Tuesday 7:30pm-10:20pm Carol Martin

US foreign assistance advances America’s international policy interests while improving lives in developing countries. Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) overseas support for regional and bilateral initiatives includes programs related to humanitarian and food assistance, global disaster response, and global health emergencies. The programs are implemented alongside national governments, multilateral agencies, the private sector, and local and international civil society organizations. There is ongoing debate, however, about the extent to which the programs are transparent and accountable to the American people, and the efficiency of the approaches in advancing US national security and achieving broader host country and global sustainable development goals.     

The task force will analyze lessons learned and best practices to assess the impact of US humanitarian and related support in select countries in Africa, Asia, and/or Latin America. The task force report will be in the form of policy recommendations for improving the effectiveness of US foreign assistance programs.  

Carol L. Martin served as Democracy and Governance advisor for USAID at the Regional Center for Southern Africa in Botswana and USAID/Mozambique and as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Department of State’s first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. She has extensive overseas experience consulting for sustainable development programs and served as the executive director of the African Studies Association. A former Fulbright Scholar, she earned her PhD in political science from Yale University and a BA in international development from Yale College. 

Wednesday 1:30pm-4:20pm - Susan Marquis

Spurred by the disruptions of COVID-19, the reality of a tight labor market, or simply the realization that minimum wage is not a living wage, recent headlines have declared a new energy in fighting for fair pay and safe working conditions in industries and professions ranging from Starbuck baristas, UPS and Amazon delivery staff, teachers, grad students, farmworkers, and autoworkers. This policy task force will examine both the history of workers’ rights and organization in the United States and exploration of new models for defining and claiming these rights including worker-driven social responsibility, grassroots organizing, and new approaches to unionization.

Susan L. Marquis is the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Profession as Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, former Frank and Marie Carlucci Dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, and author of I Am Not A Tractor! How Florida Farmworkers Took on the Fast Food Giants and Won (Cornell, 2017) and Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces. She has published commentaries on topics including human rights and social justice and groundbreaking women in national security and STEM fields and spoken on new approaches to public policy and leveraging technology in the public interest at forums ranging from the USC Institute for Body Computing to the AMP Music Summit to the Aspen Institute.

Monday 7:30pm-10:20pm - Nicky Sheats

The environmental justice (EJ) advocacy community has almost uniquely called for climate change mitigation policy to not only fight climate change but to also address the disproportionate amount of pollution often found in EJ residential communities, i.e. communities Of Color and low-income communities. In New Jersey, the EJ community has suggested polices that don’t use carbon-trading to lower mobile source GHG emissions but some questions remain regarding these strategies such as: do some policies need to be prioritized; how can it be ensured that policies will achieve reductions in EJ communities; are there legal barriers to such policies; and do additional policies need to be developed?

Dr. Nicky Sheats, Esq., is the director of the Center for the Urban Environment of the John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and Research at Kean University and has defined the primary mission of the Center as providing support for the environmental justice (EJ) community.  Among the issues he works on are air pollution, climate change, cumulative impacts, developing EJ legal strategies and increasing the working capacity of the EJ community. Sheats was a founding member of the NJ EJ Alliance, EJ Leadership Forum, EJ and Science Initiative, the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform and an informal NE EJ Attorneys Group. He has been appointed to the NJ Clean Air Council, EPA’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee and National EJ Advisory Council, and was a co-author of the human health chapter of the 2014 national climate assessment. He is currently serving on the newly created White House EJ Advisory Council. Early in his career Sheats practiced law as a public interest attorney. He holds a B.A. from Princeton University and earned a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences, J.D. and M.P.P. from Harvard University. 

Thursday 1:30-4:20 PM - Ethan Kapstein

Recent years have seen renewed tensions between the U.S. and its postwar allies over such issues as defense spending and weapons acquisition, ending the war in Ukraine, U.S. support for Israel, relations with China, and trade policy. This Task Force will explore the state of America’s alliance relationships through a study of: 1) alliance theory; 2) alliance history, with an emphasis on the tensions and conflicts that the allies have sought to manage over the years; 3) the current state of alliance relations, using a variety of data and policy analysis tools; 4) forecasts of possible alliance futures. Readings will be drawn from primary sources, the academic and policy literatures, and news reports, and expert interviews will also be conducted. The class might undertake a trip over spring break to further our research. The final product will be a Report for our client, the Council on Foreign Relations.

