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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" version="2.0" xml:base="https://www.cfr.org/"><channel> <title>CFR Events Audio</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/events</link> <description>CFR Events Audio</description> <language>en</language> <lastBuildDate>Sat, 27 Apr 2024 14:24:09 -0400</lastBuildDate> <atom:link rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml" /> <image> <url>https://www.cfr.org/sites/default/files/image/2020/03/CFR-Events-Audio.jpeg</url> <title>CFR Events Audio</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/events</link> <width>144</width> <height>144</height> </image> <itunes:owner> <itunes:name>Council on Foreign Relations</itunes:name> <itunes:email>podcasts@cfr.org</itunes:email> </itunes:owner> <itunes:category text="News" /> <itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><item> <title>Academic Webinar: Global Health Security and Diplomacy</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/academic-webinar-global-health-security-and-diplomacy</link> <description>Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at CFR, and Rebecca Katz, professor and director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, lead the conversation on global health security and diplomacy. FASKIANOS: Welcome to the final session of the Winter/Spring 2024 CFR Academic Series. I am Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Thank you for being with us. Today’s discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/Academic, if you would like to share these materials with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have Yanzhong Huang and Rebecca Katz with us to discuss global health security and diplomacy. We circulated their bios in advance, but I will give you some highlights now. Yanzhong Huang is a senior fellow for global health at CFR. He is also a professor and director of global health studies at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relationships—sorry, Relations. Dr. Huang has written extensively on China and global health, and is the founding editor of Global Health Governance: The Scholarly Journal for the New Health Security Paradigm. And he is author of—his most recent book is Toxic Politics: China’s Environmental Health Crisis and Its Challenge to the Chinese State (2020). Rebecca Katz is a professor and director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University. She previously served as faculty in the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University. Dr. Katz’s work primarily focuses on the domestic and global implementation of the International Health Regulations, as well as global governance of public health emergencies. And her seventh book is coming out next week, I believe on Monday, and it is entitled Outbreak Atlas (2024). So you should all look for that. Dr. Huang and Dr. Katz coauthored a Council Special Report entitled Negotiating Global Health Security: Priorities for U.S. and Global Governance of Disease, so we did circulate that in advance. And I think we will begin with Dr. Katz to talk a little bit about global health security and diplomacy, and some of the findings from your report. So over to you. KATZ: Thank you so much, and really appreciate the opportunity to speak with everybody today about global health security and diplomacy. I could note—a quick disclaimer that like many people in Washington I wear multiple hats, including one that works for the United States government, but I am speaking today only in my academic capacity and not representing anybody else. So we are—we’re living in interesting times in the global health security and diplomacy space, and just the work of global governance of disease. As we speak, negotiators are working through what is hopefully a final agreement on amendments to the International Health Regulations. And in about a week, yet another version of possible text of a proposed pandemic agreement will be circulated to member states in advance of the resumed—the INB, Intergovernmental Negotiating Body, negotiations that are now scheduled, I believe, starting the 29th of April, where they may possibly finalize substantive negotiations in advance of the World Health Assembly. It is not a surprise, though, that the negotiations themselves have stalled, and they’ve stalled primarily over issues around access and benefit sharing, and the relationship between developed and less-developed countries. There are significant remaining redlines, including related to the way that pathogens are shared or the information around pathogens is shared. It’s related to the production of medical countermeasures, access to medical countermeasures. There continues to be an evolving power dynamic at this time of call it strained geopolitical tensions. And there are some real questions about the future of multilateralism and just the global governance of the disease space in general. So while this is all sorting out, the world is also working on questions like how do we fund pandemic preparedness and response. So there are questions around the World Bank’s Pandemic Fund, and the breadth and scope. There’s the role of what is the evolving role of the more horizontal entities like the Global Fund. There is limited response funding in general and overall kinds of shrinking budgets. In the academic space, there is a really interesting space set evolving looking at predictive analysis, and some of the technologies and scholarship that’s coming out to think about how do we predict and adapt, both from surveillance and thinking about the evolution of outbreaks. There is the rise of wastewater surveillance. And as the disease threats continue to evolve, we’re also looking at these threats as part of the climate crisis, and a community that’s very keen in looking at the role of artificial intelligence and changing biothreat landscapes. So there is—there’s a lot of movement. There’s a lot of things that are going on. But at the same time, there is diminished interest of governments as competing priorities reenter the fray, and increasing challenges thinking about response capacity in an age of mis- and disinformation and eroding trust in science. So, all this is to say that the space is challenging. It’s dynamic. There is a tremendous amount of work still to be done. Which is one of the reasons that we need to be thinking about how do we use all the roles and approaches that are available to us, including enhanced efforts to focus on the role of diplomacy. I am delighted to see the launch of a Foreign Ministry Channel for Health last month, and we’re now seeing ministries of foreign affairs around the world organize—better organize to address these health challenges. So not all the challenges are easily solvable, but heartened to see this coordinated effort. We’re trying to more fully realize diplomacy for health. There are—there is a lot—there’s a lot of swirl, but why don’t I stop there and turn to my colleague Yanzhong. HUANG: Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, Irina, and for the Council for invite me to speak at this important event. Thank you for participating. And Rebecca just talked about this progress for the ongoing negotiation over the Pandemic Accord; the need to better organize to address the challenges we are facing. When we’re speaking of the challenges, you know, we—you might have—if you read just the CFR Negotiating Global Health Security—I’m seeking to advertise that one more time—(laughs)—you know, we basically talk about all those different global health security challenges, which are real. We already in the United States experienced a major global health crisis, that officially is not over yet, but—(inaudible). All of the important threat—serious threat we are facing, you know—mind you that COVID caused more than 7 million deaths, right, more than 700 million infections. That 700 million is a clear underestimate, right, because to my knowledge, right, in China alone they have more than 1 billion people infected, right? And now WHO is talking about Disease X, you know, the name given by WHO scientists to an unknown pathogen which they believe could emerge in future, maybe. So it could be, you know, anything, right, with pandemic potential. Like, it could be Zika. It could be Nipah. You know, or it could be another coronavirus, you know, that could cause a serious international epidemic or pandemic. You know, and unfortunately, Rebecca just mentioned climate change is the major contributor to this increasing risk, right? Warmer temperatures can affect the transmission dynamics of pathogens. But the climate change alone could also cause direct loss of life and morbidity, right? The projection is that by the end of this century the millions of heat-related death could be comparable in scope to the total burden of all the infectious diseases. And we also face the threat of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, which is one of the top global public health threats. The estimate is that bacterial AMR is directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths and contributes to 4.95 million deaths in 2019. So you combine those two and it’s, like, pretty much close to the COVID death in three years, right? And then there’s the problem of food insecurity. You know, we are facing a global food crisis. This is the largest one in modern history. We talk about nearly 350 million people around the world experiencing, you know, the most extreme form of hunger right now, right? And then—and finally, last but not least, the threats of violence and revolution, you know, that presents new risks to global health security. You know, last time the Council had an event, you know, we saw the former national security advisors participating, speaking, and weighing the—they were asked: Is there an issue that’s on your mind that’s not in the news all the time? I remember former Secretary Condoleezza Rice, you know, said that I worry that we are not paying attention to things like synthetic biology, which could have a huge impact on things like pandemics. So, all the threats call for good health governance, right, global/national level, you know, giving it, right, this—the implication. But I want to emphasize that geopolitics actually are complicating, not undermining, this prospect, right? When you talk about, certainly, right, the armed conflicts, right, worldwide, you know, they can lead to widespread displacement of populations, wide destruction of health-care infrastructure, disruption of supply chains of essential meds and medical equipment, and also increase the risk of the infectious disease outbreaks, right? And certainly, civilian population will bear the brunt of all—most of those impacts, right, that we saw, right, in Ukraine, Syria, now in the Gaza Strip. Sometimes this—that is of particular importance to global health security, the issue of lab safety, right? You know, laboratories taken over by warring parties or in areas under direct attack risk releasing the dangerous pathogens that could start an epidemic, not a pandemic, right? We all—you might recall in April last year, the WHO said, there was a high risk of biological hazard in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum after one of the warring parties seized a lab, holding measles and cholera pathogens and other hazardous materials. Rebecca talked about misinformation and disinformation. You know, the—in a way, the wars and conflicts also encourage, right, disinformation/misinformation, right? For example, the wars in Ukraine, right, they essentially reduced Russia’s incentives to participate constructively in global health governance, right? Russia, in order to justify its invasion, launched a disinformation campaign claiming the United States was secretly aiding Ukraine developing biological weapons. You know, that conspiracy theory sort of echoed, you know, by the U.S. Five Eyes and in China, right? The wars, of course, also exacerbate the other global health issues like food security, right? We know the war in Ukraine, combined with the COVID pandemic actually disrupted the supply chain, fueled inflation, and aggravated the food insecurity problem. But, I think it’s equally important when we look at the issue of how geopolitics or geopolitical tensions actually curbs the prospect of international cooperation addressing all the threats we just talked about, right? Because geopolitical tension, rivalries between nations, can hinder international cooperation and funding for global health initiatives like disease surveillance, sample sharing, vaccination campaigns, research and development of new treatments and preventive measures. Just to use my familiar area—(laughs)—the U.S.-China geopolitical competition, as an example, most certainly U.S.-China geopolitical competition is not new, right? But it is only recently that China became so-called America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge, right? You know, that sort of leads to zero-sum thinking even by the international cooperation over issues like the probe of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins, sample sharing, supply-chain resilience. And in fact, during the beginning stage of the pandemic we saw China basically threaten to use this leading—the status of being a leader in pharmaceutical—active pharmaceutical ingredients manufacturing to sort of—like as a weapon, right? When the Xinhua News Agency said that—because the U.S. instituted travel bans on China, basically, China at that time was unhappy and said, you know, here we decided to ban our export of APIs to the U.S., so we are going to be plunged in the what they call the sea of COVID, right? So this is an example of how even the medicine could be weaponized during—as a result of geopolitical tensions. And then if you also look at how this U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry could be combined with the lack of personnel—personal exchange, right, sort of deepened by these mutual misunderstandings and misperception, you know. So, you know, now we’re seeing that even after almost the end of the pandemic, right, that the two nations still have no serious discussions over public health issues, even though we think, like, China is actually one of the biggest risk factors. But there is just not much enthusiasm in supporting, like, a serious dialogue with China on cooperating on disease surveillance, sample sharing—not to mention, like, co-development of vaccines or therapeutics. And finally, I want to add that these geopolitical factors could influence the availability and affordability of health-care services and medical supplies, particularly in developing countries or regions affected by conflict or economic sanction. That sort of leads to disparities between North and South in access to essential health care and drugs. Again, the U.S.-China geopolitical competition during the COVID, when China launched this—the so-called vaccine diplomacy or mask diplomacy, the U.S., you know, sort of viewed that as a threat; they—it launched its own mask—vaccine diplomacy. You know, this competition sort of mitigated this so-called vaccine apartheid between the developed world and developing countries; but it also meant that, you know, the vaccine diplomacy would prioritize those countries that’s viewed as strategically important, right? That, in turn, exacerbated the global disparities in access to the vaccines—(all the ?) COVID vaccines—(inaudible). So, to address these challenges, I think we need to have a global health détente with geopolitical rivals. We need to embed the health diplomacy in a multilateral instead of a bilateral framework, right, and support WHO Global Health and Peace Initiative—the GHPI—to better address the underlying diverse critical health needs in fragile, conflict-ridden settings. So, with that, I can stop there. (Laughs.) Thank you. FASKIANOS: Thank you both. Appreciate it. Let’s go to all of you for your questions and comments. (Gives queuing instructions.) OK, so with that, let’s go to the first question. I’m going to go to Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome to ask her question. Q: Thank you very much. I’m Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome. And I teach political science at Brooklyn College. I’m also Nigerian. And the pandemic showed a lot of the fault lines in terms of the global governance arrangements for health issues, because there were—I mean, the vaccine—the disparity in access was profound for Africans. And, you know, the lucky thing is that not as many people as could have died, died. But I’m just wondering, because we’ve had the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we had Ebola, what is the learning from that? And how come we had all these challenges with the pandemic that we went through, the COVID-19? The other thing about it—that I want to talk about is food. And then there is—I don’t think the problem is insufficiency of food in this world, but distribution equitably. So, what would it take? I mean, and there are all these really heartbreaking photos and, you know, documentaries and reports. What is it going to take to solve this problem and make things equitable so that lives are not being lost unnecessarily, and then health challenges that come from malnutrition are not generationally affecting human populations? Thank you. FASKIANOS: Who wants to go first? KATZ: I will, very briefly and inadequately, try to address the question around vaccine equity. And then—and then I will—I will punt on food security. Since that’s more of Yanzhong’s expertise. I think the point you bring up is critical. And the issues of vaccine nationalism, of vaccine inequity are what is driving current discussion, debate, the feelings around global governance of disease and the effectiveness of it at all? It is—it is the issue that prompted the beginning of a negotiation for a new—(inaudible). And it is—but the solutions are why nations are actually stalled right now. I think your question around what have we learned, well, I think what we have learned is that there’s—whenever anybody talks about future of global governance of disease, you could probably count the number of times somebody says the word “equity.” Yet, operationalizing that is extraordinarily complicated. And unfortunately, we haven’t seen it yet. And I think that you can see that with, you know, the mpox outbreaks and the number of cases that were—you said, you’re from Nigeria—the number of cases that were in Nigeria, the number of cases that have been in the DRC. And the, I think it’s fair to say, insufficient amount of medical countermeasures that have reached populations in sub-Saharan Africa, just for mpox. So, I think there is—there is certainly widespread understanding, realization that we need to fix this—we need to fix this. Because we can’t—we can’t actually talk about we’re all in this together, disease spreads, knows no borders, we all need to work together, and then have situations like you did during COVID where populations just didn’t get access to lifesaving vaccine. So but now getting to the point of trying to figure out how we solve that is exactly what is—what is causing the discord in Geneva right now. And I’m not sure there’s an easy answer for you on how it’s going to be solved. HUANG: Well, I have—(laughs)—well, I really agree with Rebecca, right? There’s no easy answer, right, to all these questions that the professor just raised, you know, that—like the vaccine aspect, right? We know many of the low-income countries, right, that the vaccine—the vaccination rate was even low—very low even by the end of the COVID pandemic. But you know, there’s, like, multiple factors that contributed to that. Certainly, vaccine nationalism is one reason. But you know, even weighing we have all these vaccines available, right, they—the COVAX did a very good job of trying to reach this segment of the population, but then there’s the other issues, right? The shipment, right? How do we make sure they ship and distribute these vaccines in a timely manner? That’s become another issue. And so, I think, well, at this moment the solution that—for the—I think the transport technology for the vaccine technology, that is important. Now, I believe that the Pandemic Accord will talk about—is talking about that in the negotiation. But in the meantime, I think we should also invest to make sure those countries, especially with the manufacturing capacity, will repeatedly sort of have that—some investing there, like their capacity to manufacture the vaccine, right, to sort of—to scale the access. You know, that could be one of the solutions. Then, speaking of the lessons we learned from the pandemic, certainly what we have, right, the—(laughs)—I think it’s fair to say we know the problems, right? The experts—the global health experts, public health experts—they know where the problems are. It’s just that, you know, many of the issues—(inaudible)—only, you know, that it can easily slow them down. For example, we know that the WHO—(inaudible)—by strengthening its capability, enforced by the International Health Regulations. But in the—(laughs)—international system, where anarchy is the rule of the game, you know, that, yeah, I think much of this improvement will be still, you know, state-centric, that—and driven by national interest, just like we saw during the pandemic. Essentially, the IHR was talking about avoiding the disruptions in trade, disruptions to people’s movement, essentially tend to be ignored, right, by the nations there. But there’s another issue, is the lack of coordination. When states tried to use to institute all the travel, you know, the trade barriers, you know, they—there was no, like, coordination, no cooperation. You know, that sort of created this little tragedy of common situation, that then everybody actually was hurt. Finally, the issue of the food insecurity. Well, this is, again, not something new, but that clearly the pandemic, right, exacerbated the problem, in part because of the—this disruption of the supply chain. But in the meantime, there’s some other issues that, you know, could exacerbate that problem. Yeah, like in particular countries like North Korea, for example, we know that in this country—what is arguably the world’s most isolated state, right—they say—the people say—suggested a situation where it’s the worst, right, it has been since the 1990s, you know. But you know, people—the North Korean government certainly could blame the international sanctions. But in the meantime, the government mismanagement, right, is also to blame. In actually still—better still in the pandemic 2020 that cut off, right, the virus supplies, and that is also to blame. You could also talk about the—(inaudible)—killed more by starvation. Is this part of the humanitarian warfare, and especially, you know, in the war setting, where the humanitarian aid is twisted into the conflict by the—(inaudible)—and warlords that seeks to control the food supply as a means of increasing their military and political power, right? So, you know, that—the deliberate use of starvation, this the term we use, kind of war by starvation, right, that’s also was exacerbating in those that conflict zones. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to the Fordham IPED. Q: Hello. I’m Genevieve Connell with Fordham Program for International Political Economy and Development. Thank you for being with us today. And my question is: During the COVID-19 pandemic we saw dissent where many people blamed China for the pandemic, which has catalyzed racial violence against people of Chinese or Asian descent in many cases. What implications do such social upheavals and demonization of a specific group have on global diplomacy and our ability to collaborate in future health response efforts? HUANG: Well, I’ll try to be—(laughs)—to be the first, whether Rebecca could weigh in. Well, this is, again, not something new, right? During the SARS epidemic, you know, that you also saw that the Chinese were sort of, like, blamed, you know, for sort of causing epidemic. You always, you know, target the certain group of people to blame. You know, you could—(inaudible)—like, historical, that could be traced—there’s a pattern there, right, that during the Bubonic Plague, for example, European Jews were blamed, right, the—for causing the pandemic, you know, that sort of to enforce to them to migrate towards Eastern Europe. You know, that certainly sort of the—poisons the atmosphere for tackling the crises, especially, like, when there’s intertwining geopolitical tensions between China and the United States. You know, that—remember that—and also, you have internal politics by the way, the Trump administration trying to find a scapegoat, right, for its mismanagement of the crisis, you know, that China become an easy one. So he sort of, like, started to talk about, you know, this is sort of a China virus, or kung flu, right, the thing that only—that sort of intoxicated the atmosphere of cooperation with China, making it even less willing to cooperate with the United States, especially on issues like the origin probe. So now, you know, we’ve seen how that—we were probably—given this sort of lack of cooperation, China, you know, really probably we are never going to find where that virus actually come from. But in the meantime, you know, also this created—sort of contributed to, like, a more divisive society in countries like the U.S. given this anti-Asian sentiment. Rebecca? KATZ: You know, I don’t have too much more to add, except that I just—it’s an interesting question. And I actually would put it back to you a bit too. That I think it’s important to separate out the challenge—I bucket the challenges slightly differently. So the challenges of the types of stigma and bias that might arise for subpopulations within our own country. And we’ve, as Yanzhong just mentioned, we’ve seen that over and over and over again. And so you think about the types of ways that that can be addressed, and people can be protected, and how we can think about, you know, it’s not really a vulnerable population, but populations at risk of inappropriate stigma. So I think there’s that question. And then there’s—I bucket into a separate issue of how the government response and dealing with other countries, and the geopolitical tensions that might arise, and how that affects the response into a different category. And that’s—and Yanzhong already kind of addressed some of those—some of those challenges along the way. But none of it—none of it is easy. And it’s often not done sufficiently. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from a written question from José David Valbuena. He’s an undergraduate student at Buffalo State University. And the question is, what are the potential risks and limitations of implementing economic structuralism to improve global health security? HUANG: Define economic structuralism. KATZ: Yeah, I was going to say, I’m not sure how to answer that because I’m not sure what your—what you want us to get at? FASKIANOS: All right. So, José, I think if you’re in a place where you can—you can join in live, or unmute yourself, why don’t you do that? And if not, then we’ll move to the next question. KATZ: Here he comes. HUANG: To use that—something like the Marxism sort of argument, the economy, right, just determines the—(laughs)—almost the upper infrastructure, or whatever. If that if that is the case, right, there, you know, they—I think, you know, a single focus on economic development certainly does not help, right, in improving public health, even though a well-developed economy, you could find the policy high correlation, right, between the, like, high level of economic development improved, right, the health-care standards and, like, the average life expectancy increased. But in the meantime, the single focus on economic development could hurt the public health and global health, you know? One of the examples is urbanization, the industrialization, like, the—could, right, the—sort of make us more likely to be exposed to those dangerous pathogens that increase the likelihood of a dangerous pathogen of jumping species to human beings, you know, then start a—potentially, right, that if it obtained that capacity for efficient human-to-human transmission, right, the potential for a pandemic. KATZ: I think I just saw a note that he’s going to reframe the question, but maybe talk about economics, just one point I would love to be able to add to maybe help frame some of the—some of that discussion with a little bit of data. When we talk about what do we need for health security—and we can talk about the threats, and Yanzhong was talking about, you know, the challenges of urbanization and globalization—(inaudible)—land, and the competing challenges of looking at economic development and—but I do want to note—so one of the things that our research team has been doing for about a decade is trying to figure out what it costs each country to be able to develop their capacity to be able to prevent, detect, and respond effectively to public health emergencies, based off of their international legal obligations and then also looking at each region in context. And it—just so everybody has a number in the back of their head, the number that we currently have is approximately $300 billion that would cost at the global scale for every nation to be able to build sufficient—and sustain—sufficient capacity for health security. That’s in addition to approximately $60 to $80 billion that’s required at a global scale for things like research and development, and supply chain, and manufacturing. So just to note, we have approximately $380 billion problem. And we are definitely not spending that right now. And if we think about it as a problem, the pandemic itself cost—well, we’re not exactly sure what it cost—but somewhere around $15 trillion dollars. So $300 billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it’s actually very little if you’re looking at your return on investment for being able to address a future pandemic. But it’s a lot in the world of public health, where there’s very little money, and there’s shrinking budgets, and there’s shrinking opportunity for nations to be able to actually invest themselves, as well as international financing. So I’m using—I’m using the question as an opportunity to just throw that out there, so folks understand. HUANG: Yeah. I forgot to throw out, again, with the pandemic example, right, that the countries that are most developed, doesn’t necessarily mean that is the most—or, the best prepared for a pandemic, right? Before the pandemic, there was Global Health Security Index, that showed the U.S. was one of the best prepared. But as it turn out, it was the worst—one of the worst hit by the pandemic. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question, raised hand from Braeden Lowe, who also wrote his question. But why don’t you ask it? And if you could identify yourself, that would be great. Q: Yes. Can you hear me? FASKIANOS: Yes. Q: Perfect. My name is Braeden Lowe. I’m a graduate student at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, studying international trade. My question is, how effective have multilateral development banks been in the development of health infrastructure in countries that need them? And could there be a greater role for them in the future, such as maybe development banks that are focused primarily on the development of medical infrastructure, and facilities, and the development of medical technologies? Thank you. HUANG: Rebecca. KATZ: Yeah. I mean, Braeden, it’s an excellent question. And I think that the history of the development banks has been mixed over—pre-pandemic and in the current situation. Let me start with—well, so, yes. The banks have been involved in developing health security capacity and including medical countermeasures—less on the medical countermeasures, more on mostly national capacity and regional capacity. And some have been more involved than others. The Asian Development Bank was really engaged for a long time. ASEAN was really the driving factor for coordination in that region. The Inter-American Development Bank has been engaged. IMF had programs. So there have been programs. And prior to the pandemic, the World Bank had something called the PEFF, the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, that they stood up both for preparedness as well as a response window. That came under a decent amount of criticism because the triggers for using that mechanism were so stringent that it basically became not helpful. And while the Bank and IMF and the regional development banks did assist throughout the pandemic, you could have a pretty lively debate on how effective they were, how fast they got into the game, where they could have done more. I think the general lesson is everybody could have done more. But where we are right now is that the G20 High-Level Independent Panel—well, the G20 appointed a high-level independent panel that was—that came up with some proposals for how to better position the world for being able to support national-level development of pandemic preparedness and response. And the recommendation was to use the World Bank as the mechanism for that. So about a year and a half ago, the World Bank—the World Bank board approved the creation of the Pandemic Fund. As I mentioned before, we have about a $300 billion problem. The first round of funds that was given out over the summer was for $337 million dollars. So we got a—$337 million dollars went out on a $300 billion problem. And there were—and that went to thirty-seven different countries where there were proposals, however, from—there were 600 proposals that were submitted. And these thirty-seven went out. So the next round is out right now. And the plan is for the Pandemic Fund to provide approximately $500 million dollars in this round. But, again, so it kind of—it depends on if you’re a glass half empty, glass half full kind of person, and whether you think that the banks are super engaged in doing all that they can, or if they’re really—if there’s a lot more that they could do. And that’s not even getting into all the other mechanisms that that they have contemplated and thought about in terms of being able to use to help countries, particularly being able to mobilize resources quickly. