Panelists
Mr. James Platte: “Japan’s Quest for “Semi-National” Energy Resources: Motivations and Implications”
Jim Platte is a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow with the International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs for the 2011-12 academic year. Jim's dissertation research concerns the decision-making behind national nuclear fuel cycle policy in India, Japan, and South Korea. Previously, Jim was selected as a Roberts Scholar by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2008, and spent a year intensively studying Korean at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea, followed by working as a counter proliferation analyst for 16 months. Prior to beginning the PhD program at Fletcher in 2006, he worked on the Highly Enriched Uranium Transparency Program for the U.S. Department of Energy, and he also has experience researching nuclear proliferation issues with the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Jim earned a MA in science, technology, and public policy from the George Washington University and a MS and BS in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan.
Dr. James Holmes: “Defending the Strait: Taiwan's Naval Strategy in the 21st Century”
Professor James Holmes is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vanderbilt University and he has earned graduate degrees at Salve Regina University, Providence College, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He earned the 1994 Naval War College Foundation Award, signifying the top graduate in his Naval War College class. He previously served on the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs and as a research associate at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Cambridge, MA. A former U.S. Navy surface warfare officer, he served onboard the battleship Wisconsin, directed an engineering course at the Surface Warfare Officers School Command, and served as military professor at the Naval War College, College of Distance Education. His most recent book is Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy.
Mr. Ivan Willis Rasmussen: “The Nation Now United: Domestic Chinese Nationalism and its Impact on International Affairs”
Ivan Willis Rasmussen is a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School, where he focuses on international negotiation, conflict resolution, international organizations, and, regionally, East Asia. Mr. Rasmussen received his MALD from the Fletcher School in 2009, and completed undergraduate studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School in 2006. He has lived and worked abroad in France, China, India, and Turkey. Mr. Rasmussen previously was a Rosenthal Fellow for the US Department of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. His most recent academic work is on Chinese international treaty behavior (Asian Journal of Public Affairs), and how nationalism impacts Sino-Taiwanese negotiations (Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs), and the changing politics of UN Peacekeeping (Journal of Current Chinese Affairs).