Five scholars will discuss “The End of the Post-Cold War Order? Ukraine, Russia and American Security” at a panel discussion that will begin 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7, in the auditorium of Brady Educational Center on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.
The discussion, free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by the Minnesota International Center and St. Thomas’ College of Arts and Sciences, Political Science Department and Aquinas Chair in Theology and Philosophy.
Participating in the discussion will be:
Dr. Renee Buhr is associate professor of political science and director of international studies at St. Thomas. Her research interests include nationalism and the impact of European Union integration on national identity and political party performance. She has published papers in Government and Opposition, Nationalities Papers and the Journal of Baltic Studies, and is co-editor of a monograph on Belarusian and Lithuanian national identity from Vytautas Magnus University Press.
Dr. Paul Gavrilyuk, holder of the Aquinas Chair in Theology and Philosophy at St. Thomas, is engaged in humanitarian efforts related to the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, including providing the emergency aid to refugees and soldiers.
Thomas Hanson is the diplomat in residence at the Alworth Institute for International Affairs at the University of Minnesota - Duluth. A former U.S. Foreign Service officer with the Department of State, his diplomatic postings included East Germany, France, Norway, the Soviet Union, Sweden and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. He participated in the opening of new U.S. embassies in Mongolia and Estonia, worked on the Foreign Relations Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and served as director for NATO and European Affairs at the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, D.C. He is also program secretary of the St. Paul-Minneapolis Committee on Foreign Relations and a member of the Great Decisions advisory committee at the Minnesota International Center, where he is a frequent Great Decisions speaker. He serves on the boards of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, the International Leadership Program at St. Thomas and the Cultural Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Minnesota - Duluth.
Dr. Steven Hoffman, professor of political science at St. Thomas and chair of the university’s Political Science Department, has published numerous books, journal articles and technical reports in the area of energy and environmental policy as well as issues of national identity in the post-Soviet states of Belarus and Lithuania. He has spoken at numerous international conferences, most recently at the Faculty of International Relations of the Belarusian State University in Minsk, Belarus, and the College of Engineering at the University of Reading, United Kingdom.
Dr. W.A. (Will) Jacobs, professor emeritus of history and political science at the University of Alaska Anchorage, taught modern European history, international relations and the history of warfare. His principal research interest is the changing relationship between state power, national strategy and the capacity to wage war since 1914. His published research has focused on American and British tactical and strategic air operations in World War II.
The panelists will discuss the implications of the crisis in Ukraine for Europe and the United States and to what extent the conflict threatens the end of the post-Cold War international order in Europe. Other topics will be Ukraine’s dual crisis of governance and sovereign independence, Vladimir Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine and elsewhere in former Soviet lands, and the challenges now faced by European and American governments.
The Brady Educational Center is located on St. Thomas’ south campus, which is south of Summit Avenue and west of Cretin Avenue.
