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Last modified: Friday, February 6, 2004

British international security expert to speak on U.S.-European relations in the age of terrorism

EDITORS: To speak to Garden or to receive a print-quality photo, contact Ryan Piurek at 812-855-5393 or rpiurek@indiana.edu.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Sir Timothy Garden, a British international security expert with extensive military and diplomatic experience, will discuss U.S. and European relations in the age of terrorism at Indiana University Bloomington on Thursday, Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m.

Garden's lecture, titled, "Old Friends, New Enemies: Europe and the United States in the Age of Terrorism," will be held in the Moot Court Room (room 123) of the Law building at Indiana Avenue and Third Street. It is free and open to the public.

Garden will be visiting the Bloomington campus from Feb. 13 to March 6 as the Class of 1941 Wells Professor in the Wells Scholars Program and a Scholar in Residence at IU's Center for the Study of Global Change. During his stay, he will be contributing to a Wells Scholar/Honors College seminar on international security issues in the 21st century, which is being taught by David Albright, senior fellow at the center and former U.S. government official.

"Tim is an international figure who possesses a fascinating combination of military and civilian expertise," Albright said. "He's held major positions in Britain's defense establishment and in foreign affairs, and is deeply involved in European security in general. In addition, he has a very substantive background in education and spends a lot of time developing an analytical understanding of international security issues."

The course to which Garden will be contributing will cover a broad range of topics. Among these are the nature and impact of terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts such as the India-Pakistan confrontation, economic security, environmental security, scarcity of vital resources such as food, water and oil and vulnerabilities of complex information systems.

The course also is giving undergraduates the opportunity to talk with other security experts, in person or by interactive video. These include David Lampton, director of China Studies at the Nixon Center; Dennis Ross, former U.S. ambassador at large to the Middle East; and Gregory O'Hayon of the Criminal Intelligence Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Garden was a pilot in the Royal Air Force for 32 years, eventually becoming assistant chief of the air staff in Britain's Ministry of Defense in 1991. From 1992 to 1994, he served as assistant chief of the defense staff, where he was responsible for the forward planning of all of the country's armed forces services, which include the Royal Air Force, British Army and Royal Navy. He finished his military service as air marshal commandant of the Royal College of Defense Studies from 1994 to 1995, during which time he was awarded his knighthood. He retired from the Royal Air Force in 1996.

Garden went on to become director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House Garden in London until 1998. He currently is a visiting professor at the Centre for Defense Studies at King's College London, where he has been undertaking research for the British and U.S. governments on European defense capabilities, counter-terrorism and conflict prevention in the Middle East and North Africa. He also writes and broadcasts regularly on international security topics and advises Britain's Liberal Democrats, the third-largest political party in that country.

The Liberal Democrats are led by former IU graduate student Charles Kennedy. Kennedy received a Fulbright fellowship to study at IU in 1982 but left a year later when he was elected to the British parliament.

Garden, who was a distinguished citizen fellow at IU in 2001, was appointed to the Commission on Globalization in 2002. He will be participating in a number of events on and off campus during his visit to IU, including suppers with undergraduates and lunch talks in Bloomington and Indianapolis on such topics as the challenges government officials and citizens face in trying to assess the reliability of security intelligence.

For more information on Garden and links to his published writings, visit his Web site at https://www.tgarden.demon.co.uk.