Modern War Institute

MWI Speaker Series – American Grand Strategy in an Age of Upheaval, with Dr. Hal Brands
2018-09-24 12:35 - 13:50 (America/New_York) | Washington Hall 5300
Dr. Hal Brands is Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Program on National Security, and is a Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author or editor of several books, including American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (2018) and Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order (2016). He has consulted with a range of government agencies in the intelligence and national security communities.

MWI Speaker Series – The Brain: The Battlefield of the 21st Century
2018-09-26 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5300
Join us for this MWI Speaker Series event featuring Dr. James Giordano. Dr. Giordano is the chief of Georgetown University’s Neuroethics Studies Program and Scholar-in-Residence in the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics, and is Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical Center. His research examines advancements in neuroscience and neurotechnology, and what those advancements mean for the future of war.

MWI Panel Series – 25th Anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu
2018-10-03 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5006
Col. (ret) Larry Perino, Col. (ret) Lee VanArsdale, and Master Sgt. (ret) Kyle Lamb, all participants in Operation Gothic Serpent, will recount the events that took place twenty-five years ago during the Battle of Mogadishu. The battle was popularized by the blockbuster hit Blackhawk Down. The panel will discuss the events of the battle and how the leadership principles outlined in Kyle Lamb’s book, Leadership in the Shadows, apply to today’s battlefields.

MWI Speaker Series – Capt. Brett Reichert and Capt. Mark Zwirgzdas: “The Battle for Mosul”
2018-11-15 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5006
Capt. Brett Reichert and Capt. Mark Zwirgzdas served as company commanders in 2nd BCT, 82nd Airborne Division during the 2017 battle for Mosul, Iraq. They will discuss their experiences as commanders in an advise-and-assist mission during one of the biggest battles in the fight against ISIS, one that cost the militant group the capital of its so-called caliphate. Their talk will follow on an earlier MWI Speaker Series event with Colonel Pat Work, the 2nd BCT, 82nd Airborne Division’s commander, who shared his experiences with cadets and faculty in the spring of 2018.

MWI War Council – Counterterrorism in the Philippines
2018-11-19 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5300
MWI War Councils are interdisciplinary panels on current events in the global security environment. Each War Council focuses on a topic of interest in the news and analyze the impact on the Army and the world. In this War Council, participants will discuss counterterrorism in the Philippines, where security forces have been engaged in intense fighting against an affiliate of the Islamic State, including the devastating urban battle in the city of Marawi.

MWI Speaker Series – Ambassador Michael McFaul: “From Cold War to Hot Peace”
2018-12-06 12:35 - 13:50 | Robinson Auditorium
Ambassador Michael McFaul is an American academic and professor of political science at Stanford University, who served as the US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. Prior to his nomination, Ambassador McFaul worked for the US National Security Council as special assistant to the president and senior director of Russian and Eurasian affairs.

MWI Speaker Series – Dr. Mara Karlin: "Building Militaries in Fragile States"
2019-01-15 12:35 - 13:45 | Washington Hall 5006
Dr.Karlin is a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. She is Associate Professor of the Practice of Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where she also serves as acting director of the school’s Strategic Studies Program and as executive director of The Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. Dr. Karlin has served in national security roles for five US secretaries of defense, advising on policies spanning strategic planning, defense budgeting, future wars and the evolving security environment, and regional affairs involving the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.

MWI Speaker Series – Dr. Ziya Meral: "How Violence Shapes Religion"
2019-01-28 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5326
Dr. Ziya Meral is a British and Turkish researcher. He specializes in politics and foreign policies of Turkey and the Middle East, thematic issues surrounding interaction of religion with global affairs, and British defense and security. He is a Senior Resident Fellow at the UK Army’s new Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research—a civilian and military think tank providing independent analysis and research on defense and security based at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is also the Director of the Centre on Religion and Global Affairs, based in London and Beirut.

MWI War Council – The Path Forward in Syria
2019-02-13 00:35 - 13:45 | Washington Hall 5006
The decision to pull US forces out of Syria has reinvigorated debate over the wider US role in the region, and how Syria fits into our larger strategy to combat terrorism, contain Iran, and build democracy. In this MWI War Council, participants will discuss the past, present, and future of the US approach to Syria and its many related challenges.
The panel will feature Capt. Darren Hagan from the Combating Terrorism Center, Lt. Col. Nathaniel Davis from the Defense and Strategic Studies program, Dr. David Frey from the Department of History, and Lt. Col. Tom Oakley from the Department of Law.

