Global Dialogue: International Affairs Speakers Program

The Future of American Diplomacy

LIVE INTERACTIVE WEBINAR – REGISTER NOW

Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 7:00pm CT

Ambassador Marcie Ries, Director Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard

Ambassador Charles Bowers, USFS (Ret), Member of the Board, TNWAC

Dr. Thomas Schwartz, PhD., Professor of History (US Foreign Policy), Vanderbilt University

Host, LCDR Patrick Ryan, USN (Retired), President, Tennessee World Affairs Council

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 7:00pm CT

Join Ambassador Marcie Ries, Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard, Ambassador Dick Bowers, TNWAC Board Member and Dr. Thomas Schwartz, Professor History (US Foreign Relations) at Vanderbilt University and host TNWAC President Patrick Ryan. Inspired by the Harvard “Future of Diplomacy Project” you’ll contribute your ideas on the next face of American diplomacy.

“This new initiative intends to address the serious challenges the Foreign Service has faced during administrations of both parties, including inadequate budgetary support to train and sustain the nation’s diplomats, increased politicization of the Foreign Service, and the need to recruit and retain the very best women and men from every part of the country and every ethnic and religious group.”

 

Ambassador Marcie Ries

Ambassador (Ret.) Marcie Ries is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project.  She is also a Senior Advisor in the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute Leadership and Management School. 

During thirty-seven years of diplomatic service, she served in Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.  She is a three-time Chief of Mission, serving as Head of the U.S. Office Pristina, Kosovo (2003-2004); as United States Ambassador to Albania (2004-2007); and, most recently (2012-2015), as United States Ambassador to Bulgaria.   

Ambassador Ries has wide experience on UN, European and security matters and was a senior member of the team that negotiated the 2011 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the Russian Federation.  In 2008-2009, Ambassador Ries was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR).  In that capacity, she had responsibility for offices dealing with relations with the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), the European Union (EU) and Western Europe, as well as strategic planning and personnel.  EUR includes 50 countries and 72 posts.  From 2007-2008, the period known as “the surge,” Ambassador Ries was Minister-Counselor for Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.  As such, she handled regional issues with the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, coordinated the civilian side of the Joint Campaign Plan and served as Embassy liaison with the Military Command Staff.  As Director of the State Department’s Office of United Nations Political Affairs for the two years following the 9/11 attack, she organized State Department support for U.S. representatives in the General Assembly and in the Security Council.  Ambassador Ries’ experience abroad also includes service as Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in London, four years at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels, and tours in Turkey and the Dominican Republic.  At the Foreign Service Institute, she serves as a senior mentor for U.S. ambassadors preparing for their ambassadorships and other senior officers undertaking new leadership responsibilities.  She also speaks to students and professional groups on leadership and European issues.

Ambassador Ries is a graduate of Oberlin College and holds a Masters Degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  She is a graduate of the State Department’s Senior Seminar and the Department of Defense Pinnacle Course and is a recipient of the U.S. Army’s Distinguished Civilian Service Medal and a Presidential Meritorious Service Award.  She serves on the Board of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the American College of Sophia.

Ambassador Charles Bowers

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.

Professor Thomas Schwartz

Professor of History; Professor of Political Science; Professor of European Studies; Vanderbilt University.  Thomas Alan Schwartz is a historian of the foreign relations of the United States, with related interests in Modern European history and the history of international relations. He is the author of Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography, to be published in September 2020 by Hill and Wang. Professor Schwartz has held fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the German Historical Society, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for the Study of European Integration. He has served as President of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. He served on the United States Department of State’s Historical Advisory Committee as the representative of the Organization of American Historians from 2005-2008.

More here

LCDR Patrick Ryan, USN (Ret)

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.

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PROGRAM PARTNERS

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The mission of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Tennessee World Affairs Council is to promote international awareness, understanding and connections to enhance the region’s global stature and to prepare Tennesseans to thrive in our increasingly complex and connected world.

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