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R. Gilchrist: Global Democratic Renewal: An American Priority, a Collective Challenge
Robert Gilchrist, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy Human Rights and Labor, will deliver an address entitled “Global Democratic Renewal: An American Priority, a Collective Challenge“ before the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. The program will be held at the World Trade Center Baltimore, 401 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202 at 6:00 p.m. A 5:15 p.m. reception precedes the address.
On receiving the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago, Russian journalist Dimitry Muratov made the jarring observation that the world “has fallen out of love for Democracy.”
Two years later he describes a far more perilous situation.
“I think we are facing a major global conflict,” Muratov said at the Hanway lecture at Loyola University in October. “It is a conflict between an Alliance of Dictatorships and the Union of Democracies. This is the time when Democracy needs protection as never before. And it is a fact that it is weak as never before.”
Muratov, whom the Putin regime has recently labeled a “foreign agent,” sees implications for world peace.
“The fewer democracies we have, the more dictatorships and wars. That’s the simple rule.”
Is Democracy in peril?
President Biden says that bolstering democratic governance is “the defining challenge of our time.”
And what is his administration doing about it?
To find out, we invited the State Department to send a top official, and Ambassador Robert Gilchrist will be our guest on January 9. He is currently the principal deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and was previously the U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, a good post to observe the state of democratic development in the former Soviet empire.
Ambassador Gilchrist has also served in top diplomatic posts in Sweden, Estonia, Iraq, Romania, and was Director of Nordic and Baltic Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. He’s a graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Virginia. He doesn’t mince words.
“We’re all concerned about the slide towards Autocracy,” he told Council president Roy Gutman recently. “The surge of Autocracy…could not have been imagined 10 to 15 years ago.”
One leading scholar sees the U.S. government as partly responsible. “While powerful autocracies have waged muscular, technologically adroit assaults on Democracy, we have retreated from the ideological struggle,” Stanford professor Larry Diamond said in the recent Libset memorial lecture. “We are not waging the ideological struggle, the normative struggle, the informational struggle for Democracy and for freedom with the energy, the resources, conviction, coordination and technological ingenuity of which we are capable and which the times demand.”
So that’s the issue. Please join us January 9 at the World Trade Center for what should be a lively discussion on the struggle between Democracy and Autocracy.
Reservations are required. Members may attend free of charge and membership is open to the public. Membership, event information, and reservations may be obtained by phone (410-727-2150), or by email ([email protected]).
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2144447-0
