Penksa Talks Global Security to Leaders

Susan Penksa, Westmont professor of political science, was an invited speaker for the workshop “Building a Strategic U.S.-EU Partnership on Defense and Security Aspects,” hosted by the British Embassy, Washington, D.C., Oct. 21. Penksa, a Fulbright Scholar to Bosnia Herzegovina in 2007, spoke to about 60 U.S. and European policy makers and experts about improving U.S.-EU cooperation in global conflict resolution and crisis stabilization.

The workshop, organized by the Atlantic Council, was part of the Project on Forging a Strategic U.S.-EU Partnership.

“The aim of this project is to develop policy recommendations to create a more strategic U.S.-EU relationship in the face of 21st century challenges,” Penksa says. “We also discussed non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, arms control, defense markets, security challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa, and the future of U.S. and EU relations with NATO and the United Nations.”

She says a project report by the workshop organizers will be released in Washington, D.C., in advance of the 2010 U.S.-EU Summit and will include recommendations on security and defense, energy, the environment and economics.

Penksa has spoken at two previous conferences hosted by the Presidency of the EU and at the European Parliament in 2008. She has provided policy advice for the U.S. Mission to the EU in Brussels and done consulting work for USAID in Pakistan.

Penksa, who received her doctorate in political science from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, has more than 15 years of applied research and consulting experience in global security. She is an expert on transatlantic security and defense, EU external policy, civil-military relations, conflict prevention, post-conflict stabilization, organized crime and terrorism, and security system reform.