Opening Remarks: Laura Belmonte, CLAHS Dean or Farida Jalalzai, CLAHS Associate Dean for Engagement & International Initiative.

Introductions:

Yannis Stivachtis, CEUTTSS.

Angelos Kaskanis, Tactics Institute

Panelists:

Bettina Koch, Professor of Political Science

Saudi Arabia under the Leadership of the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud: Domestic and International Dimensions

Aaron Brantly, Associate Professor of Political Science

The Global Ambitions of the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud and the Present a & Future of Saudi-Russian Relations

Paul Avey, Associate Professor of Political Science

Saudi Arabia under the Leadership of the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud and the Present a & Future of US-Saudi Arabia Relations

Yannis Stivachtis, Professor of Political Science

The Global Ambitions of the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud and the Present a & Future of Saudi-EU Relations

Robert Hodges, Assistant Director of the CEUTTSS

The Global Ambitions of the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud and the Present a & Future of Saudi-Chinese Relations

 The Blacksburg event will take place on Monday, March 21 at 4:00 p.m. at the Graduate Life Center.

Short bios:

Paul Avey is Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. His research and teaching interests include nuclear politics, U.S. foreign policy, strategy, and international relations theory. He is the author of Tempting Fate: Why Nonnuclear States Confront Nuclear Opponents (Cornell University Press, 2019), and author or coauthor of articles in International Security, Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Texas National Security Review, Journal of Global Security Studies, and Foreign Policy. Avey was a 2018-2019 Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow based at the U.S. Department of Defense, serving as Advisor for Strategy in the office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development. Before coming to Virginia Tech, Avey was a pre-doctoral fellow with the Managing the Atom project and International Security Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for International Studies, a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at MIT, and a postdoctoral fellow with the Tower Center for Political Studies at SMU. He earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in social sciences from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in political science and history from the University of Iowa.

Aaron Brantly is Associate Professor of Political Science. His research interests are related to Russia and Russian foreign policy, cybersecurity from multiple angles, including human rights and development, intelligence and national security, and military cybersecurity.

Robert Hodges is Assistant Director of the CEUTTSS Global Intelligence & Strategy Innovation Lab. He also leads a research team that works with the Conflict & Stabilization Office of the U.S. Department of State. His research and teaching interests include international relations in East Asia, Chinese foreign and security policy, Islamic political and religious thought, national security, intelligence analysis, and terrorism and counterterrorism.

Bettina Koch is Professor of Political Science. Her research interests focus on the history of Islamic political thought as well as comparative political theory, focusing on the comparison of Western and Middle Eastern/Islamic political concepts. One further research interest is the influence of religion on politics and the interaction between the two, and violence and terrorism, including questions of state violence and terrorism but also surveillance and security/freedom related issues.

Yannis A. Stivachtis is Professor of Political Science and Jean Monnet Chair at Virginia Tech. He is the Director of the Center for European Union, Transatlantic, and Trans-European Space Studies (CEUTTSS) – A Jean Monnet Center of Excellence. He also serves as Director of the International Studies Program. His research interests include EU’s Neighborhood Policy with emphasis on the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership/Union for the Mediterranean, the application of EU’s global strategy in the Middle East, as well as NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue. He is the editor of Conflict and Diplomacy in the Middle East: External Actors and Regional Rivalries (2018) and co-editor of Regional Security in the Middle East: Sectors, Variables and Issues (2019).