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,

Annual Symposium 2024

America’s Place in the World – Still Indispensable?

Cosponsored by the Santa Fe Community College

Jemez Rooms at Santa Fe Community College (SFCC)
Santa Fe, New Mexico

To register for the 2024 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. To pay by Paypal or credit card please use our website at  https://sfwaf.org/payment 

Thursday April 25 and Friday April 26, 2024

Summary

Is American influence waning? Is the United States stretched too thin? Or is the US still the world’s indispensable nation? Can it be both? If so, for how much longer? How stable – at home and abroad – is American democracy and US leadership? Or is it being irreparably eroded from within and without?

What can we do to address our deepest fears or are mountains being made out of mole hills? Is the threat of war expanding beyond the current conflicts that could draw in the US militarily real? Would an international provocation tip the delicate balance of the containment policy employed by the Biden administration? How would US policy, its effectiveness and the American image abroad change if a conservative Republican were elected to the White House in 2024? This year the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum will take a deep dive into the questions of American international influence as the global order rests on increasingly shaky pillars. Can the US still retain its democratic form of government and compete in this increasingly complex and troubled world? Is so how? Speakers

Eric Rubin, US Ambassador (rtd) to Bulgaria and former president of the American Foreign Service Association;

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 Emile Nakhleh Former Senior Intelligence Service (SIS) Officer (CIA), former Research Professor and Director, GNSPI (UNM), Founding Director, Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program (CIA), Founding Director (rtd), Global and National Security Policy Institute (University of New Mexico);

John Herbst. US Ambassador (rtd) to Uzbekistan and Ukraine, and Director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council;

William Itoh, US Ambassador (rtd) to Thailand and former Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.  Professor of the Practice in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a Senior Advisor to McLarty Associates, an international business consulting firm;

Dr Nicholas Cull,   Professor of Communication, University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Global Communication Policy Fellow, Center Leadership and Policy;

Chair, University and college student panel

Mark Asquino, US Ambassador (rtd) to the