Speaker Biographies

October 13, 2005

Janusz Bugajski is director of East European studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He is the recipient in 1998 of the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Information Agency, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. His books include Cold Peace: Russia’s New Imperialism (Praeger/Greenwood, 2004); Political Parties in Eastern Europe: A Guide to Politics in the Post-Communist Era (M. E. Sharpe, 2002); Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe: A Guide to Nationality Policies, Organizations, and Parties (M.E. Sharpe, 1994); Nations in Turmoil: Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe (Westview Press, 1993); East European Fault Lines: Dissent, Opposition, and Social Activism (Westview Press, 1989); and Czechoslovakia: Charter 77's Decade of Dissent (Praeger/CSIS, 1987). He chairs South Central Europe Area Studies at the Foreign Service Institute and has conducted consultancy work for the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the original International Republican Institute (IRI), the Free Trade Union Institute (AFL-CIO), the Rand Corporation, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the 21st Century Foundation, and several other private organizations and foundations. He is a columnist for the political weekly Nacional in Zagreb, Croatia, for the daily Albania in Tirana, Albania, for the weekly Koha Ditore in Pristina, Kosova, and for the Bulgarian weeklies Kapital and Trud in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Helga Flores-Trejo is the director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s operations in North America. She is an expert on foreign policy, development issues, and EU affairs. Ms. Flores Trejo previously served as senior program officer at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in charge of the Parliamentary Support Program. There she worked on issues related to parliamentary control of the security and defense forces. She served for three years as a senior advisor on European policy for the State Government of Hamburg and represented the state at the German Bundesrat’s Committee on European Affairs. Prior to that, she was an advisor on foreign policy and development issues at the German Bundestag.

John Norris is the author of Collision Course: NATO, Russia and Kosovo (Praeger, 2005). As the International Crisis Group’s Washington chief of staff, he has a roving brief with a wide range of responsibilities and analysis in the Balkans, Asia and Africa. Before joining International Crisis Group, John served as director of communications to the U.S. deputy secretary of state. Earlier in his career he also served as a field relief worker and head speechwriter at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Radek Sikorski is the outgoing executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative and a resident fellow at AEI. Mr. Sikorski is Senator-elect of Poland, representing the Law and Justice party in the upcoming parliament. He was Poland’s deputy minister for foreign affairs from 1998 to 2001. As the country’s deputy minister for defense in the first democratically elected government after the fall of communism, he spearheaded Poland’s drive to join NATO. From 1986 to 1989, Mr. Sikorski was a war correspondent to Afghanistan and Angola, contributing to the Spectator (London) and National Review. He is the author of Dust of the Saints: A Journey to Herat in Time of War (1989) and The Polish House: An Intimate History of Poland (1997). His photograph from Afghanistan received the World Press Photo Award in 1988. From 1981 to 1989, Mr. Sikorski was a political refugee in the United Kingdom.

Vance Serchuk is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at AEI, where he studies international organizations and the overlap between U.S. strategic interests and development policy. Previously he was a research associate at AEI, coordinating its defense and security policy program. He has also worked as a consultant for the Project for the New American Century and the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Before joining AEI, Mr. Serchuk was a Fulbright scholar in the Russian Federation. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Weekly Standard, New York Sun, The Forward, and other publications.

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