www.globalstrategyforum.org GLOBAL STRATEGY FORUM Lecture Series 2010 - 2011 1 www.globalstrategyforum.org GLOBAL STRATEGY FORUM President Johan Eliasch is the first President of Global Strategy Forum. He is Chairman and CEO of Head, the global sporting goods group and ECJ Holdings, a diversified private investment group. He is an advisory board member of the Centre for Social Justice, a member of the Advisory Boards of Investcorp, Brasilinvest, Societe du Louvre and the British Olympic Association, a director of IMG and CV Starr Underwriting Agents, Co-Chairman of Cool Earth and a Patron of Stockholm University. He is a trustee of the Kew Foundation. He was part of the Conservative shadow foreign office team as special advisor on European affairs (1999-2003) and responsible for foreign relations (2003-2005). He was Conservative deputy party treasurer (2003-2007). He served as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Deforestation and Clean Energy from 2007-2010. Chairman Lord Lothian is the first Chairman of the Forum. Michael Lothian was first elected to Parliament as Michael Ancram in 1974. He is now a member of the House of Lords. His political career included four years as the Political Minister in Northern Ireland responsible for the opening engagements with the IRA which eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement, Chairman of the Conservative Party for three years, and four years as Shadow Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He remains involved in international conflict resolution. Director Jacqueline Jinks is the Director of Global Strategy Forum. She joined Global Strategy Forum as Research Director in June 2006 and became the Director in February 2008. From 1997-2005, she was Political Secretary and speechwriter to Lord Moynihan, then Conservative Senior Spokesman on Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords. She worked for the Rt Hon Michael Howard QC MP and the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP, during their respective tenures as Shadow Foreign Secretary. Prior to that, she worked for the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 US Presidential Election campaign. 2 www.globalstrategyforum.org PRESIDENT’S FOREWORD IN RECENT British history, there has rarely been a time when the choices we make on foreign and defence policy have been so important to our national welfare, even survival. Yet at the same time, the debate about these choices has never been more narrow and conventional. It was for this reason that I founded Global Strategy Forum five years ago, together with Michael Lothian (then Michael Ancram MP). We wanted to provide something different, a platform upon which experts in both the security and international affair sectors could feel free to address serious professional audiences in an open and candid way. From this founding ambition, GSF has evolved into a unique organisation which I believe has carved out for itself a special position in the UK field of think tanks specialising in international and security affairs. We continue to seek a fresh approach to the rapidly evolving challenges of defence and security and a new response to international affairs. Now is the time to ‘shake the tree’ on all these issues, to approach them from a new angle and to challenge conventional establishment wisdom on foreign policy-making. In this context, it is with the greatest of pleasure that I introduce Global Strategy Forum’s fifth annual collection of lectures, in my view a further addition to the remarkable collection of frank and often controversial views which we have garnered and disseminated over the past five years. Our speakers have been of the highest quality and our purpose, largely fulfilled, has been to explore the reality rather than the rhetoric. We have done this through a variety of formats, including lectures, debates, seminars, lunches and dinners and I am proud to report that 2010-2011 represented a record year in terms of our programmatic activities. Over the coming months, we intend to cement GSF’s reputation as an organisation which relishes innovative policy ideas and bold thinking. Our independence from government and establishment institutions has allowed us to provide the open platform which makes this possible. This pamphlet reflects only a fraction of the activities which we undertake in pursuit of our mission and further details can be found on our relaunched website. As always, I should like to place on record our deep gratitude to all our contributors, whose immense generosity with their knowledge, their expertise and their time is at the core of GSF. Nor we would succeed in our remit as an open forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions without our strong and active membership base. As the events of the coming year unfold, we look forward to working with you to continue to generate debate, comment and discussion. Johan Eliasch President, Global Strategy Forum 3 www.globalstrategyforum.org 