Ömer Taşpınar Session Overview

Professor of Security Studies, National Defense University
Adjunct Professor, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University

ÖMER TASPINAR is Professor of Security Studies at the National Defense University and an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s SAIS, where he focuses on Political Economy, Europe, the Middle East, and Turkey. Previously, he was a Senior Policy Fellow and Director of the Turkey Program at Brookings. Taspinar has held consulting positions at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in Washington and at the strategic planning department of TOFAS-FIAT in Istanbul. He is the author of Kurdish Nationalism and Political Islam: Kemalist Identity in Transition; Winning Turkey: How the EU and the US can Restore a Fading Partnership (with Philip Gordon); What the West is Getting Wrong about the Middle East: Why Islam is not the Problem; and The Nation or the Ummah: Islamism and Turkish Foreign Policy (with Birol Baskan).

25th Anniversary Video

Hear past and present organizers reflect on over 25 years of the Seminar XXI Program and its impact on the national security policy community.

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2026–2027 SESSION DATES

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Find out who attended and the national security topics discussed.

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