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Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Ed Djerejian says Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin once told him “There is no military solution to this conflict, only a political one.” Rabin was assassinated a few years later and today bullets are flying, bombs are falling, and 1,200 Israelis are dead after the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and nearly 30,000 Gazans have been killed in the Israeli response. Yet Djerejain still believes that a breakthrough is possible even in the current moment, as horrible as it is. Djerejian, a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Relations, says the crisis has shaken the regional status quo to the point where—if the United States pursues diplomacy that includes principled pragmatism, coalition-building, and good old- fashioned backbone—a breakthrough may finally be possible. But in a recent paper he argues that any breakthrough will have to be built around a two-state solution, which he says is the only path to peace and stability not only in Israel and Palestine, but the wider Middle East. Djerejian's career as a diplomat spanned eight U.S. presidential administrations beginning with John F. Kennedy's, and he also served as U.S. Ambassador to Syria and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Ed Djerejian's Policy Recommendations:The U.S. should stake out a strong, principled position on a two-state solution based on land for peace.The U.S. should build a broad multinational coalition around its diplomacy in the region.U.S. leaders and diplomats should make American national security interests clear, both globally and in the region.Ambassador (Ret.) Edward P. Djerejian is a residential Senior Fellow at the Middle East Initiative in Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Relations. Djerejian joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1962 and his 32-year diplomatic career spanned eight presidential administrations from John F. Kennedy to William J. Clinton. Djerejian is a leading expert on national security, foreign policy, public diplomacy, and the complex political, security, economic, religious, and ethnic issues of the broader Middle East. He is the author of “Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador's Journey Through the Middle East.” He recently completed a nearly 30-year tenure as founding director of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Ambassador Djerejian graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1960. He received an Honorary Doctorate in the Humanities from his alma mater in 1992 and a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from Middlebury College. He speaks Arabic, Russian, French, and Armenian. His many awards and honors include the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State's Distinguished Honor Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Anti-Defamation League's Moral Statesman Award, the Award for Humanitarian Diplomacy from Netanya Academic College in Israel, the National Order of the Cedar. Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.Editorial support is provided by Nora Delaney and Robert O'Neill. Design and graphics support is provided by Laura King, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team.
Ambassador John E. Lange (https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-people/john-e-lange/) is Senior Fellow, Global Health Diplomacy, at the United Nations Foundation, a charitable organization headquartered in Washington, DC, that supports the United Nations and its activities. Ambassador Lange has extensive leadership experience in global health issues and longstanding involvement in United Nations affairs, focusing on issues related to global health security and the work of the World Health Organization. He also serves as the Chair of the Leadership Team of the Measles & Rubella Initiative. Ambassador Lange worked from 2009-2013 at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he engaged in high-level advocacy with governments and international organizations to advance the Gates Foundation's global health and development goals in Africa. In 2012, he was the founding Co-Chair of the Polio Partners Group, the broad group of stakeholders in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and served in that role for a four-year term. Ambassador Lange had a distinguished 28-year career in the Foreign Service at the U.S. Department of State, where he was a pioneer in the field of global health diplomacy and a leader in pandemic preparedness and response. He served as the Special Representative on Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2006-2009); Deputy Inspector General; Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator at the inception of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; and Associate Dean for Leadership and Management at the Foreign Service Institute, where he directed the Senior Seminar, the federal government's highest-level civilian/military joint training program. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Botswana and Special Representative to the Southern African Development Community (1999-2002), where he oversaw operations of seven U.S. Government agencies and made HIV/AIDS his signature issue. Ambassador Lange headed the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as Charge d'Affaires during the August 7, 1998, Al-Qaeda bombing, for which he received the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award for "skilled leadership" and "extraordinary courage." From 1991 to 1995, while at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Ambassador Lange managed U.S. humanitarian and refugee assistance channeled through international organizations. He also had tours of duty in the State Department Bureaus of African Affairs, Western Hemisphere Affairs and Management in Washington and at U.S. Embassies in Lomé, Togo; Paris, France; and Mexico City, Mexico. Prior to joining the diplomatic service in 1981, he worked for five years at the United Nations Association of the USA in New York. Ambassador Lange is the author of a case study in the book, Negotiating and Navigating Global Health: Case Studies in Global Health Diplomacy (2012), that describes the international negotiations on sharing of pandemic influenza viruses and access to vaccines when he led the U.S. delegation. He has delivered lectures on pandemics and other global health issues at Chatham House, London; the Council on Foreign Relations, New York; and numerous other venues. He has written numerous journal and magazine articles and blogs on the Dar es Salaam Embassy bombing, leadership in a crisis, humanitarian assistance, pandemic preparedness and response, and other global health issues.