The Wedemeyer Strategic Lecture Series: Gen. (ret) Stanley McChrystal
2019-03-19 12:35 - 13:50 | Robinson Auditorium
Gen. (ret) Stanley McChrystal served thirty-four years as an infantry and special forces officer. He commanded the International Security Assistance Force and US Forces-Afghanistan, served as the director of the Joint Staff, and as the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. The Wedemeyer Strategic Lecture Series honors the intellectual and strategic legacy of Gen. Albert Wedemeyer (USMA ’19), one of America’s most significant and under-recognized military strategists, by bringing to West Point subject matter experts on the role of the individual leader in complex operations.

MWI Speaker Series – Maj. Clodia O'Neill: Responding to the Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack
2019-03-25 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5300
On March 4, 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK’s intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia Skripal were poisoned in Salisbury, England, with a deadly nerve agent, according to official UK sources and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Maj. Clodia O’Neill, a chemical officer with the British Army who was involved in the response to the attack, will share her insights in an era where chemical weapons are far from the minds of most people.

MWI Speaker Series – David Atkinson and David Schnier: "Security Policy on the South China Sea"
2019-04-23 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5300
Please join the Modern War Institute and the DS370: Strategy and Policy course on April 23 as we learn about South China Sea policies and the current administration’s use of the National Security Council. We are fortunate to have two Department of State colleagues visit West Point and explain the nuances of their areas of expertise.
David Atkinson currently serves as the Director of Regional Security Policy for East Asia and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State. David recently served as the CT/Rule of Law Political Officer in Manila. David Schnier currently serves with the National Security Council as the Director for Brazil and the Andes. He recently served as the Economic Counselor in Manila

MWI Speaker Series: Dr. Bear Braumoeller – "Why War Won't Go Away"
2019-09-25 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5006
Dr. Bear F. Braumoeller is a professor in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University. His present work focuses on the decline-of-war thesis, as well as the relationship between international order and international conflict. Dr. Braumoeller’s most recent book is Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the Modern Age.
In this MWI Speaker Series event, he will discuss how, despite the recent conventional wisdom that war is going out of style, the evidence simply doesn’t support this decline-of-war thesis. He will explain why the key to understanding trends in warfare lies not in the spread of humanitarian values, but rather in the formation of international orders—and further, that while these orders reduce conflict within their borders, they can also clash violently with one another, as the Western and communist orders did throughout the Cold War.

MWI Speaker Series: Medal of Honor Recipient Staff Sgt. David Bellavia
2019-10-01 12:35 - 13:50 | Robinson Auditorium
On June 25, 2019, Staff Sgt. David Bellavia received the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony, making him the sixth servicemember to receive the award for actions during the Iraq War.
In 2004, Bellavia was deployed to Iraq, serving as a squad leader in 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment. On the night of November 10, 2004, in Fallujah, Bellavia’s squad was tasked with clearing a number of buildings of insurgents. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during that mission. From the Army’s official narrative:
That night, Bellavia single-handedly saved an entire squad, risking his own life to allow his fellow soldiers to break contact and reorganize when trapped by overwhelming insurgent fire. He then voluntarily entered and cleared an insurgent strong point, killing four and seriously wounding another. His actions stand as a testament to those who put everything on the line as they do the grim work required to keep each other safe and alive on the battlefield.
Bellavia will be hosted by the Modern War Institute, and will speak to the class of 2022. Faculty and cadets from other classes are welcome to attend.

MWI War Council – Counterterrorism in the Philippines
2019-11-06 12:35 - 13:50 | Washington Hall 5300
Lt. Gen. Danilo Pamonag was the ground commander of the Siege of Zamboanga, he victoriously led the Joint Special Operation Task Force in a daring, twenty-one-day urban battle that defeated five hundred rogue Moro National Liberation Front forces and subsequently rescued 195 out of 197 hostages the group had been holding. Four years later, when the Siege of Marawi broke out, he was designated as the ground commander of the main battle area. He later became the overall commander of the Joint Task Force Marawi, which rescued thousands of civilians who were held hostage by the combined ISIS-affiliated groups and foreign terrorist fighters. They successfully defeated the enemies and liberated Marawi City in an intense and grueling, five-month urban battle.
Maj. (ret) John Spencer currently serves as the Modern War Institute’s Chair of Urban Warfare Studies and previously served as MWI’s deputy director. His research and writing has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Wired, Foreign Policy, and other outlets. He is widely recognized as one of the leading voices identifying the challenges—and exploring solutions—of urban warfare.
Maj. Cole Livieratos is the course director for DS460, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, in the Defense and Strategic Studies Program. He served as a psychological operations team leader from 2014-2016 and deployed twice as a Military Information Support Team Leader. He worked in the Philippines in 2015–2016.
