Fletcher Magazine Winter 2018 by Fletcher

Fletcher

For Alumni and Friends of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University Winter 2018

Magazine

THE STATE OF STATE How a tumultuous two years at the State Department is undermining America’s role as a world leader

Envoy

FOR ART’S SAKE By the late 1990s, Cynthia Valianti Corbett, F78, was at the pinnacle of her career in international finance, with clients from Africa to Eastern and Central Europe. But she wanted to forge a career closer to the London home she shared with her husband and their young daughter, so she returned to her love of art and art history. Today, Valianti Corbett is the director of the Cynthia Corbett Gallery, an international contemporary art gallery she founded in 2004. She also champions emerging artists through the Young Masters Art Prize, a nonprofit initiative supported by corporate sponsorship that she created in 2009. “I wanted to celebrate contemporary artists who are really interested in historical themes,” she said, “and prove to the world that these artists are just as technically brilliant and unique as they would be if they were living in the time of the Old Masters.” To read more, visit go.tufts. edu/Corbett –LAURA FERGUSON PHOTO: ANNA CREDIT:TK MILLER

Contents Features

10 ON BROADWAY

Miami trial lawyer and playwright Christopher Demos-Brown, F92, tackles American injustice—and gets his big break on a New York City stage. BY COURTNEY HOLLANDS

W I N T E R 2018 VO L U M E 4 0 , N O. 1

14 DIPLOMACY UNDER SIEGE

COVER STORY Withdrawing from treaties, alienating allies, and gutting the State Department—is the U.S. abandoning its role as a world leader? BY HEATHER STEPHENSON

22 FORCE OF NATURE

As head of the U.N. Biodiversity Convention, Cristiana Paşca Palmer, F06, F14, is fighting to protect global biodiversity, and the social and economic benefits it brings to the world’s people. BY ELIZABETH GEHRMAN

Cover art by Adria Fruitos

In Every Issue 2 LETTERS 3 DEAN’S CORNER 4 TUFTS NOW Become a Powerful Public Speaker 26 CONNECT Keeping Up with the Fletcher Community 34 CLUB NEWS 37 CLASS NOTES 58 IN MEMORIAM 60 DETAIL Betraying the Dead?

Letters

POTENTIAL FOR ABUSE?

ELECTION MEDDLING While reading “Hacking Democracy” in Fletcher Magazine (Summer 2018), I couldn’t help but smile like the Austin Powers supervillain Dr. Evil. The U.S. has been placing its thumb on the scale of elections for so long I could not understand the outrage about the Russian government influencing the election until I read the first response by Adam Segal stating the intent of the influence operations was “to help Trump win.” America has participated in or attempted to influence elections or total regime change overtly in Panama, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Libya, and Syria. Let’s not forget the covert ones in Japan, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, and the DRC. This begs the question: Is America so naive to assume other countries would not attempt to influence our elections even in the face of history illustrating we do so regularly? If so, are Americans so gullible to be swayed by internet trolls and fake Facebook accounts to change their vote? Give me a break. Mr. Segal, like many others, may still be looking for reasons why a coarse political outsider could win the presidency. To assume internet trolls and advertising on Facebook swayed the U.S. electorate shows the role the country of Myopia played in the 2016 election. MORGAN LERET TE, F13 GLENDALE, ARIZONA

“Document and Protect” (Summer 2018) describes a free app called Whistler that Raphael Mimoun, F15, executive director of the nonprofit group Build a Movement, has launched to keep activists and the data they gather from harm. My opinion is that Whistler is a terrifying innovation. I can imagine that spy networks, criminals, or sexual predators might be happy to have a protected multimedia gallery hidden in their phones. I hope that the app has safeguards. INA ASHER, BSOT 71 MERION STATION, PENNSYLVANIA

RAPHAEL MIMOUN RESPONDS: Whistler is about empowering users to document and share, and to store data securely. It is a sad reality that rights and freedoms like these can be abused by malicious groups and individuals. But making it possible to identify and monitor Whistler users is not the answer. If we monitor users, it inevitably opens the door to others—like authoritarian governments and criminals—being able to do the same. In many countries, this information may lead to users being arrested, beaten, or killed. We have therefore decided that even we, the makers of Whistler, must not be able to know who is using the app and to what end.

Fletcher Magazine welcomes your letters. Send them to Heather Stephenson, Editor, Fletcher Magazine, Tufts Publications, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155 or email heather.stephenson@tufts.edu. Letters are edited for length and clarity.

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Fletcher

Magazine

V O L U M E 4 0 , N O. 1 W I N T E R 2 018 Editor HEATHER STEPHENSON heather.stephenson@tufts.edu Editor-in-Chief FRANCIS STORRS francis.storrs@tufts.edu Editorial Director JOHN WOLFSON john.wolfson@tufts.edu Designer Direction BURKE & TALBOTT Heather Burke Jenna Talbott Deputy Editors COURTNEY HOLLANDS TAYLOR MCNEIL Senior Editors LAURA FERGUSON JULIE FLAHERTY MONICA JIMENEZ HELENE RAGOVIN GENEVIEVE RAJEWSKI Staff Photographers ALONSO NICHOLS ANNA MILLER Multimedia STEFFAN HACKER Contributing Editor ELIZABETH GEHRMAN Editorial Advisors IAN JOHNSTONE Interim Dean, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy KATE RYAN Senior Director, Development and Alumni Relations LEANNA KAKAMBOURAS Assistant Director, Alumni Relations Stay connected with Fletcher. School website: fletcher.tufts.edu Online Community: tuftsalumni.org/olc LinkedIn: fletcher.tufts.edu/Alumni/ LinkedIn Fletcher Magazine is published twice annually by The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The opinions expressed in this publication are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of The Fletcher School. Send correspondence to: Heather Stephenson, Editor Fletcher Magazine, Tufts Publications 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155 or email heather.stephenson@tufts.edu. © 2018 TRUSTEES OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Printed on 25% postconsumer waste recycled paper. Please recycle.

ILLUSTRATION: MIKE MCQUADE

Dean’s Corner

UNSETTLING TIMES CALL FOR CRITICAL THINKING THIS IS AN exciting

moment to be studying and teaching international relations, and to be working in the field. These are turbulent times and, while turbulence can be unsettling, it also creates new academic and professional opportunities. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy provides students what they need to take advantage of those opportunities. The turbulence is manifest in all sorts of ways. Geopolitical tensions are on the rise, and regional and internal conflicts continue to fester. We face new security threats, including the risk of cyberattacks against civilian institutions and infrastructure as well as government targets. The number of refugees, vulnerable migrants, and internally displaced persons is at an all-time high. Trade wars—real and threatened—dominate the headlines, and international business relations are fraught. The effects of climate change are upon us. Fast-spreading infectious disease keeps us on edge. A nefarious form of populism is taking hold, where claims to speak for “ordinary people” are used as an excuse for xenophobic forms of nationalism and the undermining of democratic institutions. Multilateralism is seen to be too cumbersome and international institutions are under siege. Of course, it is not all doom and gloom. Global levels of poverty have declined steadily for three decades. Every day, hundreds of thousands more people gain access to electricity and clean drinking

water. The international community is rallying around a new set of sustainable development goals, with the empowerment of women as a core element. While the number of armed conflicts in the world increased in 2017 over 2016, the number of people who died as a direct result of those conflicts declined. Whatever the trend lines, the changes underway force us as scholars, students, and practitioners to rethink old assumptions, and to ask hard questions about how we got here and where we are heading. What aspects of the “old order” are worth preserving, and which need to be fixed or abolished? This is intellectually exciting, and it creates new professional opportunities. Employers are looking not just for technical experts to follow career paths and perform functions defined by others, but for innovators who chart new paths and redefine those functions. Seizing these opportunities requires precisely the combination of professional preparation, intellectual breadth, and creative thinking that a Fletcher education provides. It may be tempting in this day and age to become cynical about the prospects for contributing to positive change in the world. Do not give in to that temptation. Healthy skepticism and a critical mindset are important. Cynicism, on the other hand, is a recipe for intellectual laziness and apathy, neither of which are ever warranted, no matter how tough the going gets. This is the moment for smart, determined, and energetic people. Seize it.