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. I’m going to take two—combine two written questions. The first is from Nicole Rudolph, who is an assistant professor at Adelphi University. Who is leading initiatives to integrate health security with climate resilience efforts? And then there’s a question from Izabella Smith. I don’t know her affiliation. How do you deal with the mass politicization of health safety, specifically before and after COVID-19? KATZ: Easy ones, right? (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: Yeah, very easy. (Laughs.) KATZ: Well, Yanzhong, why don’t I—why don’t I do a really quick answer, and then and then turn to you, particularly on the health and climate space. Except for, Nicole, I would say that I’m glad you’re working on this. We’ve always considered one health and climate as first principles of health security and health security threats. So they are, in our head, completely intertwined, and really need to be addressed that way. I think to Izabella’s, man, how you deal with the politics? It’s—we are in a really, really complicated environment right now. I’m a public health professional. Before the pandemic, most people did not know we existed. (Laughs.) And maybe that was OK. It was difficult because there was no money, but we were kind of quietly left to do our job. And we were most successful when people didn’t know we existed. What happened during the pandemic, particularly in the United States but also around the world, we saw the—a lot of these issues have always been political. They had never been partisan before. They became very partisan. And there was a tremendous amount of backlash against public health officials. There are—there are academic efforts underway to help and capture the—just the type of backlash that existed. The fact that there are academics who are measuring—there is categories for how many public health officials were threatened with gun violence and didn’t get support from their local law enforcement. And the fact that that number is so large, that there is a category for counting it, gives you a sense of the type of backlash that’s been experienced. I think what we’re seeing right now—I can talk to the United States—but a massive movement to roll back public health authority legislation and regulations. There are state legislatures across the country that are stripping their governors of emergency powers and putting that authority into the state legislative branches, which is basically going to make it almost impossible to take rapid action in the—in the next event. And, you know, there will be a next event. So it is—it is really difficult. We are seeing the—based on the vaccine—the increase in vaccine hesitancy, and in part due to the rise in mis- and disinformation. And now we’re seeing measles outbreaks across the country. And, you know, situations where the current public health officials are not taking scientifically based action to stop those outbreaks. So we’re—it’s rough out there. Let me just put it that way. As well—at the same time that people are quitting in droves because people did not sign up for this. So just that. HUANG: Yeah— FASKIANOS: So before—Yanzhong, before you—before you weigh in, and I’ll give you an opportunity. Rebecca, this is a group of professors and students. And so what would you advise—what’s the call to action for this group to—you know, to help, you know, push back on or help sort of make—to ensure that guardrails remain? KATZ: I don’t have any—I don’t have a great one-liner on that, right? Except there is, how do we—how do we rebuild trust in science, in public officials, in governance? There is a need to raise public literacy. And so I start there. There are a lot of folks who are working on how do we counter mis- and disinformation. I think those are two very different things. There is—you know, there’s a need to—you know, it’s everything from being able to do the policy surveillance of what’s happening in the world, to being able to—all the way towards advocacy and trying to help, you know, get programs and policies sufficiently implemented. But I think also just having kind of a strong evidence-informed voice. I wish I had a great, better answer that said, if you just pushed this button or did this thing, it would all be better. But I don’t. And I think—I think this is why a lot of people in the community are really struggling with how do we—how did we get here, and how do we fix it? FASKIANOS: Great. Yanzhong. HUANG: Well, I—just follow what Rebecca said, I think trust is, like, the key, right? You know, our colleague Tom Bollyky, his research has just already, like, demonstrated how important trust is in fighting the—dealing with a public health crisis, like COVID-19. You know, and to the question, actually, the challenge is how to build the trust, right? You can talk about maybe better transparency, better accountability. But you know, I think in a country like the U.S. which is so divided now, I think in order to rebuild that trust it’s very important for the—these different groups, like even—like, I’m talking about, you know, the two groups, they need to be able to have a dialogue, basically, need to speak with each other. There needs to be able to build consensus. But maybe I’m asking for the impossible. But the—so when we talk about politicization, I want to also add that it’s not just happened at the national level; it certainly has been—this past pandemic has shown that this also occurs at the international level. In fact, you know, I think, you know, we never have, you know, a public health event that has been so politicized as the COVID-19. You know, just to give you an example, the SARS, right, when we talk about the origins of SARS, you know, people never thought of, like, politicizing the origin probe. But it’s become a big issue during the COVID pandemic, in part because this is, like, the first time we’re seeing, like, ideology being encouraged by the pandemic response. This entire response to the pandemic is sort of framed as a competition between authoritarianism and liberal democracy, right. And also, geopolitics, like, again, right, the tensions between U.S.-China sort of also was driving, right, the global pandemic response. So I think, you know, in order to sort of—we need to start to depoliticize—(laughs)—this process of depoliticization. We need to reduce the geopolitical tensions. But in the meantime, we need to start the—sort of have—investing in those trust—or, confidence-building measures like having, like, a track-1.5 dialogue between the two countries. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to JY Zhou, please. Q: Hello. FASKIANOS: Yes. Thank you. Q: Hi. Awesome. Well, my name is Chris Nomes. I’m an intelligence analysis student at James Madison University. And my question is about threats to global health. Specifically, do we—do we face any risks, like, from our adversaries or from lone groups that want to purposely tear down global health? Are there any risks? And how do we counter those risks, if they exist? HUANG: That is Rebecca’s expertise. (Laughs.) KATZ: I got it. Maybe I got it. I mean, I think—listen, you know, when you start the question you asked about threats to global health. And immediately I start making lists of, like, oh my gosh, right, how are we going to talk about the signal—the, what, 90,000 signals that WHO received this month and the, you know, 300 that they’re investigating, and then the thirty, like, field investigations are happening in a given month, and all the—all the emerging infectious disease challenges, including, you know, H5N1 in cows in the U.S., to mpox, to, you know, again the long list of infectious disease challenges that nature throws at us every day. But your question then pivoted to talk more about the threats of deliberate biological events. And that is definitely a thing. I mean, so let’s just say that. That is a thing. That is an area of work. I will say that for about fifteen years I supported the U.S. delegation for the Biological Weapons Convention. So there are—there are people who get together often and work through trying to assess what that threat is and how it’s best addressed. There are—there are mechanisms for trying to investigate allegations of deliberate biological weapons use, and the use of the UN Secretary-General’s Mechanism. And there are now a lot of folks who are deeply concerned about how AI is changing the threat space. And so, you know, in this forum, I think the answer we can give you is, yes. It is a threat. It is a thing. And there is a world of people who work on this, including within the intelligence communities around the world, to better address that threat and then feed that into response and planning efforts. I will say, though, that in the—in the event—the challenge is if there is an actual event, the response may not be very different from a naturally occurring event, at least not initially. And putting attribution assessments aside, and any kind of political response you might have. But that that’s the other thing that is trying to be sorted out, is that, you know, if you are in the midst of a response to what looks like a naturally occurring event and suddenly there is information there or an entity claims responsibility for having released an agent, how does that change? What stakeholders now need to be involved? And also, who—how is that managed at the national, regional, and international system? So, basically, you opened a can of—a huge can of worms for me. But I think the answer is, yes, it is a—it is a thing. And it is a thing that there are—there is a community of people who think very deeply about it. HUANG: Yeah. I’ll just—you know, I think what the problem we’re dealing with, like, deliberate-caused outbreaks, right, the challenge here is that this is not like a war against, you know, terror, because we are facing—we don’t know, actually, even who actually started the attack, right, whether it’s from individuals or states, because in part of this—(inaudible)—of the biological weapons or the use of, you know, the dangerous pathogens, you’re not going to find out whether, like, something unusual is happening. And here, right, a large number of people flooded the ER rooms complaining about the same kind of acute symptoms. So the logic of, like—of deterring such an attack would be different from logic of deterring, like, a nuclear attack, right? Because we have to rely on the building of the health infrastructure, greater trained health professionals, you know, the so-called deterrence by denial, in order to sort of decentivize the potential perpetrators from giving up such an attack. FASKIANOS: (Off mic.) HUANG: Irina, you are on mute. FASKIANOS: I am muted. And how long have I been doing this? (Laughs.) We’ve had a lot of questions and written and raised hands that we could not get to. So I apologize to all of you. Rebecca, I want to give you thirty seconds to talk about your book, Outbreak Atlas. KATZ: Oh, yay! (Laughs.) Sure! I was telling folks before we started the webinar, in academia we write a lot of words, and often we write words and they’re, you know, meant for four people in the world to read. But we put a book together that is designed for hopefully addressing some of the public literacy issues that we brought up earlier. For years we had been supporting public health emergency operation centers around the world in helping provide information about kind of all the activities that happen in an outbreak response. And what we’ve done is we’ve taken that and we’ve written it for a public audience. So, it is illustrated. It has 120 different case studies. Anything you ever wanted to know about what happens in an outbreak, or every epidemiologic term that you heard your grandmother talk about that you’re, like, wait a second, is that right? So we’ve written it all out. If anybody’s interested, Outbreak Atlas. And it comes out on Monday on Amazon, and all those other places. So I’m really excited. FASKIANOS: Great. Fantastic. And, Yanzhong, is there anything you want to highlight that we’re doing at CFR in the global health space? HUANG: Well, thank you, Irina. Thank you for your patience of staying through that one-hour conversation. So, yeah, we are facing a lot of threats. We are—you know, we are aware of many of these challenges we are facing. We know the loopholes in the global health governance areas. It’s just that, I think the—(laughs)—the challenge is how to fix them; you know, don’t expect those negotiations in Geneva can you solve all the problems. The problems are going to rise up all the time in many decades to come. But if you want to learn more about this area, in addition to reading Rebecca’s Outbreak Atlas, read our—this is more CFR’s Negotiating Global Health Security. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Thank you both. So you can also follow them on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @YanzhongHuang and at @RebeccaKatz5. This is the last webinar for this semester. Good luck with your finals, and everything that comes with this lovely month of April and May. And for some of you who are graduating, you can learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowship for professors at CFR.org/careers. We’re open right now. We’re accepting applications for summer internships. And they can be virtual. So that’s always a plus. And they are paid. Please follow us at @CFR_Academic, visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com—and I’m going to really highlight; I do it every call—but our ThinkGlobalHealth.org site, which provides a forum to examine why global health matters and to engage in efforts to improve health worldwide. So, if you’re interested in these issues, you can—you should go there. We hope to be a resource for you all. Again, good luck with your finals. Enjoy the summer. And we look forward to reconvening in fall 2024. So thank you, again, to Dr. Katz and Dr. Huang. (END)</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240410_Academic%20Webinar%20Global%20Health%20Security%20and%20Diplomacy_OTR_0.mp3" length="90824397" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240410_Academic%20Webinar%20Global%20Health%20Security%20and%20Diplomacy_OTR_0.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2024 17:00:00 -0400</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Series on Emerging Technology, U.S. Foreign Policy, and World Order: Frontline Innovations—Defense Solutions for National Security Challenges</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/series-emerging-technology-us-foreign-policy-and-world-order-frontline-innovations-defense</link> <description>Panelists discuss new and emerging commercial defense technology, current opportunities and challenges in defense innovation, and the future landscape of national security. For those attending virtually, log-in information and instructions on how to participate during the question and answer portion will be provided the evening before the event to those who register. Please note the audio and video of this virtual meeting will be posted on the CFR website.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240409_Series%20on%20Emerging%20Technology%2C%20U.S.%20Foreign%20Policy%2C%20and%20World%20Order%20Defense%20Innovation%20and%20National%20Security_OTR.mp3" length="90068462" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240409_Series%20on%20Emerging%20Technology%2C%20U.S.%20Foreign%20Policy%2C%20and%20World%20Order%20Defense%20Innovation%20and%20National%20Security_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Apr 2024 17:45:00 -0400</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Virtual Roundtable: Spillovers to Global Growth From Emerging Markets</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/virtual-roundtable-spillovers-global-growth-emerging-markets</link> <description>Emerging markets now account for close to half of world GDP. With China possibly in a protracted slowdown, it is now important to ask whether swings in the outlook for emerging economies can drive the cycle in the G7. Please join our speakers and the authors of the paper, Andres Fernandez Martin and Andrea Presbitero of the IMF, for a discussion of the IMF World Economic Outlook paper, “Trading Places: Real Spillovers from G20 Emerging Markets.”</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240409_Virtual%20Roundtable%20Spillovers%20to%20Global%20Growth%20From%20Emerging%20Markets_OTR.mp3" length="85173883" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240409_Virtual%20Roundtable%20Spillovers%20to%20Global%20Growth%20From%20Emerging%20Markets_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Apr 2024 14:00:00 -0400</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>CFR Luncheon Discussion at ISA: Foreign Policy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/cfr-luncheon-discussion-isa-foreign-policy-age-artificial-intelligence</link> <description>The CFR luncheon event held in conjunction with the International Studies Association featured a discussion on Foreign Policy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence on Thursday, April 4, in San Francisco. The conversation featured Rachel Gillum, vice president of ethical and humane use of technology at Salesforce; Andrew W. Reddie, associate research professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley; and Carla Anne Robbins, senior fellow at CFR. James M. Lindsay, senior vice president, director of Studies, and the Maurice R. Greenberg chair at CFR, moderated the discussion.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/Tascam_0028.mp3" length="83803242" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/Tascam_0028.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2024 16:30:00 -0400</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Academic Webinar: Authoritarianism</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/academic-webinar-authoritarianism</link> <description>Moisés Naím, distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, leads the conversation on authoritarianism. CASA: Welcome to today’s session of the Winter/Spring 2024 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I’m Maria Casa, director of the National Program and Outreach Department at CFR. Thank you all for joining us. Today’s discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be made available on our website, CFR.org/Academic, if you would like to share them with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have Moisés Naím with us for a discussion on power and authoritarianism. Moisés Naím is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an internationally syndicated columnist. Dr. Naím’s experience in public service includes his tenure as Venezuela’s minister of trade and industry, director of Venezuela’s central bank, and executive director of the World Bank. He has held appointments as a professor at IESA, Venezuela’s leading business school, and Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Naím is the host and producer of Efecto Naím, an Emmy-winning weekly television program on international affairs that airs throughout the Americas on Direct TV. He was the editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine for fourteen years, and is the author of many scholarly articles, and more than ten books on international economics and politics. Welcome, Dr. Naím. Thank you very much for speaking with us today. NAÍM: Thanks for inviting me. Delighted to be with you. CASA: You have been reflecting on the nature of power, authoritarianism, and autocracy for many years, and have written a series of books that focused on these themes. Could we begin with you telling us a little bit about your current thinking on the subject? NAÍM: Of course. I am as concerned, as many other people are, about the fact that democracy is in retreat and authoritarianism is moving. This is not just an opinion; this is solid data from Freedom House, which is an institution that analyzes and surveys the world in terms of its propensities towards freedom or not. And in the most recent report about the state of freedom in the world, they show that it has—global freedom has declined for the eighteenth consecutive year. So for every year in the last eighteen years, democracy was declining and authoritarian regimes, of different stripes and forms, were taking over. Political rights and civil liberties were diminished in fifty-two countries, and the fact is that the majority of the people in the world today live in authoritarian regimes, or regimes where the checks and balances that define a democracy are not functioning—fully functioning and are limited and constrained. This is a very complex, surprising world in which a lot is happening for the first time—or a lot that we believe is happening for the first time, in fact, has happened before. I have here a phrase—a couple of phrases by European thinkers in the 1930s. After the First World War and before the Second World War, they saw it coming. They did not know exactly what form would it take. But José Ortega y Gasset is a famous Spanish thinker of that time, and in 1930 he wrote a book, and one of the phrases in the book is, “we don’t know what is happening to us.” And that is exactly what is happening to us—that we don’t know what’s going on. We know that something big is going on, but we don’t know exactly how is it going to affect our jobs, our companies, our politics, our life, our society, and so on. Another politician, at the same time—an Italian this time—in the 1930s, wrote a book. Antonio Gramsci was his name. He was in jail for political reasons, and Gramsci wrote, “the old is dying and the new is yet to be born. In this interregnum, monsters are hatched.” I repeat: “The old is dying and the new is yet to be born. In this interregnum, monsters are hatched.” And we have the same feeling now, that first, yes, there is a lot that we don’t know, and that surprise us all the time, and happens for the first time. It’s almost—I wrote a column recently about that, the unprecedented planet, in which a lot of things were happening for the first time, typical in most—a well-known example of this is climate change, right? It’s creating all sorts of unprecedented situations and points of view. I have been tracking the world from this perspective, as you said, for a long time, and there are two books of mine—or three books of mine that I think do not answer all the questions, but do answer most of the important questions of our time. They are thirty years in the making. There was one in 2005, another ten years later, and another ten years. The first one is Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy (2005). And the book showed how, at the time in which everyone was globalizing and—going global it was called—very fashionable. The group that—you know, that took most advantage early on and were early adopters were criminal cartels, and they were very good at using borders as ways of leveraging their capacities, possibilities, and goals. So Illicit—the role of illicit, the role of criminalize, and governments is something that I’m sure we’ll have speak today. But looking at this, what’s happening was also that the governments were waging war on all these criminal activities, in the trafficking of people, of drugs, of narcotics, of money, of weapons, of—even human organs, and art, and everything else. And governments were losing this battle. You know, they won some skirmishes here and there with the cartels and the criminals, but all in all, they were losing. So that led me to my following book, The End of Power (2013), in which I analyzed—I started with thinking that this is a government thing only to discover that this was happening everywhere; not that power was disappearing, but yes, power was more constrained. People that had power had now more limits, more restrictions on how it can use power. And the central theme of that book was that, in the twenty-first century, power had become easier to obtain, harder to use, and easier to lose. And that is directly relevant to the subject of authoritarianism that we’re discussing here. Ten years later, I wrote a book called The Revenge of Power (2022), which is what we’re—those who have power in massive quantities, what we are doing to limit the erosion of the power, and the ways, and the sharing of power, and the distribution of power, the sources, the origins, the usages, the possibilities of power at this time. And I came up with the idea, recognizing that what the revenge of power is is that some authoritarian regimes were using the three Ps to retain government. The three Ps are populism, polarization, and post-truth. The three are very well-known characteristics, but they have acquired unprecedented potency under the new circumstances, and they define very quickly what are the new breed of authoritarian regime that appear to look like democrats, but in fact, they are undermining democracy from the inside. We have a long list of leaders that were elected, some in fair and free elections; others by just stealing the elections, but once they got in government, they started limiting, constraining, and diminishing the powers that constrain, the power of the public chief executive. So that is a context in which we are moving. And one of the themes that I would like to—hope to chat with you all has to be with what I mentioned before: the criminalized nature of the state, and how this is related to authoritarianism, and to globalization. Let me stop here and start the conversation, Maria. CASA: Oh, thank you so much for that introduction. Now let’s open it up to questions. (Gives queuing instructions.) We’ll start with a raised hand from Carl Gilmour, an undergraduate student at Stanford University. Carl? (Pause.) We’ll give Carl another second—otherwise we can come back to him. Well, let’s move on to a written question. It’s from Michael Strmiska, professor of world history at SUNY Orange in New York state, who writes, “I see a dilemma with the need to restrict communications and mis- and disinformation from extremists and authoritarians, though this would seem to mean a restriction of free speech. However, free speech is never an absolute right. What can governments do to prevent authoritarians and extremists from taking power through manipulation of the information and social media sphere? I no longer believe the argument that the solution to hate speech or other such disinformation is more speech because, with social media, lies and hate can be spread at lightning speed in great mass and force. NAÍM: Well, the question has many good answers embedded in it. It’s hard to disagree with the professor’s perspective, and his caution. We have been surprised by what’s happening in social media and how that has changed a lot in the world of politics and so on. That, we should remember, was driven by technology. It was driven by all sorts of innovations. I think his question is the question for our time: how do we protect free speech and democracy while at the same time limiting the impact of the wrongdoers, or the people that are abusing the system, or using the system for very nefarious goals. We don’t know; nobody knows. That question is at the core of the great debate of our time. All I want to stress—perhaps in addition—is that expect surprises, and it’s very likely that the surprises will come more from the world of politics and from the world of technological innovation. But we don’t know what those are. CASA: Next we’ll go to Buba Misawa, who is professor of political science at Washington and Jefferson College. Please go ahead, Buba. Q: Can you hear me? CASA: Yes. Q: OK. Professor Naím, that was a great conversation you started. But let me ask a simpler question, and I know, between you and Gramsci you can answer. Why are we attracted to this new model or this old model of authoritarianism? Is it because democracy has failed, or why? NAÍM: Another great question at the core of a lot of the debates that are going on, so thank you very much, Professor Misawa. The answer has a lot to do with the underperformance of governments and the—you know, broken expectations. The expectations of people—very justifiably—grow much faster than the capacity of the state to respond to their needs, and hopes, and ambitions, and expectations for a better life. That is happening. That was also always happening, and somehow I think the famous professor identified it, that the gap between the expectations of the voters, or the people, and the capacity of the state to deliver on that, that has always existed, but now it has been amplified with technology, and with the globalization, and with all kinds of new ways of doing things, and changing the regime. The essence of the story is that we will have to deal with the non-performance of governments, and what is happening is that we need to—I don’t think we have to relaunch everything and throw the baby with the bath water, but capitalism in the twenty-first century and democracy in the twenty-first century need adjustment. The world and assumptions that were—on which these were based are no longer with us, and we have not replaced them yet. And that’s where Gramsci is so relevant, you know. In this interregnum—he called it—a lot of very bad things can happen, but also very good things can happen. But the essence of the story is that expectations are making governments very hard to function and very—there is a need to—as I said, and I’m repeating myself—there is a need to adjust our capitalism and democracy that we have until now to the new realities. And we all know the long list of new things that are happening that need a response; climate change being, you know, very important in this story. CASA: Our next question is from Bernard Haykel, professor at Princeton University. Q: Thank you, and I hope you can hear me. Thank you, Professor Naím. I’m a great admirer of your work. NAÍM: Thank you. Q: I have two questions, so one is that you have different petrostates, both of which are authoritarian, but they deliver very different goods and services to their populations. So take, for example, the UAE or Saudi Arabia, on the one hand, and Venezuela, on the other. So what accounts for that difference? And the second is that in countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, they tell you, you know, we’re a tribal society. If we had democracy we would have inefficient government, we would have chaos, we would have Islamists who would come to power, as you can see, for example, in Kuwait where they have a parliament. And so, therefore, there is an argument that authoritarianism is really the best way to contend with the global problems and with providing services to their populations. Thank you. NAÍM: Yes, yes, Professor Haykel, that’s absolutely right, and we don’t know—there is a respect for authoritarianism that is essentially grounded on the performance, and so we now give very—a lot of importance to governance and to the capacity to govern. And they are doing a good job down there in the Gulf countries, surely. But it is so specific—their set of circumstances, their origins, their history, their society, the geopolitics, their economy—is so specific to them that it’s hard to replicate elsewhere. We have not seen it. And then we don’t know how resilient these governments are like that without starting in the route of repression in, you know, the underlying assumption in this conversation. The elephant in the room, of course, is the capacity of these governments to be repressive, and then what happens. We saw, for example, the admiration for the Chinese model and its capacity to build infrastructure and to build all kinds of things. And it was presented to us as an example to follow. And remember the Beijing Olympics. It was this perfect display of organization and performance, but we—as you know now, that China has been entangled in all kinds of problems and all kinds of difficulties. So yes, we need to look at other examples, but remember the context and understand that this is a picture in a moment, but over time the sustainability of this governance is going to change. CASA: Our next question is a written one from Rodrigo Moura, who is an undergraduate student at the University of Essex. He asks: You have mentioned the three Ps that authoritarians use to gain and consolidate power and influence. What about money? How do you see the use of economic incentives by authoritarian regimes, mainly abroad, to gain influence? NAÍM: Yes, there are two themes there. One is the economic performance of a nation and a regime, and can it provide the prosperity that people need, want, and fight poverty, and fight inequality, and so on. That’s one dimension on the theme of power. The other dimension on the theme of power is one that is a very complicated one, and it has to do with money and politics, and how money can replace the will of the voters. And we are seeing that even in democratic societies in which money defines political outcomes with the negligible contribution of participation of the rest of the people. So money has many dimensions, but the two main ones are that money and politics, and the necessity to provide for a better life for as many of the people in the country as possible, and those are two challenges that a lot of governments are not meeting. CASA: Our next question—let’s take our next question from Lindsey McCormack, a graduate student at Baruch College. Lindsey? Q: Thank you. Professor Naím, I have a question—a follow-up to your piece in El País from—it was included in the background materials for this webinar. You discussed how today’s dictators don’t really have an out like maybe a generation ago that they could, you know, take a lot of money, and go somewhere and retire in luxury. (Laughs.) That was a very interesting point, and you suggested that’s a reason—a reason it can be so difficult to transition away from authoritarian regimes, that essentially their leaders are trapped in the situation of their own making. And I was wondering if you have any idea what to do about that? It wasn’t a good situation in the past where you could steal a bunch of money and go to the French Riviera, but at least it gave an out and the possibility of change. NAÍM: Yes, that’s a very thorny issue, as Ms. McCormack indicated—as she—as you mentioned. The challenge here is what do you do with dictators. And most of them cannot run the risk of not being in power because if they are not in power, they are in jail. So government is not just for service or for corruption, but also for protection. And unless you can provide an exit ramp out, it’s going to be very difficult for these people to go anywhere because no other governments would protect them as much as their own government and their own—typically their own military. So that is going to be with us for a while. An international coalition of democracies could do something, but as we know, multilateral work is as desirable as it is often ineffective—too ineffective, in fact. That’s a good question. Thank you. CASA: Our next question is written. It’s from Alfredo Toro Carnevali, professor of political science at Montclair State University. He writes: I was perplexed by the speed with which Ecuador, a relatively stable country a few years ago, was overtaken by organized criminal organizations from Mexico and Armenia, competing for access to the port in Guayaquil. How could this happen so quickly and so dramatically? What can Ecuador do? Could you comment on this? NAÍM: Yeah, it’s an incredible situation. Ecuador was one of the most stable of countries in that tough neighborhood of high political volatility and instability. And then it fell into the trap that met—so many other countries in that neighborhood are having, which is being complacent with the presence of drug cartels and criminals, and that have infiltrated the government, have infiltrated society, that have access to huge quantities of money. And we saw, you know, the globalization of organized crime because a lot of these things—for example, you saw a lot of the Mexican cartels operating in El Salvador—in Ecuador, sorry—and that is part of the answer. It was—it always existed, but never at the speed and scope that it exists now. CASA: We’ll take our next question from Björn Krondorfer, director of the Martin Springer Institute and an endowed professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University. Björn? Q: Can you hear me? CASA: Yes. Q: Yeah. I brought my question. It’s about the role of religion in authoritarian regimes. We see this with white Christian nationalism in the United States, with Putin’s embrace of Russian orthodoxy, in Orbán’s Hungary—I mean really across the world at different—in different religious traditions. What is your sense of the religious power or the religious force in relationship to political authoritarian power? NAÍM: Thank you for the question, Professor Krondorfer. The magic word in global politics or politics today, everywhere, is legitimacy, legitimacy, and legitimacy. There is a huge deficit of legitimacy in which governments are not legitimate, either because they acquired power through sham elections or because they had a coup. But the need to have legitimacy, to be respected, to be recognized as a valid regime is there. And one of the tools for legitimacy is religion, as you well said. And yes, in the same way that money in politics is a very important thorny issue, money in religion to fund and support a specific government is also a big issue for which we don’t have a lot of good answers. But yes, your point is excellent. CASA: Going back to Carl Gilmour, who is a student at Stanford University. He has written his question: Many journalists appear to perish or become confined when confronted with the consequence of publishing truth to the people that expose the abuse of power. What is your recommendation to these beacons of truth when weighing the heavy cost of careers in journalism? Do you foresee that there will be any remedy to this assault on free speech or censorship through fear and violence? NAÍM: Yeah, what a problem, right? And we know that, you know, there are governments, there are countries that have the most journalists in jail. Turkey, Mexico are horrible situations in terms of persecution and the repression of journalists. And I don’t have any answer other than admiring, recognizing, and honoring the work of these journalists who every day go out in the street, not knowing if they’re going to go back at home later in the evening. It is a global situation. We are already seeing how some of these authoritarian regimes are using them—captured journalists—are using them as exchange in deals. There is a very well-known journalist from the Wall Street Journal that has been incarcerated unjustly in Russia, and he is just one of the most visible ones, but for each one of them, there are hundreds that are being repressed everywhere. And trying to generate—the most important prescription is to continue to generate visibility and don’t let them disappear from our information ecosystem. CASA: Our next question is from an executive-in-residence at the IESE Business School, Alex Wallace. Alex? Q: Hello. Thank you for this; so interesting. I wonder if there are any examples of authoritarian regimes where the populace is actually thriving and/or the standard of living is high. I looked at the World Happiness Index, and America is pretty far down there. There’s probably one or two above it that are not democracies. I just wonder if there is any place where authoritarianism has actually not been bad for the populace. NAÍM: Well, yeah, of course, Ms. Wallace. That’s very important. What we don’t know is for how long and how sustainable, you know. Look at the sustainability of these things, and it’s not clear that they are—in the long run, they will have the same format or the same face. But yes, there are places—Hungary is an example of places where the economy is doing relatively well, but that needs support and subsidies. And at the same time, there has been some progress. And let’s not forget the progress that had been taking place in China where literally millions—hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. And that is a