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October 4, 2018, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm

U.S. National Security: Elections, China, North Korea, and Cyber Threats

Hyatt Regency - Downtown (Delaware AB - 2nd Floor)

350 N High St, Columbus, OH 43215

Speaker: Lori Esposito Murray, PhD (Council on Foreign Relations)

In January 2018, Secretary of Defense Mattis released the 2018 National Defense Strategy report, which concluded that we are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order and creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. The report identified the major threats facing the United States.  At the top of the list was the return to great power competition with China and Russia, as well as challenges from rogue regimes North Korea and Iran, and non-state terrorist groups. The report also emphasized that the increasingly complex security environment is also defined by rapid technological change and increasing capabilities of mass disruption available to more and more adversaries with low barriers to entry.   The growing chorus of policymakers, military and intelligence officials, and analysts calling for a cohesive response has elevated public awareness of these critical issues.

As the Trump Administration approaches its mid-term, the Columbus Council on World Affairs invite you to join a dialogue about the most pressing threats to U.S. national security as well as possible scenarios for a changed world order.  How are Russia and China undermining the rules based global order?  Is the trade war with China a major turning point in US-China relations? How serious is the Russian threat to our mid-term elections—to our democracy and to democracies globally? Will North Korea give up its nuclear weapons? What do we know about their intentions?  What is the impact of US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement? And, to what degree are cyber threats and other cyber issues playing out in U.S. national security—enhancing the appeal of terrorist organizations—undermining democracies?  Beyond the U.S., what are the implications for the global community?

To help us put these critical topics into context, we welcome our distinguished guest, Lori Esposito Murray, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Lori Esposito Murray, PhD

Adjunct Senior Fellow

Council on Foreign Relations

Lori Esposito Murray is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Prior to joining CFR, she held the distinguished national security chair at the U.S. Naval Academy sponsored by the Class of 1960. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut and president emeritus of the World Affairs Councils of America (WACA), the largest nonpartisan, nonprofit grassroots organization dedicated to educating and engaging the American public on global issues.

Murray was special advisor to the president on the Chemical Weapons Convention during the Clinton Administration, where she helped oversee the bipartisan approval of the convention. She is also the former assistant director for multilateral affairs of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the U.S. State Department, responsible for multilateral negotiations on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons issues.

She also served as executive director of the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training in the Military and Related Issues, established by Secretary of Defense William Cohen. 

Murray’s congressional experience includes having worked for almost a decade as a senior legislative assistant on national security policy for Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-KS), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Her responsibilities included the full spectrum of foreign policy, defense, intelligence, and trade issues. 

Subsequent to this position, Murray headed the U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission, a congressionally mandated commission that reports yearly to Congress on the economic and security issues regarding China.  She also served as a consultant to the President’s Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction and U.S. Intelligence Capabilities, established by President George W. Bush and as a consultant to ABC News.

Dr. Murray received her BA from Yale University and her PhD from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.