IAN JOHNSTONE, Interim Dean

PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS

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Tufts Now Public Speaking Made Easy Former TV anchor Mihir Mankad offers advice to make your next speech effective—and maybe even fun. BY HEATHER STEPHENSON

to perform under pressure. The son and grandson of star athletes (his mother was the first woman to represent India at Wimbledon and his father and grandfather played on the national cricket team), he grew up playing tennis, and excelled. A member of India’s junior national team and Stanford’s NCAA national championship varsity team, he even considered going pro. But he instead pursued an MBA and a career in consulting, before breaking into television anchoring in India. Just six months later, he was asked to anchor live broadcasts of the 2008 Olympics, with daily audiences of more than 30 million people. “They gave me seven to eight hours of live anchoring each day,” said Mankad, whose TV appearances up to that point had all been pre-scripted. “It was quite a challenge, but I figured this was a break for me, and my life didn’t depend on it, so I was more relaxed than other ‘career’ anchors.” That ability to relax and enjoy himself helped him juggle facts about the more than 11,000 athletes, 300 events, and forty sports that make up the Olympic Games. From a childhood love of elocution classes and debate competitions—as well as from the ups and downs of his tennis career—he had learned something he now tells students: “Don’t make it too serious. If you’re not having fun, you’re likely still not doing it right.” Mankad went on to anchor broadcasts of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and the 2011 Cricket World Cup, which also drew tens of millions of viewers, as well as prime-time business news broadcasts for top Indian cable news channel NDTV. In another career swerve, he devoted a couple of years to leading the Clinton Foundation’s India office, providing life-saving medicine and services to more than 30,000 children with HIV, and then earned a master’s degree in public administration at Harvard. Since 2013, Mankad has merged his interests in media and management as a professor of the practice at The Fletcher School, where he teaches wildly popular

IHIR MANKAD KNOWS how

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Mihir Mankad coaches students in everything from impromptu speaking and making an elevator pitch to appearing on camera.

communication courses for graduate students, coaches faculty for media appearances, and offers executive education to diplomats and central bank officials from around the globe. His courses cover a range of scenarios, such as impromptu speaking, elevator pitching, debates, and media management. Students are hungry to learn these skills to help them succeed, whether in diplomacy, policy, or business careers. Ahead, the award-winning professor and deputy director of Fletcher’s Edward R. Murrow Center for a Digital World offers his advice on acing public speaking without breaking a sweat.

PHOTO: ANNA MILLER

N E W S F ROM A ROU N D T H E GL OBE

TIPS FOR THE PERFECT SPEECH

PREPARE HARD, THEN RELAX. “There are no shortcuts,”

Mankad said. For a four-minute speech, he recommends that his students devote at least ten hours to preparation, to craft a speech “that will make your grandchildren proud.” Practice in front of groups as much as you can to get feedback and improve your presentation. But in the last day or so, set aside your worries about doing it right and try simply to enjoy yourself.

WORK WITH TIME. The speed of speech is between two and a

half and three words per second, and you cannot cheat it. In five minutes, you can therefore deliver about 800 words. But most people don’t have a good sense of this, so they may ramble too long or end too soon. Be realistic about the time you have and plan accordingly.

BALANCE LOGIC, EMOTION, AND CREDIBILITY. These

three modes of rhetorical appeal (logos, pathos, and ethos) were first defined by Aristotle, and what worked for the philosopher in ancient Greece still holds true today, Mankad said. If you’re all logic but no emotion, you may come across as stiff. Yet too little logical appeal can make a talk seem shallow. Credibility is often overlooked, but if you focus too much on proving your expertise, you may seem self-centered. Try to offer all three elements.

USE SOUND BITES. Audiences don’t remember as much as you

think they do, especially if a speech is long or there are many speakers. So find ways to sum up your ideas in simple, memorable phrases that will stick. Such sound bites can “wake up” your listeners to the key headlines in your presentation.

MAKE EARLY EYE CONTACT. When you walk onstage, quietly

take a few moments to look at the audience before speaking. Connect with friendly faces and remember they’re not the enemy. You may fear an epic fail, but “most of the time the audience is empathizing with you, not judging you.” In fact, Mankad said, most listeners are just happy to have someone making any sense up on stage.

RECOVER FROM MISTAKES. Flubbing a line isn’t the end of the

world. Being vulnerable can actually endear you to your audience, as long as you pick yourself up and keep going. Which brings us back to the key theme that defines Mankad and his teaching: Once your preparation is behind you, focus on enjoying the process and performance.

PHOTO: EMMANUEL OYELEKE

MR. PRESIDENT? NAME Kingsley Moghalu, F92 GOAL To be elected president of Nigeria in voting

next February. BACKGROUND A former UN official and deputy

governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Moghalu was a professor of the practice at Fletcher from 2015 to 2017 and is now a senior fellow at the school’s Council on Emerging Market Enterprises. WHAT HE KNOWS FOR SURE Too many Nigerians are poor and disaffected in a country that struggles to provide basics like security, electricity, and health care (he calls Nigerian hospitals “understaffed and mismanaged death traps”). The “failed political leadership class … has enthroned corruption and incompetence,” Moghalu said when he announced his campaign in February. HIS SOLUTION Running on the platform of the Young Progressive Party, he pledges to bring in reform-minded, skilled new leaders—with a 50/50 gender split in all political appointments—to address the country’s problems. HIS ODDS Moghalu, who’s never run for office, faces a crowded field of candidates, including the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, and more than a dozen other challengers. WHAT HE WORRIES ABOUT If elected, he will face enormous challenges, such as ongoing attacks by the militant group Islamic State in West Africa, also known as Boko Haram, and sabotage and theft threatening Nigeria’s massive oil production. Moghalu strikes a hopeful note while campaigning but is also realistic. “Decades of economic and leadership mismanagement cannot be undone in a few short weeks or months,” he said. “Things will be difficult and painful choices will have to be collectively made.”

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Tufts Now Victims like this 45-year-old woman, who was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, may suffer longer-term harm than was previously understood.

The Extent of Harm Fletcher researchers provide new way for war crimes testimony to show wide-ranging effects. BY HEATHER STEPHENSON IN WAR CRIMES cases,

the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague usually hears from select victims who describe the horrors they survived. Such testimony is powerful, but it cannot convey the extent of the crimes’ impact on entire communities and on future generations. That’s why the Feinstein International Center has developed a new method for assessing and explaining the lasting effects of violence, an innovation that holds promise for improving international criminal prosecution and post-conflict reparations. In a new study, Feinstein researcher Teddy Atim, F08, N08, and colleagues surveyed a representative sample of a victimized population and used statistical analysis to compare their experiences to those of peers not subjected to war crimes. The study focused on three massacres by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a militant group that led a brutal insurgency in northern Uganda. Commander Dominic Ongwen, who is now on trial in The Hague, allegedly oversaw the assaults, and is charged with seventy counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, enslavement, and intentional attack on civilians. Atim testified in May before the ICC as an expert witness in

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Ongwen’s ongoing trial, explaining how the attacks and abductions in 2004 at three camps for internally displaced people caused long-term harm to the victims and their families. As a group, the victims suffered more disability and worse mental health and have lower incomes and less wealth than other Ugandans unaffected by the crimes, the Feinstein research found. As of early 2018 the victims reported experiencing almost three times as many crimes over the past three years. The researchers theorize that is perhaps because the victims are physically, mentally, and economically less able to protect themselves, and because they face discrimination related to their experiences during the conflict. The harm also affects children born long after the assaults, Atim said. Parents who can’t earn as much money because they lost their land or possessions or were disabled in the attacks, for example, often can’t feed their children or afford expenses to send them to school. Atim, herself a native of northern Uganda, conducted the research with Feinstein colleagues at the request of the attorneys representing the 2,605 victims in the ICC case. Her testimony drew from a 167-page report based on a recent survey of 396 victims, compared with information about the general waraffected population of northern Uganda culled from another recent survey. Feinstein’s new model should be replicated in other war crimes cases to help judges better assess the effects of war crimes and shape longer term reparations programs, Atim said. Too often, “reconstruction programs after conflict assume that as soon as the conflict is over and the guns are silent, people’s lives will fall back in place,” she said. “But we don’t see that happening.”

