The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum aims to broaden and deepen understanding of world affairs through small, interactive, professionally led sessions on international issues for a membership of informed individuals.
Programs and Webinars
Afghanistan Land of Conflict & Beauty
Thursday, December 4, 2025 from 12:00 noon – 2 pm
Anastasios (Tasos) Kioses
Alexander the Great is thought to have said, “May God keep you away from the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger and the revenge of the Afghans”. Winston Churchill wrote in 1897 “Financially it is ruinous. Morally it is wicked. Militarily is an open question and politically it is a blunder”.
This is not a talk that involves analyses of the Afghan situation but rather a narrative of photographic portraits and experiences during Tasos’ assignment in Afghanistan with the UN from 2017-2025.
Anastasios (Tasos) Kioses is a recent retiree from the United Nations. He has worked in the private sector (Air France in Paris, France, and the Athens Olympic Committee for the 2004 Games), the State Department in Athens, Greece, and the United Nations from 2006 to 2025. He has served in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, the Republic of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and last but not least, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from August 2017 to June 2025.
He is a graduate from the San Diego State University (class of 1984) specializing in Political Science – International Affairs. His professional expertise revolves around administrative affairs and contract management where over his 35-year career, has successfully managed contracts worth in the hundreds of millions of United States Dollars with considerable savings.
His interests and passions involve travelling and immersing himself in different cultures as well as photography. He is fluent in French and English, Greek (native language) and is struggling to keep up with his Spanish language skills.
Afghanistan is also colloquially known as the “Graveyard of Empires”. From Alexander the Great in the 330s BC, the three Anglo-Afghan wars in the 19th and early 20th century, the Soviet Union invasion in 1979 and its subsequent withdrawal in 1989 to the recent United States led war for 20 years that ended in the withdrawal in 2021, Afghanistan has successfully warded off the greatest empires of the
UPCOMING SYMPOSIUM 2026
“Democracy in Danger”
April 30 – May 01, 2026
Democracy is founded on the idea that the ultimate power of governance lies in its people. In essence, power to govern flows upwards from the bottom not down from the top as is characteristic in autocratic regimes.
Democracy is dynamic. It can adjust to ever-changing environments and societal differences. US democracy is one of the oldest in today’s world, but it is also just one of many forms that have been tried since democracy’s origins in 6th century BCE Athens. Some have succeeded and others failed. Ultimately, all democratic governments provide legal structures. Some do so through written constitutions. Others rely on a set of agreed-upon laws that are underpinned by the values of liberty, independence, free speech, justice and fair play for all and yes, even the pursuit of happiness.
US democracy has changed substantially since it was introduced in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the US Constitution in 1789. Both are amazingly concise and revolutionary documents for their time that set out a framework designed to unite 13 disparate, quarreling, multiethnic, multilinguistic and multireligious British colonies governed by a king. This new framework was created to mitigate against the over concentration of power in a single individual or group by dispersing it through a system of checks and balances – from federalism, three branches of government, free media and speech, to regular elections run in the states.
But what if those 17th century guardrails are breached? When threatened, is democracy resilient enough to resist? Is it worth fighting for? Can it be protected? If so, how? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Its basic elements? Is it still even the best way to govern? And how should this form of government look and operate in the future?
Much of US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War was based on the mantra that the spread of democracy worldwide helps guard against wars. In fact, the spread of democratic values has been at the foundation of US foreign policy since the end of WWII. The current international system itself – now under challenge – is also based on democratic principles and aspirations – derived from this 18th century US experiment.
Yet today the democratic form of government is under threat. Has democracy run its course? Or does power still rest with “we the people”? And if so, how best can this great experiment function in states and nations here at home and abroad in the twenty-first century?
This year’s symposium will address and try to answer these and other questions.
PAST SYMPOSIUM
“Democracy in the Time of Autocrats”
Democracy in the Time of Autocrats
To register for the 2025 Symposium, please email sfwaforum@outlook.com with names of registrants, days attending and whether paying by check to SFWAF and mailed to: The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum PO Box 31965, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87594. Or to by Paypal or credit card through our website at https://sfwaf.org/payment
April 10-11, 2025
Speakers
Gary A Grappo, US Ambassador (rtd) and currently Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Middle East Studies at the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver; CEO of Equilibrium Consulting.
Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and current professor of practice at Texas A&M University and at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA;
Dr. Manuel Montoya, PhD, Associate Professor, University of New Mexico, Department of Economics. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has delivered over 100 lectures on emerging markets and global conflict worldwide and is a recent recipient of UNM’s Presidential Teaching Fellowship, the university’s highest honor. He has also developed Vessels and Voids, a podcast, which he discusses the link between popular culture and development of global society.
Dr. Jody K Olsen, former Director and Deputy Director of the US Peace Corps and Peace Corps staff member and volunteer who currently co-chairs Women of Peace Corps Committee, chairs the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation Park Advisory Committee and a member of the Maryland Governor’s Commission for Service and Volunteerism. Dr Olsen has also authored A Million Miles: My Peace Corps Journey which was published earlier this year.
Eric Rubin, US Ambassador (rtd) to Bulgaria and former president of the American Foreign Service Association; Summary
We live in stormy times. The heyday following Communism’s end in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is a faded memory. History has not ended as once prophesized – it has instead moved on to the rise of populist leaders and their autocratic control domestically and internationally. The democratic model which promised so much is under challenge throughout the globe.
Can democracy survive the onslaught of autocrats? Can civil society institutions prove to be democracy’s underlying strength? But will they hold, or will they too falter?
There is deepening concern that autocrats, often initially elected democratically, have used the levers of raw power to dominate mainstream and social media, subvert education, and control elections first to hobble and then effectively destroy democracy turning back the clock by sweeping away progress on desperately needed reforms – from action on climate change to gender and income inequality.
Moreover, do autocracies now seize the opportunity to attack their neighbors? Threaten nuclear holocaust unless they get their way, and destabilize the
international order that kept the peace throughout much of the world since the end of WWII?
How significant is the ripple effect of the seemingly sudden demise of the 40 year old Assad dynasty not just for Syria itself but also for the greater Middle East, Russia, Ukraine,