Oct. 4, 2018 Noon Eggers 060 (Global Collaboratory) Jason Stearns is Director of the Congo Research Group at New York University and author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. He obtained his Ph.D. from Yale University and has served in various roles for Congolese and international NGOs and the United Nations. Part of the David F. Everett Postconflict Reconstruction Speaker Series CO-SPONSORS: INSCT, MAXWELL AFRICAN SCHOLARS UNION

Command and Control Doctrinal Challenges in the British Army: From the Trenches to the War on Terror WITH: Professor Gary Sheffield, University of Wolverhampton WHEN: Friday, Sept. 21, 2018 | Noon – 1:30 p.m. WHERE: Eggers 151 (History Department Conference Room) World War I saw the greatest challenge to military command and control the world had ever seen. A combination of factors produced a “wicked” problem that profoundly changed land warfare. There were no easy solutions, and generals in all armies struggled to adjust. In this lecture, Professor Gary Sheffield looks at the British army’s experience, examining topics such as command…

INSCT Director James E. Baker and Professor Emeritus William C. Banks will represent the Institute at the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security’s 28th Annual Review of the Field of National Security Law Conference, taking place Nov. 1-2, 2018 at the Capitol Hilton in Washington DC. This premier national security law conference includes panels focusing on vital topics, including: Space Law: Issues and Progress Legal Issues Confronting the Military National Security Law Community The 4th Amendment, Surveillance and the Future, preceded by a special keynote luncheon address by Glenn Gerstell, General Counsel, National Security Agency Reviewing Current Controversies…

Kira Jumet is Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College. Her research focuses on protest mobilization leading up to and during the 2011 and 2013 Egyptian uprisings, including the relationship between emotions and protest participation. Her most recent book is Contesting the Repressive State: Why Ordinary Egyptians Protested During the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2017). In her book Jumet asks, “Why and how did thousands of Egyptian citizens suddenly take to the streets against the Mubarak regime in January 2011?” With insights based on 170 interviews conducted in Egypt during the Arab Spring, she argues that individuals are rational…

Reggie Govan, the former Chief Counsel of the FAA, played an integral role shaping public policy at the cutting edge of aviation technology, and he has a deep understanding of the impact of rapidly evolving innovative technology systems and operations on the regulatory environment. He is one of the architects of today’s regulatory framework for expanding commercial drone operations, ensuring counter-drone security, and expanding performance-based rulemaking. Govan is an advocate for a comprehensive reconsideration of the relative roles of federal, state, local, and tribal governments and of private industry to support low-altitude commercial drone operations. Before joining the FAA, Govan…

The controversial deployment in late October 2018 of 5,800 US servicemembers to the US-Mexico border in response to a perceived migration and asylum crisis has caused a media stir. Not unsurprisingly, questions about the legality of the deployment have arisen, especially in the wake of a November 20 White House “Cabinet Order” allowing troops to perform law enforcement roles and to use lethal force, potentially in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Professor Emeritus William C. Banks, author of Soldiers on the Home Front: The Domestic Role of the American Military, has answered some of these questions for Military Times,…

The Pentagon is resisting Trump’s most controversial military requests for the border (Vox | Nov. 5, 2018) Resistance to President Donald Trump’s strong-handed military proposals to counter a caravan of immigrants headed toward the US-Mexico border is coming from a surprising place: the Pentagon. When the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested troops at the border, it asked the military to perform emergency law enforcement functions like crowd control. But the Pentagon rejected that request in late October in part because it felt active-duty troops don’t have the legal authority to arrest individuals on US soil. That’s not all: DHS…

Pentagon Wants to Predict Anti-Trump Protests Using Social Media Surveillance (Motherboard | Oct. 30, 2018) The United States government is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests in the US, according to scientific research, official government documents, and patent filings reviewed by Motherboard. The social media posts of American citizens who don’t like President Donald Trump are the focus of the latest US military-funded research. The research, funded by the US Army and co-authored by a researcher based at the West Point Military Academy, is part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to consolidate…

The 5,239 Troops Headed to the Border is Just the Beginning (Military Times | Oct. 30, 2018) The number of troops who will deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border will rise beyond the 5,239 personnel already on orders and expected to be in place within days, U.S. Northern Command chief Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy said Tuesday. O’Shaughnessy did not have a cost estimate for the rapidly-growing — and without recent precedent — mission of dispatching thousands of active-duty forces to Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California to counter a caravan of an estimated 3,500 migrants traveling from Central America. “There…

Are Recent Suspicious Packages an Act of Political Terrorism? (Spectrum News | Oct. 25, 2018) One after the other, suspicious packages were delivered to the media and liberal leaders, many in New York City. “This is a very painful time in our nation. It’s a time when people are feeling a lot of hate in the air,” said Bill de Blasio, (D) New York City Mayor. Some are calling it domestic terrorism and others call it political terrorism. “Someone one who might be trying to use scare tactics or trying to enhance political passions, make partisan divisions worse,” said Corri…