PHOTO: AP/REBECCA VASSIE

Tracking Drones A data firm start-up is investigating autonomous aerial vehicles—including those possibly used in criminal activity. BY TAYLOR MCNEIL DRONES ARE BECOMING ubiquitous—they

help bridge inspectors examine otherwise inaccessible spaces, monitor crop health for farmers, and assist search and rescue teams. They are also a boon to bad guys, from drug runners to terrorists. That’s where David Kovar, F17, comes in: He’s formed a company to glean data from drones, to understand how they and other autonomous systems work—and who is operating them. Kovar, who was in The Fletcher School’s Global Master of Arts Program in 2016-17, had been working in digital forensics for Ernst & Young, investigating cyberattacks on clients. Then, a few years ago, he received a drone for Christmas and realized there was data to be gathered from them, too. One of the first tests of his emerging ideas came from another GMAP veteran, Erik Modisett, F08, who works for the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Modisett’s agents had intercepted a drug-running drone; could Kovar learn anything from it? By that time, Kovar had already developed software to analyze data in autonomous vehicles like drones, and he set to work. “We were able to tell them that it wasn’t just this one flight,” Kovar said. The people running the drone “had been doing this for several months, and we found places they were flying, and one was a house where they were doing tests of the drone. We said, you might want to go to that house.” It was a good proof of concept, and soon Kovar had formed URSA (Unmanned Robotic Systems Analysis), a company that collects, integrates, analyzes, and presents data related to unmanned aerial vehicles. Kovar’s focus isn’t just criminal investigations. “We want to help society understand better how

autonomous systems work,” he said. That includes helping those building autonomous systems make them safer, informing legislators to better understand what they are regulating, and working with insurance companies to explain how autonomous systems behave—“so when a claim comes in, they can understand exactly what the system was doing that led to the event,” he said. Earlier this year, URSA was chosen to take part in the Techstars Boston four-month program for startups. The program was backed by AFWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Air Force. As drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles become more common, Kovar said, so will the need for gathering data on them.

➜ QUOTED

“ TRADE WARS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN BAD AND BOTH SIDES ALWAYS LOSE. THAT WILL BE TRUE THIS TIME.”

—JOEL TRACHTMAN, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AT THE FLETCHER SCHOOL, COMMENTING IN JUNE ON PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TWEET THAT “TRADE WARS ARE GOOD, AND EASY TO WIN.”

PHOTOS: SHUT TERSTOCK (TOP), IAN MACLELLAN (BOT TOM)

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Tufts Now

EYES FOR DESIGN

TWO GRADUATES MERGE STYLE AND BUSINESS SENSE From the FBI to Fashion Week, Dan Snyder followed passion for tailoring

✚

When Dan Snyder, F14, worked for the FBI almost a decade ago, he wore off-the-rack suits that fit so poorly he had to bring them to a tailor to be altered. The experience was a revelation. “I didn’t even like clothes,” he recalled. “But then I got into tailoring, and I went head over heels.” Today, Snyder is the designer behind his own clothing line, Corridor, which is sold in his stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn and by ninety retailers in sixteen countries. Snyder said his success grew organically as he followed his interests. After learning to sew in night school, he started making his own shirts and tailoring clothes for friends, including his classmates at Fletcher, where he studied security and international business with an eye toward joining the CIA. While interning with the New York Police Department counterterrorism unit, he frequented the city’s garment district, visiting factories to learn all he could. “I would literally knock on doors,” he said. “I didn’t have a mentor.” What Snyder did have was determination—and confidence in his own taste. He created a business plan as his capstone project at Fletcher and started selling shirts wholesale from a backpack. After graduation, he took a job at Palantir, a Silicon Valley contractor that develops software for spy agencies, while moonlighting nights and weekends building his business. “I was working nineteen-hour days for about two years to bootstrap the company,” he said. Snyder named his company after the Northeast

✚

Dan Snyder, F14, bootstrapped his apparel company by working at a contractor for spy agencies.

corridor—Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston—where he had lived and worked. His first clothing line was tiny, just twelve shirts. But the next was fifty-four, and then 120. “The profits from each previous line would go right back into making more,” he said. In 2016, after leaving Palantir to focus on Corridor, he launched his first line for women. Snyder aims for ethical production, and hopes his clothes will bring joy and confidence to the people wearing them, as his poorly fitted suits never did for him. “The purpose of the brand,” he said, “is to make beautiful things.” –HEATHER STEPHENSON

Shoes with a side of justice

“There’s plenty of soul in these classic soles,” declared Boston Magazine in August, when awarding Peter Sacco, F17, the honor of Greater Boston’s Best Shoe Designer 2018. While a student at Fletcher, Sacco launched Adelante Shoe Co. to help Guatemalan artisans by bringing their high-quality leather boots and loafers to a wider market and paying the craftspeople more than a living wage. In 2017, Sacco’s company won first place in the social impact track of Tufts Gordon Institute’s $100k New Ventures Competition.

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PHOTOS: SEAN LITCHFIELD (TOP), ANNA MILLER (BOT TOM)

WHY YOU SHOULD EAT ALGAE Want to fight world hunger and protect the planet? Consider switching from eating fish for dinner to eating the fish’s food—tiny marine organisms known as microalgae. Commercially produced strains like Nannochloropsis oculata (or “Nanno”) are rich in omega-3s, amino acids, and protein. They’re also astoundingly earth-friendly, according to a study by William Moomaw, professor emeritus of international environmental policy, and co-authors Isaac Berzin and Asaf Tzachor (see a comparison to beef below). Microalgae can be used in protein supplements for undernourished people in developing countries and feed for farmed fish to reduce pressure on fish stocks in the ocean. In an article on The Conversation (theconversation. com), Moomaw and Tzachor argue for “cutting out the middle fish” and consuming microalgae directly in new products such as health bars, pastas, and meat alternatives. Algae burgers, anyone? –HEATHER STEPHENSON

Natural resources required to produce one kilogram of essential amino acids

You Call This Work?

MICROALGAE

Working in paradise got a little easier three years ago, when Bryan Stewart, F06, left, and David Abraham, F03, co-founded Outpost, a coworking space with jungle views in Bali. Offering reliable high-speed internet, air-conditioning, free massage, and bottomless coffee and tea, the communal workspace in the cultural center of Ubud quickly caught on with the international entrepreneurial set. Stewart and Abraham also offer twenty-nine “coliving” rooms in a nearby set of villas—complete with a swimming pool and personal chef—and now run two other coliving/coworking neighborhoods in a Bali beach resort area and Phnom Penh. Rates run from $17 for a day’s spot at the communal tables to $950 a month or more for a coliving/coworking package. PHOTOGRAPH BY CASEY KELBAUGH

liters freshwater

1.6

square meters non-fertile land

BEEF

148,000

liters freshwater

125

square meters fertile land

SOURCE: “CUT TING OUT THE MIDDLE FISH: MARINE MICROALGAE AS THE NEXT SUSTAINABLE OMEGA-3 FAT T Y ACIDS AND PROTEIN SOURCE,” INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY, OCTOBER 2017. IMAGE: SHUT TERSTOCK

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Writing the Wrong With his intense new play starring Kerry Washington, Fletcher alum Christopher Demos-Brown is bringing questions of race and justice to Broadway. BY COURTNEY HOLLANDS // PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID YELLEN

n May 1992, just before graduating from The Fletcher School, Christopher Demos-Brown caught the world premiere of what quickly became one of his favorite plays: David Mamet’s Oleanna. “For the first time ever in a theater, I saw people in the audience shout back at the characters onstage,” recalled Demos-Brown, F92. The play, which explores the power and sexual politics between a college professor and his female student, “was effective because there were two people living through an issue onstage in front of you and examining it from a ‘poke-you-in-the-eye’ point of view.” Now, more than two decades later, Demos-Brown, a seasoned Miami trial lawyer and a playwright, strives to strike similar emotional chords in his own audiences. “To me, there’s no point in not making a point,” he said. “I want to get under your skin.” His American Son, which debuted on Broadway at the historic Booth Theatre in November, does just that. Conceived by Demos-Brown a few years ago in the wake of deadly police shootings rocking the nation, the play is set at a police station in the middle of the night and centers on an estranged mixed-race couple as they grapple with their missing 18-year-old son’s interaction with the law. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon and starring Hollywood heavyweights Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale, it is Demos-Brown’s big break.

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Christopher Demos-Brown, a Miami trial lawyer as well as a playwright, outside his show’s new home on Broadway.

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CREDIT: TK

AMERICAN DIPLOMACY UNDER

SIEGE With the Trump administration withdrawing from treaties, alienating allies, and gutting the State Department, is the U.S. abandoning its role as a world leader?

