Coming to Washington DC

I decided to attend international conferences held in Washington DC on November 7 and 8. One is a big event by the Nonproliferation Project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Influential policymakers on WMD proliferation are invited as guest speakers. Nonproliferation project is the centerpiece of the Carnegie Endowment, and this is far larger than any other events held by the Endowment.

Main guest speakers are the following.

Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency
Samuel W. Bodman, US Secretary of Energy
William J. Perry, Former US Secretary of Defense
Sam Nunn, Former US Senator (Democrat)
Richard Lugar, US Senator (Republican), Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Guest speakers come from both current Bush administration and former Clinton administration. Bipartisan debates will be a good opportunity to understand on US nuclear policy further. Also, there are some foreign guests, including EU Commissioner Javier Solana’s personal WMD Representative and Egyptian Ambassador to the United States. Attendants are from Washington think tanks, the media, and the government, mostly. Students and NGO activists will participate in this conference as well.

The most critical topic will be Iran and North Korea.

Currently, WMD nonproliferation is one of the key areas in US foreign policy. I have posted some articles on nuclear weapons on this blog. Therefore, I will write about this conference when I come back to Tokyo. If possible, I would like to post an article from the hotel, using a computer in the common room. Just if possible.

I will attend another conference at the Woodrow Wilson Center Professor Alex Danchev from Nottingham University in the United Kingdom will give a lecture on Britain’s role between America and Europe. The Woodrow Wilson Center was founded in 1968 with approval by the Congress. It is quite close to the White House. The Anglo-American Special Relationship and the Transatlantic Alliance is a key topic on this blog. I hope I can write a good post about it as well.