This task force will make intensive use of data and all students will engage in empirical research

Ethan B. Kapstein is Executive Director of the Empirical Studies of Conflict project (esoc.princeton.edu) at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, where he is also lecturer with rank of professor. Kapstein’s research focuses on the intersection of economics and national security and he is currently studying economic relations among military allies. A retired naval reserve officer, Kapstein has also served in the U.S. government and as a Principal Administrator at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. He previously held academic appointments at Arizona State, Harvard, and the University of Texas, and for many years taught at INSEAD, an international business school with campuses in France and Singpore.

Monday 7:30pm-10:20pm - Leslie Tsou

What role should the United States play in the world?  In the first quarter of the 21st century, the United States’s role has evolved from direct invention in other nations following the September 11 attacks; to a hybrid of internationalism and military action under President Obama; to a retreat from world commitments during President Trump’s first term; to a more hybrid approach under President Joe Biden who sought to strengthen alliances while ending U.S. military missions overseas.  While President Trump’s second term is just beginning, his approach appears designed to upend the alliance-based role the United States established at the end of World War II and perhaps fits more closely with the challenges of the Great Power Competition.

This task force will create a concept of the ideal U.S. role in the world by examining its recent actions in the Middle East and the Russia/Ukraine war.  We will take a thematic approach to this question, considering America’s historic sense of self; its isolationist vs its interventionist tendencies; alliances; counter terrorism; business and economic interests; the role of Congress in foreign policy; human rights; and leadership styles.  The final product will be rooted in the reality that the question is enormously complex and there are no easy or perfect answers.

Ambassador (ret) Leslie Tsou worked primarily on issues related to the Middle East and North Africa during a thirty-year career as a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. State Department.  She retired in April 2023.  She has been a  Lecturer and Senior Fellow at the Jackson School of Global Affairs from August 2023.

From January 2020 to March 2023, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman.  From 2016 to 2019, Ambassador Tsou served as the first Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM - number two in the Embassy structure) at the newly opened U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, and as the first female DCM in Israel in U.S. history.  From 2012 to 2016, she was Senior Advisor on Iran and Director of the Office of Iranian Affairs in the Near Eastern Affairs Office at the Department of State in Washington, DC.  During that tour, she supervised and led the team that provided key support to U.S. negotiators to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal.  She served on the U.S. team that negotiated the release of four American citizens imprisoned in Iran on false charges, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.  She also served as a member of a small team of State Department officials who completed an historic settlement of Iran’s claim before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague.  From 2011 to 2012 she was Deputy Political Counselor in Baghdad, Iraq.  From 2010 to 2011 she was Arabian Peninsula Director on the National Security Staff at the White House.  In 2004, she was the first U.S. diplomat to return to Libya after the United States broke diplomatic ties in 1980, and from 2004 to 2005 she negotiated the end of U.S. sanctions against Libya with members of the Qadhafi regime and built the U.S. diplomatic presences in Tripoli from zero to 100 employees.  From 2001 to 2003 she was part of the U.S. negotiating team that resolved claims related to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, resulting in the lifting of UN sanctions against Libya and precedent-setting compensation for the families of the 270 victims.  Her other overseas assignments included Kuwait, the United Kingdom, and Poland.  In Washington she served in various positions in the State Department Executive Secretariat.

Tuesday 7:30-10:20pm - Jonathan Fredman

In 2004 Congress enacted the most sweeping changes to the U.S. Intelligence Community since the Second World War.  Responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction following the Iraq War, the massive Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act drew upon proposals first floated during the 1990s.  The Act disestablished the position of Director of Central Intelligence, created a new Director of National Intelligence, and realigned the authorities and responsibilities to lead the Community, itself a set of 18 organizations comprising the Central Intelligence Agency and elements of the Departments of Defense, Justice, State, Energy, Treasury, and Homeland Security.