By HEATHER STEPHENSON

Illustrations by ADRIA FRUITOS

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erving as u.s. ambassador to mexico under

President Donald Trump was difficult enough for Roberta Jacobson, F86, A16P, given the anger in that country following his claims that some Mexican migrants were rapists and that he would force the country to pay billions of dollars for a border wall. But Jacobson also faced a day-to-day problem in her job as diplomat: The Trump administration wouldn’t tell her what was going on. That failure—or refusal—to communicate was driven home on a day in April 2017 when White House officials revealed that the president was preparing to sign an order to abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement rather than continue negotiations to rework the longstanding trade deal among the United States, Mexico, and Canada. No one from the administration had told Jacobson about the plan to withdraw—she learned of it through urgent messages from Mexican officials and reporters looking for comment. Just as troubling, she could get no guidance on how to proceed once the news was out, even though she was about to attend an important event with Mexico’s outraged president, Enrique Peña Nieto. The ongoing lack of communication, she recently wrote in a blistering New York Times op-ed, leaves “ambassadors in impossible positions and our allies across the globe infuriated, alienated and bewildered.” Jacobson resigned her ambassadorship this past May, and the move was seen as a great loss for America’s relationship with one of its most vital trade partners (as well as a key ally in the fight against the opioid epidemic). “No career official has more consummately understood U.S.-Mexico relations,” former U.S. ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual told the Times. “She grounded American policy in the belief that, as neighbors, the U.S. and Mexico will gain most from using the vast resources of both countries to confront shared problems together.” Jacobson’s resignation came amid two other high-profile departures, part of what has been described as an exodus of diplomats with deep experience in Latin America. Thomas A. Shannon Jr., the third-highest ranking official

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in the State Department, cited personal reasons for leaving, while John Feeley, ambassador to Panama, said that he could no longer in good conscience serve under Trump, citing, among other factors, the president’s so-called Muslim ban and failure to condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. Shortly after resigning her ambassadorship, Jacobson retired from State, ending a three-decade career of service under five presidents. In her op-ed, she wrote of her relief that she would no longer have to “defend the indefensible,” and described her experience in the Trump administration as “a window into a chaotic decision-making style that has undermined America’s diplomacy and national interests across the globe.” Jacobson isn’t alone in believing that the current administration’s approach to diplomacy is making the world a more dangerous place. From the earliest days of his presidency, Trump and his top officials have squabbled with traditional allies abroad and shaken up the State Department at home. Trump and his first Secretary of State, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, forced out career civil servants without replacing them, threatened sharp budget cuts, imposed a hiring freeze, and attempted a massive reorganization that would have eliminated more than one thousand positions. A wave of frustrated diplomats have left public service, and many of those who have remained behind are left to wonder how the United States will continue to promote its own interests and help uphold the global order. “The opening salvos were a real blow to professionalism in the State Department, both in the Civil Service and the Foreign Service,” said Thomas Pickering, F54, the former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, who over four decades served as ambassador to Russia, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, Jordan, and the United Nations. “In many ways, the winnowing out of a large number of people at senior levels has meant that this vacuum in leadership is serious.” The shake-up was not limited to staffing, however. It also extended into policy. Tillerson proposed reducing funding for previous State Department priorities such as refugees, promotion of democracy, and women’s rights. Meanwhile, Trump has unilaterally withdrawn from international agreements that the U.S. helped negotiate, including the key Iran nuclear deal and the Paris accord on climate change. “In both cases, it’s brought home to a public around the world the fact that we were taking action against the long-term interests of our country,” Pickering said. “The destruction of

a treaty for no reason at all is something we’d blame people like Hitler and Tojo for in the Second World War. To adopt that kind of lawless behavior not only is a black mark against the United States, but it’s beginning to threaten the stability of the international system.” Today, two years into the Trump presidency, many experts agree that damage has been done to the U.S. position as a leader of the global order. The question now becomes: Is the damage lasting? In the years ahead, can the United States—and its diplomats—rebuild its standing as a leader on the international stage?

iven the brash style and outsize persona of president trump, it would be

easy to assume the far-reaching changes in U.S. diplomacy are due to him alone. Yet recent history points to larger trends—including revived nationalist and populist movements and the adoption of social media—that are threatening conventional diplomatic methods and the architecture of international relations. “I don’t feel it’s all about Trump,” said Alan K. Henrikson, the Lee E. Dirks professor of diplomatic history emeritus at The Fletcher School. “I’m a historian, and I just naturally take a longer view.” Turmoil is not new to the State Department, Henrikson explained. In the 1940s, a group of experts within the department known as the China Hands advised that it was in America’s best interests to engage with communists in China if they came to power. At the start of the anti-communist McCarthy era in the late ’40s, those experts were either reassigned to other regions or summarily drummed out of the Foreign Service. “That’s a period when the State Department was under attack,” Henrikson said. (The China Hands were vindicated by the reopening of U.S. relations with China in the 1970s, and some were invited to testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971.) Jonathan Addleton, F82, F91, F19P, recalls another turbulent time for the Foreign Service, back in the 1990s. Addleton is a five-time USAID mission director and former U.S. ambassador to Mongolia who retired on Trump’s Inauguration Day (“I knew that the next four years would be a circus,” he said). Earlier in his career, under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. foreign affairs budget was cut dramatically, USAID’s professional staff fell by almost a third, thousands of

PHOTO: KELVIN MA

“The opening salvos were a real blow to professionalism in the State Department, both in the Civil Service and the Foreign Service. In many ways, the winnowing out of a large number of people at senior levels has meant that this vacuum in leadership is serious.” —Thomas Pickering, F54, former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs; former ambassador to Russia, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, Jordan, and the United Nations

State Department jobs were eliminated, and dozens of diplomatic posts and USAID missions were closed. The reductions were “a huge mistake,” Addleton said. “Morale hit rock bottom and had nowhere to go but up.” Morale did rebound, but the cuts had a long-term impact, thinning the ranks of the Foreign Service so that fewer diplomats and aid experts were being prepared to help the nation defuse future international crises. Other changes, related to the structure of diplomacy, have slowly been building over decades. One of the main roles of diplomats—to report what is happening in other countries and governments—has increasingly been supplanted by the CIA and other intelligence services, said Philip Zelikow, F84, a former counselor of the State Department and former executive director of the 9/11 Commission who is now a professor of history at the University of Virginia. At the same time, much of the policy work in other W IN TE R 2018 | F LETCHE R M AGA ZIN E

Trump has “made a shambles of American leadership, gutted American credibility, and made a mockery of American principles.” —Barbara Bodine, F71, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen; director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University

countries has been taken over by contractors, leaving diplomats marginalized, Zelikow said. “The post-World War II generation of diplomats attained policy experience in a largely informal organizational culture that has been eroding for a long time.” A third major structural change has been an evolution toward an international approach that increasingly favors military engagement over the work of civilian diplomacy, starting at the end of the Cold War and speeding up after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. “We’ve seen over the years efforts to try to use military force as a short circuit to what have been considered more cumbersome diplomatic processes,” Pickering said. It’s a point underscored by the work of Monica Duffy Toft, director of the Center for Strategic Studies at Fletcher, charting the rise of U.S. military involvement around the world (see sidebar), as well as by journalist Ronan Farrow, in his new book War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence. The American public may be losing faith in this approach, though, especially when it has mired the country in overseas military commitments. And that is bad for both the military and for the work of diplomats. “The debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan not only drained the nation’s finances, but forfeited the public’s confidence

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in traditional foreign policy leadership and approaches,” said James B. Foley, F82, retired former ambassador to Haiti and Croatia. “The consequences of this reckoning were already manifested to some degree in the Obama administration, and are now fully emerging under Trump.” Even if Trump didn’t create these problems, there is little doubt that he accelerated their effects—even before taking office. After the 2016 election, his transition team declared that all politically appointed ambassadors had to leave their posts by Inauguration Day, a break from tradition that would have allowed temporary extensions for those with children in school or other special circumstances. (Such exceptions have also occasionally been used to provide continuity as a new administration fills many posts.) Then, just days into his presidency, Trump forced out a number of key State Department officials, including the undersecretary for management, the undersecretary for arms control, the assistant secretary for administration, the assistant secretary for consular affairs, and the director of the office for foreign missions. Other officials left voluntarily. Even a year into Trump’s presidency, more than one-third of the State Department’s 150 positions requiring Senate confirmation remained empty, and the U.S. had no ambassador in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, or several other critical areas. Pursuing an “America First” philosophy, Trump had slashed the number of refugees the U.S. would accept and imposed restrictions on travel from several mostly Muslim nations, a move that inspired lawsuits charging religious discrimination. And he continued to break with previous policies, withdrawing from the TransPacific Partnership, for example, and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Rattling longstanding alliances, he accused NATO members of not paying their fair share, called Canada’s prime minister “dishonest,” and made glowing remarks about Russian president Vladimir Putin, while seeming to question U.S. intelligence about Russia’s election interference. In a risky gambit over nuclear weapons, Trump also engaged in name-calling with Kim Jong-Un, the authoritarian leader of North Korea, only to “fall in love” with him after a hastily arranged summit that produced little in the way of tangible results. Trump has “made a shambles of American leadership, gutted American credibility, and made a mockery of American principles,” said Barbara Bodine, F71, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, who is now the director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. When he bragged about his administration’s

accomplishments at a United Nations General Assembly meeting in September, he “quite literally, had the world laugh in his face,” she said. “There was sadness in that laughter, at least in most quarters.” It reflected the “loss of a friend and what that friend stood for.”

