Global Tennessee

There couldn’t be a more timely program.

Admiral Bill Owens fostered bilateral conversations at the highest levels between American and Chinese military officers for the purpose of building trust and confidence and developing initiatives to resolve conflict.

This is a must see episode of Global Dialogue with host Patrick Ryan and guest co-host John Scannapieco as they talk with Admiral Owens about his insights and perspectives on the deterioration of relations with China and the necessity to find ways to cooperate for the good of both nations and the planet.

Washington and Beijing are doubling down on conflicts in an already troublesome relationship. Consulates in Houston and Chengdu have been ordered shut. Secretary Pompeo traveled to the Nixon library to deliver an address on America’s future approach, “Today China is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom everywhere else.” With the backdrop of increased hostility between the two dominant global powers we present four-star Admiral Bill Owens at this week’s Tuesday evening Global Dialogue Webinar. In addition to serving as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Owens is author of “China-US 2039: The Endgame?,” and supported over ten years of dialogues between the most senior retired officers in the United States and Chinese militaries.

Ambassador Dick Bowers, LCDR Patrick Ryan and Dr. Breck Walker, Ph.D., discuss the top five items in the week’s global news providing commentary and assessments, background and context; and they take your questions and comments.

This week Dr. Charles Womack, MD, joined the conversation about key issues in global news especially his insight and perspectives on COVID-19. Dr. Womack is a founding member of the TNWAC Board of Directors, former TNWAC Vice President and Member of the Board since 2007. He represented TNWAC on a WACA leaders delegation to the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Womack is a retired physician from Cookeville, Tennessee, a two-term Mayor of Cookeville and a member of the Cookeville City Council.

This week's topics:

1 – In Pursuit of a Vaccine

2 – COVID-19

3 – London Calling: Huawei, 5G and the West

4 – October Surprises

5 – The End of World Order and American Foreign Policy

Ambassador Dick Bowers, LCDR Patrick Ryan and Dr. Breck Walker, Ph.D., discuss the top five items in the week’s global news providing commentary and assessments, background and context; and they take your questions and comments.

This week Dr. Charles Womack, MD, joined the conversation about key issues in global news especially his insight and perspectives on COVID-19. Dr. Womack is a founding member of the TNWAC Board of Directors, former TNWAC Vice President and Member of the Board since 2007. He represented TNWAC on a WACA leaders delegation to the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Womack is a retired physician from Cookeville, Tennessee, a two-term Mayor of Cookeville and a member of the Cookeville City Council.

This week's topics:

1 – In Pursuit of a Vaccine

2 – COVID-19

3 – London Calling: Huawei, 5G and the West

4 – October Surprises

5 – The End of World Order and American Foreign Policy

In this episode former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean talked with Commissioner Bob Rolfe.

He heads the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development at a critical time for Tennesseans and the business community.

The ECD is responsible for recruiting business and industry to the state, supporting existing companies, expanding economic opportunities across rural Tennessee and boosting the state’s overall economic prosperity.

Commissioner Rolfe has served as commissioner since March 2017.

Under his leadership, TNECD has increased Tennessee’s global footprint.

He has led the State’s efforts in the recruitment and expansion of over 100 international projects, which represent an investment of $5.6 billion and 18,000 job commitments.

TNECD has placed a major focus on job creation and community development in rural Tennessee. Since 2017, the department has provided more than $240 million in funding to rural communities throughout the state.

In addition, companies have invested $4 billion and committed to create 21,500 new jobs in rural communities over the past three years.

Commissioner Rolfe has more than three decades of experience in business and investment banking in Tennessee.

Before joining TNECD, he held the position of CEO of Medical Reimbursements of America, Inc., a company that provides specialty reimbursement solutions to improve financial performance for hospitals and health systems nationwide.

He co-founded West End Holdings in 2011, a Nashville-based private equity partnership and he spent the first 18 years of his career as an investment banker at J.C. Bradford and Co.

