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For nearly twenty-five years, Richard K. Betts served as Director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. During that time, he not only helped to transform the Institute into a world-class center of academic foreign-policy thought, he also remained (and remains) an active force in the discipline of international relations, conducting cutting-edge research, writing, and teaching as the Leo A. Shifrin Professor of War and Peace Studies in the Department of Political Science at Columbia. To commemorate the recent retirement of Dr. Betts as Saltzman Institute director, this day-long tribute — filled with high-powered panels and personal attestations — will celebrate the body of his work and the vast influence he has had on academic scholarship and foreign-policy thinking, along with the countless colleagues and students he has inspired along the way.
9:30 a.m. – Welcome and Introduction
Merit Janow, Dean, School of International and Public Affairs
Keren Yarhi-Milo, Columbia University
10:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. – Panel I: Soldiers and Statesmen
Peter Feaver, Duke University
Col. Suzanne Nielsen, U.S. Military Academy, West Point
Cynthia Roberts, Hunter College, City University of New York
Moderated by Stephen Biddle, Columbia University
12:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. – Panel II: Intelligence and Decision Makers
Peter Clement, Columbia University
Robert Jervis, Columbia University
Paul Pillar, Georgetown University
James Wirtz, Naval Postgraduate School
Moderated by Keren Yarhi-Milo, Columbia University
2:00 p.m.- 3:45 p.m. – Panel III: Force and Foreign Policy
John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago
Barry Posen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stephen Rosen, Harvard University
Scott Sagan, Stanford University
Moderated by Thomas Christensen, Columbia University
4:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. – Panel IV: Tributes and Tributaries
Stuart Gottlieb, Columbia University
Lisa Anderson, Columbia University
Stephen Walt, Harvard University
Erica Borghard, Atlantic Council
Michael O’Hara, U.S. Naval War College
Special Guests and Audience Anecdotes
Moderated by V. Page Fortna and Jack Snyder, Columbia University
6:00 p.m. – 6:30 pm. – Closing Remarks
Richard K. Betts, Columbia University