s broader changes chip away at the traditional role of the state department, its power

may depend now more than ever on how well the Secretary of State gets along with the president, Henrikson said. By that measure, the department under Tillerson was in double jeopardy. Not only was he ready to ax the staff; he also never seemed able to forge an effective partnership with the White House. Now that he’s been replaced, a sense of cautious optimism seems to be taking hold in Foggy Bottom. Perhaps this rocky period in the practice of U.S. diplomacy is mostly behind us, the more hopeful observers suggest, and the ship of state will soon right itself. Although that process may be lengthy and require the election of a different president, Henrikson said, “I do think there will be a steadying of the course of the United States.” Tillerson was often at odds with Trump. He reportedly referred to the president as a “moron” in a Pentagon meeting and also said “The president speaks for himself” after Trump responded to the violence at a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville by citing hatred and bigotry “on many sides.” The conflict wasn’t just personal; the two disagreed on policy issues from Iran and Qatar to North Korea, with Trump claiming Tillerson was “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man” less than six months before agreeing to meet with Kim himself. Morale at the State Department plummeted under Tillerson’s leadership, largely because of his downsizing efforts. The proposed cuts were so drastic that even some Republicans in Congress protested. Lawmakers also pushed back when, as part of the hiring freeze, Tillerson planned to suspend the Pickering and Rangel fellowships that help bring diverse talent into the department. Students who had been promised careers in the Foreign Service were told they would have to accept two-year posts as consular agents or repay loans of roughly $85,000, but after intense lobbying by retired diplomats, members of Congress, and deans of schools—including Fletcher—the fellowships were reinstated.

DIPLOMACY BY FORCE BY MONICA DUFFY TOFT A strong legacy of U.S. leadership and engagement in global politics has been reduced today to what I call kinetic diplomacy—diplomacy by armed force. As of March 2018, the Trump administration had appointed only 70 of 188 U.S. ambassadors. Meanwhile, it increased the deployment of special operations forces to 149 countries, up from 138 in 2016 during the Obama administration (the use of military force also expanded under Obama). By October, after a concerted effort by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 127 ambassadors had been appointed. Still, ambassadors are operating in just two-thirds of the world’s capitals, while special operations forces are active in three-fourths of them. It wasn’t always like this. After World War II, the U.S. Department of State played a critical role in transitioning America from an emergency ally to a global leader. At the time, two key assumptions were taken for granted. The first was a close connection between U.S. diplomatic power and military effectiveness. The second was the understanding that in the U.S., civilians outrank generals (as President Harry S. Truman underscored by firing General Douglas MacArthur in 1951). In the late 1940s, diplomat George F. Kennan, deputy chief of mission in Moscow, helped shape half a century of U.S. foreign policy when he successfully argued that the Soviet Union could be deterred from aggressive expansion and contained—a much less risky strategy than a direct military confrontation, which might lead to world war. Successes like that reinforced a pattern: Diplomats led behind the scenes so that soldiers didn’t have to follow. As General James Mattis, then-commander of U.S. Central Command, put it in 2013, if the State Department budget were to be cut, he would “have to buy more ammunition.” But the turn to kinetic diplomacy began after the attacks of September 11, 2001. President George W. Bush declared a “war on terror,” and successfully shifted the United States from containing security threats to preemptively engaging them overseas. The Bush administration accelerated the practice of seeking out “evildoers” abroad, arguing that only by doing so could American lives be protected. This initiated the shift from diplomacy first, and armed force as a last resort, to armed force first. Traditional diplomacy was granted a modest reprieve under the Obama administration. Under the Trump administration, however, the U.S. Department of State has been gutted, leaving us with kinetic diplomacy as a default. Without diplomats to inform and guide our armed forces and their leadership, we are left with an accelerating vicious cycle—the more “bad guys” we kill abroad, the more we have to kill. As a result, an increasing number of those we preemptively kill—instead of bargain with—will be either civilians or heroes in their own countries. Martyring them guarantees the loss not only of future American lives, but the lives of our allies who become targets by association. Monica Duffy Toft is a professor of international politics and director of the Center for Strategic Studies at Fletcher. This essay was adapted from one she published on The Conversation (theconversation.com). W IN TE R 2018 | F LETCHE R M AGA ZIN E

“I can’t predict the future, but I can say with certainty that new international messes have been created in recent months and years. And, once again, a new generation of diplomats will be asked to help clean them up.” —Jonathan Addleton, F82, F91, F19P, five-time USAID mission director and former U.S. ambassador to Mongolia

After just fourteen months on the job, Tillerson was fired. Many hoped that the new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo—who had been CIA director and seems to have a stronger relationship with Trump—would help the department gain more influence with the president. And there have been some positive signs. The hiring freeze was partially lifted. The reorganization was shelved. Pompeo also sped up the pace of nominations and was pushing for the approval of forty-one candidates awaiting confirmation, although as of early November the president still hadn’t nominated an ambassador to eighteen countries, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey—an omission that was deeply felt after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul. “Early indications are that Secretary Pompeo understands what is needed: people, resources, mandate, and Oval Office access. Morale has begun to bounce back,” Bodine said. “What is less clear is whether there is comparable elasticity in America’s international standing.”

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For Foley, the question will be answered in the 2020 election. If the American public reelects Trump, he said, “it could deal an indelible blow to U.S. prestige” and lead other nations to adjust to a new world order “devoid of American moral leadership.” But if Trump is defeated, his successor will likely seek to repair damaged relationships, “and to reestablish the centrality of human rights and democratic values to our foreign policy.” Bodine is not so sanguine. Even if “some version of an institution-based global order” survives after the Trump presidency, she said, and “even if we regain a seat at the table, we will not return to some golden era of American preeminence, unquestioned leadership, and economic dominance. We will need smart, strong professional diplomats more than ever as we navigate this version of the New World Order.” Pickering agreed. The U.S. role as an international leader is not “totally irrecoverable,” he said, but it cannot be easily regained. “It’s easy to destroy things with geometric speed, but rebuilding is a linear process and it takes time. I think we’re in for a hard slog.” Jonathan Addleton is convinced that the State Department will have enough smart, dedicated diplomats to make the slog work. Even though he has retired, he didn’t encourage any of his younger colleagues to leave. Part of that reflected his optimism for the future, and part of it was recognition that “new challenges always include new opportunities,” he said. “After all, career diplomats over the decades have become accustomed to cleaning up messes, whether created by presidents, members of Congress,  secretaries of state, or someone else.” Addleton is pleased to see that his three children, all in their twenties, are each working in one part of the “three D’s” of foreign policy: development, defense, and diplomacy. His daughter works for a small development NGO and his younger son has joined the military. As for his older son, he will graduate this spring with a MALD from The Fletcher School, and Addleton has encouraged him to consider a career in the Foreign Service, where he could join others in rebuilding the country’s international standing. “I can’t predict the future, but I can say with certainty that new international messes have been created in recent months and years,” Addleton said. “And, once again, a new generation of diplomats will be asked to help clean them up.” ■ Heather Stephenson, the editor of this magazine, can be reached at heather.stephenson@tufts.edu.