performance that is unrivaled in terms of success. But at the same time, as I mentioned in my answer to another question prior, is that now the highly admired system in Russia is beginning to crack. CASA: We have many, many written questions, but we would love to hear your voices, so please don’t be shy and click the raise hand icon if you would like to ask your question orally. In the meantime, we’ll take a question—a written question from Chip Pitts, who is a lecturer at Stanford University. He writes: I worked with a number of NGOs concerned about the expansion of unchecked surveillance technologies by governments and companies, surveillance capitalism. What’s your view on the trends regarding surveillance and how excesses can be corrected? NAÍM:: They are horrible. The threats regarding surveillance are horrible. And becoming more common around the world. Again, China is probably the world champion in terms of surveillance. But it’s also in Switzerland you can find it, and other European countries. Even in very well-functioning democracies you see these technologies that are being used. And, you know, there’s a violation of privacy. There is use to repress movements and organizations. And, again, the only hope we have, I think, is two. One is having a knowledge and understanding, recognizing, keeping in mind that this is happening. Don’t forget that this is going on. And the second is that, again, I think the world of technology may give us some positive surprises in terms of how to protect ourselves from this excessive, abusive, authoritarian kind of behavior in terms of surveillance. CASA: Our next raised hand is from Katie Laatikainen, who is associate professor at Adelphi University. Katie. Q: Hi. Thanks very much. I also wrote my question in the Q&A. I’m interested in what you think an international order premised upon authoritarianism would look like. For most of the post-World War II era liberalism and liberal concepts, universal human rights, rule of law sort of defined the operating system of the—operating system of international relations. Given what you’ve said about authoritarianism and the internal and domestic focus of it, what would be the elements of the operating system if there’s a shift toward authoritarianism as the operating system in international relations? Thanks so much. NAÍM: Mutual protection. What these countries that are authoritarian and beginning—we have evidence they’re working together internationally to ensure that they are protected. That they will not have some color revolution, or some invasion, or some other social political dynamic that puts them at risk. So each one of them has a dense web of international connections with likeminded governments. And we should expect more than that. But always remembering the phrase that says that countries don’t have friends, they have interests. And so the interests of these authoritarian governments are converging for now. But we don’t know if there’s going to be—what’s going to happen in reality there. CASA: Our next question is a written one. It comes from Patrick Duddy, senior advisor for global affairs at Duke University, and former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. He asks: Dr. Naím, could you cite a recent example of a situation in which the international community or local democracy advocates have been able to rollback authoritarianism and restore democracy? NAÍM: Yes, first, let me say hello to Patrick, who’s an old friend of mine. Nice to hear from you. Yes, fortunately, we have examples. I think the most recent example is Guatemala. Guatemala had a government that essentially was voted out of power. But NGOs, and civil society, and the media, and the private sector, and the church, they all got together in a fantastic way and were able, with the support of the United States, by the way—with an important role on the part of the United States. The leadership was, in Guatemala, and Guatemalan democratic politicians were so successful. And so, yes, there is hope. And there’s always opportunity that a good leader, together with a good organization and the support of the international community, can stop the decline towards the autocracy in some—and protect democracies. CASA: We’ll take our next question from Andrea Cuervo Prados, who is adjunct instructor at Dickinson State University. Andrea. Q: Hi, Mr. Naím. Thank you so much for your insights and knowledge. I also wrote my question on the chat, and it is related to Colombia. I would love to hear your thoughts about that country, about Colombia, which right now seems to be moving to an authoritarian regime, recalling some of the initial stages you know very well, Venezuela live under Chavez tenure. So what’s your view on the Colombian case? And do you believe an authoritarian regime is emerging in Colombia? Thank you. NAÍM: Yes, I am worried, and I think there is—there are good reasons to be worried about what happens in Colombia. Colombia used to be a solid democracy. Colombia showed the way on how to combat drug trafficking, how to reclaim neighborhoods that were untouchable by the police and others, because they were controlled by the drug traffickers. So there was a long list that make Colombia a country worth looking at. But then a combination of toxic polarization in which the country were—like many others, by the way—got entangled in all kinds of highly polarizing debates, behaviors, created—weakened the state in Colombia. And now they have a president that is surely frustrating the hopes of the people that voted for him. And he is displaying behaviors that are not democratic. And all, you know, in the mix of showing and trying to present himself and his policies as democracy. But they’re not. So, yes. But at the same time, perhaps the good news is that what’s remaining of democracy in Colombia, and especially in the legislative branch, can curtail and limit the advances—the antidemocratic advances that that are taking place there. But it’s worth watching and crossing fingers. CASA: Our next question is from Jose David Valbuena, an undergraduate student at Buffalo State University. He asks: How does the rise of authoritarianism in certain countries affect the global balance of power? And what implications does this have for international relations? NAÍM: Yeah. Well, the central answer there is the hegemony, and the nature of hegemony, and who has it, and how it sustains it, is a central theme. Hegemony and, you know, dominate—the idea that, for example, the superpowers, that the United States, will continue to be a hegemon, I think it’s true. It will continue to be the hegemon, probably more than anything in some areas of the military, of military affairs, of military organizations. But yet, the hegemony will be—is on—is on the plate to be debated, discussed, eventually adapted at what are the realities of geopolitics in these times. CASA: Let’s see. We’ll take our next question from Rita Kiki Edozie, who is a professor and associate dean at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Q: Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Naím. Very interesting conversation. So about a year and a half ago, you participated in a debate around the same subject, you with Julian Waller. And your thesis was, of course, the rise of authoritarianism; and Julian’s thesis was that authoritarianism would not emerge in the U.S., despite, you know, your thesis about sort of Trump’s authoritarianism. And that’s because the U.S. had institutions at the national, local, and institutional level that sort of—would mute or, sort of, soften the blow of authoritarianism. Assuming both of you are right in that, you know, both there is an authoritarianism on the rise but so is there a pushback against authoritarianism, especially in the U.S., my question to you is: Don’t you think that democratic regimes are sort of embedded with the contradictions of authoritarian thrusts and pulses as well? And that, you know, they go one in hand, and we ought to acknowledge how they sort of coexist together? Thank you. NAÍM: Yes, Professor Edozie. I think the answer to that question will hinge quite a bit on the results of the U.S. elections this year. I do believe that Mr. Donald Trump is a threat to democracy in the United States, in a variety of ways. Because democracy is not just what happens when you go to vote, as you know, but is what happens in between periods in which—the days in which you go to vote, in which you really want the checks and balances to be autonomous, independent, objective, honest, and incorruptible, and all of that. And that is not what President Trump showed us in his time in government, nor what he’s saying these days. So I think whatever generalization one wants to make at this point, it has to be centered on the consequences at home and internationally of an electoral win by Donald Trump, if that happens. CASA: Our next question is a written one. It’s from Harry Mellor, political science student at Wheaton College, who writes: I was wondering what your thoughts were regarding whether the current Russian state reaction to recent terrorist attacks may be employed or used by the Putin regime to push an anti-Islamic authoritarian view, similar to the U.S. during 9/11. Or, in relation to earlier questions, used to bolster the hegemony of Russian Orthodoxy? NAÍM: Yes. I think Putin is already doing it. Of course, he has mentioned a little bit the Muslim theme, but mostly he’s blaming Ukraine. And he’s using the attack to show that—essentially arguing, which is not true, that the attack—the terrorist attack was, you know, the doing of the Ukrainians. And, again, we live in a world in which there are millions of people that don’t know who to believe, what to believe, and where to—you know, how to think about these issues. And I think this is an example. CASA: We’ll take our next question from Susan King, dean at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Susan. Q: Hi. Just to clarify, dean emeritus. So I’m no longer sitting dean. I want to ask a question with that plays off what you’ve just said about the U.S. And you’ve talked about the importance of government. There’s been a lot written just recently about the pandemic sort of overhang, that there’s PTSD, you know, in many communities; and that, reviewing it, that many felt the ambiguity of the guidance that they got has left people really desirous of more clear answers, and some worry that will lead to authoritarianism. Do you see the COVID experience, the pandemic, as sort of a backdrop for the United States elections? NAÍM: I don’t know. That is high expectations, right? Is assuming the government agencies in the United States are infallible and knew what they were doing. And the fact of the matter is, that they were doing it for the first time, without precedents. They surprised us—the scientists surprised us when they came up with a vaccine in record time, because everybody had been saying it takes a couple of years or more to get a vaccine through the system. Well, the scientists collaborating internationally were able to do it. But what I don’t think is that one should expect governments to have that capacity of dealing with a pandemic of the global scale and doing everything effectively, or doing things in service of certain ideology or political interests. I think there was room for mistakes and an ignorance about how to deal with the situation and doing as much as possible with the information they had. And the political context. Just remember the debates and how difficult they were. And the long-term consequences of COVID, of course, there is—long-term COVID is an issue and is becoming an important issue. But there is a new pandemic which is mental health, as you know. The global—the world has seen an increased level of mental health problems. And the United States is significantly there. CASA: Our next question is a written one from Alex Beltran, an undergraduate student at University of Houston-Downtown: I would like to ask you about your thoughts regarding Mexico and its current national issues, where there is a president who attempted to eliminate several national agencies including the ones in charge of elections. In addition, the current president is very clear on letting the corruption of cartels continue. Is Mexico on its way to becoming more authoritarian? Considering they have elections soon it might be early to talk about that. But I would like to hear what your—what you understand about the subject. NAÍM: Well, I understand that, yes, it’s too—in a normal democracy, it’s too early to be—to talk about what’s going to happen, because you don’t know who’s going to win. In the case of Mexico, everybody knows now who’s going to win, because there’s going to be an election that is heavily influenced by government intervention in favor of the candidate of the government. So that’s one thing. And the government of Mexico, and in particular President López Obrador, are important examples of what I call political necrophilia. You know, necrophilia is this perversion that some human beings have, you know, a strong attachment to cadavers—that they like cadavers. Well, there is a political manifestation of that, people that are deeply, deeply attached to bad ideas, ideas that have been tried and tested in the country once and again, in different countries, with different circumstances. Ideas that always end in more corruption, more inequality, more poverty, and so on. And President—if you look at the initiatives of President López Obrador, you will see that there are all kinds of examples of political necrophilia in which he is doing things that have been tested in the past. And there are clear mistakes to do it again that he’s undertaking. CASA: Our next question comes from Michael C. Davis, professor of law and international affairs at Jindal Global University. Michael. Q: OK, can you hear me? CASA: Yes. Q: OK. I’ve just written a book on Hong Kong called Freedom Undone. And one of the things I constantly run into in talking about the book is a criticism, well, it’s pointless to talk about Hong Kong. China’s not going to listen. And so you’re just—it’s a waste of our time even to host an event on it. And so the question I have is, does—in the cases like this, where a very successful authoritarian regimes is in charge, what’s the best response when you’re told that sort of naming and shaming really doesn’t matter, you’re just going to be called anti-China for this, and they’re going to ignore it? NAÍM: Well, but the rest of the world is not. The rest of the world will clearly benefit from a group of independent, objective, reliable, trusted analysts, professors, journalists, politicians, policymakers that said that—you know, that put the light on what’s going on. As you know better than I, this—recently there was already the decision to pass the law in Hong Kong that clearly curtailed any hopes of a more democratic—to retain some of the Hong Kong’s democratic values, and behaviors, and institutions. So it’s already happened. But I think there is the possibility that you find people that understand what’s going on, and how this backsliding towards authoritarianism in Hong Kong can be—still being formed, or used to be—to inform the rest of the world how to think about China, by the way to look at how they have dealt with Hong Kong. And then the next stage of the conversation, as you know, will have to do with Taiwan. President Xi Jinping constantly repeats that there is no debate there. Taiwan is part of China. And it will become integrated with China. And that creates, of course, all kinds of anxieties because of the role of the United States in the treaty. There is a mutual protection military treaty between China and the United States, as you know. So don’t stop it. Don’t leave it there. Insist. CASA: Our next question is written one from Hunter Shields, undergraduate student at Davis and Elkins College. He writes: If social media acts as a significant factor in the spread of authoritarian government models, does it become the responsibility of nonauthoritarian governments, who may see how such systems can cause chaos, to censor or limit the exposure of authoritarian ideals? Would censoring authoritarian governments make the nonauthoritarian governments act in the same way as they—as they try to maintain the political status quo? NAÍM: Well, I don’t know that censoring is for anything that I would ever recommend. But there is no doubt that we need a regulatory system that, for example, to contain the spread of disinformation that is now happening and that he’s being, as the question said, you know, there’s a lot going on there. And it’s important that the fight is—continues, the fight against misinformation, distortion, lies, hate continues. That we will need to find ways to contain that. CASA: Our next question is a written one from Wilson Wameyo, a graduate student at the Jagiellonian University in Poland. He asked: How is the new conflict between Russia and the West emboldening authoritarian leaders in Africa and South America? NAÍM: Yeah. That is the fear. And that is why so many leaders, so many democratic leaders, are saying that the outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine, as a result of Russia’s invasion, will define the prospects for democracy around the world. If Ukraine falls, you know, loses the war, and it becomes a province of Russia, all bets are off in a variety of ways. I don’t think that will happen. But I also think that a victory of the Ukrainian forces is—at this point, is on the table. So negotiations will ensue. And let’s hope that through these negotiations one can preserve the independence of Ukraine, and also stimulates the creation of an international coalition, prodemocracy coalition, that has some tooth and can work on that in support of countries that are fighting the good fight in terms of protecting democracy. CASA: Our next question is a written one from Azzedine Layachi, professor of politics at St. John’s University: You said earlier that we need to adjust capitalism and democracy to the new reality. First, what are some of the specific dimensions of this new reality? Second, what kind of adjustments do you suggest? NAÍM: Well, it’s obvious that the economy as it now works is not aligned to the realities of climate change that we’re facing. The climate emergency requires action and requires sound economic thinking, and action, and policies. Inequality. Inequality around the world has increased in significant ways. And, again, the economy, as it now stands, is—has a peaceful coexistence with inequality that has to be shattered. And if—you know, the fight against monopolies, the concentration of power, and all that has to be very effective. The whole regulation of free speech and speech in general, and disinformation and all that, has to be aligned to democracy and to what we have as a democracy political system. So there is a list of things that can be done, but that require political will that he was going to be very hard to get. CASA: Our next question comes from Mietek Boduszynski, associate professor of politics at Pomona College. The question is: From a U.S. foreign policy perspective, can the logic of great power competition be reconciled with democracy promotion? NAÍM: It depends how the promotion is done. Remember that under the banner of democracy, you know, promotion a lot of bad governments have been maintained. I understand the question. It’s a good question in terms of how to make it possible for democracy in the United States—for the United States to be effective at democracy promotion. I think that is going to be reviewed and is going to change. And I think the way we have been thinking about foreign aid is going to be adjusted. CASA: Our next question is from Diego Abente Brun, professor of the practice and program director, Latin American and hemispheric studies at George Washington University. He asks: Why are some authoritarian Latin American leaders popular—AMLO, Bukele, Milei, and so on? How can we restore faith and trust in democracy? NAÍM: Fandom. In my book, The Revenge Of Power, I talk about the new quality that has politics. You know, you always wanted a politician have to have some sort of attractiveness, the magic, that magnetism that attracts followers. Now it’s more than that. Now it’s a fandom. And it has to do with identity politics. It has to do with how do you feel you belong to a group that is like you and you are like them. And all of that has is having immense political consequences that we have not seen before? CASA: Thank you. I don’t know if we have—maybe we have time for one more question. We’ll take it from Robin Bittick, professor of political science at Sam Houston State University in Texas. Democracy is about self-rule and majority voting. Yet, populism employs something that can be—implies something that can be democratic but can become authoritarian. What can be done to ensure democracy does not result in suicide? NAÍM: Wow. Well—(laughs)—but I understand the feeling, you know, that democracy will be underperforming in some areas that are critical for people. And, again, performance and transparency are two important conditions for all of this. Transparency, and paying attention, and participating. CASA: OK. We have many more questions. We’ve covered an enormous amount of ground. So I’d like to thank you so much, Dr. Naím, for your time with us today. And to all of you, for your questions and comments. The final Winter/Spring Academic Webinar will take place on Wednesday, April 10, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at CFR, and Rebecca Katz, professor and director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, will lead a conversation on global health security and diplomacy. In the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. Follow @CFR_Academic on X. And visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Again, thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to you tuning in on April 10. 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As we enter year three of the Russia-Ukraine war, CFR will be screening the first episode of Putin vs The West: At War, followed by a discussion on what to expect next.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240222_Screening%20and%20Discussion%20of%20Putin%20vs%20The%20West_OTR.mp3" length="61614444" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240222_Screening%20and%20Discussion%20of%20Putin%20vs%20The%20West_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 21 Feb 2024 23:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Academic Webinar: Governing the Global Commons</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/academic-webinar-governing-global-commons</link> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240214_Academic%20Webinar%20Governing%20the%20Global%20Commons_OTR.mp3" length="87444931" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240214_Academic%20Webinar%20Governing%20the%20Global%20Commons_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 14 Feb 2024 18:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Academic Webinar: China-Russia Relations</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/academic-webinar-china-russia-relations</link> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240131_Academic%20Webinar%20China%20Russia%20Relations_OTR.mp3" length="88780709" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240131_Academic%20Webinar%20China%20Russia%20Relations_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Higher Education Webinar: Navigating Academic Discourse on Israel and Palestine</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/higher-education-webinar-navigating-academic-discourse-israel-and-palestine</link> <description>Tarek El-Ariss, James Wright professor and chair of Middle Eastern studies at Dartmouth College, and Susannah Heschel, Eli M. Black distinguished professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, lead the conversation on navigating academic discourse on Israel and Palestine. FASKIANOS: Welcome to CFR’s Higher Education Webinar. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today’s discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic, if you’d like to share it with your colleagues. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We’re delighted to have Tarek El-Ariss and Susannah Heschel with us to talk about navigating academic discourse on Israel and Palestine. Tarek El-Ariss is the James Wright professor and chair of Middle Eastern studies at Dartmouth College. Susannah Heschel is the Eli M. Black distinguished professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College. And they teach together a class at Dartmouth called “The Arab, the Jew, and Constructions of Modernity.” So, with that, I’m going to turn the conversation over to them to talk about how they teach this class, and how they’ve worked together to address discourse on Israel and Palestine in Dartmouth, and best practices, as we all think about how to discuss these issues. So, over to both of you. Thank you for being with us. EL-ARISS: Thank you, Irina. Just to backtrack a little bit on the idea of the class, and our collaboration, I’m originally from Beirut. I’m trained in philosophy and literary studies. And I grew up during the civil war. And what we’re going through right now is extremely difficult to watch, to engage in, but this is something that we need to do. And this is something that I’ve been very interested in thinking about. And I just wrote a book on the subject, called Water on Fire: A Memoir of War, which really starts in Beirut, what was then called West Beirut, and ends in New York on 9/11, where I was actually teaching a course on the Middle East at NYU. And specifically on that day, I was teaching a course—a class on Islam. And needless to say, that these crises, these catastrophic events that happen from the region that I’m associated with, where I come, has been really fundamental to the way I think about scholarship, to the way I think about pedagogy, the way I think also about teaching and the community building that I think is really fundamental for the conversation today. So, I just wanted to kind of situate that within that context. And how do you think and deal with these questions? And how do you incorporate them? And where does the personal scholarship and the pedagogical engagement come, and so on? My work has been really dealing also with the question of the universal and the questions of the Enlightenment tradition. I mean, this is very important, and questions of modernity. Also wrote on the subject in the context of Arab modernity, in the context of what’s called the Nahda, or the nineteenth century Arab renaissance, and which is this kind of engagement with European modernity. So, this question of the universal, or the experience, of the European enlightenment tradition and how it kind of affects different parts of the world, how it allowed us to understand questions of human rights or questions of the universality is also at the core of this conversation here, and also of my intellectual training. So, this question has been really fundamental. I’ve also been interested in how a lot of these Arab intellectuals and scholars went to Europe in the beginning of the nineteenth century, and how they experienced this modernity. And that is not just simply an intellectual experience where they’re thinking about the ideas of the West and trying to translate them or reject them or accept them, but it is also an embodied experience. It’s also—I’ve been working on this question of the somatic, on the affect. And my work has also been, again, tracing this question of the universal of modernity to also think about it in the context of the digital age. And my last book is called Leaks, Hacks and Scandals. It’s on digital culture and the Arab Spring, and also digital culture that’s transforming some of our concepts of writing, political protest, community, the public sphere—all that is associated with that kind of eighteenth century that has been reverberated and had major influences across the region. So, I think I just want to kind of trace that genealogy. I think it’s important to also see where we come from and what are the things that have shaped a little bit our work, and where we have come, and then how we end up collaborating and also teaching this course that you mentioned. HESCHEL: Thank you, Irina. My name is Susannah Heschel. And, as you mentioned, I am chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth College. And my work together with Tarek stems in part from my academic scholarship. Also, perhaps from the experiences that I had growing up. I grew up in New York City and my father was a Jewish theologian, Abraham Joshua Heschel. And he was involved in the civil rights movement, in the Second Vatican Council, and the movement against the war in Vietnam. And those were important experiences for me on many levels. For one thing, the civil rights movement and Dr. King made me fall in love with the Hebrew Bible. But, it was also an example for me of how to talk to people from another community, from a completely different environment. When I saw my father and Dr. King, and their relationship, or my father’s work with Cardinal Bayet at the Second Vatican Council and so on, I learned something about how to function in this world when you’re talking about very difficult, very painful issues. My own scholarship looks at Germany. And, in fact, I’m in Hamburg, Germany right now on a research fellowship at the Maimonides Institute. And I’m interested—my first book was a study of a Jewish historian in the nineteenth century in Germany who wrote an important book on the Koran showing parallels between Judaism and the Koran. And then later, he did work on Jewish rabbinic texts and the influence on the gospels, the New Testament, and Christian origins. So, I was interested, as you see, in how Jewish studies overlaps or interacts, and creates a synergy with other kinds of fields. And that continued with a book I wrote on Nazi theologians who supported Hitler. So, the question of how does the academy respond to political crisis, to fascism in this particular case? And now I’m working on another study, on the history of Jewish scholarship on Islam. But again, about interactions. I’m in the department of religion, as well as in Jewish studies. And the work that we do together, Tarek and I, on campus, has become very important for both of us, and also for our students. We teach the class together, the Arab, the Jew, and constructions of modernity. And we have a wonderful collection of students with different kinds of backgrounds—Palestinian, Jewish, from all parts of the world. And we try to create an atmosphere in the classroom of community and engagement with one another. We want the students to see themselves as working with us to do academic investigation, discussion, analysis. So, it was in that context then, that on October 7, when I was hearing the horrible news, I got a phone call from Tarek. And his voice sounded as horrified and devastated as I felt. And we planned two forums on campus that week of faculty—open to students, faculty, everyone. And the response was overwhelming. Far more than I expected. I think what was important—we can talk more about those forums—but I just want to say that we sought to model for the campus how we speak to each other, what kind of a tone we take, even in the midst of a crisis. Four of us from Jewish studies and Middle Eastern studies, we speak with respect, of course, with dignity. But, also, in doing that, we modeled for the students. So, they asked questions that were sometimes difficult to hear. But they asked respectfully, politely. And so going on from there, we’ve established a series of dialogues. And we find that in our work together, having two professors teaching courses on difficult topics creates a much better atmosphere in the classroom. It unites students. It shows students how to talk to each other, even when they disagree, to have the dialogue taking place right there. So go ahead, Tarek. EL-ARISS: And the idea, we also have—we’ve worked—this is my seventh year at Dartmouth. So, this is really—we’ve been working a lot together also on inviting people and trying to bring different programs and departments to sponsor events, to bring authors, to bring filmmakers, so also there is—even to bring a rock band. We brought Mashrou’ Leila at some point to Dartmouth right before COVID hit. (Laughs.) And so, I’m coming to New York to see Hamed Sinno’s concert at the Met this weekend. So, this is—you also have to create a community within the classroom and outside of the classroom. And maybe Dartmouth, also the—where it is located, the size, also the resources, I mean, there are differences. Not every place has the same culture, or the same abilities, and the same—but this is our experience. And this is what we worked very, very consciously on building, is that we need to create this community that operates—that connects to culture, intellectual processes, learning, music, that brings all these bodies and different departments and programs together in an interesting way. And this is also what we teach. And we have Ezzedine Fishere, my colleague, who co-teachers, a course, with Bernie Avishai in government on the politics of Israel-Palestine. Susannah was teaching in the fall a course on 1967 with a colleague, also who works on Arabic literature, Jonathan Smolin. And the administration has been very receptive and encouraging to these kinds of models that allowed us to come up with these courses and bring different disciplinary backgrounds. Like, I come from literature and philosophy. And Susannah comes from religion, and so on. And bring these different backgrounds also that are cross disciplinary and that open up the subject matter in an interesting way. And our course, I mean, this is also where our research overlaps, is this question of the nineteenth century, which is very interesting in this part of the world—eighteenth/nineteenth century—is how Jews and Arabs deal with this question of modernity, which I think is very important. And because this is the question, also, of language, how Hebrew becomes modernized/standardized, how Arabic becomes standardized, how you rethink questions of community, questions of political institution, writing genres, but also how certain issues that deal with questions, for instance, of racism and xenophobia and antisemitism—begin to influence or affect some of these relations. And I edited an anthology on this question, where you have a lot of—called The Arab Renaissance—that we teach texts from it. And you have all these Jewish intellectuals from Beirut, from Cairo, engaging with the Dreyfus affair in 1894 to 1895. I mean, the Dreyfus affair is a huge global scandal at the end of the nineteenth century. And you have Reuters cable for the beginning—the beginning of mass communication—media. Technology that are starting. So, people in Beirut are reading what’s happening in Paris to Dreyfus as the cables are arriving. So, then you see these questions. And then you have Zola, you have this Jewish woman from Beirut, Esther Moyal, who’s writing about Zola and how Zola is defending Dreyfus in his famous article, in J’Accuse…!. So, you also have solidarity among Muslim scholars saying: Where is the French universal now? I mean, where are these human rights and equality and fraternity of the French Revolution in the face of this xenophobia, antisemitism that’s coming out of France? So, it’s also interesting to create genealogies. Like, how do we connect the genealogy from Zola, through Beirut, through Esther Moyal, to the intellectuals speaking truth to power, to Foucault, and Sartre, and Edward Said? And how do you kind of bring different narratives to the students that expand, also, our understanding of what’s happening in the Middle East, and the kind of perspective of conflict? So, I think when October 7 happened, the students were part of the community thinking about these things in multiple ways, in diverse ways, and students coming from different backgrounds. HESCHEL: Yes. I would just to add to that, that it’s important for me, as the chair of the Jewish Studies Program, that we have alliances with the different departments and programs on campus, many different ones. So, I want courses that we teach in Jewish studies, but that are cross listed in African American studies, in sociology, history, religion, and government, and so forth, women’s studies. That’s very important to me. And not only because of the alliances that we can create, and in some sense reproduce what Tarek was just talking about in the Nahda, but also because this sheds light on aspects of Jewish history, of Jewish religious thought, that we wouldn’t otherwise recognize. We see, for example, the parallels between Jews coping with European modernity and Arabs coping, in very similar ways. And also, being horrified at some of the same things. So, the construction of our identities has some parallels. There’s a way in which teaching this class also demonstrates to students that there was a very different trajectory from what one might imagine, looking back from today and all of the conflicts and terrible events and catastrophes that are going on, even at this moment. But to see that there was something else that was blossoming. It didn’t last, but it may come back. And that also is an important element here, to give our students some hope. And to show them, also, that the situations, the conflicts that we look at, are terribly complex. So, we tell the students, don’t look for a simple narrative. Try to learn to hold onto complexity, something that can’t be unraveled easily. There is no bad witch and fairy godmother, bad guy and good guy. Don’t divide the world that way. That just exacerbates the polarization that’s affecting all of us. See the complexity. And look at the future. Imagine, optimistically, what you would like to see in twenty, thirty, fifty years. How can we get there? What are the roadblocks? What do we need to do? What can you, students, do? What problems can you tackle and overcome so that we can achieve something? Too often we are so mired in the present that we don’t think about the future. And we have to offer our students that possibility and encourage them to think about a better future for themselves. EL-ARISS: And this is—pedagogically, it’s really very important, especially now. When I look at the pictures coming out of the region, I mean, I’m devastated. But how do I deal with this devastation? And how do I transform it? Do I bring it to class as is? Because I feel like I always—I also write on monsters and really kind of dark things that are happening in the world. But also my cynicism and my sometime despair—I feel like when I’m in the classroom, I also have to give hope. I can’t also just bring it as it is to the classroom. I feel like in front of them, I want to be hopeful. I want to—and I do it organically. It is not almost by design, but it is almost something—because I feel like I owe it to that generation also. And this is also kind of a question about where our personal research and what we teach, how they come together, or they might differ. And how thinking pedagogically also is very important, especially in these moments of crisis. