Thursday April 25 and Friday April 26, 2024

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?

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 Republic of Equatorial Guinea.  Retired career Foreign Service Officer, Fulbright scholar, Member of the board of directors of Global Santa Fe. Dr Asquino’s memoir, Spanish Connections, published in 2023, is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.