. Rather than you, the outsiders, doing it perfectly, let the locals do it imperfectly.”

“It is no catastrophe today,” said General Philippe Morillon, a member of the European Parliament from France. “But the problem is that our soldiers are more and more seen as occupiers. We have to go faster towards Afghanization.”

Participants agreed that global perceptions can change, and ground realities change with them. Two years ago, Iraq was widely considered a lost cause, while Afghanistan was thought to be a winnable war against extremism. Now, many predict relative stability in Iraq and near disaster in Afghanistan. The international community can transform Afghanistan as it has begun to transform Iraq, but it needs significant political will to do so.

“This is about rebuilding an international consensus on Afghanistan,” said John Mroz, President and CEO of the EastWest Institute. “We have a lot of work to do.”

Consultation participants also included Saleh Mohammed Saljoqi, General Khodaidad, and Houmayoun Tandar from Afghanistan, General Ehsan Ul Haq from Pakistan, Lt. General Satish Nambiar from India, and representatives from the EU, Russia, and the United States.

This event was part of the EastWest Institute's larger efforts to determine alternative futures for Afghanistan and Southwest Asia.