Russia-Ukraine Conflict: Repercussions for Moldova and the South Caucasus

The Jamestown Foundation invites you to attend a conference exploring the profound effect the Russia-Ukraine conflict has had on Moldova and the South Caucasus. Our panelists will examine current security threats to this region on the eve of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia signing the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) and Association Agreements (AA) with the European Union. The conference will also analyze the Russian military presence in the South Caucasus as well as the regional implications of the establishment of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union.

Monday, June 16, 2014
10:00 A.M.–2:00 P.M.

Root Conference Room
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036

AGENDA


Registration
9:30 A.M.–10:00 A.M.

* * *

Welcome
10:00 A.M.

Margarita Assenova
Director of Programs for the Balkans, Caucasus & Central Asia,
The Jamestown Foundation

* * *

Panel One: Ukraine Under Russian Attack After the Presidential Election
10:00 A.M.–11:45 A.M.

“A Report From Kyiv”
Glen Howard
President, The Jamestown Foundation

“Ukraine and Putin’s Concept of the ‘Russian World’ ”
Andrei Illarionov
Senior Fellow, CATO Institute

“Russia-Ukraine Conflict: Impact on Moldova and Western Policies”
Vladimir Socor
Senior Fellow, The Jamestown Foundation

“U.S. Policy Toward Russia After Ukraine”
Amb. William Courtney
Former U.S. Ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan

Q & A

* * *

Lunch
11:45 A.M.–12:15 P.M.

* * *

Panel Two: South Caucasus Perspectives on the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
12:15 P.M.–2:00 P.M.

“Security Threats to the South Caucasus in the Wake of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict”
Stephen Blank
Senior Fellow, American Foreign Policy Council

“The Azerbaijani Perspective”
Natig Bakhishov
Political Officer, Embassy of Azerbaijan

“The Georgian Perspective”
George Khelashvili
DCM, Embassy of Georgia

“Will Russia Pursue a Crimean Strategy in Abkhazia?”
Alexander Melikishvili
Senior Analyst, Europe/CIS Forecasting Team, IHS Country Risk

Moderator: Janusz Bugajski
Senior Fellow, Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)

Q & A

* * *

Conclusion
2:00 P.M.

PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES

Margarita Assenova

Margarita Assenova is Director of Programs for the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia at The Jamestown Foundation. She is a regular contributor to the Jamestown publication Eurasia Daily Monitor on political and energy security developments in the Balkans and Central Asia. She is also the Chair (contract) of Southeast Central Europe Area Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State. Assenova is a recipient of the John Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University for her reporting on nationalism in the Balkans. Her articles appeared in U.S. and European newspapers, magazines, and online publications. Assenova authored book chapters and journal articles on security, energy, and democracy published by CSIS Press, Brassey’s, Freedom House, Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, and University of New Haven. She has delivered presentations and papers to conferences and panels in the U.S., UK, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Israel, Germany, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

Stephen Blank

Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington. From 1989–2013 he was a Professor of Russian National Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. Dr. Blank has been Professor of National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute since 1989. In 1998-2001 he was Douglas MacArthur Professor of Research at the War College.

He has published over 900 articles and monographs on Soviet/Russian, U.S., Asian, and European military and foreign policies, testified frequently before Congress on Russia, China, and Central Asia, consulted for the CIA, major think tanks and foundations, chaired major international conferences in the USA and abroad In Florence, Prague, and London, and has been a commentator on foreign affairs in the media in the United States and abroad. He has also advised major corporations on investing in Russia and is a consultant for the Gerson Lehrmann Group

He has published or edited 15 books focusing on Russian foreign, energy, and military policies and on International Security in Eurasia. His most recent book is Russo-Chinese Energy Relations: Politics in Command, London: Global Markets Briefing, 2006. He has also published Natural Allies? Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-American Strategic Cooperation, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2005.

Dr. Blank is also the author of a study of the Soviet Commissariat of Nationalities, The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin’s Commissariat of Nationalities, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994 and the co-editor of The Soviet Military and the Future, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992.

Prior to this appointment Dr. Blank was Associate Professor for Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education of Air University at Maxwell AFB. He also held the position of 1980–86: Assistant Professor of Russian History, University of Texas, San Antonio, 1980–86, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian history, University of California, Riverside, 1979–80.