In large part, the Act responded to issues reviewed in the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and subsequently addressed in the Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Implementation of the Act, however, has not been without controversy, and it remains an open question whether the current structure of the Community is adequate for the challenges posed by an increasingly multipolar world.

The Task Force will examine the intelligence requirements of the United States and make recommendations as to whether the Act should remain as written and, if revisions would be appropriate, make specific recommendations for new legislation. Participants will present their conclusions and recommendations to senior staff of the Congressional intelligence oversight committees.

Jonathan Fredman held numerous leadership positions at the Central Intelligence Agency during his 36-year career, including Chief Counsel, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Counterterrorist Center; Chief Counsel, DCI Counterintelligence Center; Counsel for Operations, CIA Directorate of Science and Technology; and Chief Counsel for several additional CIA divisions and mission centers.  He also served as Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Special Programs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence.

Mr. Fredman is a recipient of the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism, the John A. McCone Award for Science and Technology, the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal, and the Middle East Mission Manager Medallion.

From 2005-2010 he was Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence. In that position, he was the senior U.S. Government official devoted solely to the development and oversight of U.S. covert action and special programs.  He conducted policy development, program evaluation, and resource allocation activities as well as strategic operational planning, and resolved legal and legislative matters.

Prior to entering government, Mr. Fredman was an attorney with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, and a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Charles M. Metzner of the Southern District of New York.

He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs, and an Affiliated Scholar with the Program on Law and Public Policy.  He previously served as adjunct faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he taught national security law, foreign intelligence, and the law of counterterrorism.  He has been published in the Yale Law and Policy Review, the ABA National Security Law Report, and Studies in Intelligence, and co-authored the chapter on foreign and national intelligence in a legal casebook for the Carolina Academic Press.

Mr. Fredman graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude in Public and International Affairs, and from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Tuesday 1:30-4:20pm - Joseph Krakora

This policy task force section will focus on a critical issue in our criminal justice system. Specifically, we will examine incarceration at both the pretrial and post-conviction levels. We will study its underlying theories and purpose. We will do so in the context of ascertaining the extent to which current policies are or are not effective. At the pretrial level, we will look at the reasons for and against incarcerating individuals before they have been convicted. At the post-conviction level, we will look at mandatory minimum sentences and the balance between judicial and prosecutorial discretion in sentencing laws. The goal will be to make policy recommendations that both protect public safety while reducing the unnecessary warehousing of individuals in jails and prisons whose continued incarceration serves no legitimate purpose.

Joseph E. Krakora (’76) is the newly appointed Faculty Fellow for SPIA in NJ. Mr. Krakora comes to Princeton after serving as the Public Defender for the State of New Jersey from 2011 to 2024. In that position, he oversaw an agency of approximately 620 attorneys and 1200 total employees. Under his leadership, the office built a reputation as one of the best Public Defender offices in the country. He recruited talented attorneys from around the country, expanded the office’s training programs, and upgraded the agency’s technology and facilities. He became an influential stakeholder in New Jersey’s justice system on many policy issues, having spearheaded the pretrial release reform that eliminated cash bail, advocated for sentencing reform on New Jersey’s Sentencing Commission, and directed the filing of three successful Orders to Show Cause in the NJ Supreme Court for release of jail and prison inmates during the pandemic.

Mr. Krakora’s career as a public defender began in 1986 and spanned thirty four years. He started as both a staff attorney and manager in the Essex Region where is developed a reputation as one of the top criminal trial attorneys in New Jersey, specializing in homicide cases including capital cases. He was profiled in four front page NJ Law Journal articles after acquittals in high profile cases. Mr. Krakora served as the agency’s Assistant Public Defender and Director of Capital and Special Litigation from 2002-2010. In that capacity, he served on the Death Penalty Study Commission as a strong advocate leading to its abolition in December 2007. He also spent five years in private practice and served as the Law Clerk to the Hon. Lloyd F. McMahon, U.S.D.J for the Southern District of New York. He majored in History at Princeton and holds his law degree from the Cornell University Law School.