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. I want to go to the group for questions and comments, and then we can continue the conversation. (Gives queuing instructions.) So, the first question we’re going to go to Mark Tessler. Q: This a great discussion. And I hope I can ask a question to each of the speakers to push a little bit. The end of the nineteenth century that Tarek has been talking about is really an important period. And he did a good job of describing it. But, it’s in the context of a region where there are centers and peripheries. And, I mean, I went to school in Tunisia, and I would say that’s part of the center, surprisingly. Egypt is the center, but Tunisia was not too far behind. But Palestine was the periphery. And it wasn’t totally untouched, but relatively speaking change was much less and much slower. And there’s an analysis by a number of Arab scholars, one of them was my professor a long time ago when I went to grad school, that this—I hesitate to use the word backwardness—but this relatively unchanged circumstance in Palestine, with a traditional inward-looking elite not really interested in the kinds of changes that are taking place in Egypt with the reopening of Ijtihad and so forth. And so, the argument is that that’s an important part of the story about why Palestinians fared so poorly in the context of their emerging confrontation with Zionism. And so, I cover this period a bit in my own course on Israel-Palestine. I forgot to say I’m at the University of Michigan, where I teach about the Middle East. And so, it’s interesting to think about this period and the larger implications that Dr. El-Ariss has been pointing out, very significant. But, if we kind of see what does that mean for Palestine, the story is going to be quite different. If I could ask a quick question, I’ll try to be brief, to Professor Heschel. And I read your father’s work, and glad to know a few. This is a really interesting story as well, in how the two people are struggling together to—I’ve done some writing on this myself earlier in my career—to find their way, to not lose their identity, to balance tradition, but to be of the modern world. This is not so much about Israel-Palestine, but this is an important story. But if we focus on, in particular, North Africa—and this would apply to Egypt to some extent, as well—this meant for the Jewish populations of those societies less of an alliance in the service of a joint struggle that they’re both engaging in, and more—it gets mixed up with colonialism. The Jewish elite, and to some extent, the Jewish masses becomes very European in their orientation. And so as we look to the evolution, the story isn’t quite as happy as—both of these peoples have common concerns. They’re facing them at the same time in history in response to the same stimuli from Europe. And, my goodness, the dialogue between them is enriching. And we have examples of that. But, I would say that it isn’t—and for at least the Maghreb, where there are half a million Jews—it’s not the most important part of the story. This quest for modernization in the end doesn’t build alliances with the Muslims in those countries. There are exceptions, but as a generalization. But rather, puts them if not politically—and sometimes it is political—but at least culturally on the side of the Europeans. And the divide between the indigenous Jewish population and the indigenous Muslim Arab population actually grows. So, just a few things to—food for thought. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Tarek, let’s go to you first, I think. EL-ARISS: Yeah. I mean, Mark, I think it’s a—I also need to push back against your comment. (Laughs.) But, I think it’s obviously a more complex story. I mean, a lot of the Palestinians are also studying at the Syrian Protestantn College in Beirut, a lot of Lebanese from out Lebanon are in Cairo founding Al-Ahram. So, the way you locate cultural development or Nahda, but the way you define center and periphery, I kind of—I contest this binary. And I think it’s a much more complex picture. And you have the movement across that region. I mean, you have also people who are writing in exile in France. You have people who are in Russia studying a lot of Lebanese Greek Orthodox, for instance, and Palestinians. So, we need to think territorially, but also in terms of that region itself as kind of engaging with these questions of modernity in interesting ways. And of course, it’s a complex relation to modernity. I mean, there is a pull. There is a rejection. There is a fascination. But if you look at it as a whole comprehensively, you see those kind of movements that we try to capture in our class. HESCHEL: So, Mark, of course I know who you are, and I know your work and admire it greatly. And far be it for me to—(laughs)—answer the questions that you yourself write about. I’d just say that of course I agree with you. And we—in our class—when we do talk about these issues, we range from everything from Jessica Marglin’s work to The Rabbi’s Cat. And I think one of the big problems we focus on is the Crémieux Decree, and that has larger resonances, in fact; the significance—the political significance of something like that, how that is to be evaluated and how something like that actually recurs throughout the course of Jewish history with often very dire consequences that you pointed out. So, thank you for the comment, and thank you for your work. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question, a written question from Alison Brysk at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She’s a professor of global governance. She appreciates your model but has had different disturbing experiences teaching contemporary poli-sci, and IR, and human rights classes on a very politicized campus. My whole agenda is universalism, context, international humanitarian law for all sides. But, about half of my students are simply locked into preexisting identities and convictions and will complain when I try to present a basic range of perspectives and evidence on roots of the conflict. Do you have any suggestions for the beleaguered public university when students experience humanistic history as hate speech? I don’t know who wants to start. HESCHEL: Go ahead, Tarek. EL-ARISS: This is something we also struggle with. I mean, this question of the universal; come back to it. That’s, of course, the critique of the universal as Eurocentric, as only covering or being framed along very specific political lines that exclude the other or that does not represent people who might come from, to come back to Mark’s term, the periphery in some way, whatever that periphery is. But again when you are thinking about conflict, how do you work outside of that framework? I mean, this is also the question. So how—we need it in order to think of a community of—we need to think of—do the critique of universality, but also take the good things, because we also have human rights. So, how are we going to talk about human rights? How are we going to talk about things that matter for everyone that we all need to care about and be mobilized if we only situate forms of identity or rights in the particular, and the particular that is defined in very specific ways? And I think there should be teachable moments like, OK, you don’t think—let’s ask the students or let’s organize teach-ins about, what do they mean by certain terms? I mean, I think we use terms and concepts really without knowing what they truly mean, or what their histories are. I mean, we are at the university. This is the place to actually engage and say what this kind of humanism or universality that is seen as Eurocentric and exclusive in many ways, then what is its history? How—did it not also influence the way people in that part—in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, different parts of the world where they also think of themselves as modern subjects and as claimants to particular rights and traditions, and so forth? So, I know where we are. I mean, I understand the, kind of, current moment. But, how do we try to bring it to a level where, OK, what do you mean by this? Ask questions. Listen, but then ask questions, and open it up to a conversation. Maybe the class is about something else, but maybe because of the crisis, the class has to pivot or shift to a different moment that deals with a particular event that is unfolding in the world. HESCHEL: But let me just add that I understand a hundred percent and have experienced it, too. My sense is, first of all, students are very lonely. Identity—that kind of insistence on one’s own identity—is a very lonely position to take. Students will end up saying: You will never understand what it feels like to be me. And that needs to be challenged. It may be, I will never understand you and your identity, but I can help you understand yourself better. I can help you accept relationships with other people, and even be loved by other people. So, there have to be ways to open up and not end with the declaration of identity, and that is a problem. I also would say that a lot of students have a very strong sense of injustice, and I admire that and appreciate it. But, sometimes they get into a state of despair over it, and we need to make sure that we can lift them up and not let them sink into a hole of despair, but to talk in more concrete terms about what they can do and make it a viable engagement with injustice—overcoming injustice. So, those are just a few things. There’s so much more to say about it. But we both have experienced this, and we’re with you. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Next question from Margaret Lewis, who’s at Seton Hall University. Q: Thanks so much. I’m both a professor and an associate dean, so I think about this from several angles. So, I wanted just to think more broadly about navigating the academic discourse. It’s one thing to do that in an intimate course setting where you know the students, they know you. But, I wonder if you have thoughts, both about how to create community conversations or spaces outside of a class when we do have a situation that emerges—for example, not just one we’re having now, but go back to Freddie Gray or anything that’s really rocked our students. And then maybe separately, but if you have thoughts about university messaging, the emails that our students expect us to put out after events and the extent to which those are helpful. And, if so, how to craft them in ways that: Is it expressing care just for the students? How do we try to bring in different stakeholders to give us language that will work across different stakeholders? Any of that would be hugely helpful as we all navigate this. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Tarek, or— HESCHEL: Yeah. I’m not sure it’s a single answer that will address every institution because there are important differences. You say you’re at Seton Hall, which is Catholic, and it’s a different culture on campus. I’m familiar with that; I actually lectured there a few months ago. In terms of the statements, I found that the outrage over many university president statements puzzling initially. And then I realized, I suppose, people were psychologically/emotionally so devastated that it was a displacement, and then a lot of argumentation arose over the precise language of statements. I’m not sure if statements are the way to address emotional devastation or catastrophe. And the statements that were quite formal in the language, or politically oriented, perhaps that wasn’t the way to do it. I’m not sure—I haven’t been an administrator—exactly how to formulate it, but I think that’s—in those kinds of moments, that’s what people are looking for, some sense of support. I also think it’s important at the convocation in the fall—Tarek and I were discussing this earlier—for the university to make its message clear, the mission: What are you supposed to be doing here, undergraduates, at this university for the next four years? This is what we want to offer you. And then, at some point later on, have the students write something. What they’re looking for because the only essay you have from them really is for the admissions. And once they arrive, it would be good to hear from them: What do you want to get out of these four years? What do you want from your classes, from your professors, and so on? And then finally, I’d just say that the atmosphere in the classroom is very important—friendly, happy, a joyous atmosphere throughout the semester—to keep the students together as a group having a good time, feeling that they’re there for each other, forming a community. We find that very important when we’re teaching a class that can, in fact, give rise to terrible conflict. We want to avoid that. So, we bring cookies. We have an open door in our office. We have conversation. So, again, the atmosphere. Tarek, go ahead. EL-ARISS: Yeah. No, and I think also we need to rethink, I mean, outreach. We also go to the students. We go to different religious groups, different houses. I went. Susannah went. We go also into their own spaces. We don’t just organize the event and say come; we go to them. And when we bring people—we’ve organized a couple of forums and we brought some people from outside, and we said—we organized breakfast with the students. We have organized places where the students also feel comfortable. And it’s very important, this question of space and you going to them. And they, then, are hosting you on their own—their own dorms or their own whatever—houses and so on. I think that’s very important. And also, the administration is not—the more I think about it, it’s not one thing. It’s not like the administration is this abstract thing, like a tower in the middle of campus that’s—I mean, I’m also the administration. Susannah is also the administration. I mean, my office is open to these students. They come. I listen to them. Some of them are not happy with the way things are going. I comfort them. I sometimes transmit their messages to higher-ups and say this—and who ask me, actually, how are the students doing? And I say, I met with so-and-so, and he said this, or she said that. And also, I have say, okay, I have this kid that said, you’re going to run the Arabic Club this term, or you’re going to help me on this research dealing with these questions, because I also have the ability to recognize some of the things they’re struggling with. So, the administration, we have to—or how the university responds—has to be rethought, and also support organic processes that are already happening. Who among the faculty are in conversation? What can the administration do to give them more support, to highlight more what they’re doing? So, I mean, we’re seeing some efforts that are coming from high up, from the top down; like, OK, we’re going to have a task force and start dialogue. But, I think it’s important that the administration responds to what faculty are doing and supports it. So, support these organic processes, these community-building processes that, I think, are much more effective and are more likely to produce results than some sort of, kind of a, let’s bring a consultant and tell us what we have to do, and then form this committee, and then make everyone go through more drills about how to be a good citizen in this university. I don’t think that is effective. I don’t think it’s effective in—also in other contexts that we’ve been experiencing on campuses. FASKIANOS: I’m going to take a written question from Mark Diamond which is—I think follows onto this, from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles: Could both of you share your thoughts about academic freedom on college campuses, especially as it relates to discourse on Israel and Palestine? When, if at all, is student or faculty discourse on campus out of bounds and poses a threat to others in the university? HESCHEL: Well, I can’t address the legal issues. I know that each university has a set of standards and so forth, and they may well vary. I know one college president of a Catholic university told the students: You may hold a prayer vigil, but you may not hold a demonstration. And that was that. So, that I don’t think happens everywhere, but that was one example. What is out of bounds? What’s out of bounds is, I would say first of all, people who don’t know very much about the topic that they’re addressing or screaming about. So, I begin with that. I was talking to some colleagues about this. Don’t teach a course if you don’t really know the subject or limit the course to what you know. I would encourage students who are deeply concerned about a political conflict to take courses on that conflict to get some background. We also encourage our students to think about what they can do in the future. Making a demonstration on a college campus is exciting, but actually, it can be more important to work for a political candidate, for example. To do canvassing and do work for an NGO, or come to Washington and be an aide at a congressional office. So, pointing that out to an 18-year-old is sometimes very helpful. Telling them that they can actually do something very concrete and powerful—not just on the college campus, but on the national level of politics. And then, I would say, yes, in terms of the kind of language and out of bounds, that’s really our point of our work. We wanted to demonstrate to the campus how to have a dialogue that’s respectful, that’s polite—even if we disagree—and that we talk to one another at a university in a way that’s different from the kind of conversation one has at a restaurant with your friends. We also emphasize that there’s a distinction between private and public. I may have some pretty strong views that I tell my family or my close friends—I’m not going to tell the whole world. That would be highly inappropriate. I think faculty need to be professional, and so do students. Once you’re in a university, you have to be a student. That’s a particular role, an academic role, and that, also, should be outlined to students when they’re admitted to the university, or at the fall convocation. Professional behavior is something we expect from everyone—from a doctor, a lawyer, a plumber, an electrician. I don’t want vulgar, sexist jokes when I’m consulting a physician, for example. And I don’t want a certain kind of language from faculty colleagues. So, these are basic standards of behavior that I think have been eroding in recent years, and we need to come back to them. EL-ARISS: Yeah, but we also understand that the university itself, the education and mission and the university as an institution, is no longer correspond to the model that we also study, or the Humboldt model, or the creation and the formation of the national subject. So, there is also something about the university itself that is shifting in terms of use, I mean, people say, if you also look at statistics about what people think of higher education in the U.S. and so on. So, there is a lot of questions about the university. What is the university? I mean, a lot of kids come to the university, they already know more than we do about a lot of things. They have technology on their side. Some of them are making money from apps that they created, and they talk to their parents, and they say is it really a good investment or not? So, also, we have to acknowledge that there is something about the university that—the humanistic tradition and the liberal tradition—that perhaps is no longer functioning in the same way that we imagine it to be. And we need to take this challenge seriously. And is the green a place where you take your students when it is nice out if you are in Ithaca or Ann Arbor—(laughs)—in April or end of April to do the class outside because you are missing the sun, or is the green a place of protest now, or identity affirmation. So, there are real fundamental questions about the university, and about our mission, and about our classrooms, and it’s not an either/or, it is not either this or that. How do we kind of bring the community into a space of negotiation where I understand that this is what the students are feeling right now, and they are angry, and they want to express themselves in an embodied fashion, and really do something about the world because we also expect them, when we ask them to apply how they are going to change the world. So, we also set them up for it. And so, we need to have a conversation about that. This is a moment of crisis, but it’s a moment of self-reflection that I think is really important to have—every university needs to have it, and it could have been some other crisis unfolding. But, I think this is an opportunity to ask these questions and have these conversations among—and Susannah was just we were talking today that we should have these conversations about—with faculty, with colleagues, cross-generationally, what do people think, how are they teaching, how do they come to the subject that they come to, what are their assumptions, what is the point of the classroom? Is it the political platform? Is it the place of intellectual inquiry? How do they come together? So, these are important questions I feel like, and this is the moment to ask them and engage them. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Heidi Lane. Q: Thank you very much. The question I have relates to things that I don’t actually experience in professional military education, but I have in teaching in universities like Dartmouth. And the question is, what do you think Dartmouth, or universities in general, should be doing to help faculty like yourselves engage in this kind of open, trust-building course? That’s the first question—because that really is a pressure that I think a lot of universities and administrators are feeling and navigating that for their faculty is maybe even as difficult as the relationship between the faculty and the students. That’s the first thing. And then the second question is, how do you change your model when you are teaching in, let’s say, an open session that’s like a lecture that is not part of the course? Because it’s one thing to build that trust within your class, within maybe twenty or so students over a semester, but it’s another thing to apply that same model when you are going into an open session and maybe even people from outside the campus are coming. So, thank you. HESCHEL: Those are big questions—thank you. There’s much to say. I’ll just say briefly, so on October 9, Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. my phone rang. It was the dean of faculty at Dartmouth calling to tell me that the president of Dartmouth—who was new, Sian Beilock—had asked her to get in touch with me because the president wanted to have dialog on campus. So, too often, I am afraid administrations aren’t really aligned with their own faculty. They don’t know who is teaching what, or who has what expertise, and they don’t turn to faculty in moments like this. And I actually—I’ve seen that happen after October 7 at times when I thought why didn’t the president call the faculty? Get the faculty, who are the ones working with students, to set up the kinds of forums that we held. I think it would have been very helpful. There is sometimes not a close enough relationship at some colleges and universities between administration and faculty, and faculty can actually help a great deal since we’re spending every day with the students in the classroom. So, that’s one thing. I think another issue is, when we hire faculty, we have to make sure we are hiring people who are willing to engage in dialogue. Who are willing to sit down and talk to people, or teach with people, from other programs, people who have different backgrounds with whom they may disagree. If they are willing, and enthusiastically, willing to do that kind of teaching, then I say bravo, hire them. But, those who are unwilling—that’s a problem at a university. If we aren’t talking to each other as faculty, then the institution is going to fall apart. We need to have that engagement; that includes in the sciences, the biologists and the geologists talk to each other. So, we have to foster that and make that an imperative, actually, a criterion for faculty. Are they engaged with one another? Are they open, willing to talk? There is more to say, but Tarek, you go ahead. EL-ARISS: No, I mean, basically recognize where there are efforts and where there are conversations—productive conversations—and see how you can support them; support them financially, support them logistically, get assigned space, fund—I mean, we’re lucky, really. We’re really lucky, I mean, in many ways, to have each other, but also to have an administration that was very receptive and very supportive, and said, what do you need? How can we help you to continue to do this? And that was very important. And they understood that, and they recognized—they knew us but we were kind of, I would say, a bit under the radar, and there is a new administration and new kind of leadership. So, again, it’s like, immediately they recognized that, OK, they are doing something, and what can we do to support it? How can we make it grow? How can we—and they continue to do that. And we took the initiative. We also went on a retreat to think about courses, to think about people we want to invite. So, I mean, I think it’s important that you have an administration, who are on the ground—(laughs)—are talking to faculty, who have their hand on the pulse and see where these collaborations are, and then try to figure out ways where—again, the changes are not coming from some cookie-cutter model that’s coming from the outside and being imposed on the campus, on the faculty, but actually—I mean, I’m a literary critic, and I always tell the students read the text; like do a close reading. So, do your close reading and see what is happening, and then from there, you move to the theoretical. No, don’t impose the theory on the situation, but rather let it come out of what is happening on the ground. And I think—so, this requires this different administrative direction from what we’ve been witnessing, which is bringing people from outside and training us in all kinds of ways to be better teachers, and more humane, and so on. And that’s taking the place of a lot of the things we do like the humanity especially—(laughs)—which is supposed to be doing that. So, recognize and build these infrastructures of support by recognizing what is happening on your campus, and the particularity of your campus, and your student body, and your geographic location. HESCHEL: What Tarek is trying to emphasize is that what’s important for the college is teaching that engages students in a dialogue, that brings students from different positions together, that that’s what should be recognized as the most important innovation in teaching and the most important thing for the future of the college and for the students, and not the size of the classroom, let’s just say, yeah? FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Karen Jackson-Weaver who is associate vice president of global inclusive faculty engagement and innovation advancement at NYU, and she also comes as a former dean at both Princeton and Harvard Kennedy School. So, she thanks you both for the important framing of your collaboration in the work you’ve done at Dartmouth. My sense is that the kind of sophistication and complexity that Professor Heschel mentioned that is very much needed is missing in academic discourse and in many conversations taking place on college campuses. Do you have any suggested guides or resources that you can share, which have been useful in the Dartmouth community and elevate the discourse in a meaningful way? HESCHEL: Look, that’s a great question, and it’s going to be waking me up in the middle of the night because I’m going to think of some things to tell you. But I would just say that I come to this because I wrote book about a Jewish scholar writing about the Jewishness of the New Testament, Jesus in the context of Judaism, and so on. Abraham Geiger was his name—and how the Christians responded to his arguments—very negatively, very critical—and he responded to them, and so on. So, there was a kind of engagement that I analyzed very carefully, something primarily from the late 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s, and that gave me a way of sort of understanding the subtlety of arguments, how they were perceived in the moment. So, that trained me to look for things like this, and I think that’s what I bring to this kind of situation: this way of trying to engage in—yeah? EL-ARISS: Yeah. I mean, my simple answer would be us. (Laughs.) But, we’ve actually been working on coming up with some dialogue, reflections on dialogue, or some resources that might—about this because this is also something that we’re thinking about—not about what we’re doing, but also as some sort of values that I think are important, not just for us, for our campus, and for the different constituencies on our campus who want to engage in this, who want to organize events dealing with these questions. So, I think eventually we will develop something, but this is not—I mean, really, we were just doing our normal work and—(laughs)—working on the—( HESCHEL: Yeah, but I would say that we understand that fields develop by engaging with different disciplines, with different theoretical models. That’s how we move ahead in a field. So, I would say, first of all, to any faculty member, think about how your field has developed and what has generated new ideas. What’s made it exciting is to engage with others; not to simply hide in its own corner. OK. FASKIANOS: OK, I’m going to go next to Stephen Zunes, with the raised hand. (Pause.) Yeah, we can hear you. Can you hear us? Q: OK. How about now? EL-ARISS: Yes. HESCHEL: Yes. FASKIANOS: Yes, we can. Q: OK, hi. I’m Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco. I’ve been teaching Israel and Palestine for over thirty-five years now, and there’s been a big shift in, sort of, the assumptions that students come in with. I mean, when I first started teaching, pretty much every student was familiar with the Israeli narrative, but not really aware of the Palestinian narrative, so I had to bend over backwards to make sure they knew that, as well. Today, if anything, it’s the other way around. It’s been quite striking, the shift—generational shift. I mean, maybe because the larger percentage are people of color. These people—this is a generation where black lives matter, indigenous rights—whereas our generation where the nationalism was a progressive force, and many of us saw Zionism as a national liberation movement for Jews. Nationalism seems more of a reactionary force to today’s youth of the Eastern Europe, and everything else, and Israel is seen more as a colonial settler-state. And, I was wondering, since it appears you all have been teaching this for a while, too, I was wondering if you’ve noticed similar shifts, and how you might have adjusted your teaching in light of this. EL-ARISS: I think—I don’t know, I think a lot of our students come—they don’t know a lot about this, and maybe this is where we are, or different campuses. I mean, there are some students who know and who are engaged. But I think what we try to do is that we try to kind of give them the longer history of this, so take them back to the eighteenth century, nineteenth century, and to see where they ended up—so not to kind of focus—like, we have colleagues who teach, like, Israel—the politics of Israel-Palestine and focus on the contemporary conflict, so they are more—(laughs)—they can tell you more about what the students say about those particular narratives. But, the students who come to us really don’t know anything beyond like the contemporary conflict if they know anything. So, we try to take them to places that really are uncharted—Damascus affair, the Dreyfus affair—I mean, Max Nordau on early Zionism. I mean, so texts that are foundational—and then they take politics of Israel-Palestine, and then they engage it, and they have a different understanding. So, we try to do the kind of earlier work to open up those narratives, so we’re not just simply pro-Palestinian, or pro-Israeli, or outside of these just simple binaries. We kind of take them even to open a wider horizon. HESCHEL: I would just add that I think—I’ve also noticed what you’ve noticed. There seems to be, also, just a wide rift generationally on these political issues and on many others as well, of course. And what I found in the course that I taught together with Jonathan Smolin in the fall on the 1967 war, sometimes called the Six-Day War, students came in and they thought they knew something—on both sides, by the way—but it turns out they didn’t. So, that’s one thing—to show students what they don’t know; that what they know is only a drop in the bucket, and there is so much more. Also, to show them that whatever you think there is something new that comes in that actually contradicts that assumption because there is so much evidence coming from so many different parts of the world—because it’s not ever really about just Israel and Palestine; it’s about nearly every other country one can think of, from the United States to China. So, the complexity is something. And then another—finally I want to say, sometimes students come in and they are looking for somebody to blame. That’s something important for us to address. This is not about blaming one side or the other, and sometimes, for example, yeah, one side is bad and one side is good. Sometimes both are bad. And when both are bad, I tell them. Even someone who has committed a terrible crime, don’t you still care about that person that is still a human being, who should be treated with dignity? So, let’s keep that in mind as well. Let’s remember that even those who do terrible things, nonetheless, these are human beings. There are reasons for it. Let’s figure that out, let’s see what we can do about it. But, don’t just dismiss it and say, oh, well, they’re terrible; let’s walk away—so to keep the students engaged all the time, to show the complexity, to show that it’s more and more and more complex, involving so many different groups, and not try to reduce it to bad guys, good guys, this one is to blame, this one is the innocent. Nobody ultimately, in politics, is innocent, and nobody is a hundred percent guilty. They become interlocking as we know, and they are doing that dance. What was the line about Fred Astaire danced with—who was it? Not Jane Crawford—Ginger Rogers, but she did everything he did but backwards and wearing high heels. So, there are ways in which each side influences the other, and we have to think about it in those terms as well. They are not separate from each other. So, those are some of the ways we try to overcome the biases that they walk into the classroom with, and we ask them sometimes, how has your mind changed in the last few weeks of the course? Every few weeks ask them that. What changes here when we bring you this document, or this fact that you didn’t know about? And hopefully they will experience the class as something uplifting and exciting, and that they will know that they are coming away as a different person with so much more knowledge. So, thanks for the question. FASKIANOS: And with that, we are at the end of our hour. I’m sorry that we couldn’t get to all the questions, raised hands, but I can say that I wish I were at Dartmouth and could take your class. (Laughs.) So, maybe perhaps you should do it and have it be available online to a broader group. I don’t know. (Laughs.) It’s a thought. Thank you very much, Tarek El-Ariss and Susannah Heschel, for this wonderful hour. We do appreciate it. And to all of you for your questions and comments. And we encourage you to follow us at @CFR_academic on X and visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analyses on global issues. And we look forward to your continued participation in CFR programs. So, thank you again. (END)</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240124_Higher%20Education%20Webinar-%20Navigating%20Academic%20Discourse%20on%20Israel%20and%20Palestine_OTR_0.mp3" length="60434279" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240124_Higher%20Education%20Webinar-%20Navigating%20Academic%20Discourse%20on%20Israel%20and%20Palestine_OTR_0.