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Windham World Affairs Council: Peter Galbraith – Is The American Century Over?
Working in partnership with Brooks Memorial Library, Vermont’s statewide commission and other groups, Windham World Affairs Council aims to stimulate a public dialogue reflecting on who we are as Americans and who we seek to be as part of the statewide and national 250 ‘semiquincentennial’ anniversary of the US in 2026.
Galbraith’s lecture will encapsulate the trajectory of US power over the past several decades. American power was unparalleled at the end of the 20th Century; Democracy and its economy looked secure with record budget surpluses on track to eliminate the entire national debt by 2009. Russia, China, the EU and other world powers seemed generally inclined to accept American leadership in support of a more cooperative world order.
How different the world looks in 2023. This lecture will track the reasons for the United States’ relative and absolute decline in power and leadership. It will analyze the many self-inflicted blows to American leadership — including two disastrous wars, reckless fiscal policies, and the crisis of US democracy — and examine whether America can lead the world and whether it should.
Galbraith’s 35-year career in public service includes serving as the first US Ambassador to Croatia, an Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations in Afghanistan in 2009, a Cabinet Member in East Timor’s first Transitional Government in 2000-2001, a Senior Professional Staff Member with the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and a Senator in his home state of Vermont. He is the author of two critically acclaimed books on the Iraq War, including the best selling “The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End.” Galbraith’s father, famed economist and author John Kenneth Galbraith, was also a long-time WWAC member.
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