Please join former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on October 22, 2015 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for “Rethinking Regional Security: An Enabler, Not an End,” the fourth public hearing of the Middle East Strategy Task Force (MEST).

Middle East Strategy Task Force
Rethinking regional security: An enabler, not an end

Introduction by:

Vali Nasr
Dean
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University

A discussion featuring

Madeleine K. Albright
Former US Secretary of State
Co-Chair, Middle East Strategy Task Force

Stephen J. Hadley
Former US National Security Advisor
Co-Chair, Middle East Strategy Task Force

Michael Hayden 
(Via Videoconference)
Principal
Chertoff Group

Kenneth Pollack
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
Brookings Institution

Rami Khouri
Senior Fellow, the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs
American University of Beirut

Please join former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley for “Rethinking Regional Security: An Enabler, Not an End,” the fourth public hearing of the Middle East Strategy Task Force (MEST). Presented by the Atlantic Council and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, with the cooperation of the Brookings Institution, the event will examine how to begin rebuilding a stable regional order in the Middle East and North Africa, with an eye to focusing on security as a means to social, political, and economic development, not an end in itself. While civil conflicts continue in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya, sub-national extremist groups like the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) and al-Qaeda are presenting a wholesale challenge to the state system. MEST Co-Chairs Albright and Hadley will discuss the development of the region’s compounding security crises, along with possible avenues for resolution, with Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, the convener of the MEST security working group. Former NSA Director General Michael Hayden (Ret.) will give comments on the broader strategic implications of MEST’s recommendations, and Rami Khouri, of the American University of Beirut, will contribute a regional point of view to the conversation.

Madeleine Albright served as US Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 and is Chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group. Stephen Hadley co-founded RiceHadleyGates LLC following his tenure as US National Security Advisor from 2005 to 2009, where as principal he remains engaged in international affairs. Michael Hayden is a retired four-star US Air Force general and former director of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. He now serves as Principal at the Chertoff Group. Vali Nasr is the Dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS. A Middle East scholar, foreign policy adviser and commentator on international relations,his most recent book, The Dispensable Nation, examines the Obama administration’s foreign policy. Rami Khouri formerly served as the director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, where he now holds a Senior Fellowship. He also serves as editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper. Kenneth Pollack is a Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy; he also convenes MEST’s Security and Public Order working group.

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