Dialogue Abstract:

Whenever a new US President comes into office, the new administration’s foreign policy exhibits a combination of continuity and change.  Donald Trump has deviated from past practice far more than any other president since 1945. This comes at a time when crises are on the agenda around the world – from the possibility of armed conflict with North Korea and active conflicts in the Middle East to Russian aggression and the global dangers posed by climate change.

In this RSIS Dialogue, three members of the RSIS Board of Governors will share their regional expertise ad their broad knowledge of global issues: Professor Michael Brown of George Washington University (on Europe), Professor Bates Gill of Macquarie University (on Asia), and Dean Vali Nasr of Johns Hopkins University (on the Middle East). In addition to providing their assessments of the Trump administration’s foreign policy actions to date, they will look ahead to the international challenges they forecast for 2018 and beyond.

About the Speakers:

Michael E. Brown is a Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He was Dean of the Elliott School from 2005 to 2015. He is a member of the RSIS Board of Governors, and he was an RSIS Distinguished Visitor in April 2016. He has held long-term appointments at Georgetown University, Harvard University, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He has served as an Editor of the journals Survival and International Security. Professor Brown is the author of Flying Blind: The Politics of the U.S. Strategic Bomber Program, which won the Edgar Furniss National Security Book Award. He is the editor or co-editor of 22 books, including four books focused on Asian security issues. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University.

Bates Gill is Professor of Asia Pacific Security Studies at Macquarie University and is a research fellow with the Australian National University Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.  He is a career-long observer of US foreign policy in Asia and particularly US-China relations.  From 2012 to 2015, Dr. Gill was Chief Executive Officer of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He was previously Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Before joining SIPRI, Dr. Gill held the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C (2002-2007) and previously served as a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and inaugural Director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution (1998-2002).  Among his more than 200 publications, he is author, co-author, or co-editor of eight books, including, most recently, China Matters: Getting it Right for Australia (Black Inc., 2017), co-authored with Linda Jakobson.  He also serves on the Board of Governors of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (Singapore) and is a member of the International Board of Advisors for the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies.  He is on the Editorial Board of China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, and Security Challenges.  Dr. Gill received his Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia. In 2013, he received the Royal Order of the Commander of the Polar Star, the highest award bestowed on foreigners by the Swedish monarch, for his contributions to Swedish interests.

Vali R. Nasr is a Middle East scholar, foreign policy adviser and commentator on international relations. His most recent book, “The Dispensable Nation” deals with the implications of the Obama administration’s foreign policy on American strategic interests. His previous books, “Forces of Fortune” and “The Shia Revival” examined the postwar sectarian violence in Iraq and the Arab Spring uprising, and contributed to US policy formulated in response to those events. Prior to being named Dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS, Nasr was a professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. From 2009 to 2011, he was the special adviser to the President’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan; he served on the faculties of the Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford University, the University of California, San Diego and the University of San Diego; he was a Carnegie scholar and a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He also served as an adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. Nasr is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Shuttle Bus Service:

A shuttle bus service is available from the taxi stand (F46) at Buona Vista MRT via Exit C to NTU@OneNorth from 1.30 – 2.30 pm
(See attached location map)