RUSSIA IN THE BALKANS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE 1990 BALKAN WARS AND PROSPECTS FOR RENEWED CONFLICT
Colohan’s talk will cover the history of the ancient cultural relationship between Russia and the Balkans, describe how that relationship influenced the major players and actions in the Balkan conflict of the 1990s, and provide reflections on potential future threats due to Russian influence in the region.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY:
Peter Colohan is a governance specialist with over 30 years of experience in international affairs, public policy and non-profit administration. He specializes in building collaboration across complex groups. From 1995 to 2000, Colohan studied and was actively involved in U.S. foreign policy in the Balkan region, first as a graduate student, then as a post-war election monitor in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
In Bosnia, he supervised voter registration and polling stations in three Bosnian municipalities for local and national elections, including the divided city of Brcko, and implemented the OSCE strategy for addressing systematic voter fraud in the town of Drvar. He went on to serve as the Advocacy Program Officer for the Open Society Institute in Washington, DC, advocating with Congress and the Clinton Administration for greater democracy, rule of law and human rights protections in Eastern Europe and the Caucuses.
Colohan subsequently worked for 16 years as an international affairs specialist, program manager and strategic planner for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including four years on assignment as a member of the White House staff under President Barack Obama. Currently, he is the Director of Partnerships and Program Innovation at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a private operating foundation based in Cambridge, MA.
Colohan holds a BA in government from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, an MA in international affairs from American University in Washington, DC, and a certificate in Leadership in a Democratic Society from the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, VA.