America, the Middle East, and Grand Strategy in the Post-9/11 Era

Thursday, October 20, 2016
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
(Pacific)

Encina Hall, 2nd floor

Speaker: 
  • Colin Kahl
Abstract: Grand strategy represents a state's overarching theory of what constitutes national security and how best to produce national security. Do U.S. presidential administrations have grand strategies? If so, do these theoretical frameworks shape the actual practice of American foreign policy? This seminar addresses these questions, focusing on the grand strategies of the Bush and Obama administrations and American foreign policy in the Middle East since 9/11. 
 
About the Speaker: Dr. Colin Kahl is the National Security Advisor to the Vice President and Deputy Assistant to the President. He is on public service leave from Georgetown University, where he is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon (2009-2011), where he received the Outstanding Public Service Medal in 2011.  He has published articles on U.S. foreign and defense policy in the Middle East in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly. Kahl's previous research, including his book States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (Princeton, 2006), focused on the causes of civil and ethnic conflict. Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).