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jan 2024 20:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Academic Webinar: The Globalization Myth</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/academic-webinar-globalization-myth</link> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240117_Academic%20Webinar-%20The%20Globalization%20Myth_OTR_1.mp3" length="58604772" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240117_Academic%20Webinar-%20The%20Globalization%20Myth_OTR_1.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jan 2024 18:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Young Professionals Briefing: What to Worry About in 2024</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/young-professionals-briefing-what-worry-about-2024</link> <description>Panelists discuss potential and ongoing crises that may erupt or escalate in 2024, as well as their global political implications. This event will explore the results of CFR’s 2024 Preventive Priorities Survey. </description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240117_YoungProfessionalsBriefingWhattoWorryAboutin2024_OTR.mp3" length="88552876" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240117_YoungProfessionalsBriefingWhattoWorryAboutin2024_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:45:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>What to Worry About in 2024</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/what-worry-about-2024</link> <description>Panelists discuss potential and ongoing crises that may erupt or escalate in 2024, as well as their global political implications. This event will explore the results of the 2024 Preventive Priorities Survey, which will be available on CFR’s website on Thursday, January 4, 2024.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240109_What%20to%20Worry%20About%20in%202024_OTR.mp3" length="70223175" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20240109_What%20to%20Worry%20About%20in%202024_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>The Laws of Armed Conflict and Ethics in the Israel-Hamas War</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/laws-armed-conflict-and-ethics-israel-hamas-war</link> <description>As military operations resume in Gaza, panelists analyze the application of the laws of armed conflict, ethical and moral considerations, and the complexity of applying these principles in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231219_The%20Laws%20of%20Armed%20Conflict%20and%20Ethics%20in%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War_OTR.mp3" length="84858788" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231219_The%20Laws%20of%20Armed%20Conflict%20and%20Ethics%20in%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:15:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Higher Education Webinar: U.S. International Academic Collaboration</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/higher-education-webinar-us-international-academic-collaboration</link> <description>Jenny Lee, vice president for Arizona International, dean of international education, and professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona, leads the conversation on U.S. international academic collaboration and how U.S.-China tensions are affecting higher education. FASKIANOS: Welcome to CFR’s Higher Education Webinar Series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today’s discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We’re delighted to have Jenny Lee with us to discuss U.S. international academic collaboration. Dr. Lee is vice president for Arizona International, dean of international education, and professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona. She is also a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Lee formerly served as a senior fellow of NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, as chair for the Council of International Higher Education, and as a board member for the Association for the Study of Higher Education. And she has also served as a U.S. Fulbright scholar to South Africa, as a distinguished global professor at Korea University, and as an international visiting scholar at the City University of London, the University of Pretoria, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. So, Dr. Lee, thank you very much for being with us for today’s topic. I thought you could begin by giving us an overview of current trends in U.S. international academic collaboration, especially looking at what’s happening with our relations with China. LEE: Sounds great. Well, thank you for the opportunity, Irina. It’s a pleasure to be here and to speak with you and all those listening right now. I’ll speak for about ten or so minutes, and then open it up and engage with the audience. Hopefully, you all have some good questions that will come up during my remarks. So, clearly, we’re entering a very interesting and somewhat uncertain chapter in how we understand the role of higher education globally. So I will begin with some general observation so all our viewers are on the same page. Now, first and foremost, the U.S. is mostly at the top when it comes to the higher education sector. Most of us already know that the United States houses the most highly ranked institutions. And this allows the country to be the largest host of international students and scholars from around the world. According to the latest IIE Open Doors report published a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. attracted over a million students from all over the world. And we’re almost back to pre-pandemic levels. We also host over 90,000 scholars. And the primary purpose for them being here is research, for about two-thirds to 75 percent of them. These international scholars, as well as international graduate students, contribute significantly to the U.S. scientific enterprise. The U.S. is also among the leading countries in scientific output and impact, and the largest international collaborator in the world. In other words, the U.S. is highly sought because of its prestigious institutions, drawing top faculty and students from around the world. And with that comes the ability to generate cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs which further secures the U.S.’ global position in academia. At the same time, of course, we’ve seen China’s economy rise significantly as the country surpassed the United States in scientific output, and more recently in impact as measured by publication citations, and is outpacing the U.S. in the extent of R&D investment. Chinese institutions have also made noticeable jumps in various global rankings, which is a pretty big feat considering the fierce competition among the world’s top universities. What we’re witnessing as well are geopolitical tensions between the two countries that have impacted the higher education sector. While these two countries, the U.S. and China, are the biggest global collaborators—and they collaborate more with each other than any other country—they’re also rival superpowers. As global adversaries, what we are witnessing as well is increased security concerns regarding intellectual theft and espionage. I’m going to spend some time summarizing my work for those who are not familiar to provide some further context. I and my colleagues, John Haupt and Xiaojie Li, also at the University of Arizona, have conducted numerous studies about U.S.-China scientific collaboration. And what we’re observing across these studies is how the scientific pursuit of knowledge, which is fundamentally borderless, is becoming bordered in the current geopolitical environment. International collaboration, long valued as positive-sum, is being treated as zero-sum. Besides the rise of China and the accompanying political rhetoric that posed China as a so-called threat, tensions also grew among accusations, as you may recall, about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and a corresponding sharp increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States. Public opinions about China were not favorable, and thus there was not a whole lot of public resistance when the FBI’s China Initiative was launched in 2018. This initiative basically signaled that anyone of Chinese descent was a potential enemy of the state, including possible Chinese Communist Party spies in our own universities, even though there was no pervasive empirical or later judicial cases that proved such a damaging assumption. Nevertheless, world-renowned Chinese scientists were falsely accused of academic espionage and their careers and personal finances ruined. In my research that followed with Xiaojie Li, with support from the Committee of 100, we surveyed about 2,000 scientists in the U.S.’ top research universities during the China Initiative. And we found that one in two Chinese scientists were afraid that they were being racially profiled by the FBI. We also observed that consequently scientists, especially those with Chinese descent, were less inclined to collaborate with China, less inclined to pursue federal grants, less inclined to even stay in the United States but rather to take their expertise to another country where they felt safer to pursue their research, including in China. In sum, the federal government’s attempts to weed out possible Chinese spies was highly criticized as a damaging form of racial profiling affecting even U.S. citizens and, in the end, undermined the U.S.’ ability to compete with China. Especially now, as we continue to observe Chinese scientists leaving the U.S. and taking their skills and talents elsewhere. With John Haupt and two academics at Tsinghua University in China, Doctors Wen Wen and Die Hu, we asked about two hundred co-collaborators in China and in the United States how were they able to overcome such geopolitical tensions and the challenges associated with COVID-19 during the pandemic? And we did learn something somewhat unexpected, and I hope valuable. Basically, we found that mutual trust between international collaborators helped overcome such perceived hurdles, including risks of being unfairly targeted. What this tells us is that a chilling effect is certainly real and remains possible, but in the end scientists have tremendous agency on what they study, where they study, and whether or not they seek funds, or where they seek funds. Regardless of the host or home country, international collaboration is important to all countries’ scientific enterprise. Coauthors from different countries improve the knowledge being produced, its applicability, enlarges global audiences, and thereby increases the impact of the work. So considering the value, yet risks, where do we begin? Firstly, federal and institutional policies, of course, matter, for better or for worse. But policies do not manufacture trust. The formation of an academic tie does not suddenly occur over a cold call in the middle of a global meltdown, as often portrayed in Hollywood. Rather, this is a gradual process. And the longevity of the relationship helps strengthen that trust over time. According to our research, these collaborative relationships begin as graduate students, postdocs, visiting researchers. They occur at academic conferences and other in-person opportunities. Cutting short-term fellowships, for example, will impact the potential of a future scientific relationship, but its effects may not be felt for years. Same with denied visas and opportunities for travel. Fewer graduate students from particular countries or fields also means a different shape when it comes to global science. U.S. for instance, was not too long ago Russia’s biggest foreign scientific collaborator, with the war in Ukraine, those research relationships, as well as much—with much of the Western world, have ceased. All of this, and my related empirical research, was conducted when I was a professor at my home institution. And since July, I’ve been serving, as Irina mentioned, as the dean and vice president of international affairs at my own institution. And I’ve been thinking a lot of, what does this mean for institutional practice? For those in university leadership positions, as mine, you know this is a tough challenge. Especially as domestic demand and state funding for higher education is generally declining. And at the same time, internationalization is increasingly central to senior leadership strategies. Universities are continuing vying to attract the world’s students, even despite a decline of interest from China. And at the same time, research universities in particular are quite dependent on federal grants. We have our own research security offices that need to ensure our universities have good reputations and relations with our large federal funding agencies and taking every precaution to not be seen as a vulnerable site of intellectual theft. These units tend not to operate within international affairs. And I’m very well aware that in my role of trying to attract as many students from China and develop international partnerships, all of them can be suddenly erased if a Chinese University partner does not pass visual compliance or there is a sudden presidential executive order, as we experienced under the Trump administration. I’m also very well aware that of senior leaders have to choose between my educational offerings and partnerships in China versus risking a major grant from a federal agency, I will lose. We witnessed that with the shutting down of over 100 Confucius Institutes in the U.S., despite a lack of evidence of systematic espionage occurring through these centers. Public perceptions, informed or not, strongly affect the nature of our international work, as in the case of Florida. Such negative perceptions are not one country-sided, of course. A key concern for Chinese and other international students and their parents relate to safety. Gun violence, including on our own college campuses, anti-Asian hate crimes in surrounding neighborhoods, and unfavorable political environment in which studies might be interrupted as in the case of Proclamation 10043, or visa non-renewals are all contributing factors for the decline of interest from China, and uncertain future student exchange as well. In closing, when it comes to China these days no practices are guaranteed. However, I can recommend some while also keeping in mind geopolitical conditions can suddenly change for worse, or perhaps better. I mentioned earlier the value of mutual trust. At my university, we have long-standing relationships with university leaders at Chinese institutions. We’ve set up dual degree programs in China. Actually, about 40 percent of our international student enrollment are through such partner relationships throughout the world, in which we go to where they are. Hiring staff who speak the language and know the culture are also essential. And, like any relationship, these arrangements have developed over time. They are not built overnight. It takes intention. It takes effort. But in my experience, as trust is established the numbers have grown, and the positive impact is still being felt. Thank you. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much for that. That was terrific. Let’s go now to all of you for your questions, comments. You can use this to share best practices and what you’re doing to your universities or institutions. Please click the raise hand icon on your screen to ask a question. On your iPad or tablet, you can click the “more” button to access the raise hand feature. And when you’re called upon, please accept the unmute prompts, state your name and affiliation, followed by your question. You can also submit a written question, they’ve already started coming in, by the Q&A icon. And if you can also include your affiliation there, I would appreciate it, although we will try to make sure we identify you correctly. So let’s see. I’m looking for—no raised hands yet, but we do have questions written. So first question from Denis Simon, who’s a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Many U.S. universities have curtailed their exchanges and cooperation with China. You referenced that. Officials at these universities are worried that if they appear too friendly toward China they will lose all sorts of federal funding. Are these concerns justified? Are there any regulations or legislation that actually says federal funding can be removed assuming these universities are in compliance with the export controls, et cetera? LEE: All right. Well, thanks, Denis, for your question. I know there—when I saw the list of those who signed up, I know there are many here who can speak to this directly. So I encourage those to also raise their hands and provide input in the Q&A, maybe in the form of an A instead of a Q. But in any case, going to that question, you know, it’s a tough environment. And so much in my role, but what I even experienced in my research, is about that perception, that overinterpretation. So maybe signaling that we have this exchange program might draw attention in ways that might lead to suspicions that, oh, well is this, you know, somehow creating an opportunity for us to disclose military secrets? I mean, that’s where we take it. A friendly exchange or visit is oftentimes now having to be scrutinized and ensuring that there is no remote violation of export controls, even in educational delivery in a non-STEM field. And what we’re seeing is that this—we have our highly sensitive fields, but that kind of scrutiny we’re also seeing applied to the institution more broadly. So these seemingly benign programs about language or culture, about fields that are enhanced or help promote so-called American values, are also being watched. So I believe as an institutional leader, again, as I mentioned earlier, having to deal with the possibility of unwanted or unwarranted attention versus not having that program, I think some, as Denis has pointed out, are leaning towards being more cautious. Unfortunately, China—any work with China is considered a risk, even if there is no reason for risk, as we’ve witnessed under—or, observed under the China Initiative. I don’t know if I’ve fully answered that question, but please follow up if I haven’t. And I know others can probably say more to that issue. FASKIANOS: Great. I’ll take the next question from Peter—I don’t know how to pronounce— LEE: Peter Becskehazy. Hi, Peter. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: There you go. Thank you very much. LEE: I know Peter. FASKIANOS: All right. Good. Well, I’d love if Peter asked his question directly, if he can. Oh, good. From Pima Community College. Go ahead, Peter. Q: Hello, Jenny. Nice to see you. LEE: Hi, Peter. Q: Now my question is, the University of Arizona and other universities have had an inflow of dozens of countries, adding up to the million that you mentioned. Are other countries trying to fill in slots left vacant by Chinese students and scholars? LEE: Yeah. Great question, Peter. And I think you can also share what you’ve observed at Pima in terms of the patterns you’ve witnessed. But for us, and as we are seeing nationally, we’re seeing India rise. Not at the—not at higher numbers in many institutions, compared to China, but the rate is rising. It’s not so simple, though, because we also have relations in India, and trying to set up agreements, and bring students. The competition in India is intense. So even though there’s a relatively so-called large market, and the U.S. has been quite successful in attracting Indian students, that is perhaps where the attention is as a more, I would say—I hate to use the word “market,”—but a stable student market. There’s a lot more interest in graduate-level education globally, as we’ve observed. These countries that formerly didn’t have capacity now do have capacity. They have online offerings. They have branch campuses, dual degrees, lots of other options. And so the niche for the U.S., whereas before we didn’t really have to think about a niche, is really in graduate education. Now, of course, that’s not good news for Pima, that’s thinking about a community college and other kinds of educational offerings. But for us, we’re thinking about India a lot. Southeast Asia, of course, has always been an important partner to us. Africa continues to be a challenge. We know that when we think about population growth, Africa is the future. There’s still challenges and trying to identify places where there is capacity. But also the affordability of a U.S. education is a huge challenge. So it’s a great question. And, again, I’m curious to know other places in the world people recommend. Of course, Latin America, given our location, is a key strategic partner. But again, affordability becomes an issue. And again, I’m just talking about the traditional international student who would choose to come to Arizona. Not talking about research collaboration, which is less bound by affordability issues. Irina, you’re muted. FASKIANOS: How long have I been doing this? OK. (Laughs.) I’m going to take the next written question from Allison Davis-White Eyes, who is vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Fielding Graduate University: We have tried to work on collaborations with European universities and African universities, and met with much difficulty. What trends are you seeing in these regions? And what are emerging global markets beyond China? LEE: Great question, Allison. I mean, if you could leave the question in the future, so because I am visually looking at the question at the same time. FASKIANOS: Oh, great. Sorry. LEE: So, Allison, I’m not sure if you’re referring to academic or research. Of course, within Europe, where the government does highly subsidized tuition, it’s just becomes financially a bad deal, I suppose—(laughs)—for a student in the world who would normally get a free or highly reduced tuition to pay full price at our institution. So that kind of exchange of partnership, especially when it’s about—when it’s financially based, becomes almost impossible from my experience. But thinking about research collaboration, it depends on the level. So if it’s an institutional agreement, you know, it’s—often, these MOUs tend to just be on paper. It takes quite a bit of—it’s very ceremonial. You need to get legal involved. It’s a whole process to get an MOU. We really don’t need these non-binding MOUs for research agreements. Some countries like it, just to display that they have an MOU with a U.S. institution. But essentially, it doesn’t stop me as a professor to reach out to another professor at the University of Oslo, and say, hey, let’s do a study. Which we actually are doing. So, yeah, feel free to be more specific, or if you want to raise your hand or speak on—and elaborate on that question. So, again, for educational exchange, it is difficult because we are—there’s already a process within the EU that makes it very affordable and highly supported within the EU, or if you’re part of that bigger program. Africa, again, my challenge from my role as an institutional leader is identifying places where there is already enough mass education up through high school where one would be able to consider, first of all, being admitted to a U.S. institution, but secondly, to be able to pay the cost. FASKIANOS: Allison, do you want to expand a little bit? Q: Oh, sorry. (Laughs.) FASKIANOS: There you go. There you go. Q: Right. Dr. Lee, thank you for your response. I think it was helpful, especially regarding the subsidizing of education in Europe. We’ve been working on some research partnerships. And we have just—you know, really, it has just been extremely difficult with European universities. And I do think part of it has to do with the way things are subsidized in Europe. I was just wondering if there were new and different ways to do it. I do appreciate your comment about the MOUs being largely ceremonial. I agree. And would like to see something with a little more substance. And that will take some creativity and a lot of partnership and work. As for Africa, we have tried to create partnerships with South Africa. I think there’s some potential there. Certainly, some excitement. We’ve had a few students from Nigeria, extremely bright and motivated. I just would—you know, would like to hear, maybe from some other colleagues as well on the call, if there are creative ways in working with these students as well. So, thank you. LEE: Yeah, no. And just to follow up quickly, and, again, opportunities for others to share, academic collaboration, as I mentioned during my remarks, is largely built upon mutual trust. And not to say it can’t happen from top down, but really does—is most successful from bottom up. And I don’t mean to refer to professors at the bottom, but meaning those that are actually engaged with that work. And so just some considerations is rather than a top-down initiative or strategy, is to identify those that are visiting scholars, already from that country, have networks within that country. What’s interesting, as I learned in my current role, is how little my predecessors worked with professors in these area’s studies programs, because they’re oftentimes treated as a separate or having different interests in mind when actually there is a lot of overlap to identify those that are actually there. Allison, by the way, I lived in South Africa for eight years. And I know it actually takes a long time. My Fulbright started off as a one year, and I had to extend it because even getting the data while I was on the ground takes time. And I’ll be honest, I think part of it was taking some time just to build trust the intentions of my work, what was I going to do with that data, how is that going to be used? Was it actually going to be ways to empower them? You know, for those who study international collaboration, know this north and south divide, and I think there are places in the world that are—maybe have some guardrails up from those—not saying this is what’s happening in your institution—but someone that they don’t know coming from the Global North to study someone else in the Global South. And so how do we create or initiate a collaboration that is clearly, expressly mutual at the onset? And, again, this is where trust can be operationalized lots of different ways, but that even begins with that initial message. I mean, I remember when I started my work, nobody responded to me. They’re like, who are you? And I don’t care who you are or what your CV says. And it takes time. You know, building that relationship, and that person introducing me to that other person. Like, you know, this is how scientific networks form. And I think, to some extent, this is also how institutional collaborative relationships also form. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to David Moore, who has a raised hand. Q: OK, thank you. I just got unmuted. FASKIANOS: Great. Q: Lee, I appreciate your comments. And I heard your reference to Florida earlier. I don’t know if we have colleagues on this call from Florida, but I think they’ll know what I’m about to say. I’m the dean of international education at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale. And as of tomorrow, December 1, Florida has to—all institutions in Florida, public institutions, colleges and universities, must be completely devoid of any partnerships in China. And not just China. There are seven countries of concern. And you probably can cite them, most of you would know the other six. But of the seven countries, Broward had four partnerships in China alone, none in the other countries that were active. And so we are now officially done, have to be. And I’ve had to notify the partners as well as our accrediting body, because these were international centers of Broward where they literally offer—we offered associate degrees, two-year degrees. And students could then transfer to an institution in the United States. Now, this didn’t catch us too much by surprise because two and a half years ago our Florida legislature started in on this, really probably before that, where they isolated universities in Florida and said: You cannot do research—sensitive research, whatever, you know, engineering, computer science, et cetera—any research without notifying the state. And there’s an elaborate process that had to be—you know, they had to go through to do this. But now it’s not just research institutions. Now it’s not just those kinds of collaborations. It is, in fact, all partnerships of any kind. We had to end our agent agreements where we were recruiting students from China that were—where the companies were based in China. And in course our programs were not research. They’re just general education, two-year associate’s degree, maybe some business. But we’ve been informed now it’s completely done. And so I’m actually looking for institutions outside of Florida who might be willing to take over the role that we’ve had in transcripting students who later want to come to the United States. At least for the first two years in China, and then transferring to the upper division to the U.S. So I’m not sure. You’re probably quite familiar with this. I don’t know if you know the details of how it was worked out in practice. We were the only community college in the state that had any partnerships. So we were the ones that had to desist. So I want to—there are probably people on the call that are familiar with this, but there might be many others. And I just wanted to say that I’m looking to, you know, open that door to other institutions outside of Florida that might be willing in, yes, take a risk to go into China, but to—I’ve always felt that these kinds of programs were very good to build relationships, partnerships, communication. Ambassadors really. Where we feel like we were representing American education, whatever, you know, we call American values, democracy, you know, community. We thought we were doing good. But we found out we were—we were not. We were—we were doing something that went opposed to the prevailing political climate, at least in Florida. So that’s my comment. I think people should know about it. And thank you for letting me speak to it a bit. Maybe someone will speak up and say they’re interested in they can get in touch with me, David Moore at Broward College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. LEE: David, thank you for sharing what you did. This is a really important example of where other states could very well head. And what’s interesting, as David noted, we’re talking about a community college. When we normally think about cutting ties, it’s usually around the concerns about national security. Now, how this translates to a two-year degree that is solely educational based is a pretty far stretch, and yet is being impacted quite severely. So I think we should continue to follow this example—unfortunate example. And, David, yeah, your partners have reached out to my office, and I’m sure to others. But thank you for being available. Q: You’re welcome. We have partners—we are also working with your Jakarta, Indonesia center there. So we have that connection. Thank you. LEE: Mmm hmm. Thanks. FASKIANOS: And if anybody wants to share contact information in the Q&A box, you can certainly do that. That would be great. There is a written question from Tutaleni Asino at Oklahoma State University: There was an article today in SEMAFOR highlighting that there are currently 350 U.S. students studying in China compared to 11,000 in 2019. Comparatively, there are 300,000 Chinese students in the United States. Is this a one-way problem, where the U.S. is not investing in international engagements as a result of being more inward looking and other countries having more options of who to collaborate with? LEE: Yeah. Tutaleni, that’s—I think your question is an answer. And I think it’s—I agree with your observation. So we are seeing that as there’s state and public disinvestment in higher education, and including scrutiny about international higher education, we’re also seeing a decline and cutting of foreign language programs in the United States. So here we are, a monolingual country whose students mostly go to Europe or other English-speaking countries to study abroad. A very limited number of international—U.S. students who pursue undergraduate degrees in a foreign country. And knowing that the future is global and international, at least in my opinion, does not set the U.S. up well to be globally competitive, even though much of its international policy is around this rhetoric of we need to compete with China. And so you raise a good point. How is this possible if U.S. citizens don’t speak Chinese, or have no interest in learning about Chinese culture, or there’s reduced opportunities even in our own institutions, I think is something to think about and ask more questions about. FASKIANOS: I’m going to take the next question from Zhen Zhu, chair and professor of marketing, director of faculty excellence, and director for international engagement at Suffolk University: How do you see the trend of U.S. students’ interest in study abroad to China? LEE: There is actually growing interest. As many of you know, China—offering Chinese language in high schools is not as unusual as it used to be. There is growing interest as students are thinking about employability in global markets in multinational or international organizations or corporations. It would be fundamental, in fact, for someone who has any interest in international work to pick up the language if they can, and at your own institution. FASKIANOS: Great. Let’s see. From—I’m going to take the next question from Jeff Riedinger: Is there a role for universities to play in knowledge diplomacy to sustain international relationships and collaborations in addressing global problems such as climate change and pandemics when national governments may be at odds with each other? LEE: Thanks, Jeff. And hi, Jeff. I’m just going to read over that question so I can kind of digest it a bit. Is there a role for institutions to play in knowledge diplomacy, such as climate change, pandemics, when national governments may be at odds with each other? Absolutely, 200 percent. It is occurring—knowledge diplomacy, science diplomacy. That one individual going on a Fulbright or coming to study here for some extended visit, having these collaborations and, ultimately, you know, science—knowledge production—I mean, there’s no bounds. And when we think about the kind of research that may not occur because of these national governments are at odds when it comes to addressing climate change or other global issues, you know, the world is paying somewhat of a price when it comes to that in—when there are overarching concerns about national security. So, you know, my issue has always been with policy you overlook nuance, and with sweeping policies that overlook the disciplinary distinctions and contributions, what is lost in the pursuit of trying to stay ahead of another country in fields and areas that really have no economic or military value, right? But yet, have an important cultural value, or maybe will address something bigger, such as COVID-19. So as I mentioned, the work that I referenced earlier about U.S.-Chinese scientists coming together during COVID-19, were actually scientists who studied COVID-19 together. And again, this was not—this was fraught with risks. They were very well aware that there was a lot of scrutiny about any research about COVID-19 coming from China. There was scrutiny about, you know, where the data was held, who was analyzing it, who was funding it. And yet, these scientists took these risks in order to address how does the world deal with the pandemic. And this was based on interviews of those studies that were actually successful and published. This is where that mutual trust, as I’ve mentioned earlier, is so important. And without that mutual trust, these studies, I’m pretty certain, would never have been published, because it was not an easy path when it comes to that particular geopolitical climate during the pandemic. FASKIANOS: Jenny, I’m just going to ask a question. President Biden and President Xi met during APEC. Did anything come out of that meeting that could affect U.S.