Russian and Turkish Competition in the Near Abroad

Panelist: Kimberly Marten
Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University

Kimberly Marten is a professor of political science (and the department chair) at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is a faculty member of Columbia’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies, and Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies. She has written four books, including Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States (Cornell, 2012) and Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton, 1993), which received the Marshall Shulman Prize. The Council on Foreign Relations published her special report, Reducing Tensions between Russia and NATO (2017). In addition to her numerous academic journal articles, her policy pieces have appeared in the Washington Quarterly, ForeignAffairs.com, War on the Rocks, Lawfare, the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, and the New Republic, and she was honored to testify before Congress about Russia’s Wagner Group in July 2020. She is a frequent media commentator, and appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. She earned her A.B. at Harvard and Ph.D. at Stanford. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and is a founding member of PONARS-Eurasia.

Panelist: James Jeffrey
Chair of Middle East Program, Wilson Center

Ambassador James F. Jeffrey is currently the Chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.  He retired from the Foreign Service with the rank of Career Ambassador in June, 2012. He was recalled to the Foreign Service in 2018 to serve as the State Department’s Special Representative for Syria, and in 2019 to serve concurrently as the Special Envoy to the Coalition to Defeat ISIS.  He retired from those positions in November, 2020.  Between 2012-2018 he was the Philip Solondz Distinguished Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Visiting Instructor at George Washington University, energy consultant, and member of the Secretary of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and the CIA Director’s External Advisory Board.

Ambassador Jeffrey has held a series of senior posts in Washington, D.C., and abroad. Prior to his service as Ambassador in Ankara, 2008-2010, and Baghdad 2010-2012, he served as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor in the George W, Bush Administration. Previously he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the Department of State.   Earlier appointments included service as Senior Advisor on Iraq to the Secretary of State; Chargé d'affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad; Ambassador to Albania, Deputy Chief of Mission in Ankara and Kuwait; and Deputy Coordinator for Bosnia.

A former infantry officer in the U.S. Army, Ambassador Jeffrey served in Germany and Vietnam from 1969 to 1976.  His wife Gudrun and he have two children, Julia, and Jahn.

Marlene Laruelle is Research Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. She works on the rise of populist and illiberal movements in post-Soviet Eurasia, Europe and the US. She focuses on Russia's ideological landscape and its outreach abroad. She has also been working on Central Asia's national and regional environment. She has been the Principal Investigator of several grants from the US State Department, Defense Department, National Science Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Henry Luce Foundation and others.