Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world
with Dr. Paula Dobriansky, Belfer Center Senior Fellow & Former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs.
As the new Administration charts its international blueprint for action, global issues loom large on the U.S. foreign policy agenda. These trans-border issues transcend bilateral and even regional concerns. Most of them -- health, environment and science matters, democracy promotion, trafficking in persons, corporate social responsibility -- reflect what Professor Joseph Nye has aptly called "soft power." Their impacts on the global environment are very real.
Over the last decade, the National Intelligence Council has written a series of significant assessments highlighting global trends and warning that, unless properly addressed and managed by U.S. policymakers, they have the potential to foster instability and regional conflict and thus, harm U.S. national security interests. The most recent report, "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," concludes that in 2025, the international system will be almost unrecognizable due to the rise of various non-state actors, growing energy, food and water constraints and global health problems.
The Global Issues Seminar Series, beginning on March 9, will examine opportunities and challenges for the United States.
International Women's Day (March 8) will provide the backdrop for the first seminar in the series: "Women as Agents of Change." Across the world, we are witnessing the important role women are playing in furthering political and economic progress. In those societies where women are denied their basic rights, economic growth has been stunted.