Webinar

Welcome! You are invited to join our August 12 webinar: “Israel-Palestine: Are prospects for a two-state solution dead?” with Ellen Laipson, Director of the International Security program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

This talk will address current developments and dynamics in the long saga and search for Arab-Israeli peace. While Israel improves its ties to major Arab states, the prospects for a successful resolution of the “Palestine question” remain low. We will discuss Israeli and Palestinian politics, the Trump Administration’s peace plan, and complicated debates over settlements, annexation, and questions of international law.

Welcome! You are invited to join our July 29 webinar: “A Zero-Based Foreign Policy?” with US Ambassador (rtd) Robert Hunter.

Following the election in November, we will either continue with more of the same or have in January a new administration committed to doing things “differently” in foreign policy. For some of Biden’s advisors who speak in public, that means recapturing some of the practices that Trump has abandoned, notably a commitment to “liberal internationalism,” institutions, US “leadership,” solid relations with allies, and the like. But with the pandemic and its aftermath the United States (as well as others, of course) will find itself having to rethink and recalibrate at least some important aspects of its foreign policy. The Trump team – unless changed radically – has proven incapable of dealing with even this part of the agenda; but will Biden choose people able to do meet the daunting tasks either?

Perhaps this is a time when we should consider a “zero-based foreign policy,” starting with “things that we have to do for our security and well-being” that include guarding against “things that go bump in the night,” a foreign policy that pays more attention to our domestic situation than previously and one that includes a team capable of the strategic analysis needed to understand what is important to us and what is not and a foreign policy that ultimately faces the difficult, long term questions about America’s future role in the world.

Ambassador Robert Hunter served in the LBJ White House (education) at the time of the Great Society; was Ted Kennedy’s first foreign policy advisor; and was lead official on Europe and the Middle East on the Carter NSC staff. He was US ambassador to NATO (1993-1998) and was a principal architect and the lead negotiator of the post-Cold War transformation of NATO. He served on the Defense Policy Board and State’s International Security Advisory Board. He has taught at 5 universities; written 1200+ publications; taken part in 8 presidential campaigns; and written speeches for more serious candidates for president (12) than anyone else in US history. BA: Wesleyan University; PhD, London School of Economics.