A Harvard University professor will discuss U.S. foreign policy in the debut of a new endowed lecture series at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Stephen M. Walt, Ph.D., presents “Follies and Fiascoes: Why Does U.S. Foreign Policy Keep Failing?” at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19 to launch the Dr. Erich Liebert World Affairs Endowed Lecture Series. A 4 p.m. reception will precede the free lecture in Room 112 of Edwards Hall.
Among the facets of foreign policy Walt will discuss are: the deterioration of relations with Russia and China; the failure of Republicans’ and Democrats’ peace mediation efforts in the Middle East; and the reasons members of both parties embraced President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 despite clear warnings that the war was unnecessary and that the United States had no exit strategy.
Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he served as academic dean from 2002 to 2006. He is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 2005. Walt’s most recent book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” (co-authored with John J. Mearsheimer) was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into more than 20 foreign languages.
“Stephen Walt’s realist approach to world politics cuts through ideology and offers us an unsentimental and sane conception of America’s place in the world,” said Dr. Richard Coughlin, an associate professor of international relations at FGCU and a member of the lecture series’ organizing committee. “We would do well to listen to him.”
The Department of Political Science and Public Administration in FGCU’s College of Arts and Sciences received an endowment to establish the series. It is named for the late Dr. Erich Liebert, a Northwestern University professor and noted neuropsychiatrist.
For more information, visit the series’ webpage or email [email protected].