September 21, 2009
In this issue
- Coming up at the Mershon Center
- Other events
- Mershon Center offers podcasts and more
- Mansoor examines roots of counterinsurgency in 'Origins'
Having trouble reading this newsletter? You can read it online.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Robert Pape
"America's Relative Decline and Its Consequences"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Robert Pape is professor of political science at the University of Chicago. His current work focuses on American grand strategy, causes and solutions to suicide terrorism, the logic of soft balancing in a unipolar world, and the limits and advantages of precision air power. Pape is author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House, 2005) and Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Cornell, 1996).
Pape's commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, CNN International, and National Public Radio. Read more and RSVP
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Mark Stewart
"Critical Infrastructure Protection: Are We Spending Too Much on Counter-Terrorism?"
Noon, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Mark Stewart is director of the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at University of Newcastle, Australia, and a visiting scholar at the Mershon Center. He has more than 25 years of experience in probabilistic risk assessment of infrastructure systems, subject to man-made and natural hazards. Stewart has received Australian Research Council grants in part to develop cost-benefit assessments of counter-terrorism protective measures for critical infrastructure. In his presentation, he will discuss cost-benefit assessments of counter-terrorism protective measures applied to critical infrastructure and key assets.
One example he will consider is the cost-effectiveness of the Federal Air Marshal Service. He will demonstrate how the Federal Air Marshal Service is not cost-effective, whereas hardening of cockpit doors is a more effective solution. Read more and RSVP
Friday-Saturday, October 2-3, 2009
The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election: The Election that Rebranded the United States Abroad
Organized by Herb Weisberg, Department of Political Science
Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election will examine the 2008 presidential campaign and election, analyzing the foreign and military policy debates as well as the voting trends that remade the image of the United States abroad. The 2008 U.S. presidential election took place against the backdrop of the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a domestic financial crisis. The two major-party candidates secured their nominations in large part because of their stances on the wars. Discussion of foreign and military policies became paramount throughout the campaign. Few disputed that America's popularity abroad had declined during the George W. Bush years. This conference will examine how the change in the party controlling the White House, the accession of an opponent of the Iraq War, and the election of the first African-American President of the United States changed perceptions of the United States around the world. Read more
Friday, October 9, 2009
Susan Stokes
"Vote Buying in Democratic Systems"
3:30 p.m., Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.
Susan Stokes is John S. Saden Professor of Political Science at Yale University. She is also director of the Yale Program on Democracy and chair of the Department of Political Science.
Her research interests include democratic theory and how democracy functions in developing societies, with a focus on Latin America. Stokes is co-author of Democracy and the Culture of Skepticism: Political Trust in Argentina and Mexico (Russell Sage Foundation, 2006). Her book, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (Cambridge, 2001), received prizes from the APSA Comparative Democratization section and the Society for Comparative Research. Read more and RSVP
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Beyond Aid: Building Communities in the Developing World
7:30 a.m., Registration; 8-10 a.m., Program
4th floor ballroom, Conference Center, Center for Workforce Development
Columbus State Community College, 315 Cleveland Ave.
Sponsored by the Columbus Council on World Affairs
Join us for the second of three programs of the Global Health: Community Conversations Series. Steve Hollingworth, COO of CARE USA, and Cliff Lenton of World Vision will outline the new trends in addressing global health challenges in the developing world, highlighting a renewed focus on culturally-relevant, community-based projects and emphasizing maternal and child health. Dr. Phil Cass, CEO of the Columbus Medical Association and Angela Plummer, Executive Director of CRIS, will later join them for a discussion of relevant local implications. Read more and register
As autumn quarter begins, you may see students and faculty listening to Mershon Center lectures on their iPods. Users can now download audio podcasts of past Mershon speaking events onto their iPods or mp3 players and listen on the go, rather than having to access them online.
Please feel free to download Mershon Center podcasts and promote them in your courses this fall. To access them, visit http://itunes.osu.edu and launch or download iTunesU. This will take you to the Ohio State section of iTunes, where you can access Mershon recordings under Centers – Academic. More than 250 audio recordings from the past five years are available.
You can also find video and audio streams from Mershon events held during the past six years on the Event Recordings page of our web site. Streaming videos differ from podcasts in that podcasts can be downloaded while streaming videos cannot.
Pictures taken at Mershon Center events are being collected in an online album using Google's Picasa service. You can view and download photos of past events, organized by quarter and academic year, by visiting our photo archive.
Finally, the Mershon Center is now archiving materials from all events, publications, web pages, and more in The Ohio State University's Knowledge Bank. You can search by author, title, or subject to find resources since 2003.
For more information, please contact Cathy Becker or Cheryl King.
Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective is pleased to announce the publication of its October 2009 issue, featuring "From Baghdad to Kabul: The Historical Roots of U.S. Counterinsurgency Doctrine" by Peter R. Mansoor.
Renewed American efforts to "win" the war in Afghanistan against a resurgent Taliban, as well as the ongoing war in Iraq, have kept the question of counterinsurgency strategy at the forefront of U.S. military and public life. Peter Mansoor, Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History at Ohio State, examines the historical patterns of counterinsurgency doctrine. Mansoor is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army who served most recently as executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus, the commanding general of Multi-National Force-Iraq. He explores the lessons of the Iraq War for Afghanistan and the radical changes to U.S. strategy of the last few years.
Origins is a free, non-commercial publication from the Public History Initiative and eHistory in Ohio State University's History Department. Each month, an academic expert analyzes a particular current issue -- political, cultural, or social -- in a larger, deeper historical context. In addition to the analysis provided in each month's feature, Origins also includes podcasts, images, maps, graphics, timelines, and other material to complement the article.
Origins can be found at http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/origins/. The podcast is found at http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/origins/podcasts.cfm. You can also follow Origins on Twitter: OriginsOSU
Recent topics include Central Asia and the new world order, Somalian pirates, Detroit and the fate of urban America, marriage debates, Kosovo, and the Darfur conflict. Next month: "Population Bomb? The Debate over Indian Population," by Mytheli Sreenivas.
About Mershon Memo
Mershon Memo is a weekly e-mail newsletter distributed by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. You have received this newsletter because you have been identified as a party to whom these mailings may be of interest. If you would like to unsubscribe, please e-mail becker.271@osu.edu.