In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw war coming with Hitler's Germany even as he reconciled the isolationism of American politics with his own internationalist instinct. Ambassador David McKean tells the story of FDR's personal reliance on his hand-picked ambassadors to Europe in the critical years before America's entry into World War II. David McKean served as United States Ambassador to Luxembourg from 2016-2017. He currently serves as a Consensus member at the American Security Project and is a Visiting Distinguished Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Previously, he was the Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, beginning in February of 2013. There, he also served as a Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Clinton for the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. He is the recipient of the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award and Superior Honor Award. McKean spent two decades working in the United States Congress: serving as chief of staff to Senator John Kerry from 1999 to 2008 and chief of staff to Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II from 1993 to 1994. He served as staff director for the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2009 to 2010, and minority staff director for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations from 1998 to 1999. McKean was a key player in laying the groundwork for the Senator Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and was a co-chairman of the Senator's presidential transition team. In 1997 and 1998, he served as the Minority Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. McKean is the author of four books on American political history: “Friends in High Places” with Douglas Frantz, “Tommy the Cork,” “The Great Decision” with Cliff Sloan, and “Watching Darkness Fall: FDR, His Ambassadors, and the Rise of Adolf Hitler,” which was published in 2021. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Best-selling author and diplomat Richard Haass speaks with Stanford professor and author Francis Fukuyama about Haass' book, “The World: A Brief Introduction”, and other timely topics. Dr. Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the senior Middle East adviser to President George H. W. Bush, as director of the Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State Colin Powell, and as the U.S. envoy to both the Cyprus and Northern Ireland peace talks. “The World: A Brief Introduction” explores the many challenges globalization presents, and clarifies the most influential events and ideas. Haass aims to promote “global literacy” so that readers can make sense of this complicated and interconnected world. Haass is a recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal, the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award, and the Tipperary International Peace Awards. Haass is also the author or editor of fourteen other books, including the best-selling “A World in Disarray.” Francis Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy. Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, “The End of History and the Last Man,” has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book, “Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment,” was published in Sept. 2018. Dr. Fukuyama is a member of the American Political Science Association and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Ambika Bumb is a Science and Technology Policy Fellow working in the Crisis Management and Strategy Office at the U.S. Department of State. Within this office, she was part of several tasks forces that played major roles during the coronavirus pandemic, including the Repatriation Task Force that brought home American citizens stranded abroad during the early months of the pandemic. This repatriation effort was unprecedented in many ways but was executed quickly and efficiently. For their work, the US Senate passed a bipartisan resolution commending the Crisis Management and Strategy Office and the Department of State presented with the Distinguished Honor Award. In this episode Dr. Bumb talks about the challenges that she and her colleagues faced while bringing Americans home, and about how diverse parts of her academic and professional life seemed to converge in her work at the Department of State.
Some days it is just hard to get up and get going. So this episode begins with some interesting ways to get motivated and accomplish your goals on those days. All these strategies I discuss have been scientifically researched. http://www.purewow.com/wellness/time-management-tips-for-procrastinatorsIf you would like to be more persuasive, you really need to hear what James Crimmins has to say. James has spent his career in advertising and the world of persuasion. He has a unique definition of what persuasion is and discusses the science that anyone can use to help get people to do what you want. James is the author of the book 7 Secrets of Persuasion (https://amzn.to/2LVqf97)If you own land, how far down do your rights extend – and how far up in the sky. Listen as I explain how much of the earth and sky is yours. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3216/how-far-down-do-property-lines-goWould you consider yourself “globally literate”? To be globally literate is to understand how the world works, who the key players are, where the trouble is and who the troublemakers are. Someone who can help you be a lot more globally literate is Richard Haas. He has advised 4 U.S. presidents and is currently the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the senior Middle East adviser to President George H. W. Bush, as director of the Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State Colin Powell, and as the U.S. envoy to both the Cyprus and Northern Ireland peace talks. A recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award – and he is author of several books – his latest is big best seller called The World: A Brief Introduction. (https://amzn.to/36uddsH). Listen as he explains – how the world works.
In this podcast interview with NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins, Ambassador Winston Lord discusses his new book Kissinger on Kissinger: Reflections on Diplomacy, Grand Strategy, and Leadership. Ambassador Lord talks about what it was like to work with Dr. Kissinger, his memories of Nixon's visit to China, and what lessons from his and Dr. Kissinger's experiences can be applied to today's competitive relationship with China. Winston Lord has had a long and varied career in and out of government, serving as special assistant to the national security advisor (1970-73) and director of the State Department policy planning staff under President Nixon (1973-77), ambassador to China for Presidents Reagan and the first President Bush (1985-89), and assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under President Clinton (1993-97). Earlier in his career he held many positions in the State Department as a foreign service officer, and served on the policy planning staff of the Defense Department. Between government postings Ambassador Lord was a board member of many non-partisan, non-government organizations related to global issues. These include his service as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, co-chair of the International Rescue Committee, chair of the National Endowment for Democracy, and chair of the Carnegie Endowment National Commission on America and the New World. He is a member and former director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Ambassador Lord earned a B.A. from Yale (magna cum laude) and an M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (first in his class). He has received several honorary degrees, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, and the Defense Department’s Outstanding Performance Award. Ambassador Lord has appeared on all major U.S. media networks, and his writings include articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and Foreign Affairs.
