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Strategic Fellowships

This page contains information on the Institute's Strategic Fellowship program for 2002-2003. The application procedure is at the end. We recommend you read the full text before downloading the application form and faxing it to our Washington, D. C. office.

OVERVIEW

The Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies, Jerusalem and Washington, D.C. (IASPS) invites top college graduates in strategic studies, international relations, political science and related fields to apply for a one-year program in Washington, D.C., beginning in October of 2002.

Applicants who have passed the qualifying rounds will be required to take an examination. Only those who demonstrate a familiarity with the problems of modern social science and the nation state as these are raised in the work of Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin and others reaching back to Plato and Aristotle will be of interest to this program.

IASPS takes 5-7 American, Israeli and Turkish students with a BA or better. The program consists of three parts: Part 1 is eight weeks of seminars; Part 2 is subsequent placement in Congress, which is by no means guaranteed or is this the main feature of the program, as research fellows; Part 3 is the preparation of a paper suitable for publication in our series: IASPS Research Papers in Strategy. Professor William Van Cleave directs the Program in the Institute’s Division for Research in Strategy along with P. M. Wihbey who chairs the Institute’s Caspian Project. 

IASPS is the world's foremost authority on Israeli economic policy, regional geostrategic analysis and on missile defense. The focus of this Program is missile defense in strategic context of the affects of US policy in the regions of Eurasia and the Middle East. This is to say the focus of the program is geostrategic and geopolitical. More specifically we are interested in the affects of American policy as it bears upon the main political struggles of our times in which Western societies contend with forces seeking to bring about the end of the balance of power system, thus to discard nation-states and what they represent -liberty, limits upon government and the state by means of pre-political institutions. 

The Division for Research in Strategy began in 1996, 12 years after the Institute's Division for Economic Policy Research, director. The aim of DRS is to assist in preparing a new generation of policy scholars. The aim is to meet the challenges to Western institutions and principles posed by the on-going encroachment of the public realm upon the freedom of individuals and peoples. For example, the denial of missile defense to states and peoples on the view that missiles are "the absolute weapon" undermines freedom in the name of protecting people by making them defenseless, a view that has led Henry Kissinger to describe the ABM Treaty of 1972, brokered during his tenure as secretary of state, as "nihilism."

 The curriculum covers Intelligence/Kenneth deGraffenried, Alan Pike; Russia and the KGB/William T. Lee; Russia under Putin, the ABM Treaty/Van Cleave; US Oil Policy /Wihbey; History and Political Geography of Eurasia and the Middle East/Krakowski. Two follow-on courses beginning in January deal with political theory and the peace process/R. J. Loewenberg; behavior and protocol on the Hill.

 INSTRUCTORS

Professor William Van Cleave is currently the Head of the Defense and Strategic Studies Department at Southwest Missouri State University, and before that was a Professor of International Relations and Director of the Defense and Strategic Studies Program at the University of Southern California from 1967-1987. Professor Van Cleave is a Senior Research Fellow in National Security Affairs at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University and a Member of the Board of Trustees of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. His past professional experience includes being a member of the US Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the USSR, Special Assistant for Strategic Policy and Planning in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, member of the "B-Team" effort to review national intelligence on the USSR and to produce a competitive National Intelligence Estimate. He has also been a consultant to numerous government agencies. From 1979 to 1981 he was Senior Advisor and Defense Policy Coordinator to Ronald Reagan and Director of the Department of Defense Transition Team. Professor Van Cleave is the author of numerous scholarly books and journal articles. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the California State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Claremont Graduate School. 

Professor Elie D. Krakowski has followed events in Afghanistan and its region for close to twenty years. He is President and founder of EDK Consulting, a global political and security risk management firm. From 1988 to 1996, he was a professor of International Relations and Law at Boston University, and from 1982 to 1988 was the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense. He is a recognized authority on international terrorism, unconventional warfare, and propaganda/subversion. Dr. Krakowski is a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. He has lectured widely throughout the US and abroad on international terrorism and other national security issues, and written extensively on regional conflicts, terrorism, and the other aspects of low intensity conflict in the Boston Sunday Globe, Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, Central Asian Survey, Global Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, and Strategic Review. His book, The Politics of Blackmail: The Case of Small Wars, will be published soon. 

Professor Robert J. Loewenberg, IASPS President, founded the Institute in 1984 and has presided over its growth and success ever since. He holds a Ph.D from Yale University (1972) and has published books and monographs including The Peace Process: An Introductory Essay (Part 1); The Israeli Fate of Jewish Liberalism (with Edward Alexander); Emerson, An American Idol; Freedom's Despots; and Equality on the Oregon Frontier. He has edited other books and contributed to collections on a wide range of subjects including SDI, foreign aid and economic policy, and has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals as well as opeds in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Times, Insight Magazine, The Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. Loewenberg is also a Trustee of the Institute. 