Dr. Blank’s M.A. and Ph.D. are in Russian History from the University of Chicago. His B.A is in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

Janusz Bugajski

Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, DC, and host of “Bugajski Hour” and “Bugajski Time” television shows broadcast in the Balkans. Bugajski has authored 19 books on Europe, Russia, and trans-Atlantic relations and is a columnist for several media outlets. His recent books include Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared (2014), Return of the Balkans: Challenges to European Integration and U.S. Disengagement (2013), Georgian Lessons: Conflicting Russian and Western Interests in the Wider Europe (2010), Dismantling the West: Russia’s Atlantic Agenda (2009), America’s New European Allies (2009); and Expanding Eurasia: Russia’s European Ambitions (2008).

Amb. William Courtney

William Courtney is director of strategy and development for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). He was senior vice president for national security programs at DynCorp from 2000 until CSC acquired it in 2003. Prior to retiring from the Foreign Service, he was co-chair of the US delegation to the review conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which prepared for its 1999 summit in Istanbul. He was an adviser on the 1999 reorganization of foreign affairs agencies, special assistant to the president for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, and ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia. He led negotiations to eliminate strategic nuclear weapons in Kazakhstan, and to remove a large cache there of highly enriched uranium (project sapphire). Earlier he headed the US delegation to the implementation commission of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, and co-chaired the US delegation in initial talks with the USSR and Russia on nuclear weapons safety, security, and dismantlement. It helped pave the way for the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program. He graduated from West Virginia University with a B.A. and Brown University with a Ph.D. in economics, and was an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a member of the Council, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the board of directors of the World Affairs Council of Washington, DC.

Glen Howard

Glen Howard is the President of The Jamestown Foundation. Mr. Howard is fluent in Russian and proficient in Azerbaijani and Arabic, and is a regional expert on the Caucasus and Central Asia. He was formerly an Analyst at the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Strategic Assessment Center. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Central Asia–Caucasus Analyst, and Jane’s Defense Weekly. Mr. Howard has served as a consultant to private sector and governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Intelligence Council and major oil companies operating in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Andrei Illarionov

Andrei Illarionov is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. From 2000 to December 2005 he was the chief economic adviser of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Illarionov also served as the president’s personal representative (sherpa) in the G-8. He is one of Russia’s most forceful and articulate advocates of an open society and democratic capitalism, and has been a long-time friend of the Cato Institute. Illarionov received his Ph.D. from St. Petersburg University in 1987. From 1993 to 1994 Illarionov served as chief economic adviser to the prime minister of the Russian Federation, Viktor Chernomyrdin. He resigned in February 1994 to protest changes in the government’s economic policy. In July 1994 Illarionov founded the Institute of Economic Analysis and became its director. Illarionov has coauthored several economic programs for Russian governments and has written three books and more than 300 articles on Russian economic and social policies.

George Khelashvili

George Khelashvili serves as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Georgia to the United States. He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1997 as policy analyst at the Center for Foreign Policy Research and Analysis. Afterwards, Mr. Khelashvili was Assistant Professor of International Relations and Research Director of the Center for Social Sciences at Tbilisi State University. He completed his doctoral thesis on U.S. policy toward Georgia at the University of Oxford. Before his current appointment, he served as deputy director of the Political Department of the Foreign Ministry of Georgia.

Alexander Melikishvili

Alexander Melikishvili is a Senior Analyst with the Europe/CIS Forecasting Team at the IHS Country Risk. He specializes in analyzing commercially relevant risk environment in the Caucasus and Central Asia, terrorism in North Caucasus, and ethnic conflicts in post-Soviet States. He co-authored ‘Islam in Russia: Politics of Identity and Security’ published in 2004. Alexander received an MA in International Affairs from George Washington University. He speaks Russian and Georgian.

Vladimir Socor

Vladimir Socor is a Senior Fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation and its flagship publication, Eurasia Daily Monitor (1995 to present), where he writes analytical articles on a daily basis. An internationally recognized expert on former Soviet-ruled countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, he covers Russian and Western policies there, focusing on energy policies, regional security issues, secessionist conflicts, and NATO policies and programs.

Mr. Socor is a frequent speaker at U.S. and European policy conferences and think-tank institutions. He is a regular guest lecturer at the NATO Defense College and at Harvard University’s National Security Program’s Black Sea Program (Kennedy School of Government). He is also a frequent contributor to edited volumes. Mr. Socor was previously an analyst with the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute (1983–1994). He is a Romanian-born citizen of the United States based in Munich, Germany.