In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon’s national security advisor, Dr. Henry Kissinger, steered U.S. foreign policy through challenging times, reshaping the country’s policies on China, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East. Working by his side throughout was Ambassador Winston Lord, then special assistant to the national security advisor and director of the State Department’s policy planning staff. In a new collection of interviews, Kissinger on Kissinger: Reflections on Diplomacy, Grand Strategy, and Leadership, Ambassador Lord chronicles Dr. Kissinger’s diplomatic adventures. Understanding Dr. Kissinger’s thoughts on leadership and strategy provides a timely lens through which to view today’s challenging geopolitical landscape. Winston Lord has had a long and varied career in and out of government, serving as special assistant to the national security advisor (1970-73) and director of the State Department policy planning staff under President Nixon (1973-77), ambassador to China for Presidents Reagan and the first President Bush (1985-89), and assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under President Clinton (1993-97). Earlier in his career he held many positions in the State Department as a foreign service officer, and served on the policy planning staff of the Defense Department. Between government postings Ambassador Lord was a board member of many non-partisan, non-government organizations related to global issues. These include his service as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, co-chair of the International Rescue Committee, chair of the National Endowment for Democracy, and chair of the Carnegie Endowment National Commission on America and the New World. He is a member and former director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Ambassador Lord earned a B.A. from Yale (magna cum laude) and an M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (first in his class). He has received several honorary degrees, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, and the Defense Department’s Outstanding Performance Award. Ambassador Lord has appeared on all major U.S. media networks, and his writings include articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and Foreign Affairs.
A Conversation About War, Diplomacy and Presidential Decision-Making Brett McGurk has just joined Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute. He resigned from his special envoy post this past December when President Trump announced a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria without any process or deliberation. McGurk had served as President Trump's envoy to defeat ISIS for the past two years, helping to oversee a global campaign with a coalition of 75 countries and 4 international organizations. He was appointed to the post by President Barack Obama in 2015 and was retained in this role by the Trump administration. McGurk has had nearly two decades of diplomatic service, particularly in the Middle East, across Democratic and Republican administrations. He was presented the Distinguished Honor Award by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Distinguished Service Award by Secretary of State John Kerry for exceptional service overseas. From October 2014 to January 2016, McGurk led 14 months of secret negotiations with Iran that led to a prisoner swap and the return home of six Americans, including journalist Jason Rezaian. Before joining the Bush administration's national security team, McGurk served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and was at the Supreme Court during the September 11, 2001 attacks, an experience that led to his practice of foreign affairs at the highest levels in Washington, D.C. and on the front lines. Come for a rare visit about his experiences as a seasoned diplomat as well as his thoughts on the direction of U.S. foreign policy and the intertwining of policy and politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Host: Mark Phillips Guest: Ambassador Michael A. Hammer, Acting Senior Vice President, NDU Bio: Ambassador Michael (Mike) A. Hammer became NDU's Acting Senior Vice President on 27 Oct 2017. He previously served as the Deputy Commandant of NDU's Eisenhower School and was additionally dual-hatted as the Vice Chancellor of the College of International Security Affairs. AMB Hammer is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service class of Minister-Counselor. He most recently served as U.S. AMB to Chile from 2014-2016. He began his diplomatic career in 1988. Prior to his appointment in Chile, AMB Hammer served as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from March 2012 to August 2013. He also served as Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. Before joining the Bureau of Public Affairs, AMB Hammer served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Director for Press and Communications, and National Security Council Spokesman from January 2009 to January 2011. He previously served at the National Security Council as Deputy Spokesman from 1999 to 2000 and as the Director of Andean Affairs from 2000 to 2001. AMB Hammer's overseas postings include Bolivia, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. His other State Department assignments include the Operations Center and serving as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. AMB Hammer has received several awards, including a the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, the Department’s Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy and several Superior Honor awards. AMB Hammer earned a Bachelor's degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He also earned Master's degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and from the National War College at the National Defense University. AMB Hammer grew up in Latin America, living in Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. He is fluent in Spanish and speaks French and Icelandic. AMB Hammer and his wife Margret Bjorgulfsdottir have three children.
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