-China academic collaboration? LEE: Yeah. You know, this is tough. I mean, how do you analyze political statements? What do they really mean? And what is really going to change? I think what’s clear is that there’s an acknowledgment that we’re interdependent, but we’re also adversaries. Almost a love/hate codependent, in a relationship that we can’t just easily separate but we do need each other. But the form that it takes, I think there’s an understanding it needs to be more specific. And I don’t think that has been clarified yet. I realize I missed part of Jeff’s question on what can institutions do? That’s such a good question. And I got more into the topic than the actual to-do. What can institutions do? Honestly—(laughs)—I’ll just speak as a researcher, to back off a bit, right? To let scientists do what they want to do. Yes, we need to follow disclosures. We need to make sure there’s no conflicts of interest. We need to follow all of these procedures. But what I also found during the China Initiative, there was also this chilling climate in which there’s an overinterpretation that may put institutions at risk. And to my knowledge, institutions were not at risk to the extent to which their scientists, especially those of Chinese descent, felt scrutinized. FASKIANOS: Thank you. We have a raised hand from Dan Whitman. Q: OK, I think I’m unmuted. Thank you, Irina. And thanks, Professor Lee, for mentioning the Great Wall that that prevents us from dealing with even Europeans who have subsidized education or Africans who have no money. And just an anecdote, since you have welcomed anecdotes, I am an adjunct at George Washington University. But totally unrelated to that, just for free and just for fun, pro bono, nobody pays, nobody gets paid. A course that I’m giving by webinar, it’s zero cost. The topic is crisis management, but it could be any topic. And in that group, which there are about eighty people who tune in twice a week, fifteen Kenyans, twenty-five Ukrainians, and forty Kazakhs. I mean, I don’t know if there’s ever been exchange between Kazakhstan and Kenya. Anyway, my point is things can be done. We share it for free. What motivates the students? A certificate. It’s so easy to give them a certificate. And in many countries, they very highly value that, even though it’s not a—there’s no formality, there’s no formal academic credit. But the students are very motivated. And possibly, there may be universities in the U.S. that could—that might want to give a professor a small stipendium to do an informal webinar course, which would create connections, which would be zero cost, basically, and would bridge that gap of funding that you’ve alluded to. Thank you. LEE: Yeah. Dan, thank you for that. And I think this leads to a kind of a spin-off comment about certificates. Absolutely. Micro-credentials or alternative forms of education, where there’s maybe not a full-fledged undergraduate degree but some certificate, I think, is important niche, especially for returning adults or communities where they’re not able to afford to take time off. So that flexibility, and obviously now with online education, just becomes so much more accessible and very low cost. Something else to keep in mind, though, is that, depending on the institution you’re from, that will make a difference in certificates. I mean, an institution like George Washington University offering a certificate may have some symbolic or perceived value that may be higher than an institution that is lower or are not ranked at all. So this is where, unfortunately—I’m a big critic of global rankings. But unfortunately, it does play a role in how that certificate is being perceived and the attractiveness of that certificate. But absolutely, this is definitely a way to open access especially for places in the world that just cannot physically move or have the funds to support their studies. FASKIANOS: Great. There are two comments/questions in the Q&A that I wanted to give you a chance to respond to about Africa, from Tutaleni Asino and Fodei Batty. Dr. Asino talks about English is the language of instruction and governments in Africa where they’re funding education to a higher degree, and thinks that there are opportunities there, but it sounds like all fifty-four countries are grouped together. And Dr. Batty talks a little bit about there are a lot of students from African countries pursuing graduate education in the United States. But South Africa is usually an exception to the higher education American norm in Africa. Most South Africans don’t like to travel, especially travel to America. I thought maybe you could just clarify some—respond to those comments. LEE: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing those comments. There’s a book I edited called Intra-Africa Student Mobility. And I agree with the comments. And one of the things I didn’t mention that I think is important to help us understand the broader global context is that there’s actually considerable international activity within the continent. And there’s actually considerable intra-Africa mobility within the continent. South Africa is the most important country player in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is globally ranked—has more globally ranked institutions than any other African country. And so South Africa then becomes an important hub. And, yes, as an English-speaking, among many other languages, country, that does attract African students to go oftentimes for a similar sense of shared culture, despite sometimes different languages and customs and backgrounds. And yet, nevertheless, South Africa is an important player within the continent. Not to say that there is no international mobility occurring, but there is increased capacity within the continent that would allow students and interested students to travel within the continent. Not the same extent, of course, as Europe. But the least we’re seeing that rise over time. And so it’s called Intra-Africa Student Mobility. Chika Sehoole and I coedited the book. We were able to get about eight African scholars to talk about the various reasons students would choose that particular African country, and what draw them. And what was really interesting about this phenomenon is that it goes against this prevailing notion of Africa’s victim of brain drain or all going to the north. That’s actually not what is happening. But that there is capacity building within the continent. So in trying to answer a different question, I skirted over a lot of the things I could go further into. But hopefully that book will shed light on what’s happening within that continent, at least from the perspective of eight different countries. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Thank you for that. I’m going to go next to Jonathan Scriven at Washington Adventist University in Maryland: What are some of the strategies universities are using to make education more affordable in the United States? If that is a challenge, are schools investing more or less in setting up campuses in foreign countries as a way to reach foreign students? LEE: I’m just going to read over that question. OK, yeah. Great question, Jonathan. So what’s happening in my institution and many others is a way to attract students is we’re providing considerable aid, merit aid, financial aid, aid even to international students. The majority may not even be paying the full sticker price. Now this, of course, will affect the revenue that would have otherwise been generated, but nevertheless is a way to deal with the fierce competition across U.S. institutions for these top students. So how to make it affordable? There’s a lot of aid going around at the undergraduate, not just the graduate, levels. And so what are institutions doing? Well, for example, at the University of Arizona for our dual degrees, it’s a fraction of the cost of what it would cost to be a student at our main campus. When you have a combination of hybrid or online delivery with a campus partner maybe providing most of the gen ed’s and then we would teach most of the major courses as an example, that does significantly lower the cost where that student will still get a bona fide University of Arizona degree, just like they would at main campus. So these alternative forms of delivery certainly make it more affordable, especially for those that opt to stay in their home country and receive an online education, or a flipped classroom model, or a dual degree. FASKIANOS: Great. Denis Simon, if you can—why don’t you ask your question? Q: Here I am. OK. Recently, on a trip to China in September, a number of faculty have told me they’re no longer wanting to send their best students abroad. They want to keep them in China. And this is all part of the rise of Chinese universities, et cetera. And so it may not be simply the souring of Sino-U.S. relations that has causal effect here, but simply the fact that China now is becoming a major, you know, educational powerhouse. And that also could change the dynamics. For example, even the BRI countries could start to send their students to China instead of sending them to the United States. Do you see anything evolving like this or—and what might be the outcome? LEE: Yeah. Spot on, David. That halo effect of a U.S. degree is not the same as it was when I was a university student. Chinese students, as well as students in the world, are much more savvy. They have access to information. They have access to rankings. They know all universities are not the same. And they know that they have some institutions that are highly ranked and may offer better quality education than the U.S. So that the image of a U.S. degree, of course, is not as universally perceived as it may have been, I don’t know, pre-internet, or without the—all sorts of rankings in which institutions are rated against one another. And absolutely, Chinese institutions are very difficult to get into, fiercely competitive, producing far more scientific output than some of our leading institutions. And there’s another factor when it comes to Asian culture just more broadly speaking, is that social network tie. Sociologists refer to it as social capital. When a Chinese student, a Korean student, Japanese student decides to study in the United States, they may lose that social tie that may possibly put them in a disadvantage when they decide to come back and compete for a position when they may just have that U.S. credential, but may have either lessened or no longer have that relationship that may have allowed them to get a position at the university, or in a place where that alumni network would have been especially useful. So again, I don’t want to generalize, you know, in any place to the world, but there is that component that I think sometimes is missed in the literature. Maintaining that social network is pretty key, especially as jobs, of course, global, you know, unemployment—places where students are competing for positions need to have every edge possible. So that also can be part of that reason they decide to stay. FASKIANOS: Great. The next question from Michael Kulma, who’s at the University of Chicago. He’s following on David Moore’s comments about Florida: Do you know how many other states in the U.S. are enacting or are considering such policies against partnerships with China? LEE: I do not know the answer. So if anyone wants to raise their hand and share about their own state, or put it on the answer part of the question and answer. There are related concerns about DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Some of that may spill over to China. Hopefully, at some point at the Council of Foreign Relations will have a discussion on Israel and Hamas conflict and how institutions are dealing with that. And so we’re seeing a pretty challenging political environment that is clearly spilling over to our classrooms and to our international activities, our domestic recruitment. But I’m not answering your question, Michael. (Laughs.) I’ll leave it up to someone else to answer. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. So we don’t have very much time left. I thought maybe you could, given your research and expertise, could suggest resources—recommend resources for higher ed leaders and administrators to better understand how to promote collaboration. LEE: Sure. So promoting collaboration, it really—each person at a time. You know, again, MOUs may be signed, and maybe overarching presidents will come together and have an agreement, but there’s no guarantee that will ever happen. I’d love to do a study on how many MOUs never actually materialized into real action. So where do we begin? International affairs SIOs out there, identify who are your area studies experts? Who are your visiting postdocs? Who are your Fulbright scholars from other parts of the world? They all represent their own network and are certainly are valuable resources to consider. What I’ve sometimes have heard even at my own institution is, you know, how do we bring these people to the table? Why are they not at the table to begin with, and then how do we bring them there? And this is a relatively low-cost way to go about this, right? Like, faculty engaged in service. What kind of opportunities can your university provide for faculty service that is aligned with their area of expertise, the areas of the world they represent, the networks they have? And many of—some of you already have experienced this directly. These partnerships often begin with our alumni, international—former international students who decide to go back home. So, again, there’s just a lot of exciting opportunity. I love this field because it’s never boring. There’s always new ways to grow, expand new partners. But it really does begin with that essential element of trust. And that often begins with our own institutions and identifying those who’ve already started to build that network. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your being with us and for sharing your expertise and background, Dr. Lee. It’s been fantastic. And to all of you, for your questions and comments, and sharing your experiences as well. You can follow Dr. Lee on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, at @JennyJ_Lee. I will send out a link to this webinar, the transcript, and the video, as well as the link to the book—your book that you mentioned, and any other resources that you want to share with the group. And I encourage you all to follow @CFR_academic on X, visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. We also—just putting in a plug for our other series, Academic Webinar series, which is designed for students. We just sent out the winter/spring lineup and we hope that you will share that with your colleagues and your students. It is a great way for them to have access to practitioner scholars and to talk with students from around the country. So if you haven’t received that lineup, you can email cfracademic@CFR.org, and we will share that with you. So, again, thank you, Jenny, for being with us, and to all of you. And wishing you safe and happy holidays. And good luck closing out this semester before we get to the holidays. (Laughs.) So thank you again. (END)</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231130_Higher%20Education%20Webinar-%20U.S.%20International%20Academic%20Collaboration_OTR%20%5BCompressed%5D.mp3" length="15663561" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231130_Higher%20Education%20Webinar-%20U.S.%20International%20Academic%20Collaboration_OTR%20%5BCompressed%5D.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 30 Nov 2023 19:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Covering the Israel-Hamas War: A View From Journalists</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/covering-israel-hamas-war-view-journalists</link> <description>Journalists who have lived and reported extensively from the Middle East share their insights and perspectives on covering the Israel-Hamas war.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231130_Covering%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War%E2%80%94A%20View%20From%20Journalists_OTR.mp3" length="59051807" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231130_Covering%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War%E2%80%94A%20View%20From%20Journalists_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 30 Nov 2023 14:30:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Beyond the SCIF: A Conversation on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Reform</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/beyond-scif-conversation-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act-fisa-reform</link> <description>Panelists discuss Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform, including congressional reauthorization of Section 702, which is set to expire at the end of 2023, and the future of surveillance for intelligence purposes. This discussion is part of the “Beyond the SCIF” (sensitive compartmented information facility) meeting series, an effort by House Intelligence Committee members to connect with experts and leaders in the national security field to create an open dialogue on threats facing the United States and ways committee members can counter the malign actions of our adversaries.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231128_Beyond%20the%20SCIF%E2%80%94A%20Conversation%20on%20Foreign%20Intelligence%20Surveillance%20Act%20FISA%20Reform_OTR_0.mp3" length="59082755" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231128_Beyond%20the%20SCIF%E2%80%94A%20Conversation%20on%20Foreign%20Intelligence%20Surveillance%20Act%20FISA%20Reform_OTR_0.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 28 Nov 2023 20:45:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>A Conversation With Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/conversation-secretary-transportation-pete-buttigieg</link> <description>Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg discusses the efforts of the department to coordinate federal transportation projects, improve U.S. infrastructure, and empower the United States to compete on an international level.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231128_A%20Conversation%20With%20Secretary%20of%20Transportation%20Pete%20Buttigieg_OTR.mp3" length="59463658" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231128_A%20Conversation%20With%20Secretary%20of%20Transportation%20Pete%20Buttigieg_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 28 Nov 2023 17:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Academic Webinar: Human Rights in Latin America</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/academic-webinar-human-rights-latin-america</link> <description>José Miguel Vivanco, adjunct senior fellow for human rights at CFR and former executive director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch, leads the conversation on human rights in Latin America. FASKIANOS: Welcome to today’s session of the Fall 2023 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today’s discussion is on the record. The video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org, if you would like to share them with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have José Miguel Vivanco with us to discuss human rights in Latin America. Mr. Vivanco is an adjunct senior fellow for human rights at CFR and partner at Dentons Global Advisors. He formerly served as the executive director of the Americas Division at Human Rights Watch, where he supervised fact-finding research for numerous reports on gross violations of human rights and advocated strengthening international legal standards and domestic compliance throughout the region. He is the founder of the Center for Justice and International Law, an international civil society organization providing legal and technical assistance with the Inter-American Human Rights System. So, José Miguel, thank you very much for being with us today. I thought you could begin by giving us an overview of what you see as the most important human rights challenges and advances in Latin America today. VIVANCO: Well, thank you very much for this invitation. It is a pleasure to be with you all and to talk for an hour about human rights problems, human rights issues in Latin America. Let me first make a couple of points. First, I think it’s very important that, in retrospect, if you look at Latin America in the 1960s, 1970s, and even 1980s, it was a region that was pretty much run by military dictatorships. So if you look at historically, the region is not in such a bad shape. I know that this comment is quite controversial and many experts who follow the region closely might disagree with that statement, but objectively speaking I think we need to recognize that most of the region is run today—with the exception, obviously, of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua—by democracies, weak democracies, the kind of democracies that we have in Latin America are facing very serious challenges and with endemic problems such as corruption, abuse of power, lack of transparency, lack of proper accountability, and so on and so forth. But in general terms, this is a region that has a chance to conduct some self-correction. In other words, electoral democracy is a very, very important value in the region, and the citizens—most of the people are able to either reward or punish the incumbent government at the times of elections. That is not a minor detail. It is extremely important, especially if you take into account that during the last twenty years in Latin America, if I’m not wrong, the vast majority of the governments elected were from the opposition. The statistics, I think, show that in eighteen of the twenty last presidential elections, the winner has been the party of the opposition; which means that even though our democracies in Latin America are dysfunctional, weak, messy, slow, you know, short-term-oriented, obviously, but at least citizens take their rights seriously and they exercise their powers so that is why you see a regular zigzag or, you know, transfer of power from a left-wing government to a right-wing government or vice versa. And that is, again, something that is, obviously, a very, very important tool of self-correction. And that, obviously, includes or has an impact in terms of the human rights record of those countries. You know, I’m not—I’m not addressing yet—I will leave it for the Q&A section—conditions in those three dictatorships in Latin America. Let me just make some few more remarks about one of the biggest challenges that I see in the region. And that is, obviously, the rise of autocracy or autocratic leaders, populist leaders, leaders who are not interested or as a matter of fact are very hostile to the concept of rule of law and the concept of independence of the judiciary. And they usually are very charismatic. They have high level of popular support. And they run and govern the country in a style that is like a permanent campaign, where they normally go against minorities and against the opposition, against the free media, against judges and prosecutors who dare to investigate them or investigate the government. Anyone who challenges them are subject of this type of reaction. And that is, unfortunately, something that we have seen in Mexico recently and until today, and in Brazil, especially during the administration of President Bolsonaro. The good news about, in the case of Brazil, is that, thanks to electoral democracy, it was possible to defeat him and—democratically. And the second very important piece of information is that even though Brazil is not a model of rule of law and separation of power, we have to acknowledge that, thanks to the checks-and-balance exercise by the Supreme Court of Brazil, it was possible to do some permanent, constant damage control against the most outrageous initiatives promoted by the administration of President Bolsonaro. That, I think, is one of the biggest challenges in the region. Let me conclude my—make crystal clear that there are serious human rights problems in Latin America today regarding, for instance, abuse of power, police brutality, prison problems. Prisons are really, in most of the countries in the region, a disaster. And you know, a big number of prisoners are awaiting trial, in detention and unable to really exercise their rights. And unfortunately, populist leaders use the prison system or essentially criminal law, by expanding the practice and enlarging the numbers of crimes that could be subject of pretrial detention, and—you know, regardless of the time that it will take for that case to be prosecuted in full respect for the rule—due process, and so on and so forth. And that—the reason is very simple. There is a real demand in Latin America for policies that will address insecurity, citizen security. If you look at statistics in terms of crime rate, it is going up in most of the country. Obviously, there are big difference between countries like Mexico, for instance, or Colombia, and if you link—if you look at the power of cartels and big mafias, and gangs in other countries, or petty crime impacting the daily life of the citizens. Regardless of that point, one of the biggest demands in Latin America is for better and more public security. And that’s why political leaders, usually the solution for that request and demand is to put people in prison with essentially no real due process and increase the number of prisoners without conviction. There are challenges for free speech occasionally, of those leaders who resent scrutiny of their practice. And normally there is a campaign against free media. And there are some attempts in some countries to constantly look for ways to undermine the independence of the judiciary. Keep in mind, for instance, that now in Argentina the whole Supreme Court is under impeachment, and it’s essentially an impeachment promoted by the current government because they disagree with the rulings, positions of the Supreme Court. All the justices on the Supreme Court are subject of this political trial conducted by the Argentine Congress. That is a concrete example of the kinds of risks that are present for judges and the judiciary in general, when they exercise their power and they attempt to protect the integrity of the constitution. So let me stop here and we can move on to the most interesting part of this event. FASKIANOS: Well, that was quite interesting. So, thank you, José Miguel. We appreciate it. We going to go to all of you now for your questions. (Gives queuing instructions.) We already have some hands up. We will go first to Karla Soto Valdes. Q: My name is Karla Soto. I’m from Lewis University. My question is, what specific measures could be implemented to address and/or prevent trafficking within the asylum-seeking community during their journey to the U.S.? VIVANCO: Irina, are we going to take several questions, or? FASKIANOS: I think we should do one at a time. VIVANCO: Well, Karla, there are multiple tools to address that specific issue. But this applies to essentially most of the human rights problems all over the world. The menu is pretty ample, but depends on one important factor—whether the government involved cares about its own reputation. That is a very important premise here, because if you we are dealing with a democratic government, once again, it’s not—when I refer to a democratic government, I don’t have in mind a sort of Jeffersonian model, I’m referring to the kind of democracies that we have in Latin America. But, if the leaders in charge are—you know, they care about their own reputation, they care about domestic debate, very important, because these types of revelations usually have ramifications at the local level. If they pay close attention to those issues, I think it’s possible to apply, essentially, the technique of naming and shaming. In other words, collecting information, documenting what exactly is happening, and revealing that information to the public, locally and internationally. That is going to create naturally a reaction, a process, an awareness, and local pressure is—hopefully, it’s not just twenty-four hours news, so splash—big splash, but also will trigger some dynamics. If we are dealing with a country that is run by a dictatorship, it is a very, very different question, because normally you’re facing a leader, a government, who couldn’t care less about its own reputation. They have taken already and assume the cost of doing business in that type of context. Now, sometimes conditions are kind of mixed, where you have democratic country in general—so there is still free media, there is an opposition, there is Congress, there are elections. But the government in charge is so—is run by an autocratic leader. That makes, you know, quite—a little more challenging to just document and reveal that information. And you need to think about some particular agenda, governmental agenda. Some specific interests of the government in different areas. Let me see—let me give you an example. Let’s say that the Bolsonaro administration is seriously interested in an incorporation into the OECD in Paris. That is an important piece of information. Whatever you think that is relevant information regarding the record of that government, you could provide information to an entity that is precisely evaluating the record of the government. And the government will be much more willing to address those issues because they have a genuine interest in achieving some specific goal at the international level. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. We’re going to go to Nicole Ambar De Santos, who is an undergraduate student at the Washington University in St. Louis: When we consider weak democracy in a more personal sense, like Peru, the controversy of obligation to help these nations arises. How much third party or other nations, such as the United States, intervene? VIVANCO: Tricky question. Peruvian democracy is quite messy. Part of the problem is that the system, the political system, needs some real reform to avoid the proliferation of small political parties and to create the real link or relationship between leaders, especially in Congress, and their constituencies, and so they are much more accountable to their community, the ones who elected them. I don’t think the U.S., or any other government, has a direct role to play in that area. My sense is that when we are looking into a dysfunctional democracy that deserve some probably even constitutional reforms, that is essentially a domestic job. That is the work that needs to be done by Peruvians. Without a local consensus about the reforms that need to be implemented in the political system, my sense is that it’s going to be very difficult for the U.S. or any other large democracy, to address those kinds of points. It’s very different, that type of conversation, from a conversation or an assessment of universal values, such as human rights. When we are looking into cases of police brutality, for instance, the international community has a role to play. But if I were part of the conversation or evaluation by the U.S. government or the European Union with regard to this dysfunctional democracy in Peru, I would approach very carefully by suggesting creating the right type of incentives, more than questions of punishment, or sanctions. It’s incentives for them to create the right conditions to address the domestic problem that is—has become quite endemic, in the case of Peru. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Matthew. Matthew, you don’t have a last name, so can you identify yourself? Q: Hello. Yes, my name is Matthew. I am a junior student from Arizona State University studying business, but working on a thesis that has to do with human rights and the ethics of supply chain management. My question is, you were talking at the very beginning kind of just about history and how understanding history is important. And what I was hoping to get was, why is understanding history and culture important when working to address human rights issues, history of dictatorship, colonialism? In cultures it’s socially acceptable things, like child labor, in some countries, that’s not acceptable in Western ideology. So, yeah, just how is history and culture important when working to address human rights for the future? VIVANCO: Matthew, I think you’re referring to two different issues. History is central. It’s really, really relevant. Because that helps you—if you—if you follow your history, especially periods of time when massive and gross violations were committed in Latin America, it’s important to put things in context and value what you have today. And the job is to—not only to preserve democracy, but also to look for ways to strengthen democracy. Because part of the problem is that domestic debate is so polarized today, not just in Latin America, all over the world, that sometimes people—different, you know, segments of society—in their positions, they’re so dismissive of the other side, that they don’t realize that we need to frame our debate in a constructive way. Let me put it—one specific example. If the government of Argentina, who is a government very receptive and very sensitive to vast and gross violations of human rights committed during the military dictatorship, so in other words, I don’t need to lecture that government on that subject. They are actually the people who vote for the current government of Argentina—not the new government, the current government of Argentina—is deeply committed to those kinds of issues. I think that one of the biggest lessons that you should learn from the past is the relevance of protecting the independence of the judiciary. If you don’t have an independent judiciary, and the judiciary becomes an entity that is an appendix of the ruling party or is intimidated by politics, and they could be subject of impeachment procedures every time that they rule something, that the powerful—the establishment disagree, I think they’re playing with fire, and they’re not really paying attention to the lessons that you learn from recent history in Latin America. That would be my first comment regarding that type of issue. And the second one, about you mentioned specifically cultural problems, culture, tensions or conflicts. And you mentioned—your example was child labor. And, and you suggested that that—the combination of child labor is something typical of Western ideology. If I’m not wrong, that was the language that you used. I would—I would push back on that point. And because this is not just a Western or European commitment. This is a universal one. And this is reflected on international treaties, and that are supposed to eradicate that kind of practice. If you give up to the concept of local traditions, you know, cultural, you know, issues that you need to pay attention, sure, as long as they are not to be in conflict with fundamental human rights. Otherwise, in half of the planet you’re not going to have women rights, and women will be subject of traditional control. And you wouldn’t have rights for minorities, and especially—and not only, but especially—the LGBTQ community. And you wouldn’t have rights for racial minorities, or different religious beliefs. So, we have to watch and be very careful about what type of concessions we make to cultural traditions. I am happy to understand that different communities in Latin America might have different traditions, but there is some firm, solid, and unquestionable minimum that are the these universal human rights values that are not the property or monopoly of anyone. You know, these are—and this is not an ethical conversation. This is a legal one, because these values are protected under international law. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to combine or take two questions. The first question is from Lindsay Bert, who is at the department of political science at Muhlenberg College, who asks if you could speak on the efficacy of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in addressing the human rights violations you described. And the second question is from Leonard Onyebuchi Ophoke, a graduate student at Cavendish University in Uganda: Why is it almost impossible to hold the actors that violate human rights accountable? What could be done to make the mechanism more enforceable? VIVANCO: The inter-American system of human rights protection, there is nothing similar to inter-American system of human rights protection in the Global South. You don’t have something similar in Asia, or Africa, or the Middle East. In other words, you don’t have a mechanism where ultimately a court, a court of law—not just a commission, a court of law—handle individual cases, specific complaints of human rights abuses, and governments participate in public hearings. The parties involved have the obligation to present evidence before the court, and the court finally ruled on the specific matters where its decisions are binding. The number of issues that have been addressed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the last thirty years in Latin America are really incredible. And the impact—this is most important point—the impact at a local level is remarkable. In the area, for instance, of torture, disappearances. I’m referring to the elaboration of concepts and the imposing the obligation of local governments to adjust their legislation and practice, and to address specific problems or issues by providing remedies to victims. That is quite unusual. And the court has remarkable rulings on free speech, on discrimination issues, on indigenous populations, on military jurisdiction. One of the typical recourse of governments in the region when security forces were involved in human rights atrocities was to invoke military jurisdiction. So they say, no worries, we are going to investigate our own crimes. And the court has been actually very, very firm, challenging that notion to the point that I don’t think there is a single case in Latin America today—once again, with the exception of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, that I hope that somebody will ask me a question about those three countries—and I don’t think there is a single case where today security forces try to—or attempt to shield themselves from investigation invoking military jurisdiction. And the credit is to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I can elaborate, and give you—provide you with a long list of examples of areas where the court has been actually really, really critical in advancing human rights in the region. Let me give you actually one last example that I think is very—is very illustrative, very revealing. In Chile, something like probably twenty years ago or fifteen years ago, full democracy. Full democracy. No Chile under Pinochet. The Supreme Court of Chile ruled that a mother who was openly lesbian did not qualify for the custody of her children because she was lesbian. And she had a couple. So that was sufficient grounds to rule in favor of the father, because the mother didn’t have the moral grounds to educate her own kids, children. And this was decided by the Supreme Court of Chile. Not just a small first instance tribunal. And I will point out that the vast majority of the—I mean, the public in Chile was pretty much divided, but I’m pretty sure that the majority of Chileans thought that the Supreme Court was right, you know? The case went to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. And fortunately, after a few years, the court not only challenged that decision of the Supreme Court, forced Chile to change its legislation, and to change the ruling of the Supreme Court of Chile, which is supposed to be the last judgment in the country. And the impact of that one, not only in Chile, in the rest of the region, because it shapes the common wisdom, the assumptions of many people. It helps for them to think carefully about this kind of issues. And the good news is that that mother was able to have the custody of her kids. And not only that, the impact in Chilean society and in the rest of the region was remarkable. Now, the second question that was asked was about how difficult it is to establish accountability for human rights abuses against the perpetrators of those abuses. I mean, it’s a real challenge. It depends on whether or not you have locally an independent judiciary. If you do have an independent judiciary, the process is slow, it’s messy, it’s complicated. But there is a chance that atrocities could be addressed. And that is— especially human rights atrocities or abuses committed during the military dictatorship. There are countries in the region, like for instance, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, where there are people in prison for those type of atrocities. In Brazil, thanks to an amnesty law that was passed in 1978, real investigation and prosecution of those atrocities actually never happened. And an important lesson that you could bear in mind is that Brazilian military are very dismissive of these type of issues, of human rights issues. But not only that, my sense is that Brazilian military officers at very high level are not afraid of stepping into politics, and give their opinion, and challenge the government. In other words, they were actually very, very active, and I’m referring to top officials in the Brazilian Army, during the Bolsonaro administration. There were top leaders who actually publicly argued that if they have to organize a coup again in Brazil, they are ready. That kind of language you don’t find in Argentina, in Chile, in other countries where there have been some accountability. For one simple reason, the top military officers running the show are very much aware that if they get involved in politics, that they are part tomorrow of a coup d’état or something like that, at the end of the day they will be responsible. And they might be subject of criminal prosecution for atrocities committed during that period. And so there is a price to pay. So their calculation is much more, shall we say, prudent regarding this issue. But again, once again, how difficult it is? It’s very difficult to establish accountability, and much more difficult when you’re dealing with dictatorship, where you need to rely on the work done by, for instance, the ICC, the International Criminal Court, which is pretty active in the case of Venezuela. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Fordham. Q: Good afternoon, Mr. Vivanco. My name is Carlos Ortiz de la Pena Gomez Urguiza, and I have a question for you. El Salvador is currently battling crime and gangs with strategies such as mano dura, which have shown a significant decrease in crime at the cost of violating human rights. Do you see a possible effective integration of such policies in high-crime-rate countries, such as Mexico, to stop the growth of narco and crime gang activity? And if so, how? VIVANCO: Well, look, yeah, Carlos, very good question. Bukele in El Salvador is a real, real challenge. It’s really, really a complicated case, for several reasons. He’s incredibly popular. No question about it. He has managed to—thanks to that popularity—to concentrate power in his own hands. He fully controls Congress. But, much more relevant, he fully controls the judiciary, including the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court today is subordinated to the executive branch. And he is constantly going after the civil society, and free media, and the opposition. Now, in violation of the Salvadorean constitution, he’s going to run for reelection. And he will be reelected, because he’s also very popular. And his policies to go after gangs are cruel, inhuman, and without—not even a facade of respect for due process. Essentially, the policy which is not sustainable and is—I don’t think is something that you could export to other countries—is a policy—unless you have full control, unless you have some sort of dictatorship or quasi dictatorship. Which is based, in essence, in the appearance, in the number of tattoos that people, especially in the marginal communities in the periferia in El Salvador, where shanty towns are located. The police has a, you know, green light to arrest anyone who fit that profile. And then good luck, because it’s going to be very, very difficult for that person to avoid something like several months in prison. The whole point of having an independent judiciary and due process is that law enforcement agencies have the—obviously, not only the right, the duty to prevent crimes and to punish criminals. Not physically punish them. You know, it’s to arrest them, to detain them, and to use proportional force to produce that attention. But they need to follow certain rules. They cannot just go around and arrest anyone who they have some sort of gut feelings that they are involved in crimes, because then you don’t—you’re not—the whole system is not able to distinguish and to make a distinction between potential criminals and innocent people. But it is complicated, the case of Bukele, because, for instance, I was referring initially to the technique of naming and shaming as a technique, as a methodology to expose governments with deplorable human rights record. But in the case of Bukele, he couldn’t care less about. In other words, actually, I think he used the poor perception that exists, already that is established outside El Salvador as a result of his persecution of gangs in El Salvador—he used that kind of criticism as a way to improve his support domestically. In other words, when the New York Times published a whole report about massive abuses committed by Bukele’s criminal system, in the prison system in El Salvador, what Bukele does is to take that one, that criticism, as actually ammunition to project himself as a tough guy who is actually, you know, doing the right thing for El Salvador. It’s a question of time. It’s a question of time. All of this is very sad for El Salvador, one of the few democracies in Central America with some future, I think, because I think they managed after the war to create institutions that are—that were much more credible than in the neighboring countries, like Guatemala, Honduras, and I’m not going to even mention Nicaragua. But under the control of this strongman, everything is possible today in El Salvador. He will be able to govern El Salvador this way as long as he’s popular. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has relaxed its attention and pressure on that government, based on the question of migration. So they are hostage by the cooperation of Bukele government to try or attempt to control illegal immigration into the U.S. So that point trumps or, I mean, supersedes everything else. And that is actually very unfortunate. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next two questions, written questions. One is on the subject that you wanted, from Brittney Thomas, who is an undergraduate at Arizona State University: How come the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are socialist or communist while other Latin America countries are predominantly democracies? And then from Roger— VIVANCO: I’m sorry, I couldn’t understand the question. Obviously, it’s about Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but? FASKIANOS: Why are they socialist or communist while other Latin American countries are predominantly democracies? VIVANCO: Oh, I see. OK. FASKIANOS: Yeah. And then the next question is from Roger Rose, who is an associate professor of political science at University of Minnesota, Morris: Given the recent decline in the norms of U.S. democracy in the last seven years, does the U.S. have any credibility and influence in the region in promoting democracy? And, again, if you could comment specifically on nations with the least democratic systems—Venezuela, Nicaragua—how could the U.S. play a more constructive role than it is currently? VIVANCO: The U.S. is always a very important player, very, very important. I mean, it’s the largest economy in the world and the influence of the U.S. government in Latin America is huge. However, obviously, I have to acknowledge that our domestic problems here and serious challenges to the fundamentals of the rule of law, and just the notion that we respect the system according to which one who wins the election is—you know, has the legitimacy and the mandate to form a new government. If that notion is in question, and there are millions of American citizens who are willing to challenge that premise, obviously undermines the capacity of the U.S. to exercise leadership on this—in this context. And the autocrats and the autocracies in the region—I’m not referring to the dictatorships, but I’m referring to the Andrés Manuel López Obrador, once again, from Mexico, or Bolsonaro in Brazil—they take those kinds of developments in the U.S. as green lights to do whatever they want at local level. So that is a serious—obviously, it’s a serious problem. And what is going on here has ramifications not only in the region, but also in the rest of the world. Now, Cuba is a historical problem. It’s going to be too long to address the question in terms of why Cuba is a dictatorship and the rest of the region. Part of the problem with Cuba is that you have a government that violates the most fundamental rights and persecutes everyone who challenges the official line. And most of the Cubans today are willing to leave the country and to go into exile. But the problem is that we don’t have the right tool, the right instrument in place, to exercise pressure on Cuba. And the right instrument today is the embargo. And that embargo, that policy is a total failure. The Cuban government is the same, exactly the same dictatorship. There has been no progress. And there’s going to be no progress, in my view, as long as the U.S. government insist on a policy of isolation. You should be aware that every year 99 percentage of the states in the world condemned the isolation against Cuba, with the exception and the opposition of the U.S. government, Israel, and in the past was the Marshall Islands. Now, I don’t think even the Marshall Islands joined the U.S. government defending that policy. So the policy is incredibly unpopular. And the debate at international level is about the U.S. government policy on Cuba and not about the deplorable human rights record of Cuba. That’s why I was actually very supportive of the change of policy attempted during the Obama administration. Unfortunately, the isolation policy depends on Congress. And since the times of Clinton, this is a matter of who is the one in control of Congress. And the policy of isolation, it once again makes Cuba a victim of Washington. And Cuba, by the way, is not isolated from the rest of the world. So the U.S. is incredibly, I would say, powerless with regard to the lack of democracy and human rights in Cuba. And at the time, offers a fantastic justification for the Cuban government to present itself as a victim. I think that is the—this is one of the most serious mistakes of the U.S. foreign policy in Latin America that I hope that one day will be—will be addressed effectively. The case of Nicaragua and Venezuela is different, in the sense that we are looking into countries that—Venezuela in particular—have democracy for—a very questionable democracy, very weak, subject of tremendous corruption, and so on and so forth. But they have a system of political parties, free media, and so on, for many, many years. And they end up electing a populist leader whose marching orders and, you know, actually first majors was to establish some effective control of the judiciary. And the Supreme Court became an appendage of the government many, many, many years ago, which means that they managed during the Chavez administration to run the country with some sort of facade of democracy. Today, under Maduro it’s no a longer a façade, it’s a clear dictatorship responsible for atrocities. Fortunately, it is under investigation by the ICC. And the case of Nicaragua is an extreme case, similar to Venezuela. And it’s—it’s a dictator who has managed to put in prison everyone who is not in full alliance with the government, including religious leaders, and academics, and opposition leaders, civil society, et cetera. The case of Nicaragua is more complicated because Nicaragua is subject of sanctions by the U.S. government, and the European Union, and Canada, and some governments in the region. But still, we don’t see much progress there. FASKIANOS: Great. I’m going to go next to Nassar Nassar, who has a raised hand. You can unmute yourself and state your affiliation. Q: Yes. Hello. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. Q: Hi. My name is Nassar Nassar. I’m from Lewis University. So my question is, which are the most significant actors in the global governance of human trafficking? And how effective are they in tackling that? VIVANCO: Well, this is a matter that is usually—the main actors—so this is organized crime. This is organized crime. This is a question regarding—this is a—it’s a huge business, and extremely profitable. And if you want to address these kinds of issues, you need regional cooperation, which is very challenging. Keep in mind that at a local level, in many of the most democratic countries in the region, you have tremendous tensions among the local police and different police. For instance, the local FBI—equivalent to an FBI, is usually in tension with other branches of law enforcement. And if you expect to have cooperation from the rest of the countries in the region, it’s extremely challenging. So these type of issues require effective cooperation, adjustment on legislation. Require more better intelligence. The reason why you have this type—proliferation of this type of business is because, obviously, corruption and lack of accountability. So this is—my point is that it is a reflection of how weak is our law enforcement system, and how unprofessional, and subject many times of corruption. FASKIANOS: Just to follow up on that, a written question from Patricia Drown, who’s at Regent University. How are the cartels and mafia being armed, and by whom? VIVANCO: Well, in the case of, for instance, Mexico, weapons comes from the U.S. Sometimes even legally. You know, the Second Amendment plays a role here. It’s so easy to have access to weapons, all kind of weapons, in the U.S. So that helps. And a lack of actually an effective control mechanism to stop that type of traffic. The amount of money that cartels moved in countries like Mexico, but Colombia as well, and this mafia scene in Central America is significant. So they do have capacity to corrupt local enforcement officials that belongs to the police, the army, even the judiciary. And as long as you don’t address the root cause of the problem, which is the lack of presence of the state—in other words, there are vast—as you know, there are regions of Colombia that are not under the control of the government, the territories in Colombia. And there are regions of Mexico that, unfortunately, are increasingly under more effective control of cartels than law enforcement and legitimate officials. So that unfortunately, is the—in my view, one of the reasons why it is relatively easy to witness this type of proliferation of illegal business. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. I think we are out of time. We have so many written questions and raised hands. Maybe I’ll just try to sneak in one more from Andrea Cuervo Prados. You have your hand raised. I think you also wrote a question. So if you can be brief and tell us who you are. Q: OK. Hello. I’m adjunct faculty at Dickinson State University. And, Mr. Vivanco, I have a question related to Colombia. What do you think about the state of the human rights in Colombia under the new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, compared to the previous president, Ivan Duque? VIVANCO: Andrea, I think it’s pretty much the same. When we witness actually an improvement of human rights conditions in Colombia, it was during the negotiations with the FARC. I’m referring to the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos. And with the signature of the peace agreement, when they signed the peace agreement, the numbers shows a serious decline in the cases of, for instance, internally displaced people, torture cases, executions, abductions, and many other of those typical abuses that are committed in Colombia in rural areas where this organized crime and irregular armed groups are historically present. But then the policies implemented during the Duque administration were actually not very effective. There was a sort of relaxation during that period, and not effective implementation of those commitments negotiated with the FARC. That had an implication in terms of abuses. And today I don’t see a major shift. My sense is that the local communities are subject of similar abuses, including human rights activists as well as social leaders, in areas where there is a very weak presence of the state. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. José Miguel Vivanco. We really appreciate your being with us today. And I apologize. Great questions. I’m sorry, we couldn’t get to all of the written ones or raised hands. It’s clear we will have to do this—focus in on this again and have you back. You can follow José Miguel on X at @VivancoJM. And the next Academic Webinar will be on Wednesday, November 29, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Shibley Telhami, who’s a professor at the University of Maryland, will lead a conversation on public opinion on Israel and Palestine. And in the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. You can follow us at @CFR_Academic. And visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Again, José Miguel, thank you very much for today, and to all of you for joining us. VIVANCO: Thanks a lot. FASKIANOS: Take care. (END)</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231108_Academic%20Webinar%20Human%20Rights%20in%20Latin%20America_OTR.mp3" length="90284258" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231108_Academic%20Webinar%20Human%20Rights%20in%20Latin%20America_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Nov 2023 18:00:00 -0500</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Virtual Media Briefing: Update on the Israel-Hamas War and the Region</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/virtual-media-briefing-update-israel-hamas-war-and-region</link> <description>Experts from the Council on Foreign Relations discuss the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and the implications it has for Gaza and the Middle East region.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231102_Virtual%20Media%20Briefing_Updates%20on%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War%20and%20the%20Region_OTR.mp3" length="51548756" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231102_Virtual%20Media%20Briefing_Updates%20on%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War%20and%20the%20Region_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Nov 2023 20:00:00 -0400</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Update on the Israel-Hamas War and the Region</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/conference-calls/update-israel-hamas-war-and-region</link> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231102_Virtual%20Media%20Briefing_Updates%20on%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War%20and%20the%20Region_OTR.mp3" length="51548756" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231102_Virtual%20Media%20Briefing_Updates%20on%20the%20Israel-Hamas%20War%20and%20the%20Region_OTR.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Global View of U.S.-China Relations</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/global-view-us-china-relations</link> <description>Current ambassadors of Australia, France, and Singapore to the United States, who all have worked in or with Beijing in previous positions, discuss the global view on the U.S.-China relationship, and how it affects the rest of the world.</description> <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231030_Global%20View%20of%20U.S.%20China%20Relations_OTR_1.mp3" length="83697489" type="audio/mpeg"/> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://cfr-org-prod-media-files.s3.amazonaws.com/audio-files/20231030_Global%20View%20of%20U.S.%20China%20Relations_OTR_1.mp3</guid> <pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 19:45:00 -0400</pubDate> <source url="https://www.cfr.org/CFREventsAudioFeed.xml">CFR Events Audio</source></item><item> <title>Academic Webinar: Military Strategy in the Contemporary World</title> <link>https://www.cfr.org/event/academic-webinar-military-strategy-contemporary-world</link> <description>Stephen Biddle, adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at CFR and professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, leads the conversation on military strategy in the contemporary world. FASKIANOS: Welcome to today’s session of the fall 2023 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today’s discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic, if you would like to share them with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We’re delighted to have Stephen Biddle with us to discuss military strategy in the contemporary world. Dr. Biddle is an adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at CFR and professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. Before joining Columbia he was professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He regularly lectures at the U.S. Army War College and other military schools and has served on a variety of government advisory panels and analytical teams, testified before congressional committees on issues relating to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria; force planning; conventional net assessment; and European arms control, just to name a few. And, finally, Dr. Biddle is the author of numerous scholarly publications and several books, including his most recent, Nonstate Warfare, published by Princeton University in 2021 and he just recently authored a piece in CFR’s magazine Foreign Affairs in the September/October 2023 issue entitled “Back in the Trenches: Why New Technology Hasn’t Revolutionized Warfare in Ukraine,” and we shared that out in the background readings for this conversation. So, Steve, thank you for being with us. I thought you could give us an overview of the changes you’ve seen in military operations as a result of technological innovation and say a few words about wartime military behavior especially as you’ve studied it over the years and what we’re seeing now in Ukraine and now with the Israel-Hamas war. BIDDLE: Yeah, I’d be happy to. There’s a lot going on in the world of military affairs and strategy at the moment between Gaza, Taiwan Straits, and, of course, Ukraine. Maybe as a conversation starter I’ll start with Ukraine but we can go in whatever direction the group wants to go in, and the spoiler alert is in the headline of the article from Foreign Affairs that you’ve already assigned. There’s a big debate over what Ukraine means for the future of warfare and what Ukraine means for the way the United States should organize its military, modernize its equipment, write its doctrine and so on. One of the most common interpretations of what Ukraine means for all this is that it’s harboring—it’s a harbinger of a revolutionary transformation. The new technology, drones, space-based surveillance, precision-guided weapons, hypersonics, networked information, artificial intelligence, this whole panoply of things in this argument is making the modern battlefield so lethal, so radically more lethal than the past is that in the present and in the future offensive maneuver will become impossible and we’ll get the dawn of some new age of defense dominance in conventional warfare, which, if true, would then have all sorts of implications for how the United States should make all these kinds of defense policy decisions. As those of you who read the Foreign Affairs article know I don’t buy it because I don’t think the evidence is consistent with that supposition. You’ll be happy to hear that I’m not planning to do a dramatic reading of the Foreign Affairs essay, entertaining as I’m sure that would be, but I did think it might be useful for me to briefly outline the argument as a way of teeing up the subsequent conversation. And the basic argument in the article is that whereas there are, indeed, all sorts of very new technologies in use in this war, when you actually look carefully at the results they’re producing, at the attrition rates that they’re actually causing, at the ability of the two sides to gain ground and to suffer the loss of ground, the actual results being produced by all this very new technology are surprisingly less new than is assumed and supposed in the argument that we’re looking at some transformational discontinuous moment in which a new age of defense dominance is dawning. This doesn’t mean that nothing’s changing or that the United States military should do in the future exactly what it’s done in the past. But the nature of the change that I think we’re seeing is evolutionary and incremental as it has been for the last hundred years, and if you think what’s going on is incremental evolutionary change rather than discontinuous transformation that then has very different implications for what the U.S. should do militarily. So just to unpack a little bit of that by way of pump priming let me just cite some of the examples of what one actually observes and the outcomes of the use of all these new technologies as we’ve seen in Ukraine. So let’s start with casualty rates and attrition. At the heart of this argument that new technology is creating a new era of defense dominance is the argument that fires have made the battlefield so lethal now that the kind of offensive maneuver you saw in World War II or in 1967 or in 1991 is now impossible. And, yet, the actual attrition rates of, for example, tanks, right—tanks tend to be the weapon system that gets the most attention in this context—are remarkably similar to what we saw in the world wars. So in the first twelve months of the fighting in Ukraine, depending on whose estimates you look at the Russians lost somewhere between about half and about 96 percent of their prewar tank fleet in twelve months of fighting. The Ukrainians lost somewhat in excess of 50 percent of their prewar tank fleet, and intuitively that looks like a heavy loss rate, right? Fifty (percent) to 96 percent of what you opened the war with, that seems pretty—you know, pretty dangerous. But in historical context it’s actually lower than it frequently was in World War II. In 1943, the German army suffered an attrition rate to the tanks it owned at the beginning of the year of 113 percent. They lost more tanks in 1943 than they owned in January 1943. Their casualty rate went up in 1944. They lost 122 percent of all the tanks they owned in January of 1944. So these attrition rates while high aren’t unusually high by historical standards. What about artillery, right? Artillery is the single largest casualty inflicter on the modern battlefield defined as since the turn of the twentieth century, 1900. As far as we can tell the attrition rate from Ukrainian artillery fire of Russian forces in this war looks to be on the order of about eight casualties inflicted per hundred rounds of artillery fired and that’s higher than in World War II but not discontinuously radically higher. In World War II that figure would have been about three casualties per hundred rounds fired. In World War I that figure would have been about two casualties per hundred rounds fired. If you chart that over time what you see is an essentially linear straight line incremental increase over a hundred years of about an additional .05 casualties per hundred rounds fired per year over a century of combat experience. There’s no sudden discontinuous increase as a result of drones or networked information or space-based surveillance at the end of the period. What about ground gain and ground loss? The purpose of attrition on a modern battlefield is to change who controls how much territory and the whole transformation argument is that all this putatively much more lethal technology is making ground gain much, much harder than in the past, and yet the Russia offensive that opened the war, mishandled as it was in so many ways, took over 42,000 square miles of Ukraine in the first couple of months of the war. The Ukrainian Kyiv counteroffensive retook more than 19,000 square miles. Their Kharkiv counteroffensive retook 2,300 square miles. The Kharkiv counteroffensive took back more than 200 square miles. There’s been plenty of defensive stalemate in the war, right? The Russian offensive on Bakhmut took ten months to take the city. Cost them probably sixty (thousand) to a hundred thousand casualties to do it. The Mariupol offensive took three months to take the city. But this war has not been a simple story of technologically determined offensive frustration. There have been offensives that have succeeded and offensives that have failed with essentially the same equipment. Drones didn’t get introduced into the war in the last six months. Drones were in heavy use from the very outset of the fighting and this kind of pattern of some offensives that succeed, some offensives that don’t, like the attrition rate is not particularly new. I mean, the popular imagination tends to see World War I as a trench stalemate created by the new technology of artillery and machine guns and barbed wire and World War II as a world offensive maneuver created by the new technologies of the tank, the airplane, the radio. Neither World War I nor World War II were homogeneous experiences where everything was defensive frustration of World War I and everything was offensive success in World War II. That wasn’t the case in either of the two world wars. The Germans advanced almost to the doorsteps of Paris in the initial war opening offensive in 1914. In 1918, the German spring offenses broke clean through Allied lines three times in a row and produced a general advance by the Allies and the subsequent counteroffensive on a hundred-eighty-mile front. There was a lot of ground that changed hands in World War I as a result of offensives in addition to the great defensive trench stalemate of 1915 to mid-1917. In World War II some of the most famous offensive failures in military history were tank-heavy attacks in 1943 and 1944. The Battle of Kursk on the Russian front cost the German attackers more than a hundred and sixty thousand casualties and more than seven hundred lost tanks. The most tank-intensive offensive in the history of war, the British attack at Operation Goodwood in 1944, cost the British a third of all the British armor on the continent of Europe in just three days of fighting. So what we’ve seen in observed military experience over a hundred years of frequent observational opportunity is a mix of offensive success and defensive success with technologies that are sometimes described as defense dominant and, yet, nonetheless, see breakthroughs and technologies that are sometimes seen as offense dominant and, yet, sometimes produce defensive stalemates and what really varies is not so much driven by the equipment, it’s driven by the way people use it. And the central problem in all of this is that military outcomes are not technologically determined. The effects of technology in war are powerfully mediated by how human organizations use them and there are big variations in the way human organizations use equipment. And if you just look at the equipment alone and expect that that’s going to tell you what the result of combat is going to be and you don’t systematically account for how the human organizations involved adapt to what the technology might do on the proving ground to reduce what it can do on the battlefield then you get radically wrong answers and I would argue that’s what’s going on in Ukraine. Both sides are adapting rapidly and the nature of the adaptations that we’re seeing in Ukraine are very similar to the nature of the adaptations we’ve seen in previous great power warfare. Again, incremental lineal extensions of emphases on cover, emphases on concealment, combined arms, defensive depth, mobile reserve withholds—these are the ways that all great power militaries have responded to increasingly lethal equipment over time to reduce their exposure to the nominal proving ground lethality of weapons in actual practice. The problem is this collection of techniques—and in other work I’ve referred to them as the modern system, this kind of transnational epistemic community of practice and the conduct of conventional warfare—to do all these things right and minimize your exposure is technically very challenging. Some military organizations can manage this very complex way of fighting; others cannot. Some can do it on one front and not on another front, and the result is we get a lot of variance in the degree to which any given military at any given moment embraces the entirety of this doctrinal program. Where they do, defenses have been very hard to break through for a hundred years. This isn’t something that came about in February of 2022 because of drones and networked information. This has been the case repeatedly for a century of actual combat. But where they don’t, where defenses are shallow, where reserve withholds are too small, where combined arms aren’t exploited, where cover and concealment isn’t exploited, then casualty rates go way, way up. Then breakthrough becomes possible. Then attackers can gain a lot of ground with tanks or without tanks. The German offensives that broke clean through Allied defensive lines in 1918 had almost no tanks. The first of them, Operation Michael, was a one-million soldier offensive that had exactly nine tanks in support of it. So the differences that have mattered are the interaction of increasingly lethal technology with these variations and the ability of real human organizations to master the complexity needed to fight in a way that reduces exposure to this and that’s the same thing we’ve seen in Ukraine. Where defenses have been shallow and haven’t had enough reserves behind them you’ve gotten breakthroughs. Where they’ve been deep, adequately backed by reserves, as we’ve seen in this summer counteroffensive over the last three or four months, for example, they’ve not been able to break through and this isn’t a new story. This is just a recapitulation of a hundred years’ worth of military experience. If that’s so then what difference does it make to the U.S.? So, again, as I suggested earlier, that doesn’t mean don’t change anything, right? A 1916 tank on a modern battlefield would not fare well. Part of the stability in these kinds of outcomes is because people change the way they do business. They change the way they fight. They update their equipment. They execute measure/countermeasure races and so we need to continue to do that. Depth is probably going to increase. Reserve withhold requirements are going to go up. Demands for cover and concealment are going to increase. There will be technological implications stemming from the particular measure/countermeasure races that are emerging now especially with respect to drones. Almost certainly the U.S. Army is going to have an incentive, for example, to deploy counter drone escort vehicles as part of the combined arms mix, moving forward. But the principle of combined arms that’s behind so much of the way the U.S. Army fights is very unlikely to change very much. What’s going to happen is a new element will be added to the combined arms mix, and escort jammers and anti-aircraft artillery and other air defense systems that are optimized for drones will become part of the mix of tanks and infantry and engineers and signals and air defense and all the rest, moving forward. The whole revolution argument, though, is not that, right? The reason people refer to this as a revolution, as transformation, is they’re using language that’s designed to tee up the idea that ordinary orthodox incremental updating business as usual isn’t enough in this new era because of drones, because of hypersonics, or space-based surveillance or whatever. We need something more than that, and I think if we look closely at what’s going on in Ukraine what we see is not an argument that we need to transform the way the U.S. military does business. What we see is an argument for incremental change that implies incremental adaptation is appropriate, that it’s not the wrong thing to do. I think it’s possible to over-innovate. I think there are ample historical examples of militaries that have gone wrong not by being resistant to innovation—there are plenty of those, too—but by doing too much innovation. In the 1950s and 1960s U.S. Air Force transformed itself around an idea that conventional warfare is a thing of the past, all wars of the future will be nuclear, and they designed airplanes for nuclear weapon delivery that were horribly ill-suited to the conventional war in Vietnam that they then found themselves in. The U.S. Army transformed its doctrine following a particular understanding of the lethality of precision-guided anti-tank weapons in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, adopted a concept called active defense that relied on static defense in a shallow disposition from fixed positions, emphasizing the ostensible new firepower of anti-tank weapons. Found that that was very innovative but very ineffective and abandoned it in favor of the airline battle doctrine that’s a lineal descendant of the doctrine we use now, which was much more orthodox and conventional. There are plenty of examples of militaries that have over-innovated. This language of revolution and transformation is designed to promote what I’m concerned could be over-innovation again. I think we could talk more about the particulars of what incremental adaptation should comprise but I think that’s the right way forward in light of what we actually observe about what’s going on in Ukraine. