The Rumi Forum presented “Prospects for US-Turkish Relations” with Dr. F. Stephen Larrabee, RAND Corporate Chair in European Security.
On March 26, 2009, during the Rumi Forum Luncheon Series, Dr. Stephen Larrabee, a senior staff member at RAND, discussed his first impressions of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, especially as it relates to US-Turkish relations. He started by noting that US-Turkish relations have deteriorated over the past 5 years, mainly due to the US military invasion of Iraq which resulted in numerous negative consequences for Turkey. Larrabee also discussed how various regions the Obama administration will be dealing with are going to affect US-Turkish relations.
Dr. Larrabee talked at length about the Armenian Genocide Resolution which has the potential to cause serious tension between the US and Turkey. The resolution almost passed during the Bush Administration, but a last minute push kept the resolution from coming to vote. Obama is now faced with the Resolution again, and although there is strong support in Congress for this resolution to pass, Larrabee believes that due to the weight this resolution carries, President Obama will not be able to allow it to pass. If the resolution was to pass not only would US-Turkish relations be strained, but US plans to withdraw from Iraq might also be affected.
F. Stephen Larrabee (USA) is a Senior Staff member at RAND in Washington, D.C. and holds the RAND Corporate Chair in European Security. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and has taught at Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Georgetown University, George Washington University and the University of Southern California. Before joining RAND he served as Vice President and Director of Studies of the Institute of East-West Security Studies in New York from 1983-1989 and was a distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Institute from 1989-1990. From 1978-1981 Dr. Larrabee served on the U.S. National Security Council staff in the White House as a specialist on Soviet-East European affairs and East-West political-military relations.
He is author of NATO’s Eastern Agenda in a New Strategic Era, co-author with Ian Lesser of Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, co-editor with Zalmay Khalilzad and Ian O. Lesser of The Future of Turkish-Western Relations, co-editor (with David Gompert) of America and Europe: A Partnership for A New Era (1997), and author of East European Security After the Cold War, (1994). His articles include, “Ukraine am Scheideweg” (Europaeische Rundschau, 2008), “Ukraine at the Crossroads” (Washington Quarterly, Fall 2007) and “Ukraine and the West” (Survival, Spring 2006).
Moderator :
Dr. David C. Cuthell is the Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies at Georgetown University. He attended Phillips Academy and Yale, graduating in 1975. He received his MBA from Columbia University in 1979 and received his PhD in History. His research at Columbia focused on the 19th century immigration of Muslims from the Caucasus and the Crimea and their role in transforming late Ottoman Anatolia. Dr. Cuthell has taught at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey where he headed the Turkish, Middle East and Central Asian Studies Program from 2000 through 2004. Dr. Cuthell is a member of the Advisory Board of the Middle East Institute, a Trustee of Robert College in Istanbul and a Trustee of Paul Smith College in the Adirondacks.