Event Date: November 7, 2018 - 9:00am to 10:30am
Location: Alex Trebek Hall, 157 Séraphin-Marion Private

Presented by CIPS and the Atlantic Council;

Join us for a conversation with Ambassadors John Herbst and Daniel Fried to discuss the challenges to democratic states and the NATO alliance posed by a resurgent Russia, the concept of hybrid warfare, the rise of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. Moderated by CIPS Associate Director Professor Alexandra Gheciu, this talk will explore how, and why, these challenges threaten the contemporary rules based international order. We will consider a number of questions: What policy responses are open to Canada, the United States, NATO, and the EU in the face of resurgent challenges to the West? Do the disinformation campaigns of authoritarian actors represent a novel challenge to Western democratic states? Finally, what resources do democratic states have at their disposal to counter the impact of these new challenges?

Ambassador John Herbst

John E. Herbst is director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Ambassador Herbst served for thirty-one years as a foreign service officer in the US Department of State, retiring at the rank of career-minister. He was US ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006, when he worked to enhance US-Ukrainian relations.

Ambassador Herbst previously served as US consul general in Jerusalem; principal deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for the Newly Independent States; the Director of the office of independent states and commonwealth affairs; director of regional affairs in the Near East Bureau; and at the embassies in Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Saudi Arabia.

He most recently served as director of the center for complex operations at National Defense University. He has received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement Award, and the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award.

Ambassador Daniel Fried

In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. As special assistant and NSC senior director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, ambassador to Poland, and assistant secretary of state for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried crafted the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thus advancing the goal of Europe whole, free, and at peace. During those years, the West’s community of democracy and security grew in Europe. Ambassador Fried became one of the US government’s foremost experts on Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. While a student, he lived in Moscow, majored in Soviet studies and history at Cornell University (BA magna cum laude 1975), and received an MA from Columbia’s Russian Institute and School of International Affairs in 1977.