Meet our Next Speaker
Jennifer Cooke
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Topic: Africa
Jennifer Cooke is director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she leads research and analysis on political, economic, and security dynamics in Africa. She is a frequent writer and lecturer on U.S.-Africa policy and provides briefings, testimony, and policy recommendations to U.S. policymakers, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. military. Recent projects include an examination of militancy and extremism in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, religious authority and the state in Africa, energy trends in sub-Saharan Africa, and the launch of the “Spotlight on Africa” conference series, which provides an in-depth look at political and economic developments in Africa’s largest and most dynamic economies.
Cooke is a frequent commentator in print, on radio, and on television, and she has testified before Congress on Boko Haram in Nigeria, the political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, and the African Union. She travels widely in Africa and has been an election observer in Sierra Leone, Mali, Nigeria, and Ghana. Growing up, she lived in Côte d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic, as well as Belgium, Italy, and Canada. Prior to CSIS, she worked at the National Academy of Sciences in the Office of Human Rights and the Office of News and Public Information and in the U.S. Congress on the House Subcommittee on Africa. She holds an M.A. in African studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. in government, magna cum laude, from Harvard University.
Meetings open to members and members’ guests only. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings take place at Hedges Hall at Point Lookout. Please plan on arriving by 11:30AM for noon meetings. The speaker begins promptly at noon and lunch is served from 1PM.
Audios of Past Presentations
Listed below are links to past presentations. Click to listen:
- Trita Parsi: Iran Again
- Ambassador Chas Freeman: America’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East
- John Harvey: U.S. Nuclear Forces: Decisions for the Trump Administration
- Ali Ahmida: The Libya We Do Not Know
- Julia Preston: Immigration and the US-Mexico Partnership
- Colin Woodard: American Character
- Steven Koltai: Peace Through Entrepreneurship
- Josh Landis: ISIS, Ethnic Cleansing, and Nation-Building in the Middle East
- Paulo Sotero: The Turmoil in Brazil
- Ambassador Steven Steiner: Empowerment of Women in Post-Conflict Countries
- Paul Pillar: Why American Misunderstands the World
- Yossi Alpher: “Israel-Palestine, it will get worse“
- Hedrick Smith on Reclaiming the American Dream
- John Kiriakou on Blowing the Whistle
- Andrew Cockburn on A U.S. Strategy of Assassination
- Andrew Bacevich on America’s War for the Greater Middle East.
- Senator Angus King: A Policy for the Arctic
- Suki Kim: Undercover in North Korea
- Indira Lakshmanan on Negotiating the Iran Nuclear Agreement
- Gareth Porter: Was the Iran Nuclear Crisis Necessary?
- Ambassador Fred Hof on The Mess that is the Arab Middle East
- Jessica Mathews on Can the United States Still Lead?
- Serhii Plokhii on Ukraine and Resurgent Russia
- Swithin Munyantwali on Chinese Involvement in Africa. Is this a true partnership?
- Yosi Alpher on Israel’s Search for Middle-East Allies
- Pamela Cox on Dealing with Stubborn Poverty
- Seyed Hossein Mousavian on Walking the Iran Tightrope
- Ken Hillas on What is Russia Thinking Now?
- Ambassador Peter Galbraith on Iraq and Syria: What’s Next?
- Shibley Telhami on The World Through Arab Eyes
- Jim Hightower’s Common Sense Commentaries
- Dean Cheng on China: The Three Nots
- Michelle Egan on US-EU Relations
- John Mearsheimer on The Follies of US Foreign Policy
- Stephen Kinzer on “The Brothers: John Foster and Allen Dulles and Their Secret World War”
- Ambassador Jack Matlock on Ukraine
- Peter Mattis on Chinese Intelligence
- Ambassador Laurence Pope on The Demilitarization of Diplomacy
- Paul Saunder on Russia and the U.S.
- Greg Thielmann on Iran Negotiations
- Trita Parsi on “Iran: Is Peace Finally in the Offing?“
- Diana Negroponte on Post-Chavez Venezuela
- Aaron David Miller on Gulliver’s Troubles: America and the Middle East
- Fred Kaplan on Counter-Insurgency: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
- Amb. Vicki Huddleston on Africa: al Qaida, Mali, and Who Knows What Else?
- Dana Frank on The U.S. and Post-Coup Honduras: A Human Rights Disaster
- Ray McGovern on Obama in lockstep with Israel on Iran? Why?
- Gregory Johnsen on Yemen, Drones and a Drone Policy
- Larry Wilkerson on Does It Really Matter Who’s President?
- Michael Pillsbury on A China Policy for the United States
- Ambassador Husain Haqqani on The US-Pakistan Alliance
- Joan Johnson-Freese on The Quest to Dominate Space
- Richard Downes: Brazil’s Emergence
- Michael Klare: “The Race for What’s Left”
- Murhaf Jouejati: “Syria: A New Perspective”
- Stephen Walt: “Deja Vu All Over Again?: Iraq, Iran, and the Israel Lobby“
- Josh Landis: “A Policy of Regime Change for Syria?“
- James Farwell on ‘The Pakistan Cauldron‘
- Sa’ad Ibrahim on “The Arab Spring in Egypt“
- Colonel Bill Smullen on “Thinking Strategically about US Foreign Policy“
- Peter Van Buren on “Lessons from the ‘reconstruction’ of Iraq“
- Nazila Fathi on “Iran and its Supreme Leader: Two years after the Contested Election“
- Tom DeMarco on “CyberWar: Science or Science Fiction?“
- Seth Jones on “Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al Qa’ida Since 9/11“
- Yossi Alpher on “A Win-Win Formula for Palestinian Statehood“
- Allen Wells on “So Far From God, So Close to the United States: Mexico’s Most Pressing Challenges“
- Adam Hochschild on “A New Look at the Conflict That Shaped the 20th Century”
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