Limited number of lunches available for registered guests on day of event.

About the event: Over the last two decades, the United States has supported a range of militias, rebels, and other armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Critics have argued that such partnerships have many perils, from enabling human rights abuses to seeding future threats. Is it possible to work with such forces but mitigate some of these risks? In Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, Erica L. Gaston explores U.S. efforts to do just that, drawing on a decade of field research and hundreds of interviews with stakeholders to unpack the dilemmas of attempting to control proxy forces.

The book has been described by reviewers as a "grim but necessary autopsy of America’s policy failures” in the last two decades (Ariel Ahram) and a book that casts light on the "moral hazards and strategic pitfalls of partnerships forged in war" (H.R. McMaster). Gaston’s conclusions not only suggest a greater need for strategic thinking in how risks are managed and weighed in U.S. Security Policy, but also help nuance the academic frameworks and lenses used to understand proxy warfare dynamics. By combining insights and tools from the fields of international relations that incorporate a more diverse set of international actors with domestic bargaining and organizational theory, the book helps to expand the theoretical toolkit for understanding foreign policy generation.

About the speaker: Dr. Erica Gaston is Head of the Conflict Prevention Programme at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s SIPA programme. Her most recent book with Columbia University Press, Illusions of Control: Dilemmas of Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, was recently short-listed for the Conflict Research Society’s Book of the Year Prize 2025. Her prior academic articles and book compendiums have considered changing norms and practices within international humanitarian law.

She has a B.A from Stanford University, a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, and a PhD from Cambridge University.

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