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Thank you for that, Steve. That was great. Let’s go now to all of you for your questions. (Gives queuing instructions.) And so don’t be shy. This is your time. We have our first question from Terrence Kleven. Q: Hello. Can you hear me? FASKIANOS: We can. If you could tell us your affiliation that would be great. Q: Yes, very good. Terrence Kleven. I’m at Central College in Pella, Iowa, and I teach in a philosophy and religious studies department and I teach quite a lot of Middle Eastern studies. Thank you very much for your presentation because so much of this we don’t talk about enough and we don’t understand, and I appreciate the opportunity to hear what you have to say and look forward to reading your—some of your material. Just kind of a practical question, why aren’t the Russians using more planes in this war or are they and we just don’t have a report of that? I assume that the Russian air force is much superior to what the Ukrainians have but it doesn’t seem to give them a great advantage. What’s missing? What’s going on? BIDDLE: Yeah. You’re raising a question that has bedeviled military analysts in this war since its beginning. Part of the issue is the definition of what plane is, right? If we define a plane as something that uses aerodynamic lift to fly through the air and perform military missions the Russians are using lots of planes; they just don’t have pilots. We call them drones. But a drone, to a first approximation, is just a particular inexpensive, low-performance airplane that is relatively expendable because it’s inexpensive. But because it’s inexpensive it’s also low performance. If by airplanes one includes drones, then there’s lots of airplane use going on. What you had in mind with the question, I’m sure, is the airplanes that have people in them—why aren’t they more salient in the military conduct of the war, and the Russians have tried to use piloted aircraft. The trouble is the loss rates have kept them, largely, out of the sky. So this again gets back to the question of human adaptation to new technology. Air forces—and navies, by the way, but that’s a different conversation—are much more exposed to more technology increases—the technology changes that produce increasing lethality than ground armies are. Ground armies have much easier access to cover and concealment. It’s hard to find much cover and concealment up there in the sky, right? You’re highlighted against a largely featureless background. There are things you can do as an air force to try and reduce your exposure to precision-guided anti-aircraft weapons and the U.S. Air Force, for example, practices those extensively. But the complexity of operating an air force to be effective at the mission called SEAD—suppression of enemy air defenses—is very high and it requires a lot of practice and it requires a lot of flight hours and it requires you to burn a lot of fuel in training, and the U.S. Air Force is willing to do that. The Russians historically have not. Therefore, they’re not very good at it. Therefore, they’re very—they have been very exposed to the lethality precision-guided Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses and, therefore, they’ve mostly decided not to expose themselves to this fire. They fly mostly over friendly terrain, especially in metropolitan Russia, and they fly at low altitudes that keep them under the radar, which is a cliché that’s leached into public conversation because of the actual physics of the way radar works and responds to the curvature of the earth. If the Russians operate over Russian territory at low altitude and launch cruise missiles at huge distances then their airplanes don’t get shot down as much. But then the airplanes are a lot less effective and contribute a lot less and that’s the tradeoff that the Russians have accepted with respect to the use of airplanes. The airplanes they use a lot are unpiloted cheap low-performance drones which they are willing to get shot down in huge numbers and they do get shot down in huge numbers. But piloted aircraft have played a limited role because the air defense environment is too lethal for an air force with skills no better than the Russians are to survive in it. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Mike Nelson. Q: Thanks for a very interesting overview. I work at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and also have taught at Georgetown on internet policy and the impacts of digital technologies. Seems to me that one of the big changes with this war has been the incredible transparency, more information on what’s actually going on on the ground from social media, satellite photos, drone photos. I saw a tweet today about how they’re able to infer how many Russian soldiers have mutinied by counting these soldiers marching back from the front, presumably under armed guard. It just seems that there’s a lot more information on what’s going on hour by hour. I wonder if that is causing some changes on both the Russian and the Ukrainian side and whether the insertion of disinformation to make it appear that things are going differently than it seems is also something that’s getting better and better. Thank you. BIDDLE: Yeah. I mean, the information environment in Ukraine is complicated in ways that the debate often doesn’t deal with very well, in my view. So starting at the superficial level, public perceptions of what the lethality of first-person view kamikaze drones has been against tanks and artillery are wildly exaggerated and the reason why the public impression is wildly exaggerated is because the medium formerly known as Twitter puts up endless videos of successful attacks. But nobody posts a video of their failed attack so we only see the subset of all drone missions that succeeded. The ones that don’t are invisible. Therefore, the public gets this impression that all—that there are successful drone missions by the millions all the time and that that’s—there are serious selection effects with the way the public understands drone success rates in light of that. So one point is that the apparent transparency is subject to a variety of selection biases that lead to misunderstandings of the transparency on the battlefield as a whole. Similarly, there are lots of videos of images of Russian soldiers in a trench and especially videos of Russian soldiers in a trench before a quadcopter drone drops a grenade on them and then kills them. You don’t see any video feeds of a drone flying over a camouflaged position where you can’t see anything because nobody’s going to post that, right? It’s not interesting enough. But, therefore, again, we get the selection effect. People believe that everything is visible and everything is transparent because every video feed they see, and they see a lot of them, shows a visible target. The trouble is you’re not seeing the failed drone missions that didn’t produce a visible target and those are the vast majority as far as we can tell from more careful analyses that try to look at the totality of drone missions rather than just the selected subset that appear on now X, formerly Twitter. Now, that leads to the general issue of how transparent is the modern battlefield and I would argue that the modern battlefield is a lot less transparent than people popularly imagine that it is. The cover and concealment available in the earth’s surface to a military that’s capable of exploiting it is still sufficient to keep a sizeable fraction of both militaries’ targets invisible to the other side most of the time and that’s why the artillery casualty rate hasn’t gone up dramatically as a result of all this. It’s because cover and concealment is still keeping most of the targets out of the way. So I would argue the battlefield is less transparent than we often assume that it is and in part that’s because the systems that would generate information are countered by the other side so that they generate less information. Again, take drones, which have been the thing that everybody’s been focusing on. There have been multiple waves of measure/countermeasure races just on the technical side, setting aside technical adaptation, with respect to drones already. When the war opened the primary drone in use, especially on the Ukrainian side, was the Bayraktar TB2, Turkish-built large, you know, capable, fairly expensive drone which was very lethal against exposed Russian armored columns. Then several things happened. One is the armored columns decided to get less exposed. Smart move on the Russians’ part. The other thing is the air defense system under the Russians adapted and started shooting down Bayraktar TB2s at a huge rate to the point where the Ukrainians stopped flying them because they were so vulnerable and, instead, drones shifted from big expensive higher performance drones to smaller, cheaper, lower performance drones, which were so cheap that it didn’t make sense to fire expensive guided anti-aircraft missiles at them anymore and then the air defense environment shifted to emphasize jamming, which is even cheaper than the drones, and anti-aircraft artillery firing bullets that are cheaper than drones. So the systems that would create this transparency and that would give you this information don’t get a free ride. The opponent systematically attacks them and systematically changes the behavior of the target so that the surviving seekers have less to find, and in addition to cover and concealment and complementary to it is dispersion and what dispersion of ground targets does is even if you find a target it may very well not be worth the expenditure of an expensive precision munition to kill. A guided 155-millimeter artillery shell costs on the order of a hundred thousand dollars a shell. If you’re shooting it at a concentrated platoon of enemy infantry that’s a good expenditure. If you’re shooting it at a dispersed target where they’re in one- or two-soldier foxholes now even if you know where all the foxholes are—even if your drones have survived, the concealment has failed and the drone has accurately located where every single two-soldier foxhole is does it make sense to fire a $100,000 guided artillery shell at each of them or are you going to run out of guided artillery shells before they run out of foxholes, right? So the net of all of this—the technical measure/countermeasure race and the tactical adaptation is that I would argue that the battlefield is actually not as transparent as people commonly assume. If it were we’d be seeing much higher casualty rates than what we’re actually seeing. There’s incremental change, right? The battlefield is more transparent now, heaven knows, than it was in 1943. But the magnitude of the difference and the presence of technical measures and countermeasures is incremental rather than transformational and that’s a large part of the reason why the change in results has been incremental rather than transformational. FASKIANOS: So we have a lot of questions but I do want to just ask you, Steve, to comment on Elon Musk’s—you know, he shut down his Starlink satellite communications so that the Ukrainians could not do their assault on the—on Russia. I think it was the submersible—they were going to strike the Russian naval vessels off of Crimea. So that, obviously—the technology did affect how the war was—the battlefield. BIDDLE: It did, but you’ll notice that Crimea has been attacked multiple times since then and metropolitan Russia has been attacked multiple times since then. So there are technical workarounds. On the technical side rather than the tactical side there are multiple ways to skin a cat. One of these has been that the U.S. has tried to make Ukraine less dependent on private satellite communication networks by providing alternatives that are less subject to the whims of a single billionaire. But tactical communications of the kind that Starlink has enabled the Ukrainians are very useful, right? No doubt about it, and that’s why the U.S. government is working so hard to provide alternatives to commercial Starlink access. But even there, even if you didn’t have them at all the Ukrainian military wouldn’t collapse. I mean, in fact, most military formations were taught how to function in a communications-constrained environment because of the danger that modern militaries will jam their available communication systems or destroy communication nodes or attack the satellites that are providing the relays. Certainly, the U.S. military today is not prepared to assume that satellite communications are always going to be available. We train our soldiers how to operate in an environment in which those systems are denied you because they might be. So, again, I mean, tactical adaptation doesn’t eliminate the effects of technological change—having Starlink, being denied Starlink, right, this Musk-owned communication satellite constellation that was the source of all the kerfuffle. It’s not irrelevant whether you have it or not but it’s less decisive than you might imagine if you didn’t take into account the way that militaries adapt to the concern that they might be denied them or that the enemy might have them and they might not, which are serious concerns. Certainly, if the U.S. and Russia were true belligerents both the danger of anti-satellite warfare destroying significant fractions of those constellations is serious, or jamming or otherwise making them unavailable is a serious problem so militaries try to adapt to deal with it—with their absence if they have to. FASKIANOS: Great. We have a question—a written question from Monica Byrne at—a student at Bard College: Can you share thoughts and strategy for Israel and Gaza, given the conditions in Gaza? BIDDLE: Yeah. So shifting gears now from Ukraine to the Middle East, given Israel’s declared war aim, right—if Israel’s aim is to topple the Hamas regime and then hopefully replace it with something that’s another conversation. But let’s for the moment just talk about the military dynamics of realizing their stated war aim of toppling the Hamas regime. That will certainly require a ground invasion that reoccupies at least temporarily the entirety of Gaza, right? Airstrikes aren’t going to accomplish that war aim. Special forces raids aren’t going to accomplish that war aim. The Hamas administrative apparatus is, A, too large and, B, too easily concealed, especially underground, for those kinds of techniques to be sufficient. So if the Israelis really are going to topple Hamas a large-scale ground invasion is needed. That has obvious horrible implications for collateral damage and civilian fatalities in Gaza—urban warfare is infamously destructive of capital and of civilian human life—but also for military casualties to the Israelis. Urban warfare is a radically advantageous military environment for defenders and so Israel inevitably will take serious losses if they really expect to completely reoccupy Gaza as would be needed to depose Hamas. Now, there are ways that conventional militaries can try and reduce either the loss of innocent civilian life or casualty rates to their own forces but none of these things are perfect and the techniques militaries use to reduce civilian fatalities can be exploited by defenders who want to take advantage of them to increase Israeli military casualties and limit the Israelis’ ability to limit collateral damage. You can fire only at identified targets and not at entire buildings. You can use small-caliber weapons rather than large-caliber artillery and missiles. You can warn the civilian occupants of a building either with leaflets or text messages or the Israeli technique that’s called knocking on the roof where they drop a nonexplosive weapon on the ceiling to create a sound that tells the occupants they are about to be attacked so they leave. There are a variety of things like that that you can do and that the U.S. should hope that the Israelis are going to do. But the whole problem here is that the Hamas political and military infrastructure is deeply intermingled with the civilian population in Gaza, and so even if you’re going to be as discriminating as modern technology and military skill potentially could make you, you’re still going to kill a lot of civilians and Hamas is not going to conveniently remove the military infrastructure from the civilian population to make it easier for the Israelis to kill the fighters and not kill the civilians. They’re going to keep them tightly intermingled. Now, the Israelis can reduce their losses by being slower and more deliberate and methodical in the way they enter Gaza. There’s been a discussion in recent weeks about the difference between Mosul and Fallujah and the U.S. experience of urban warfare in Iraq. In Fallujah, we entered quickly with a large ground force that was fairly dependent on small arms direct fire and relatively less reliant on artillery and airstrikes. In Mosul with Iraqi allies on the ground, we did the opposite. Very slow entry. The campaign took months. Limited exposure, small-caliber weapons, heavy emphasis on airstrikes and artillery to reduce the ground—even so, thousands of civilians were killed in Mosul. Even so, our Iraqi allies took serious casualties. There’s no way for the Israelis to do this Gaza offensive if they’re going to realize their war aim that won’t destroy Gaza, kill a lot of civilians, and suffer a lot of casualties themselves. All these things are marginal differences at the most. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Dan Caldwell. Q: Oh, Steve, thanks very much for a very interesting overview. I’d like to raise another subject that is, obviously, very broad but I would really appreciate your comments on it and that’s the question of intelligence and its relationship to military operations that you’ve described. Broadly speaking, we can separate out tactical intelligence from strategic intelligence, and in the case of tactical intelligence the use of breaking down terrorists’ cell phones’ records and things like contributed to military successes in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a strategic sense, the breaking of the Japanese codes, Purple, and the Ultra Enigma secret in World War II contributed to the Allies’ success, and in terms of the Middle East the strategic failures of Israeli intelligence in 1973 and, I would argue, in the recent Hamas attacks contributed to the losses that Israel has suffered. So how do you think about the relationship of intelligence to military strategy? BIDDLE: Yeah. I mean, intelligence is central to everything in security policy, right? It’s central to forcible diplomacy. It’s central to preparation for war. It’s central to the conduct of military. So intelligence underlies everything. All good decision making requires information about the other side. The intelligence system has to provide that. The ability of the intelligence system to create transformational change is limited. Let’s take the national level strategic intelligence question first and then we’ll move to things like Ultra and battlefield uses. As you know, the problem of military surprise has been extensively studied, at least since the 1973 war in which Israel was famously surprised by the Egyptian attack in the Sinai. There’s been an extensive scholarly focus on this problem of intelligence failure and surprise—how can this possibly happen. And the central thrust of that literature, I would argue, has been that almost always after a surprise you discover later that the surprised intelligence system had information that should have told them an attack was coming. They almost always receive indicators. They almost always get photographic intelligence. All sorts of pieces of information find their way into the owning intelligence system. And yet, they got surprised anyway. How could this happen? And the answer is that the information has to be processed by human organizations, and the organizational challenges and the cognitive biases that individuals have when they’re dealing with this information combine in such a way to frequently cause indicators not to be understood and used and exploited to avoid surprise and part of the reason for that—the details, of course, are extensive and complex. But part of the reason for that is you get indicators of an attack that didn’t—that then didn’t happen way more often than you get the indicators of the attack that does happen. You get indicators all the time but usually there’s no attack and the trick then is how do you distinguish the indicator that isn’t going to become an attack from the indicator that is going to become the attack when you’ve always got both. And if you—especially in a country like Israel where mobilizing the reserves has huge economic consequences, if you mobilize the reserves every time you get indicators of an attack you exhaust the country and the country stops responding to the indicators anymore. It’s the cry wolf problem. I mean, the first couple of times you cry wolf people take it seriously. The eighth, ninth, tenth, twelfth time they don’t. So because of this the ability to change, to do away with surprise, with, for example, new technology, all right, a more transparent world in which we have a better ability to tap people’s cell phones and tap undersea cables to find out what governments are saying to themselves we have better ability to collect information. But there are still organizational biases, cognitive problems, and just the basic signal-to-noise, wheat-to-chaff ratio issue of lots and lots of information, most of which is about an attack that isn’t going to happen. And distinguishing that from the ones that are going to happen is an ongoing problem that I doubt is going to be solved because it isn’t a technological issue. It resides in the structure of human organizations and the way the human mind operates to filter out extraneous and focus on important sensory information, and human cognitive processes aren’t changing radically and human organizations aren’t either. So at the strategic level I don’t see transformation coming soon. Then we’ve got the battlefield problem of what about intercepted communications, for example, which have changed the historiography of World War II in an important way. We’ll note that that didn’t cause the Allies to defeat the Germans in 1944, right? I mean, the Allies cracked the German and the Japanese codes long before the war ended and, yet, the war continued, and this gets back to this question of how militaries adapt to the availability of information about them on the other side. At sea where there’s not a lot of terrain for cover and concealment, right, then these kinds of communications intercepts were more important and as a result the Japanese navy was, largely, swept from the Pacific long before the war ended in 1945. But wars are ultimately usually about what goes on on land, and on land even if you intercept people’s communications if they’re covered, concealed, dispersed, and in depth being able to read German communications, which we could do in 1944, didn’t enable us to quickly break through, rapidly drive to Berlin and end the war three months after the Normandy invasions. In spite of the fact that we could read the communications traffic we couldn’t do those things because the communications traffic is only part of success and failure on the battlefield. So if that was the case in World War II where we had, you know, unusually good comment and usually good ability to break the enemy’s codes and read their message traffic, again, I would argue that improvements in intelligence technology today were certainly helpful, and they’re worth having and we should pursue them and use them, but it’s not likely to transform combat outcomes in a theater of war any more than—to a radically greater degree than it did when we had that kind of information in 1944. FASKIANOS: So I’m going to combine the next two questions because they’re about innovation from the Marine Corps University and Rutgers University: You mentioned over innovation. Can you explain what that is and how it can be detrimental? And then are you concerned that the Department of Defense R&D program could be at risk of being out of balance by over emphasizing advanced technology versus getting useful technology deployed and into the field? BIDDLE: I think that’s one of the most important implications of this war is that the United States has historically chosen to get way out on the envelope of what technology makes possible for weapon acquisition, creating extremely expensive weapons that we can buy in very small numbers that we evaluate and we decide to buy because of their proving ground potential because what they can do against targets that haven’t adapted to them yet. What the record of adaptation in Ukraine, I think, shows is that the actual lethality of very sophisticated weapons is not as high as it looks on a proving ground because the targets are going to be noncooperative and the real-world performance of extremely expensive sophisticated technologies is normally less than it looks, and if that’s the case we are probably overspending on very sophisticated, very expensive weapons which we can only buy in very small numbers and which if they don’t produce this radical lethality wouldn’t be worth the expenditure that they cost. And if the adaptation of the target is going to reduce their lethality and increase their vulnerability, which is certainly what we’re observing in Ukraine, then we’re going to have a dickens of a time replacing them when they get lost, right, because very sophisticated high technology weapons, among other things, require a supply chain of materials that are often quite scarce—rare earths, cobalt, lithium. One of the reasons why the American Defense Industrial Base has had a hard time responding rapidly to the demands that the expenditure rate of things in Ukraine has created is because of these complicated supply chains that we can manage when we’re building things in small numbers, which we think is sufficient because we’re expecting that each one of them is going to be tremendously lethal. If we now realize that they’re less lethal in practice than we expect them to be and therefore we need larger numbers of them, how are we going to get the materials we need to do that? And the experience in Ukraine has been that the kind of revolution in military affairs expectation for the lethality of high technology just hasn’t been realized. Yes, weapons are very lethal in Ukraine, but not orders of magnitude differently than they were in 1944, right, and so I think this ought to suggest to us that the historical post-World War II U.S. strategy emphasizing very high technology at very high cost in very small numbers to compensate for small numbers with radical lethality may very well be misguided. It works well when you’re fighting an opponent like the Iraqis who can’t handle the complexity of cover and concealment, combined arms, and all the rest. They’re exposed and the weapons have the kind of proving ground effect that you expect because the targets are not undercover. Not clear that it has been producing that kind of results in Ukraine and it’s not clear that it would produce those kinds of results for the United States in a coming great power conflict. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going take the next question from Genevieve Connell at the Fordham graduate program in international political economy and development. How much does successful military strategy rely on stable domestic economic systems to fund it or is this less of an issue when one or both sides have strong geopolitical support and aid? BIDDLE: War is very expensive, as the Ukraine war is reminding us, right? This isn’t news. The expenditure rates in modern industrial age warfare are massively expensive to maintain and that in turn means that the strength of the national economy is a fundamental foundational requirement for success in modern great power warfare. This, of course, leads to the set of tradeoffs that are fundamental in grand strategy, right? Grand strategy, as opposed to operational art, military strategy, or tactics, integrates military and nonmilitary means in pursuit of the ultimate security objectives of the state and one of the more important of the nonmilitary means is the economy. So you need a large GDP to support a large expensive war effort. The way you maximize GDP is with international trade. International trade makes you vulnerable to cutoff in time of war through blockade. Therefore, if we just maximize GDP in the short run we run the risk—we increase our vulnerability in time of war or blockades. We say: Oh, no, we don’t want to do that. Let’s reduce the amount of international trade we do, make ourselves more self-sufficient. Now GDP growth rates go down and now the size of the military you can support in steady state goes down. There’s a fundamental tradeoff involving the interaction between classically guns and butter in the way you design the economy in support of the grand strategy you have in mind for how you’re going to pursue your security interest in the international system at any given time. So, yeah, a productive expanding economy is essential if you plan to be able to afford the cost of modern warfare. The implications for what that means for things like international trade, though, are complicated. FASKIANOS: Great. I’ll try to sneak in one last question from David Nachman. Q: Thank you. Thank you for this really interesting presentation. I teach at the Yale Law School, nothing related to the topic of today’s submission and discussion. I’m just wondering, and you captured it towards the end here where you said something about wars are won and lost on land. With the advent of cyber and all the technological development that we’re seeing in our armed forces is that still true as a matter, you know, and are we—is the Ukraine and even Gaza experience sort of nonrepresentative of the true strategic threats that the United States as opposed to its allies really faces at sea and in the air? BIDDLE: Yeah. Let me briefly address cyber but then extend it into the sea and the air. One of the interesting features of cyber is it’s mostly been a dog that hasn’t barked, at least it hasn’t barked very loudly. There were widespread expectations as Russia was invading that cyberattacks would shut down the Ukrainian economy, would shut down the Ukrainian military effort, or vice versa, and neither of those things have happened. So I don’t—there have been plenty of cyberattacks, right, and there have been plenty of efforts at break in and surveillance and manipulation. So far none of them have been militarily decisive and it’s an interesting and I think still open question for the cyber community about why that has been so and what, if anything, does that tell us about the future of cyber threats to national military projects. But so far it hasn’t radically—it hasn’t produced a result that would have been different in the pre-cyber era. Now, when I say wars are won on land what I mean by that is that people live on the land, right? People don’t live in the air and people don’t live on the surface of the water. People live on land. Economies are on land. Populations are on land. That means that usually the stakes that people fight wars over are things having to do with the land. That doesn’t mean that navies and air forces are irrelevant. We own a large one. I’m in favor of owning a large one. The Navy—my friends in the Navy would be very upset if I said otherwise. But the purpose of the Navy is to affect people who live on the land, right? In classic Mahanian naval strategy the purpose of the Navy is destroy the opposing fleet, blockade the enemy’s ports, destroy the enemy’s commerce, and ruin the land-based economy and it’s the effect of the land-based economy that causes surrender or compromise or concession to the opponent or whatever else ends the war in ways that you hope are favorable to you. What this means then is that especially where we’re dealing with large continental powers like Russia, classically—China’s an interesting sub case but let’s talk about Russia—the ability to influence the Russian decision-making calculus that leads to an end to a war or the beginning of a war without affecting the life of people on land is very limited. Cyber has not proven able to do that. Air attack historically has not been a good tool for doing that. Navies do that by affecting the land-based economy and I don’t see that changing rapidly anytime soon. FASKIANOS: Well, Steve, thank you very much for this really insightful hour. I’m sorry to all of you we couldn’t get to the questions, raised hands, so we’ll just have to have you back. And thanks to all those of you who did ask questions. I commend to you, again, Steve Biddle’s Foreign Affairs piece, “Back in the Trenches,” and hope you will read that. Our next Academic Webinar will be on Wednesday, November 8, at 1:00 p.m. (EST) with José Miguel Vivanco, who is an adjunct senior fellow here for human rights, to talk about human rights in Latin America. So, Steve, thank you again. BIDDLE: Thanks for having me. FASKIANOS: And I—yes. And I’d just encourage you all to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. Our tenured professor and our fellowship deadlines is at the end of October. I believe it’s October 31, so there’s still time. And you can follow us on X at CFR_Academic. Visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Thank you all again for being with us today. 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