Rolfe received his E.M.B.A. from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and his B.S. from the University of Alabama’s School of Commerce and Business Administration.

Ambassador Dick Bowers, LCDR Patrick Ryan and Dr. Breck Walker, Ph.D., discuss the top five items in the week’s global news providing commentary and assessments, background and context; and they take your questions and comments. We were pleased to welcome Dr. Walker to the weekly Global News Review team as a regular co-host.

This week Professor Thomas Schwartz joined the conversation about key issues in global news especially his assessment of the question on a "New Cold War" between the U.S. and China. Dr. Schwartz is a Distinguished Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. (Bio below)

Topics:

1 – Global Covid Update

2 – Has a U.S.-China Cold War Already Begun?

3 – Afghanistan: U.S.-Taliban Negotiations Update

4 – Iran-China: Wedding Bells

5 – The End of World Order and American Foreign Policy

Check TNWAC.org for bios on Amb Bowers, Dr. Walker and LCDR Ryan.

Guest Co-Host | Professor Thomas Schwartz

Distinguished Professor of History; Professor of Political Science; Professor of European Studies; Vanderbilt University. Thomas Alan Schwartz is a historian of the foreign relations of the United States, with related interests in Modern European history and the history of international relations. He is the author of Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography, to be published in September 2020 by Hill and Wang. Professor Schwartz has held fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the German Historical Society, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for the Study of European Integration. He has served as President of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. He served on the United States Department of State’s Historical Advisory Committee as the representative of the Organization of American Historians from 2005-2008.

Recorded: July 14, 2020

Moderator: Patrick Ryan, President, Tennessee World Affairs Council

[If you appreciate the work we do to inspire an understanding of the world please become a member or donate to the Tennessee World Affairs Council (www.TNWAC.org). Thank you!]

The global energy market is in turmoil. Inventories are high and demand is low. We recently saw a negative price call for crude oil and fully laden tankers are sitting at anchorages waiting for customers. The International Energy Agency said oil demand was “down nearly 5% in the first quarter, mostly by curtailment in mobility and aviation which account for nearly 60% of global oil demand. By the end of March, global road transport activity was almost 50% below the 2019 average and aviation 60% below. The energy market fallout from the pandemic, and the crash in oil prices, has threatened the economic stability of numerous countries, especially those in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Some have sought to ensure market share through price slashing over production, worsening the inventory glut.

This Global Dialogue episode with veteran journalist, author and scholar Thomas Lippman will aim to sort through the global energy crisis and to discuss his new book, “Crude Oil, Crude Money.” It, “tells the untold story of how Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco teamed up with the CIA and Department of State to thwart the plans of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who almost managed to reshape the Middle East.”

About Thomas Lippman

Thomas W. Lippman is an author and journalist who has written about Middle Eastern affairs and American foreign policy for four decades, specializing in Saudi Arabian affairs, U.S.- Saudi relations, and relations between the West and Islam. He is a former Middle East bureau chief of the Washington Post, and also served as that newspaper’s oil and energy reporter. Throughout the 1990s, he covered foreign policy and national security for the Post, traveling frequently to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. He has been a frequent visitor to Saudi Arabia for many years.

Before his work in the Middle East, he was the Washington Post correspondent in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Lippman is the author of numerous magazine articles, book reviews and op-ed columns about Mideast affairs, and of eight books about the Middle East and Islam. His latest book, Crude Oil, Crude Money: Aristotle Onassis, Saudi Arabia, and the CIA,” was published in 2019.

Lippman has appeared on all major US television networks, NPR, the BBC, and many television stations overseas. He has lectured on Gulf regional affairs at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School, at the National Defense University, at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, and at the Brookings Institution. He has also been also a consultant to film producers, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Counterterrorism Center, and corporations that do business in the Gulf.

Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington and was an Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ambassador Dick Bowers, LCDR Patrick Ryan and Dr. Breck Walker, Ph.D., discuss the top five items in the week’s global news providing commentary and assessments, background and context; and they take your questions and comments. We were pleased to welcome Dr. Walker to the weekly Global News Review team as a regular co-host.