Paul Michael Wihbey, an IASPS Strategic Fellow, specializes in US energy and security in the Persian Gulf and adjacent areas. As a former vice president of the Federal Liberal Party of Canada during the Trudeau Administration, he was a member of the Canadian parliamentary and diplomatic fact-finding missions to Lebanon in the early 1980s. In Washington, Wihbey has served as a consultant on Middle East security, economics and political issues to US-based multinationals, Congress and the Department of Defense. He regularly appears as a conference speaker and panelist and makes frequent contributions to major US publications. Among his recent publications are "The Eurasian Great Game," IASPS Research Papers in Strategy; and "The Succession Crisis in Saudi Arabia," IASPS Research Papers in Strategy." Wihbey is a regular contributor to Oil & Gas Journal.

Other Instructors are: William T. Lee, former Senior Analyst, CIA, Defense Intelligence Office (subjects -KGB, FSU); Kenneth deGraffenried, former Senior Director of Intelligence Program, NSC (subjects - intelligence, national security); Alan Pike, former Deputy Director DARPA (subjects - technological aspects of strategic policy).

WORKING ON CAPITOL HILL

Fellows who successfully complete the Seminar segment may be placed on the Hill in the period that runs from after the seminar ends in January to the end of the program in the late spring or, occasionally later. Where suitable, Fellows are placed in offices and committees as research fellows.

Congressional assignments are not intended to provide any direct or indirect benefit to the Institute. Rather, the goal of the program is to facilitate for our Strategic Fellows an understanding of the work of democratic policy making in its largest, perhaps best case venue.

CURRICULUM  

A different member of the faculty directs each Seminar in the five-day week. The format for every Seminar calls for a reading preparation based on a syllabus. Exams are frequent. Written preparation is ongoing. Fellows who fall behind, come late or otherwise lose focus will be dropped from the Program. Applicants should be clear: this is an intense, deeply serious program. Resource materials including reading lists and syllabi will be provided approximately one month before the Program begins. 

The curriculum covers Intelligence/Kenneth deGraffenried, Alan Pike; Russia and the KGB/William T. Lee; Russia under Putin, the ABM Treaty/Van Cleave; US Oil Policy /Wihbey; History and Political Geography of Eurasia and the Middle East/Krakowski. Two follow-on courses beginning January 1 (8:00-9:00 am) deal with political theory and the peace process/R. J. Loewenberg; behavior and protocol on the Hill.

RESEARCH AND WRITING

IASPS selects candidates for fellowship positions who demonstrate strong research and writing abilities. Part of the Strategic Fellow’s responsibilities includes producing at least one paper of publishable quality, about 25-35 pages, during their tenure. 

Strategic Fellows are encouraged to develop a thesis for their first paper in the first 8 weeks. Research tutorials and on-going consultations are part of the research and writing process which also includes "spin off" in the form of seminar lectures by Fellows and opportunities to contribute to the Institute's award winning website. Fellows will also become expert users of The Chicago Manual of Style.

QUALIFICATIONS

IASPS seeks applicants with solid academic credentials. Successful applicants will have completed at least an undergraduate degree prior to the program start date in October. 

While successful candidates must demonstrate some familiarity with the fields of study emphasized by the Institute, fellowships are available to candidates from all disciplines of study. These include but are not limited to strategic studies, political science, international relations, government, history, public policy and administration. Above all, to repeat, is a proficiency in the serious writings of political affairs to be demonstrated by each applicant to the program in a qualifying examination as mentioned above.

SUBSISTENCE STIPEND

Successful applicants who are offered enrollment in the program may apply for a modest monthly stipend ($1,000) from November 2002, to the close of the program, sometime between late spring and the close of Congress 2003. IASPS will facilitate the search for housing, including pairing of incoming scholars who may prefer to share housing arrangements, or those who require assistance in finding suitable accommodations.

APPLICATION

 Click here to download an application in PDF format or in MS WordFormat. The application should be sent with the following information:

1. Completed application form.
2.  Resume or C.V.
3. Writing sample demonstrating significant research/writing skills.

             This application should be forwarded by mail to: 

IASPS
Strategic Fellowship Program
Frederick Cedoz, Executive Director
1020 16^th Street, NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036

            Fax: 202 862-4981

          The following items will be required at the second stage:

1. Two (2) non-academic letters of recommendation.
2. Copies of transcripts from all degree granting institutions.

Applicants found eligible will be advised of the time and place of the examination.

Click here to download an application in PDF format
(Note: This file in in PDF format version 4.0. If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat Reader or you have an older version of it, you may download the necessary software for free from Adobe by clicking here)

Or click here to download an application in Microsoft Word Format