Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World – a discussion with Ambassador Rick Barton

We are delighted to host Rick Barton, former Assistant Secretary of State under the Obama Administration, to discuss his latest book “Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World.”

Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria – a quarter-century of stumbles in America’s pursuit of a more peaceful and just world. American military interventions have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, yet we rarely manage to enact positive and sustainable change. In Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World, Rick Barton uses a mix of stories, history, and analysis for a transformative approach to foreign affairs and offers concrete and attainable solutions for the future. The book begins and ends in Syria – the ultimate failure of our current approach to foreign policy, and with devastating consequences.

In a discussion with Professor Elisabeth Vallet (Chaire Raoul Dandurand at UQAM), Barton will draw on his experience to analyze how American conflict interventions have failed and how they could have succeeded.

Agenda:

5:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. – Pre-Event Reception

5:30 p.m. – 6:45 p.m. – Event

The event is free but donations are encouraged

AMBASSADOR RICK BARTON

Ambassador Rick Barton teaches at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, where he serves as a co-director of Princeton’s Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative and Ullman Fellowships. His 2018 book, Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World, uses a mix of stories, history, and analysis to offer an affirmative approach to foreign affairs through concrete and attainable solutions. Barton started USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, and was America’s ambassador to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in New York, the UN’s Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva and the first Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations. He led conflict management initiatives in over 40 crisis zones across the globe, from Haiti, Iraq, Nigeria, Burma, Pakistan to Turkey. Published in The New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, The Boston Globe, and numerous other international outlets, Barton is a guest on news shows ranging from NPR to all of the major networks. He resides in Washington, D.C. with his wife of 43 years, Kit Lunney.

ELISABETH VALLET

Dr Elisabeth Vallet is currently the Scientific Director of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies. She has been a visiting fellow both in the United States and Europe. She has published several books and book chapters, and articles in scientific journals (such as Journal of Borderland Studies, Études internationales, French Politics, L’année stratégique, Diplomatie, La Revue du droit public, Revue de recherches féministes, Politique américaine). She is also a radio chronicler for the Canadian National Network (Radio-Canada) and blogs on US politics and border walls on Hypotheses.org. She was awarded the 2017 Richard Morrill Outreach Award by the Political Geography Specialty Group of the AAG.