The Globalization myth
February 9. 2023
Seton Hall University
Shannon O’Neil, Vice President, Deputy Director of Studies, and Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, discussed her recently released The Globalization Myth, in which she challenges the conventional wisdom about globalization.
top risks 2023
January 26, 2023
Our Top Risks event returned for its third year running, with Alex Kazan and Roz Engel unpacking Eurasia Group’s Top Risks 2023 report, Alex Kazan is the Chief Commercial Officer at Eurasia Group and a WACNJ Trustee. Roz Engel is the Chief Economic Strategist at the MITRE Corporation and WACNJ President.
US-China Relations: A conversation with Chinese consul General Huang Ping
april 28, 2022
WACNJ hosted Ambassador Huang Ping, Chinese Consul General of New York, one of China’s top US diplomats. The conversation was moderated by Professor Zheng Wang of Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy.
Academic WorldQuest 2022
MARCH 19, 2022
WACNJ hosted its second annual state-level qualifying competition. The local event was open to all high schools in the region and was part of a nationwide youth competition called Academic WorldQuest, sponsored by the World Affairs Councils of America. The winning team from Biotechnology High School represented WACNJ at the national competition in Washington DC.
China’s Growing Diplomatic Reach
February 15, 2022
Bloomberg’s Peter Martin discussed China's transformation from an isolated and impoverished communist state to a global superpower with rising diplomatic clout. He drew on his recent book, China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy (published in 2021), which offered insights from his own first-hand reporting as a journalist in Beijing and the memoirs of more than a hundred retired diplomats. Martin is a political reporter for Bloomberg News, who has written extensively on escalating tensions in the U.S.-China relationship.
What Lies Ahead in 2022?
January 18, 2022
In our second annual Top Risks program, Alex Kazan and Stephen Wertheim unpacked Eurasia Group’s recently released Top Risks 2022 report. Alex Kazan is the Chief Commercial Officer at Eurasia Group and member of the WACNJ Board of Trustees. Stephen Wertheim is a Senior Fellow in the American Statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Tomorrow, the World.
COP26: Challenge of Achieving a Just Transition
November 10, 2022
Gerald Butts, the Vice-Chairman of Eurasia Group and a senior policy advisor in Canada, and Faith Taylor, ESG Leader at Tesla, joined us to discussion the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) and the challenge of how to make the transition to a cleaner future as equitable and just as possible.
Here, Right Matters ~ A Talk with Alexander Vindman
October 25, 2022
In July 2019, Alexander Vindman participated in a phone call that would upend his life. Detailed to the National Security Council as the Director of European Affairs, Vindman covered Russia and Ukraine, the latter being the country from which his family emigrated 40 years earlier, and had organized what was expected to be a congratulory call between President Trump and newly elected Ukrainian President Zelensky. His decision to report what he heard during that conversation led directly to President Trump’s 2019 impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice. It also ended his military career. On Oct 25, Alexander Vindman joined WACNJ to reflect on that experience and to discuss other details of his life and career. He also signed copies of his recent memoir titled Here, Right Matters: An American Story.
WACNJ President Roz Engel and Alexander Vindman
Local bookstore Source of Knowledge participated in the event
Radicalization and Terrorism in the Digital Age
September 30, 2022
Twenty years after 9/11, extremist movements have cultivated new adherents and found new platforms from which to promote their violent ideologies. As extremism and radicalization have evolved, the risk that they pose to our society, safety, and international relationships have changed as well. Nick Rasmussen, one of the world’s leading experts on counterterrorism and executive director of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), explored the threats that violent extremists continue to pose to our communities, how they have learned to exploit the internet, and what we can do to contain these threats.
After the Fall: What the Taliban’s Takeover of Afghanistan Means for the United States
Tuesday, September 14
On August 15, 2021, the capital of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, bringing a chaotic end to two decades of U.S. military presence in the country. As a new era of Taliban rule begins, we sat down with Annie Pforzheimer, a long-serving U.S. diplomat with extensive experience in Afghanistan, for a discussion about the decisions leading up to the U.S. withdrawal, what the Taliban’s takeover means for Afghanistan, how regional dynamics contributed to the situation, and what options are still left for the United States.
Older Events & Video Links
Prospects for US-India Strategic Cooperation, with Basant Sanghera, US State Department (April 2021)
Fragile States and Flashpoints, with Alan Pino, retired CIA intelligence officer (March 2021)
New Priorities for US Foreign Policy?, with Rep. Tom Malinowski (February 2021)
What in the World?! A community quiz night on Zoom, with Ben Wagor, trivia master and WACNJ Board member (December 2020)
Past, Present, and Future of the National Security Council, with John Gans, author of White House Warriors (November 2020)
COVID and the Economy, with WACNJ Board Members Niso Abuaf and Gerald Cohen (September 2020)
Protests for Racial Justice at Home and Abroad, with Jean Beaman and Michael Flamm (August 2020)
NO VIDEO AVAILABLE
COVID-19 as a “Wicked Problem,” with Greg Treverton, former Chair of the National Intelligence Council (April 2020)
Promises and Pitfalls of Global Migration, with Brendan Ryan, CEO of Nomadic USA LLC (January 2020)
This was a private dinner event, no video available.
What’s Ahead for the Faltering Global Economy? with Nathan Sheets, Chief Economist at PGIM Fixed Income and Former Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs (November 2019)
This was a private dinner event, no video available.
