Provocate.org

The first female Secretary of State and at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. As Secretary of State, Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade and business, labor, and environmental standards abroad. Albright is the chairperson for The Women, Faith and Development Alliance, which aims to end global poverty among women. Albright is also the first Michael and Virginia Mortara Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. (more…)

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Do we really want to know what people form the Middle East think about the United States? We do if we want to improve relations. (more…)

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Former U.S. Congressman, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission and Iraq Study Group, and member of the War Powers Commission…. Lee Hamilton = The Statesman’s Statesman (more…)

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To what degree to American journalists report the news, and to what degree do they project the US to the rest of the world. A group of DePauw alumni is answering this question every day.
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Four perspectives on American global power: (1) America is rapidly declining to irrelevancy (thank goodness); (2) America is facing the rise of new wannabe empires, so has to accommodate them in cooperative institutions; (3) reports of America’s decline have been rmapant since before the US rose, and are still premature (thank goodness); (4) like it or not, for good or for ill the US will be Top Dog for a long time, but that shouldn’t distract us from figuring out how we here can help solve global problems. Guess which is Provocate’s preferred position? (more…)

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An interesting convergence: Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams is a Lincoln scholar; he has drawn favorable parallels between Lincoln’s suspension of legal niceties during the Civil War and the Bush Administrations prosecution of the war on Islamic extremism; and he has been appointed the Chief Judge on the United States Court of Military Commission Review. Should be a very interesting talk. (more…)

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Find out if it’s possible to have a non-political, evidence based discussion of the costs of the Iraq War … and of how high a cost we should be willing to continue paying. (more…)

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The emergence of India, China, Brazil, Egypt, and others on the world stage as increasingly more powerful actors is causing a major transformation of the global political system. What does it mean for the United States … and for Indiana. (more…)

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Who’s funnier, the comedian Billy Crystal or the neocon pundit Bill Kristol? Depends on how you like your humor. (more…)

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Johann Galtung is coming to Indy. The most influential living social scientist, he is the founder of the academic study of peace and conflict studies, a discipline now offered as a major or a minor on virtually every college in America and Europe. He’s the author of more than a hundred books and more than a thousand articles. He is reported to have served as a mediator in more than 40 internaitonal conflicts. Think of one degree of seperation: if an academic uses the word “peace,” either she has read Galtung or she studied withsomeone who read Galtung. But is it all just a “peace racket”? (more…)

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