UMaine Co-Sponsors Washington Conference
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Some 150 diplomats, scholars and military analysts participated in a March 6-7 conference, co-sponsored by the University of Maine’s William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce and the National Defense University (NDU). The conference addressed a wide range of issues related to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. The NDU facility at Fort Leslie S. McNair in Washington, D.C. was the conference site.
Prof. Bahman Baktiari of the UMaine political science faculty, director of research and academic programming at the Cohen Center co-organized the conference agenda with NDU’s Judith Yaphe, distinguished research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies. Baktiari’s and Yaphe’s international reputations allowed the conference to draw recognized expert presenters to the meeting. Baktiari himself gave a well-received talk on the psychological factors that affect Iran’s national leaders.
Former U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, for whom UMaine’s Cohen Center is named, gave the keynote address to open the meeting. A Bangor native and former Maine U.S. Representative and Senator, Cohen taught business law at UMaine while he was a practicing attorney, before he launched his political career.
The Cohen Center is a cornerstone of UMaine’s new School of Policy and International Affairs.
Other notable participants included Ambassador Marc Grossman, who recently retired from the State Department as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (the department’s third-ranking official); Ambassador Marcelle Wahba, foreign policy adviser to the Air Force Chief of Staff; retired Israeli Army General Sholomo Brom; Mohamed Abdel Salam, senior researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, Egypt; Peter Lavoy, director of the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.; Kongdan (Katy) Oh Hassig, researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Murhaf Jouetjati, distinguished professor at NDU’s near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies; Robert Litwak, director of the Division of International Studies at the Smithsonian Institution’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and Gary Samore, vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“One of the most important purposes of a university is to foster public discussion and objective analysis on important events to our country and society. The NDU-UMaine conference accomplished this goal at the highest level and on one of the most important topics facing our world” says UMaine President Robert Kennedy. “This conference brought high-level recognition of UMaine’s considerable academic and research expertise in international policy studies.”
“UMaine’s faculty is not only an important resource for Maine, but for the nation and the world. UMaine serves Maine people when it furthers constructive dialogue on policy issues of national and International importance. Our students benefit from UMaine’s engagement, as do our faculty and our political leaders,” Kennedy says.
“We take great pride in the fact that the School of Policy and International Affairs and the Cohen Center encourage policy analysis and generate ideas that promote a greater understanding of the complex factors that influence world affairs,” says Prof. John Mahon, the School of Policy and International Affairs director.
UMaine and NDU are in early discussions relative to a follow-up conference on other topics of national importance at UMaine, most likely in 2008.