2022 World Affairs Council of the Year
Network of Independent World Affairs Councils of America
Ambassador Charles “Dick” Bowers and LCDR Patrick Ryan tick through the top 5 items in the week’s news and provide analysis and commentary. This week the were joined by Gillian Sjoblom, guest co-host, to talk about the recent release of the 2020 Global Peace Index.
Topics:
1 – Global Covid Update
2 – U.S.-Iraq Strategic Talks
3 – Global Peace Index
4 – U.S. Civil Protests Resonating Around the World
5 – Press Freedom Under Attack – The Case of the Philippines
Charles Richard (Dick) Bowers served as the US Ambassador to Bolivia from 1991 through 1994. During that time, the American Embassy in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, was the largest and most complex U.S. embassy in South America. Ambassador Bowers grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, attended the University of California, Berkeley. He entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1967. From 1961 to 1964 he served in the U.S. Army as a Russian linguist in West Berlin at the height of the Cold War. As a career member of the U.S. diplomatic corps, Ambassador Bowers served in the U.S. Embassies in Panama, Poland, Singapore, Germany and Bolivia. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1995. Amb Bowers has been a Board Member of the Tennessee World Affairs Council since 2012.
Gillian Sjoblom is a volunteer on the staff of the Tennessee World Affairs Council. She is a student at Wellesley College in Massachusetts where she majors in International Relations/Political Science. Gillian is a 2019 graduate of Hume-Fogg Academic High School in Nashville Tennessee. She was on the team of Hume-Fogg students who won the 2019 Academic WorldQuest Championship of the TNWAC and represented Tennessee at the National Championship match in Washington, D.C.
Patrick Ryan is a native of New York City. He enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and volunteered for submarine duty. He served aboard nuclear fast attack and ballistic missile boats during the Cold War, rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. In 1982 he was commissioned and served aboard a cruiser in the Western Pacific before becoming a Navy Intelligence Officer. Ryan served aboard the carrier Constellation in the Pacific, the Joint Staff Intelligence Directorate in the Pentagon, the Center for Naval Analysis, and the Intelligence Directorate of U.S. Central Command. Ryan retired from the Navy in 1998 and worked as a consultant on Intelligence Community projects and as the VP/COO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. Ryan ran a newsletter publishing business on international affairs from 1999-2016. He founded the Tennessee World Affairs Council in 2007.