ACTUALLY, THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO JOIN THE STATE DEPARTMENT BY DANIEL DREZNER Some of my American students have been wondering out loud if it’s foolhardy to go work for the government these days. Since President Trump’s administration has eviscerated America’s soft power, they imply, a career with a nongovernmental organization or public-private partnership might be a better path to do some good. Such options certainly exist. But I think that students whose preference is to join the U.S. Foreign Service should still do that—and, yes, serve under the Trump administration. I understand that the situation has grown hostile for Foreign Service officers since Trump took office. Senior experts have left the State Department in a mass exodus, either forced out or choosing to retire or move on. Rex Tillerson’s incompetent management of Foggy Bottom and the Trump White House’s disdain for policy expertise only hastened the departures, and Mike Pompeo has not been able to turn the tide. So why should young people go into this government? One answer is the call of public service: Our country needs smart, dedicated people to devise and implement our policies, whether on trade, immigration, or any other issue of national interest. Today’s young professionals, who would start at a level far removed from the president, can hone skills that will come into greater play when they reach positions of influence under future presidents.

There’s also a more careerist reason to join the government during the Age of Trump: You would be buying low. Seemingly no one wants to serve in this administration right now. Yet it is precisely when conditions seem inhospitable that a young person can make a difference. American twentysomethings interested in international affairs have often advanced their careers by volunteering to live in the less charming parts of the globe. Because of the hardship, they are given greater responsibilities than they otherwise would get. (My early career was helped immensely by my willingness to live in Donetsk, Ukraine, during a year of mild hyperinflation.) Young people should think of Foggy Bottom right now as one of those inhospitable locales (the White House is another, far more ethically compromised story). It may not seem like an appealing place. However, the current administration will not last forever. A State Department under competent management will have a lot of interesting and challenging work to do. Think of it as buying a stock that is fundamentally sound even as the market is panicking. You will not profit in the short run, but if you have patience, you will prosper in the long run. It’s a bearish market for American foreign policy, but the fundamentals are decent. Buy low. Go and serve.

Daniel Drezner is a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School. An earlier version of this essay appeared on his Washington Post blog.

CREDIT: TK

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“There’s no point in

orn in Philadelphia, DemosBrown moved to Miami with his family when he was in fourth grade. He remembers seeing a dinner theater rendition of My Fair Lady on a high school trip, but it wasn’t until he enrolled at Dartmouth College in the mid-1980s that he got seriously involved in the performing arts, acting in several main-stage productions as well as directing short plays. Demos-Brown majored in Russian and minored in history, thinking that he might enter the United States Foreign Service, but instead struck out for the West Coast after graduation to pursue the stage and screen. During four years in Los Angeles, he landed a few commercials and small parts in TV shows and shopped around two of his own screenplays. But when an agent told Demos-Brown he had aged out of playing high school and college kids yet wasn’t yet ready to be cast as a young dad—a moment he remembers “as vividly as my first kiss”—he knew it was time to move on. “I realized that I couldn’t kick around for five or six more years out there,” he said, “making no money and sleeping on friends’ couches and not doing anything with my life.” Still interested in international affairs, he jointly enrolled at the University of Miami

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School of Law and The Fletcher School. He joined an improv comedy group in Miami during law school and after practicing law for about five years—initially at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and then at a few big firms in the city before joining his wife’s firm, Beasley, Demos & Brown, LLC—he started writing again, churning out scripts on work trips and in the early morning hours before his two daughters woke up. “I experience two kinds of dissatisfaction: the dissatisfaction of when I’m writing and the dissatisfaction of when I’m not writing,” said Demos-Brown, who has continued to work as a lawyer while his plays have garnered awards. “But the dissatisfaction of writing is a good one—it’s more an anxiety of getting it done and getting it done right.” Though Demos-Brown is the first to acknowledge that he’s followed a meandering route to Broadway, he said the rigor of graduate school made him a more disciplined writer and his experience in the courtroom crosses over. “I think the most important skill in being a lawyer, and probably if you’re an academic, too, is not to know the answer, but to spot an issue and know what you need to look into more deeply,” he said. “That issue-spotting skill is very helpful in playwriting.” The first installment in a trilogy exploring injustice in the United States, American Son was born from the “gut rage” Demos-Brown felt over a spate of police shootings between 2014 and 2016. “I was observing and listening to conversations mostly over social media, and out of that, I started building the two main characters of the play, crafting them in a way that they could engage in a conversation about this issue that was dramatically compelling,” he said. “One thing that social media does really well is to free people up to say what they really think in a way they wouldn’t at a cocktail party.” A passage about victims of police brutality in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me also affected Demos-Brown deeply. “Coates talks about how every African-American child has an entire family and community, grandmothers and parents and people who’ve poured their hopes and ambitions into this child, regardless of whether that child is successful or not,” he said. “That’s

not making a point. I want to get under your skin.” true for every parent, but some people tend to overlook it in police shooting cases.” American Son had its world premiere at Barrington Stage in Massachusetts in 2016 and was produced for a second time at the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey (reviews called it “sharp, intense” and “incendiary”). Influential producer Jeffrey Richards caught that first run in the Berkshires, offered Demos-Brown a contract, and signed on Kenny Leon to direct—and then Kerry Washington, star of the television drama Scandal, liked the script, saying she was “transfixed, inspired, and broken open” after reading it for the first time. “I was super lucky,” DemosBrown said. That surreal feeling lasted until the second day of rehearsals, when “suddenly it became, oh, we’re just actors and a director and a writer in a room—just a team working on a play,” he said. “And there’s Kerry in her sweatpants and Steven in his jeans and they’re just regular people who happen to be really talented and extremely good-looking.”

met up with Demos-Brown at a coffee shop in midtown after previews of American Son began in October. He arrived in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a bold, white “305,” the area code of Miami. (Demos-Brown is so invested in Miami’s theater scene that in 2010, he and his wife, Stephanie, and another couple founded Zoetic Stage to create local plays and bolster South Florida’s artistic reputation on the national stage.) Demos-Brown had also flown to New York at the beginning of rehearsals and for the dress rehearsal and was up again for the first week of previews—sitting for interviews, taking meetings

PHOTOS: PETER CUNNINGHAM, 2018 (TOP); WALTER MCBRIDE/GET T Y IMAGES (BOT TOM)

Top: American Son’s Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale onstage. Bottom, from left: Demos-Brown, cast members Pasquale, Washington, Eugene Lee, and Jeremy Jordan, and Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon.

about other theater projects, and preparing for upcoming trials during the day, while spending nights at the Booth Theatre. Though he was effusive about how well American Son was shaping up, how receptive the audiences were, and how the pacing was just right—“it has found the Goldilocks moment,” he said—Demos-Brown hinted at a certain pressure. “This is the production that will define this play forever,” he said. “The style, the tone—that’s what people in the future will tend to adopt, consciously or not. It’s not going to change after this, so it’s important that I push back on things that I think are sanding the edges.” After all, what he learned about himself when writing American Son, and what emerges as one of the central dramatic thrusts is sharp and unequivocal. “Engaging with our country’s racial history is an act of patriotism,” he said. “Waving flags and complaining that people kneel at football games and putting a flag pin on your lapel is not patriotism. Patriotism is acknowledging what you’ve been bequeathed or what you’ve been denied because of the history you’ve been born into—and what you’re going to do about it.” “Obviously my views are reflected in the play’s themes,” Demos-Brown said, “but I guess I’ll leave it up to audiences to see what they think about that.” ■

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PHOTO: DAVID YELLEN

INSIDE CRISTIANA PAŞCA PALMER’S DESPERATE FIGHT TO SLOW THE GLOBAL WAVE OF PLANT AND ANIMAL EXTINCTIONS—BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. By Elizabeth Gehrman • Illustrations by Kasia Bogdanska

RISTIANA PAŞCA PALMER, F06, F14 ,

is an optimist. “There are not many things that can demolish my inborn hope,” she said. Optimism is a good quality to have, because the hurdles she faces in her job heading the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity—to say nothing of the UN’s October report describing the risk of a full-blown climate crisis as early as 2040—might challenge even the most ardent idealist. The Convention, now including 196 states and the European Union, is one of the three multilateral treaties that grew out of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (the others address climate change and desertification). Under Paşca Palmer, the Convention’s key mission is to promote global sustainable development in balance with nature by implementing three objectives: conserve biological diversity, ensure its sustainable use, and provide for fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources. But, as Paşca Palmer would be the first to tell you, it can be a challenge to deliver the message. “It may not seem relevant to us that some little butterfly in the Amazon is disappearing,” she said, “but the entire web of life is interconnected, and the more ‘tissue’ we lose, the more the fabric of our life becomes threatened.” The idea that economic development can benefit humans and the environment at once—that biodiversity is directly connected to social and economic benefits for the world’s people—is Paşca Palmer’s core message. And it’s the one she delivers tirelessly as she travels the world in her role as executive secretary of the Convention and assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. Although she is based in Montreal, where she oversees a team of about 120 people, she seems to mainly live out of her suitcase. In mid-October, she was in Argentina; before that, she visited Egypt and countries in Southern Africa, and attended the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York. In the last year alone, she has traveled more than one hundred days in over a dozen countries. Paşca Palmer has no time to slow down because the work of convincing leaders of the

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value of preserving biodiversity is so urgent. The legally binding Biodiversity Convention she oversees is a multilateral environmental treaty under the United Nations. It’s made up of strategies and action plans aimed at achieving a set of twenty key targets (known as the Aichi Global Biodiversity Targets) that include slowing the rate of habitat loss, promoting sustainable harvesting of fish and other marine organisms, lowering pollution, and controlling invasive species. But the targets are set to expire in 2020, and most of them will not be achieved owing to implementation challenges in the countries that signed the Convention. Undeterred, Paşca Palmer presses on. “We reach out to parliaments, presidents, heads of state, and, most importantly, economists and ministers of finance,” she said. “They need to understand why they need to care about biodiversity.”