This week Professor Mark Katz joined the conversation about key issues in global news especially his analyses of US-Russian affairs. Dr. Katz is a Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason University. (Bio below)

Topics:

1 – Thucydides Takes a South China Sea Cruise

2 – Vladimir the Great — Putin can serve through 2036

3 – Russia’s murder for hire program in Afghanistan

4 – Hong Kong: End of One City, Two Systems

5 – Iran: Why Are There Fires Breaking Out

This week Dick and Pat welcomed Dr. Breck Walker aboard the News Review team as a regular member. They also shared the program with Dr. Mark Katz, a specialist on Russian affairs.

Dr. Breck Walker received his PhD in Diplomatic History from Vanderbilt in 2007. His dissertation was on the foreign policy of the Carter administration. He taught at Sewanee, the University of the South, 2007-2012, and on the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea Program in Spring 2013 and Fall 2015. He worked as a historian in the Historical Office of the Office of Secretary of Defense 2013-2016, researching and writing a book on early Pentagon cyber policy. Prior to becoming a history professor, Breck worked for twenty years as an investment banker, the last ten as co-head of the Corporate Finance Group at J.C. Bradford & Co in Nashville. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, and J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University. Breck serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee World Affairs Council.

Guest Co-Host | Professor Mark Katz

Mark N. Katz, Professor of Government and Politics, began teaching at George Mason University in 1988. He writes on Russian foreign policy, the international relations of the Middle East, transnational revolutionary movements, and other subjects. During 2017, he was a visiting scholar first at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (January-March), and then at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki (April-September). During 2018, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London (January-March), and then the 2018 Sir William Luce Fellow at Durham University in the UK (April-June). In February 2019, he was appointed a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Links to his recent articles can be found at www.marknkatz.com

In this episode former Nashville Mayor Dean talked with Alderman Frank McCoubrey. He is the current Lord Mayor of Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of Nashville’s sister cities.

They were accompanied by leaders from Nashville and Belfast to join the conversation about the Sister City relationship and exchanges and the common issues in municipal government in times of health and economic challenges.

Lord Mayor of Belfast Alderman Frank McCoubrey (53) represents the Court area of West Belfast. Alderman McCoubrey has achieved the rare honour of serving as High Sheriff, Deputy Lord Mayor and now Lord Mayor of Belfast. He has served as a councillor on Belfast City Council since May 1997.

Karl Dean was the sixth mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. He was elected on Sept. 11, 2007 and was re-elected on Aug. 4, 2011. He completed his second term in office on September 25, 2015. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee World Affairs Council.

John Greer is the Director of Economic Development at Belfast City Council and leads a team delivering the economic development, tourism, festival, heritage and markets strategies.

Áine Mallaghan, based in Chicago, is responsible for the USA Mid-West operations for Invest Northern Ireland, an agency within the Northern Ireland government responsible for growing the economy of Northern Ireland. Áine has worked with companies such as Baker McKenzie, Allstate, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to set up and expand operations and jobs in N Ireland.

John leads the Global Business Team at Baker Donelson a distinguished Nashville law firm. Among his many contributions to the community is his service on the Board of our World Affairs Council. And importantly, for this conversation, John is the Honorary Consul General of the United Kingdom in Tennessee.

LCDR Patrick Ryan, USN (Ret) is a native of New York City. He enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and volunteered for submarine duty. He served aboard nuclear fast attack and ballistic missile boats during the Cold War, rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. In 1982 he was commissioned and served aboard a cruiser in the Western Pacific before becoming a Navy Intelligence Officer. Ryan served aboard the carrier Constellation in the Pacific, the Joint Staff Intelligence Directorate in the Pentagon, the Center for Naval Analysis, and the Intelligence Directorate of U.S. Central Command. Ryan retired from the Navy in 1998 and worked as a consultant on Intelligence Community projects and as the VP/COO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. Ryan ran a newsletter publishing business on international affairs from 1999-2016. He founded the Tennessee World Affairs Council in 2007.