4 www.globalstrategyforum.org ABOUT GLOBAL STRATEGY FORUM GLOBAL STRATEGY FORUM was founded by Lord Lothian (then Michael Ancram MP) and Johan Eliasch in 2006 for the purpose of generating open debate and discussion on foreign affairs, defence and international security issues. As an independent, non-partisan, non-ideological organisation, GSF provides a platform to explore some of the more challenging and contentious aspects of UK foreign policy and to stimulate imaginative ideas and innovative thinking in a rapidly changing global landscape. GSF’S core activity consists of a regular lunchtime lecture and debate series on topical issues. For more in-depth discussion of specific topics, we host seminars in the House of Lords. We also hold small roundtable lunches and dinners on key issues of the day. Separately, as well as our annual compendium of lectures, we publish an occasional series of monographs by distinguished experts, such as the pamphlet on ‘The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: A Networking Organisation for a Networking World’ by Dr Shirin Akiner with a foreword by Lord Lothian, published in June 2010. In 2010-2011 the following speakers and chairs took part in our lecture series: Stephen King, HSBC’s Group Chief Economist; Rt Hon Lord Lamont of Lerwick (in the chair); Charles Farr, Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism at the Home Office; Dr Shirin Akiner, Fellow of the Cambridge Central Asia Forum, University of Cambridge and Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; Sir Tony Brenton KCMG, former UK Ambassador to Russia; Rory Stewart MP; Lord Anderson of Swansea (in the chair); Lord Lothian, Chairman of Global Strategy Forum; Rt Hon Lord Howell of Guildford (in the chair); HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud; Rt Hon Jack Straw MP; and Professor Keith Jeffery, author of MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909-49. Their lectures can all be found in this compendium. In November 2010, GSF Advisory Board member HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal also spoke on ‘Social Cohesion and Human Security in the West Asia-North Africa Region’ at an event chaired by Lord Lothian and held in association with Chatham House and the Anglo Jordanian Society. We have held a record number of debates over the past year on topics as varied as China, Africa, nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, North Korea, strategy in Afghanistan, Wikileaks and the new media, and the Arab Spring. We have also hosted three seminars, all of which took place in the House of Lords, on the Strategic Defence and Security Review in November 2010; on Iran in March 2011, at which the Rt Hon Jack Straw MP gave the opening address; and on the Middle East Peace Process in May 2011, co-hosted with the Geneva Initiative and with an opening address given by Alistair Burt MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We launched Lord Lothian’s pamphlet, ‘Farewell to Drift: A New Foreign Policy for a Network World’ with a foreword by Peter Oborne of the Daily Telegraph, at the 2010 Conservative Conference in Birmingham. In May 2011, we hosted a reception to celebrate our fifth anniversary in the Queenborough Room at the St. Stephen’s Club, where Lord Lothian (then Michael Ancram MP), GSF’s Chairman, gave the inaugural GSF lecture on 9th May 2006. Guests were addressed by Lord Lothian and the Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Rifkind QC MP, GSF Advisory Board member. 5 www.globalstrategyforum.org A full list of all the events which took place in 2010-2011 is included on page 75 of this pamphlet. Going forward, we will continue to seek the views of leading politicians, academics and opinion formers, both in Britain and internationally. Please visit our website for further information on our activities and our forthcoming event series. 6 www.globalstrategyforum.org THE Lectures The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: A Networking Organisation For A Networking World Dr Shirin Akiner Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity Stephen King Counter Terrorism Strategy in the UK: Are We Winning? Charles Farr Russia: A New Whiff of Optimism? Sir Tony Brenton KCMG Afghanistan: A Winnable War? Rory Stewart MP Farewell to Drift: A New Foreign Policy for A Network World Lord Lothian The Heart of Conflict in the Middle East HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud Lessons from the History of MI6 Professor Keith Jeffery 7 www.globalstrategyforum.org 8 www.globalstrategyforum.org THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANISATION: A NETWORKING ORGANISATION FOR A NETWORKING WORLD Transcript of a lecture given by Dr Shirin Akiner 8th June 2010 Dr Shirin Akiner has longstanding first-hand experience of Central Asia and has written and lectured widely on the region. In 2006 she was awarded the Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs for her contribution to Asian studies.