Cristiana Paşca Palmer first became interested in the natural world as a child, spending idyllic holidays at her grandparents’ farm in the northern Maramures region. After earning her undergraduate degree in natural sciences and her master’s of science in systems ecology and the management of natural capital at the University of Bucharest, she worked through the 1990s as a scientist and an environmental activist and was active in building the environmental civil society after the fall of communism in Romania. “Growing up behind the Iron Curtain,” she said, “my generation had no interaction with the rest of the world.” But when communism collapsed in Eastern Europe in 1989, “all these doors opened—our wings were ready to spread and fly.” While earning a master’s in public administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Paşca Palmer took a course at Fletcher on international environmental negotiations with William Moomaw, now professor emeritus of international environmental policy. Moomaw encouraged her to apply to the school’s doctoral program. She was keen to build her knowledge in the three pillars of sustainable development: economy, environment, and people. “Traditional, neoclassical economic models don’t value nature as an essential capital supporting human life and development,” she said. “What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed….This is one of the root causes of the nature and biodiversity destruction we see today.” She’s been working to change that her entire career. She focused her PhD at Fletcher on how societies can leapfrog to sustainability, especially by using innovation and eco-entrepreneurs as agents of transformative change. And after earning her PhD, she felt “satisfied that I had enough knowledge of all three pillars of sustainable development to contribute in a meaningful way back to the cause of

ORN IN BUCHAREST, Romania,

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Cristiana Paşca Palmer, F06, F14, argues that preserving biodiversity provides social and economic benefits to people.

safeguarding nature and biodiversity.” Among many other accomplishments during her twentyfive-year career, Paşca Palmer founded the environmental NGO Green Cross Romania and, between 2011 and 2015, headed the department for climate change, environment, and natural resources at the European Commission/ EuropeAid. It was there she conceived and led the EU’s Biodiversity for Life Initiative, a $1.2 billion program to finance projects that linked biodiversity conservation with food security and green economy transformation in innovative ways. Paşca Palmer followed that work with two years of service as Romania’s Minister for Environment, Waters, and Forests, where she oversaw eight agencies, with a total staff of approximately 30,000, and managed a $250 million annual budget. As minister, she headed the Romanian delegation at the 2015 Paris climate conference, where she signed the agreement on behalf of Romania. So when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he was appointing Paşca Palmer to lead the Biodiversity Convention in 2016, the news didn’t come as a surprise to her Fletcher classmates. Cornelia Schneider, F06, for

PHOTO: COURTESY OF CRISTIANA PAŞCA PALMER

example, had seen her passion for environmental causes— and ability to bring about change—in 2008, when the two were part of a groundbreaking Fletcher program in Jeddah to train young, female Saudi grad students for careers in international affairs. That passion has only continued. “Over the years, I have followed from afar some of the initiatives she has put in place, with the EU, as Romanian minister, today as youngest—and, as far as I know only— female Romanian assistant secretary-general of the UN,” Schneider said. “These all seem to be shaped by deep-rooted commitment, dogged determination, and clearly a successful vision of how to get things done.”

“ I’M TRYING TO INSPIRE CHANGE IN THE APPROACH, TO FOCUS ON BIODIVERSITY NOT JUST AS A PROBLEM, BUT AS A SOLUTION TO MANY OTHER GLOBAL CHALLENGES.”

HESE DAYS, WHAT concerns

Paşca Palmer most among the myriad issues the Biodiversity Convention addresses is how limited understanding of biodiversity is, especially among legislators and politicians. “I’m trying to inspire a change in the approach,” she said, “to focus on biodiversity not just as a problem, but as a solution to many other global challenges.” Promoting smart eco-tourism, for instance, can become an economic boon to a region, while also providing funds to support native plants and wildlife. “We are the dominant species here, but we don’t control nature—nature controls us,” she said. “We need to invest in biodiversity so we will have a healthy system that will continue to provide what we need.” We hear a lot of bad news about climate change, which Paşca Palmer hopes will galvanize forward motion on the cause. “With biodiversity there’s a lot to catch up on,” she said. Despite helping to promote the idea for a Biodiversity Convention under the UN, the United States has never ratified the agreement. The only one of the Aichi biodiversity targets that may be achieved by the Convention’s 2020 deadline is the protection of 17 percent of terrestrial and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas—but even those areas face intense pressure from human competition. Which, of course, is why it’s so important to have an optimist at the helm. In the next two years, Paşca Palmer and her team must guide the efforts of all parties to the Convention and other key stakeholders around the world to propose a new global policy—a transformative “New Deal for Nature” that puts us on a path away from the potential catastrophic destruction of Earth’s ecosystems. And all 196 countries that are part of the Convention must agree to it when they meet in 2020 in Beijing. The environmental clock is ticking. “We need all people on the planet to understand that preserving biodiversity is critical for their own survival,” Paşca Palmer said. “We are biodiversity, and without it, humans cannot exist.” ■

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Leading the Way Toward ‘An Even Stronger Future’ BY HEATHER STEPHENSON

F84, F97, became chair of The Fletcher School’s Board of Advisors a year ago, she encouraged her fellow board members to deepen their engagement with the school. “We have a board of exceptionally smart, strategic thinkers, with highly relevant expertise and a passion to support Fletcher in its mission,” she said. “My goal is to harness this talent in service of the school, to help it address the challenges and opportunities it faces today.” A generous supporter of Fletcher, Tarlow is an associate and member of the advisory board of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, where she served as associate director for eighteen years with a research focus on Russian foreign policy. Since stepping down from that position, she has served as chair of the board of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and on the boards of the American Repertory Theater and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, among others. She spoke with us about her priorities as Fletcher chair and the search for a new dean of the school.

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HEN LISBETH TARLOW,

PHOTO: ALONSOCREDIT: NICHOLS TK

K E E P I NG U P W I T H T H E F L E T C H E R COM M U N I T Y

What is your vision for Fletcher’s future? Fletcher is one of the very best graduate schools of international relations. I hope to see it not only maintain its distinguished position, but also deepen its impact on the world. This will entail an ongoing commitment to innovation, support for faculty research and teaching, and resources to continue to attract an outstanding and diverse student body. You’re the first woman to chair the Fletcher board and you also chaired the Initiative on Women’s International Leadership. How are women’s roles changing at the school? One of Fletcher’s primary goals is to prepare professionals from around the world “for positions of leadership and influence in the national and international arenas.” In 2010, several of us on the board noted that although Fletcher’s student population was already 50 percent or more female, our female graduates were not achieving the same ratio of leadership positions as our male graduates. And this was a time when journals like Foreign Policy were beginning to identify the plethora of international issues that required female leadership to help solve. With the backing of the full board and support of Dean James Stavridis, F83, F84, we launched the Initiative on Women’s International Leadership to examine how to better support Fletcher women. My partners included fellow board members Alice Finn, F86, Farah Pandith, F95, and Betsy Parker Powell, F62. After doing some research and benchmarking, we outlined a set of recommendations that the dean fully embraced and set out to implement. This resulted in a substantial increase in the percentage of women faculty in tenured and tenure-track positions, of women speakers at the school, and of women on the board. We introduced programming, or strengthened it, in such areas as navigating the work-life balance, public speaking, salary negotiation, and mentoring, and the Fletcher Women’s Leadership Award was established to honor midcareer women who have made a significant impact in their field. In addition, the school responded to a call from students to increase the number of courses that included gender in the curriculum, and it subsequently introduced the important new field, Gender Analysis in International Studies. Fletcher was recently highlighted in Pacific Standard for its commitment to women and to gender analysis in the classroom, and today is considered the leader in this area among APSIA schools. So when Dean Stavridis asked me to chair the board, I saw it as a logical extension of this commitment and was delighted to accept.

