NEWPORT, R.I. – Derek Reveron, Naval War College professor and Naval Reserve commander currently on active duty in Afghanistan, will present a public lecture, “The Other Side of COIN: Building the Afghan Army and Police,” on Wednesday, June 15 at 7 p.m. at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy.
Presented by the Newport Council for International Visitors, Reveron’s lecture is free and open to the public. The Pell Center is located in the Young Building, corner of Bellevue and Ruggles avenues. As seating is limited, reservations are required by e-mailing e-mail: Gdreservations@newportciv.org.
Developing host-nation security forces is a key component of counterinsurgency where U.S. combat operations are secondary to enabling the host nation's ability to provide for its own security. While much attention is focused on the counterinsurgency efforts of 150,000 NATO forces, it is the 300,000 Afghan forces that are the key to transition security responsibility from NATO to Kabul.
At the center of the train and equip effort is the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A). Reveron will provide an overview of efforts to build the Afghan Army and Police. He draws from his latest book, "Exporting Security", and provides a comprehensive analysis of the shift in U.S. foreign policy from coercive diplomacy to cooperative military engagement, examines how and why the U.S. military is an effective tool of foreign policy, and explores the methods used to reduce security deficits around the world.
After the talk, Reveron will be available to sign copies of his book.
Reveron is a professor of national security affairs and the EMC Informationist Chair at the Naval War College. He specializes in strategy development, non-state security challenges, intelligence, and U.S. defense policy.
He has authored or edited seven books. The latest are “Exporting Security: International Engagement, Security Cooperation, and the Changing Face of the U.S. Military” (Georgetown University Press, 2010) and “Human Security in a Borderless World” (Westview Press, 2011).
Reveron has lectured on strategy and international security in more than twenty countries, primarily in South America and East and Southern Africa. As a serving officer in the Navy Reserves, he has served on the Joint Staff J2 as a desk officer in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center, served as second-in-command of a unit supporting special operations, and worked as a political-military analyst for NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Belgium.
Reveron serves as a senior editorial board member for the National Intelligence Journal, an editorial board member of the Naval War College Review, and is a contributing editor to the New Atlanticist, the blog for the Atlantic Council of the United States and globalsecurity.org. A frequent commentator on international security issues, CBS, AP, Bloomberg, NPR, and other regional and national media outlets have interviewed him.