Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Pompeo pushes against China, Russia in visit to 'Stans'

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats Bipartisianship

Comments: 0

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Uzbekistan on Sunday for the final stop of a five-country tour in which he is manoeuvring to undercut Chinese and Russian influence.

Pompeo's visit to the Central Asian country of 33 million will see him hold talks Monday with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has embarked on ambitious reforms, welcoming tourism and investment in the once-isolated republic while keeping the authoritarian system intact.

Prior to his arrival in Tashkent, Pompeo met with the leadership of Uzbekistan's oil-rich neighbour Kazakhstan, where he called on all countries to join the US calling for "an immediate end" to China's "repression" of minorities in the Xinjiang region, which Kazakhstan borders.

"We ask simply for (countries) to provide safe refuge and asylum for those seeking to flee China," Pompeo said Sunday at a press appearance with Kazakh foreign minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi.

His visit to the capital Nur-Sultan also saw him meet with Kazakhs who say their family members are detained in Xinjiang, where more than a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities are believed to have been incarcerated as part of an unprecedented security crackdown in the region.

Pompeo rounded off the Kazakhstan visit by meeting with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and his long-reigning predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Pompeo will also hold a meeting on Monday with foreign ministers from all five ex-Soviet Central Asian countries -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

- 'Chinese activity, Russian activity' -

Central Asia is a region where both Russia and China enjoy privileged interests, with Washington struggling to keep up in recent years.

Ahead of the visit, Pompeo stressed that the Central Asian countries on his itinerary "want to be sovereign and independent", and Washington had "an important opportunity to help them achieve that".

But he also acknowledged "a lot of activity (in the region) -- Chinese activity, Russian activity".

Pompeo also visited two other former Soviet countries -- Belarus and Ukraine -- as part of a trip that began with a stop in Britain.

The United States was among the first countries to recognise the newly independent states of Central Asia after they split from the Soviet Union in 1991.

At the height of hostilities in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, NATO and the United States maintained important logistics centres in the region, but these have now closed.

Russia has retained military bases and heads security and trade blocs that have helped to entrench its position there.

But Central Asia also increasingly looks east to China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road global trade plan as a panacea to treat battered economies.

- Trump targets Kyrgyzstan immigration -

Uzbekistan was one of the countries where Washington maintained a base for Afghan operations but the two states fell out badly in 2005, when former leader Islam Karimov oversaw a bloody crackdown on protests.

The relationship had healed somewhat by the time of Karimov's death in 2016.

His successor Mirziyoyev, who visited Trump at the White House in 2018, has mused on the benefits of joining the Moscow-backed Eurasian Economic Union, a five-country bloc including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that is seen as a key vehicle for Russia to wield influence in the region.

Pompeo's meeting with ministers from the five states is part of a format that was first tried under a former secretary of state, John Kerry.

The forum aims to enhance regional, economic, environmental and security cooperation.

One of the five countries, Kyrgyzstan, reacted angrily Saturday to being included in a list of six countries targeted for immigration restrictions by US President Donald Trump.

The impoverished republic of six million said the move had caused "significant damage" to relations.

 

Photo: © KEVIN LAMARQUE US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shakes hands with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

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