Events

H.E. MR. ROY FERGUSON

New Zealand Ambassador to the United States

Friday, March 19, 2010 at noon
**Note: New Date**

H.E. Ferguson, a career diplomat, is New Zealand’s current Ambassador to the United States. He was Director of the Americas Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 2002-2005, and was on the Boards of the New Zealand-United States Council, Fulbright New Zealand, the Ian Axford Fellowships and the New Zealand Centre for Latin American Studies. He previously served in Washington as Deputy Chief of Mission between 1991 and 1995. From 1999-2002 he served as New Zealand’s Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. In 2002, he concurrently became New Zealand’s Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Korea. He has also served in Manila and Canberra.

In Wellington, Ambassador Ferguson has served in the Information, United Nations, Asian and Australia Divisions. He was previously the Director of the Management Audit Unit, the UN and Commonwealth Division, Environment Division and Personnel Division.

DR. CONRAD CRANE

Director of the US Army Military History Institute

“COIN”

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at noon 

In late 2005, the Army and Marine Corps began work on revised military doctrine designed not only to help those services deal more effectively with complex counterinsurgency, but also to make the organizations better at the learning and adaptation required for all modern and future warfare. General David Petraeus not only oversaw the project, he also then utilized its results to help transform the war in Iraq. The roots and conduct of the developmental process, as well as the content and application of its product, which has had significant impact both inside and outside the military, are well worth a close examination, as are the controversies that still swirl around the new doctrine.  The new doctrine is entitled “COIN”. 

Dr. Conrad C. Crane was the team leader and lead drafter for this new statement of USG military doctrine. He became the Director of the US Army Military History Institute on February 1, 2003. Before accepting that position, Dr. Crane served with the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College from September 2000 to January 2003, where he held the General Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research.  He also has held the General Hoyt S. Vandenberg Chair of Aerospace Studies at the War College. He joined SSI after his retirement from active military service, a 26-year military career that concluded with 9 years as Professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy. He holds a B.S. from USMA and an M.A. and Ph.D from Stanford University. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College.   He has authored or edited books and monographs on the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and has written and lectured widely on airpower and landpower issues. Before leaving SSI he coauthored a prewar study on Reconstructing Iraq that influenced Army planners and has attracted much attention from the media. He was the lead author for the new Army-USMC counterinsurgency manual which was released in December, 2006. For that effort he was named one of NEWSWEEK’s people to watch in 2007. He visited Iraq in November 2007 at General Petraeus’ request to evaluate the new doctrine in action. In November 2008, he was named the international Archivist of the Year by the Scone Foundation.