The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is pleased to announce that Colonel Martin A. Leppert, USARNG (Ret.) has joined the Institute as a Research Fellow in the Strategy, Planning & Programs group. He currently supports the Engineering Research and Development Center, US Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Belvoir.  Colonel Leppert works with the Civil Military Operations – Human Environment Interaction work group as an Afghanistan operational subject matter expert.
Prior to his retirement, Colonel Leppert served as the Special Assistant to the Army National Guard where he planned, coordinated and executed the Afghan Agri-Business Development mission in support of NATO operations in Afghanistan, successfully deploying 21 teams composed of over 1500 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen into Afghanistan to support coalition capacity building efforts in that country.

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The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is pleased to announce that Prof. James Giordano, PhD, has been selected to give the prestigious Jus Lecture at the University of Toronto on November 10.  This is the 14th Annual Jus Lecture, named in honor of Dr. Andrzej Jus, and is presented by the University's Joint Centre for Bioethics. Prof. Giordano's topic will be “Neuroethics: Coming of Age and Facing the Future.”  Prof. Giordano is Vice President of Academic Programs at the Potomac Institute and is also Director of the Institute's Center for Neurotechnology Studies. For more information about the event, including registration details, please click here.

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Potomac Institute Fellow Ben Sheppard, PhD, is an expert on political and psychological effects of terrorist attacks. In a radio interview on the Jim Bohannon Show, Dr. Sheppard talks about the "homegrown" terrorist risk highlighted by a recent sting operation in the Washington, DC area.  That operation led to the arrest of a Virginia man, for allegedly participating in what he thought was a plot to bomb Metro transit stations. Click here to listen to Dr. Sheppard's interview on domestic terrorism risks.  

Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Senior Fellow Amb. David Smith has been keeping a close eye on France's proposal to sell Mistral  amphibious assault ships to Russia. Amb. Smith, the Director of the Georgian Security Analysis Center in Tbilisi, writes in a recent issue of the publication Tabula that should the Russian navy acquire the ships, they would be "an ideal weapon for Russia to intimidate its neighbors in the Black Sea, the Baltic and in the western Pacific." But progress on the ship deal hasn't been all smooth sailing. And Amb. Smith notes that if the deal runs aground now, Georgia and other nations would breathe a sigh of relief.  Click below to read the article in full.