Last modified: Tuesday, February 12, 2013
IU seminars to address drones, Syria crisis, counterinsurgency
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 12, 2013
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Leading academic experts from Indiana and across the country will discuss current issues involving U.S. foreign relations this week at Indiana University Bloomington.
Three seminars sponsored by the Center for American and Global Security, the Center for the Study of the Middle East and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs will take audiences behind the headlines to gain a better understanding of forces affecting U.S. policy and global relations.
All the sessions are free and open to the public. They are:
- "Drone Wars: Legal, Ethical and Strategic?" a panel discussion with Indiana University faculty and graduate students, 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, Dogwood Room, Indiana Memorial Union.
- "Syria in Crisis," a panel discussion with faculty members from IU, Mills College and George Mason University, 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 14, Maple Room, Indiana Memorial Union.
- "The False Promise of the Governance Model of Counterinsurgency Warfare," a lecture by Jacqueline L. Hazelton of the University of Rochester, 5:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 15, Fine Arts 102.
"Drone Wars" will address the legal, ethical and strategic ramifications of American use of unmanned aircraft for military and intelligence purposes, including the targeted killing of suspected terrorists.
Panelists will be David P. Fidler, James Louis Calamaras Professor of Law in the IU Maurer School of Law; Richard B. Miller, Provost Professor of Religious Studies and director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions; and Paul Hoffman and Manjeet S. Pardesi, doctoral students in the Department of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences. Ambassador Feisal A.R. Istrabadi, director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East, will moderate.
"Syria in Crisis" will feature a discussion by Kevin Martin, assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at IU Bloomington; Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Studies Program and assistant professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University; and Fred Lawson, Lynn T. White Professor of Government at Mills College.
All are experts on modern-day Syria, which has been torn for nearly two years by armed conflict between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels seeking to overthrow the government. Sumit Ganguly, director of the Center for American and Global Security and the Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilizations at IU Bloomington, will moderate.
The "Drone Wars" and "Syria in Crisis" seminars are sponsored by the Center for American and Global Security and the Center for the Study of the Middle East, both part of the School of Global and International Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Hazelton, who will speak Friday on counterinsurgency warfare, is a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Rochester. She was previously a research fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is the author of "Compellence and Accommodation in Counterinsurgency Warfare."
