Agenda
Russia Strategic Initiative, U.S. European Command
Abstract: In 2018, RAND developed an original Black Sea security game to explore Russian military, economic, and political levers of power in the Black Sea. The game, in which subject-matter experts role-played regional governments during a military crisis scenario, underscored Russia's relative strength in the Black Sea and challenges associated with developing a coherent response to Russian aggression in the region.
Speaker Biographies
Anika Binindijk
Anika Binnendijk is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation.
At RAND, Binnendijk leads research and analysis on a range of topics including national security decisionmaking, European defense, gray zone challenges, national resilience, and emerging defense technologies including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and human-machine teaming.
She joined RAND from the State Department's Office of Policy Planning, where she was responsible for advising the Secretary of State on policy questions related to Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, the Caucasus, and NATO, and prior to that on Iran and Persian Gulf issues. During her State Department tenure, she served for a rotation as Director for Russia at the National Security Council.
From 2009 to 2012 Binnendijk worked at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, first as a special assistant and policy advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and later the country director for Egypt. Her doctoral dissertation addressed security force responses to civil resistance during post-Communist nonviolent uprisings
Stephen J. Flanagan
Stephen J. Flanagan is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He served in several senior positions in government, most recently as special assistant to the president and senior director for defense policy and strategy at the National Security Council (NSC) Staff from April 2013 to September 2015. Between 1989 and 1999 he served as special assistant to the president and senior director for Central and Eastern Europe, at the NSC Staff; associate director and member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff; and national intelligence officer for Europe.
Early in his career, he was a professional staff member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He held the Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) from 2007 until 2013, where he also served as senior vice president and director of the International Security Program. From 2000 to 2007 he was director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies and vice president for research at the National Defense University. He has also held research and faculty positions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and the National War College.
Flanagan has published six books and over sixty reports and journal articles on transatlantic, international security, and defense issues, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned an A.B. in political science from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Dara Massicot
Dara Massicot is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. Before joining RAND, she served as a senior analyst for Russian military capabilities at the Department of Defense.
Her work at RAND focuses on defense and security issues in Russia and Eurasia. She specializes in Russian military strategy, combat operations, and power projection, as well as Russian military modernization and escalation dynamics. Her interests include force posture, force planning, and grand strategy. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program.