Global Tennessee Tennessee World Affairs Council

The Middle East is at a hinge moment. The old order is collapsing, and a new one has yet to emerge. While the region’s tectonic shifts predate Hamas’s terror attack on Oct. 7, the ensuing conflict in Gaza and its reverberations across the region are the crucible in which the new contours of the Middle East will take shape. USIP's Mona Yacoubian will provide insights on the regional flashpoints that have erupted in the wake of the Gaza conflict as well as the broader implications for a region in a state of enormous flux.

Do you wonder what jobs and careers there are in international affairs?  There’s more than you think.  Every Fall and Spring the World Affairs Council assembles diplomats, business people, NGO officials, returned Peace Corps volunteers and more to talk about their experiences and insights and to answer your questions at this very popular panel. 

The ICP will feature four panelists from different professions sharing hard to come by information on working in multicultural societies. This is a special opportunity to listen to distinguished professionals’ experiences and insights and to discuss: preparation and transition from colleges to careers including the tools; skills and competencies needed to enter the profession; the upsides and downsides of working in those jobs and internship opportunities in their organizations. The panel is aimed for college students, high school students and young professionals but they're open to everyone including TNWAC members and partner institutions around Tennessee.

This discussion will focus on Chinese engagements in Africa and Latin America, and the implications for US strategic relations and interests. Tugendhat will give opening remarks based on the view from Washington, the view from Beijing, and common views among many Global South capitals around these significant engagements. This will then lead into a series of questions and answers with the moderator and audience.

ARCHIVE - Global Nashville with Karl Dean - Dr. Sarah Gardial - Dean Massey College of Business by Tennessee World Affairs Council

Hard to come by insights and perspectives from Distinguished Professor of History Thomas Schwartz and moderator, Dr. Breck Walker.

At the beginning of the Cold War, Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg announced his support for Democratic President Harry Truman’s Marshall Plan for Europe by proclaiming that “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” In more recent times, however, American domestic politics appears to have had a strong effect on foreign policy, particularly in election years. In this webinar, we will discuss the potential impact of America’s election year politics on the important issues of foreign policy, including the Middle East, Ukraine, and China.

Ambassador William Taylor, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, talked to a TNWAC Global Town Hall in Nashville on November 29, 2023 about the war in Ukraine. The session was moderated by Vanderbilt University Distinguished History Dr. Thomas Schwartz. They covered the background and context of the fight over Ukraine as well as the current situations and issues and the role of the United States and the West.

Ambassador William B. Taylor is vice president, Europe and Russia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. In 2019, he served as chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv and as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009. During the Arab Spring, he oversaw U.S. assistance and support to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. He served in Jerusalem as the U.S. government’s representative to the Mideast Quartet. He served in Kabul in 2002 and in Baghdad in 2004.

In the 1990s, Ambassador Taylor coordinated U.S. assistance to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He earlier served on the staff of Senator Bill Bradley.

Ambassador Taylor is a graduate of West Point and Harvard’s Kennedy School and served as an infantry platoon leader and combat company commander in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and Germany.