Security

Lord John Alderdice is an appointed life Member of the British House of Lords of the British Parliament at Westminster. Recently the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party in the House of Lords elected him as its new Convener (Chair) and in this position Lord Alderdice will provide an essential link between backbench Liberal Democrat peers and Liberal Democrats in Government. He is also a Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist at the Centre for Psychotherapy which he established in Belfast, United Kingdom.

The University of Michigan is pleased to announce the upcoming visit of John Beyrle, U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation. Ambassador Beyrle will deliver a public lecture titled 'U.S.-Russia Relations: Status of the 'Reset',' at the University of Michigan Alumni Center. A career Foreign Service Officer and specialist in Russian and East European Affairs, Ambassador Beyrle has held the top position in the Moscow Embassy since July 2008. This will be a unique opportunity to hear from a leading public official about U.S.

Marian Wright Edelman speaks from her new book, The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation, which she wrote as a call to action for all Americans to address the urgent needs of our country's youth.

David Marash has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast journalism. Most recently, he anchored news from Washington for the global news channel, Al Jazeera English and he served for 16 years as the chief international correspondent for ABC News Nightline. In the ever-expanding world of global communication, there are lots of 'new media' like internet and mobile phone links for the transmission of text, voice and pictures, and literally a world of new players guiding the still dominant 'mainstream media,' but for all that, content still matters.

Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. The war in Iraq and the fight against Al-Qaeda have posed major challenges to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundation for the global movement for human rights. Increasingly, to many critics the war on terror has become a war on human rights, providing cover and sanction for repressive governments around the world, undermining human rights globally and compromising US national security.

Kemal Dervis, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme. 2006 Citigroup Lecture. Co-sponsored with the International Policy Center and the Turkish Studies Colloquium. Kemal Dervis will give the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy's Citigroup Lecture on October 25, 2006. Kemal Dervis was Turkey's Minister for Economic Affairs and the Treasury and is now the head of the United Nations Development Programme, the UN's global development network.

Senator Carl Levin, (D-Mich.) will discuss 'New Directions in National Security' at the 2005-06 Josh Rosenthal Education Fund Lecture. Sen. Levin, who has represented Michigan since 1979, is the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee, and the Select Intelligence Committee. The lecture commemorates the life and work of Josh Rosenthal, a 1979 University of Michigan graduate who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Jessica Stern is a nationally recognized expert on the motivations and causes behind terrorist movements.

Robin Wright, a five-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, is a global affairs correspondent for The Los Angeles Times. She has had extended tours of duty outside the United States, reporting from more than 130 countries. Ms. Wright has spent more than five years in the Middle East, two years in Europe, and seven years in Africa, as well as stints in Latin America and Asia.

Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Marina Whitman and David Featherman

In July 2014 Washington Post journalist and former Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, was arrested by Iranian police on charges of espionage. What followed was a harrowing 544 day stint in an Iranian prison, and an extraordinary campaign led by his family, the Washington Post, and prominent journalism organizations for his release. Join Rezaian for a discussion on his book “Prisoner,” which details his 18-month imprisonment in a maximum security facility, his journey through the Iranian legal system and how his release became part of the Iran nuclear deal.

Former President of MIT Charles M. Vest will deliver the Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation lecture October 12, at 3:30 p.m. in the Michigan Ballroom. The lecture is titled 'Improving the U.S. Intelligence Community – Lessons from Iraq, Libya, and Elsewhere.' The talk is part of Dr. Vest's visit to the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, where he is the Towsley Policymaker in Residence. The Towsley Policymaker in Residence program at the Ford School brings a policymaker to campus for an extended period of time to teach, write, and talk with faculty and students.

Lieutenant General David Petraeus, Commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth. General Petraeus served in Iraq as the first commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command – Iraq from June 2004 to September 2005, during which he was responsible for helping organize, train, and equip Iraq 's security forces. He previously commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sultan Al Qassemi is a 33-year-old scholar, columnist, and influential Twitter commentator. TIME Magazine says he's "shaping the conversation" on events unfolding in the Middle East. NPR says he "wrote the first draft of Middle East history in short sentences tapped out on his computer and his cell phone."

Lecture by General Michael Hayden, retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the CIA and NSA.

Free and open to the public. Screening of Death by China will begin after the debate in the same room. About the event In this inaugural Ford Policy Union debate, Peter Navarro, the director and producer of the movie Death by China, will argue China's unfair trade and membership in the World Trade Organization are the primary causes of job losses and weak growth in the United States.

Free and open to the public. About the talk The more a country depends on aid, the more distorted are its incentives to manage its own development in sustainably beneficial ways. Cambodia, a post-conflict state that cannot refuse aid, is rife with trial-and-error donor experiments and their unintended results, including bad governance—a major impediment to rational economic growth.

Free and open to the public. Preceded by a reception in the Great Hall at the Ford School at 5:00 PM. Join the conversation on Twitter: #FordPolicyUnion. About the event This Ford Policy Union event will feature a debate on the effectiveness of international agreements on cyber security. Professor John Steinbruner, a noted international security scholar, will argue that the U.S.

Lecture by Alan Bersin, Assistant Secretary of International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Free and open to the public Join the conversation on Twitter: #FordPolicyUnion About the event: The United States has four stated policy goals in the Middle East. 1. Helping Iraqis build a unified, stable, and prosperous country; 2. Renewing progress toward the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; 3. Working against terrorists and their state sponsors, as well as against the spread of weapons of mass destruction; and 4. Supporting efforts at economic and political reform in the region.

The International Institute and the International Policy Center host a panel discussion with foremost experts on the Middle East and the threat of ISIS.  

Join Out in Public and the Ford School's Graduate Career Services for an online-only conversation with Diana Maurer (MPP '90), a director at GAO, on her career overseeing defense logistics issues, coming out, and transitioning while working at a federal agency.

Towsley Policymaker in Residence Javed Ali will moderate a panel discussion with three leading counterterrorism experts--Peter Bergen, Barbara McQuade, and Chris Costa.

Ford Security Seminar will host William G. Rich to discuss about how the changing economic trends and politics of the GCC are Affecting U.S. Security Interests.

Ford School Students are invited to join an FSO Test Prep Session with Justin Erickson. 

Indo-Pacific Conference organized by International Policy Center and Center for Japanese Studies features a keynote by Susan Thornton, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.