Ambassador Charles "Dick" Bowers and LCDR Patrick Ryan tick through the top 5 items in the week's news and provide analysis and commentary. Special guest co-host Dr. Breck Walker joins the team for todays news review.

Topics:

1 — Covid Update

2 — US-Russia Relations: GRU Bounties on American GIs in Afghanistan

3 — India-China: Great Power Conflict at 14,000 Feet

4 — EU-US Relations and the travel ban on the new “Ugly American”

5 — Climate - Five Alarms

Charles Richard (Dick) Bowers served as the US Ambassador to Bolivia from 1991 through 1994. During that time, the American Embassy in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, was the largest and most complex U.S. embassy in South America. Ambassador Bowers grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, attended the University of California, Berkeley. He entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1967. From 1961 to 1964 he served in the U.S. Army as a Russian linguist in West Berlin at the height of the Cold War. As a career member of the U.S. diplomatic corps, Ambassador Bowers served in the U.S. Embassies in Panama, Poland, Singapore, Germany and Bolivia. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1995. Amb Bowers has been a Board Member of the Tennessee World Affairs Council since 2012.

Patrick Ryan is a native of New York City. He enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and volunteered for submarine duty. He served aboard nuclear fast attack and ballistic missile boats during the Cold War, rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. In 1982 he was commissioned and served aboard a cruiser in the Western Pacific before becoming a Navy Intelligence Officer. Ryan served aboard the carrier Constellation in the Pacific, the Joint Staff Intelligence Directorate in the Pentagon, the Center for Naval Analysis, and the Intelligence Directorate of U.S. Central Command. Ryan retired from the Navy in 1998 and worked as a consultant on Intelligence Community projects and as the VP/COO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. Ryan ran a newsletter publishing business on international affairs from 1999-2016. He founded the Tennessee World Affairs Council in 2007.

Breck Walker received his PhD in Diplomatic History from Vanderbilt in 2007. His dissertation was on the foreign policy of the Carter administration. He taught at Sewanee, the University of the South, 2007-2012, and on the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea Program in Spring 2013 and Fall 2015. He worked as a historian in the Historical Office of the Office of Secretary of Defense 2013-2016, researching and writing a book on early Pentagon cyber policy. Prior to becoming a history professor, Breck worked for twenty years as an investment banker, the last ten as co-head of the Corporate Finance Group at J.C. Bradford & Co in Nashville. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, and J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University. Breck serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee World Affairs Council.

This episode was a terrific panel of State Department Office of Policy Planning staff officers who talked with our moderator, Professor Thomas Schwartz of Vanderbilt, about the "longer term, strategic view of global trends. It was a good tour d'horizon of foreign policy challenges especially the shift to "Great Power" issues.

Panelists:

Martha Simms, whose portfolio includes counterterrorism, diplomatic security and Western Europe. She was previously Special Advisor to the Counterterrorism Coordinator, and before working at the State Department, she was on the House Homeland Security Committee under Chairman Michael McCaul, working on foreign policy and terrorism screening policy.

Shawanesh Underwood covers NATO, Nordic Baltics and Southern Europe issues. Shawanesh previously served in the Press and Public Outreach Office in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

Colonel William Schaum is a U.S. Army Senior Service Advisor to the Department of State. He previously served as the Chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation in the Republic of Turkey. Prior duties included extensive assignments across the Middle East and in stateside assignments focused on that region.

Moderator Thomas Schwartz

Professor Thomas Schwartz, Professor of Political Science and Professor of European Studies; Vanderbilt University.

His considerable academic credentials are also on the web site, but I’ll mention he is the author of Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography, to be published in September 2020.

See www.TNWAC.org for more bio details for our panel and moderator. While there please make a gift to the World Affairs Council or become a member to support our global affairs awareness programs.