SOLD OUT | U.S. Foreign Policy After the Election – Panel Discussion

This program is at capacity

With a new president-elect set to take office in January, many are eager to see how U.S. foreign policy will evolve in the coming years. The impact this new administration will have on the world stage as a global leader will have far-reaching implications for the rest of the world.  

As a new administration confronts U.S. foreign policy decisions, one thing is certain: the world is watching closely to see how it will address the intricate and dynamic landscape of international relations. From navigating existing alliances to tackling emerging global issues, the choices made in the early days of the new leadership will set the tone for the future and influence the U.S.’s relationship with both allies and adversaries alike.  

About Our Speakers

Ryan Crocker is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Other academic appointments have included Diplomat in Residence at Princeton University, inaugural Kissinger Fellow at Yale University, the James Schlesinger Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia, and TexasA&M where he was Dean of the Bush School of Government.

He was a career Foreign Service Officer who served six times as an American Ambassador: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon. He serves on the Board of Advisors of No One Left Behind, an NGO dedicated to ensuring that America keeps its promises to Afghans and Iraqis who risked their lives to support us. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2009. Other recent awards include the West Point Association of Graduates Thayer Award in 2020 and the inaugural Bancroft Award, presented by the Naval Academy in 2016. Also in 2016, he was named an Honorary Fellow of the Literary and Historical Society at University College, Dublin where he was presented the annual James Joyce Award. He is an Honorary Marine.

Patrick M. Cronin is the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute. Dr. Cronin’s research analyzes salient strategic issues related to US national security goals in the Indo-Pacific region and globally. His current writing touches on protecting national interests and world order despite intensified great-power competition, the enduring North Korea problem, and other state and non-state challenges.

Dr. Cronin has held numerous prominent positions, including senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, senior director at the National Defense University, and director of research at the US Institute of Peace. He has also been a senior analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US Naval Reserve intelligence officer, and an analyst with the Congressional Research Service and SRI International. He also served as the third-highest ranking official at USAID during the George W. Bush administration, where he played a crucial role in establishing the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

With a diverse background in security and foreign policy, Dr. Cronin has taught at prestigious institutions like Georgetown and Johns Hopkins. He holds MPhil and DPhil degrees in international relations from the University of Oxford. He is a frequent contributor to The Straits Times (Singapore) and DongA Ilbo (South Korea) and is a regular member of the Defense & Aerospace Report’s “Washington Roundtable” podcast. He also writes for other leading publications and regularly conducts television and radio interviews.

About Our Moderator

Jen Butte-Dahl, a senior director with APCO Impact based in Seattle, is an accomplished architect of initiatives, organizations, and alliances that tackle critical global challenges and span both continents and sectoral boundaries.

A people and results-focused leader, she has a track record of transforming ideas into action, navigating complexity, creating structure from scratch, building coalitions, and achieving real results in bureaucratic institutions as well as in fast-paced entrepreneurial environments.  Two decades of international assignments have placed Ms. Butte-Dahl throughout the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Americas working within and between the worlds of business, government, politics, philanthropy, academia and international and non-governmental organizations.

Early in her career, Ms. Butte-Dahl set up a nonprofit focused on entrepreneurship in post-apartheid South Africa and later opened a sales support office for a large technology company in the United Arab Emirates. During her career with the U.S. Government, she worked in the U.S. Department of State, on Capitol Hill, and across the Interagency as a senior advisor to U.S government officials and high-level presidential envoys. More recently, Ms. Butte-Dahl founded a mid-career graduate program at the University of Washington, launched a multi-million dollar public-private initiative that harnesses digital platforms and global connectivity to build meaningful relationships between young people in the United States, Middle East and North Africa, and led the policy education team on a presidential exploratory effort.

Ms. Butte-Dahl serves on the advisory council of the Stevens Initiative and as an affiliate faculty member at the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Management from Purdue University and a master’s degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Amazon is an underwriting sponsor of all World Affairs Council Community Programs.