You’ve established or reinvigorated several board committees. What are they charged with accomplishing? We now have three committees that work closely with senior members of the administration. The Academic Affairs Committee, chaired by Hans Binnendijk, F70, F71, F72, F06P, addresses issues concerning curriculum, faculty, and students. For example, last year it helped evaluate the proposed partnership for an online business degree program (see page 29). This year the committee is examining ways to broaden the applicant pool and produce higher yields. Specific areas of focus include reinvigorating the Fletcher board scholarship program; adapting degree programs, skill-set development, and Fletcher’s Washington presence to meet competition; board help in recruiting applicants; and strategizing for more affordable financing for international students. The Governance and Nominating Committee, chaired by Jenny Toolin McAuliffe, F83, is helping us be more transparent and explicit about how we develop a rigorous and diverse Board of Advisors and maintain the effective functioning of the board. This year we added two new board members, both outstanding alumnae, including a recent graduate who will serve in a new position. The Campaign Committee, co-chaired by Peter Ackerman, F69, F71, F76, F03P, A03P, Brad Meslin, F84, and Leslie Puth, F11, is charged with the vitally important work of raising money. This year it is focusing on financial aid, challenging the board for 100 percent participation, and soliciting support from the greater Fletcher family. You were on the search committee that brought James Stavridis to the school, and chaired the board of the Museum of Fine Arts when it hired a new director. What did you learn? When a leader steps down, it is certainly a disruption, but it is also a wonderful opportunity to come together to take stock of the environment and envision an even stronger future. I have also learned that as a committee, you can carefully outline the most important characteristics and areas of expertise needed in the next leader, but it is important to remain open-minded about who that individual is going to be. The best candidate often surprises you.

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Dean James Stavridis Steps Down After five years as leader, enhancing the school’s programs and reputation, he has headed to the private sector. BY HEATHER STEPHENSON

F83, F84, stepped down on August 1 to work with the Carlyle Group, an international private equity firm. “It has been an honor to serve as your dean and to have helped turn some of our hopes into realities over the last five years,” Stavridis wrote in a statement to the Fletcher community. He added that he felt lucky to work “where each of us is striving to further Fletcher’s original mission of helping others to better know—and ultimately benefit—our increasingly complicated world.” Ian Johnstone, professor of international law at Fletcher, is serving as dean ad interim during the search for Stavridis’s successor. A Canadian citizen and international lawyer, Johnstone has been a member of Fletcher’s faculty since 2000 and was the school’s academic dean from 2013 to 2015. Before joining Fletcher, he worked in the office of the United Nations secretary-general as a close aide to Kofi Annan. The executive search firm Isaacson, Miller will help identify the next dean in consultation with a Fletcher search committee. Finalists are expected to be interviewed in the spring, with a new dean joining the school in the summer of 2019. Stavridis, whose thirty-year career in the Navy included postings as supreme allied commander of NATO and heading the U.S. Southern Command, said the five years he served as Fletcher dean were the longest time he had spent in one place. “I’ve loved it here,” he said. “I’ve been happy every day here. But to all things there is a season, and I want to try a new challenge.” EAN JAMES STAVRIDIS,

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Under Stavridis’s leadership, the school strengthened the study of critical issues such as cybersecurity, gender, social networks, and the role of Russia in geopolitics. He also made it a priority to elevate women in the community. The school nearly doubled the number of women among its tenured and tenure-track faculty, appointed a woman as chair of its Board of Advisors for the first time (see page 26), and established the Fletcher Women’s Leadership Award to recognize extraordinary alumnae. Stavridis increased Fletcher’s visibility, partly through his own frequent appearances in the media. A prolific commentator on international affairs, he published three books and more than 200 articles during his tenure. With a donor’s support, he had a television studio built at the school to make it easier for Tufts faculty to appear on broadcast media, and he encouraged professors to share their ideas broadly. Stavridis also forged partnerships with outside institutions, including one with the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, D.C., with which the school now holds events and conducts joint research projects. Fletcher hired its first director of executive education to increase those

PHOTO: KELVIN MA

“I’ve loved it here,” Stavridis said. “But to all things there is a season, and I want to try a new challenge.”

offerings and announced in May that it would launch a new low-residency master’s degree in global business administration next year. To undergird these accomplishments, Stavridis focused on the need for donor support. Over the last five years, the school raised more than $70 million, nearly double its goal. Stavridis and his wife, Laura, hope to raise $1 million for the Admiral James and Laura Stavridis Endowed Scholarship Fund for outstanding Fletcher students. And he will continue as chair of the Friends of Fletcher, a group of supporters who meet twice a year in New York City. Tufts President Anthony P. Monaco and Deborah T. Kochevar, Tufts provost and senior vice president ad interim, praised Stavridis as a “dynamic leader, a wonderful partner, and a prolific scholar” in a statement to the university community. “Jim has advanced Fletcher’s reputation and strengthened its standing as a premier school for the study of international affairs,” they wrote. “His service as dean has reflected and extended the same dedication to national security and global peace that have marked his entire career.”

INTRODUCING FLETCHER’S ONLINE BUSINESS DEGREE

At the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity funds, Stavridis will provide global strategic advice, conduct analysis of potential financial transactions, offer leadership guidance to junior members of the firm, and provide strategic and business direction to individual companies in the fund’s portfolio. He will be based in Washington, D.C. He will continue to serve as chair of the board of the U.S. Naval Institute, chair of the board of counselors at McLarty Associates, a monthly columnist for Time magazine, and chief international security analyst for NBC News. He is also writing a new book, tentatively titled Sea Stories: Lessons of Character and Leadership from the Lives of Ten Admirals. Stavridis was vetted by the Hillary Clinton campaign as a possible vice presidential candidate in 2016 and met with President-elect Trump as a possible candidate for a cabinet-level appointment. He said he would not rule out a future political role, whether in an elected or appointed position under a future administration. “I will always consider the opportunity to serve the country again.”

will launch a new digitally-delivered global business degree program in May 2019, aiming to serve working professionals. “By using digital technologies, we can reach a new population of students who are immersed in their professions but want knowledge and credentials to make a difference in the world— and do it through the powerful combination of business innovation and contextual intelligence,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, Fletcher dean of global business and founding executive director of the Institute for Business in the Global Context, which will oversee the program. Chakravorti said the program will ramp up gradually and market analysis suggests it will enroll as many as 200 new students per year starting in its fifth year. Students will be able to complete the Master of Global Business Administration (GBA) in eighteen months to three years, with each student setting his or her pace. Fletcher faculty will record multimedia lectures, teach live weekly classes of about twenty students via a web-based platform, THE FLETCHER SCHOOL

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and develop interactive coursework through a digital “campus” that’s accessible on mobile and desktop devices, letting students complete their assignments from nearly anywhere. The program will require two residential sessions, expected to be three to five days each, one at Fletcher and the second at an international location, over the course of earning the degree. The curriculum will combine graduate-level courses covering cutting-edge topics in business with the study of the “global context,” including geopolitics, law, negotiations and leadership, data and decisions, and economics. It is being designed for midcareer business professionals who want to gain broader knowledge of international business, as well as leaders applying business principles in public institutions and nongovernmental organizations around the globe. The course will culminate in a capstone project such as a consulting study, entrepreneurial business plan, or policy analysis. Fletcher faculty members Dan Drezner, Laurent Jacque, Michael Klein, Mihir Mankad, and Chakravorti are already producing digital versions of their courses for the program. Kristen Zecchi, former senior associate director of the Master of International Business Program, has been named the new director of business education at Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context. The GBA will be led by that institute in partnership with 2U, an online program management company. Fletcher plans to add administrative staff and faculty as needed to respond to the expected increase in overall enrollment as the program grows. –Heather Stephenson

SOLVING TOMORROW’S PROBLEMS TODAY BY HEATHER STEPHENSON and citizens keep ahead of global change, a new center at Fletcher will conduct policy-oriented research and promote pragmatic international law and governance solutions to current challenges. “The moment is right to start exploring ways that international law and governance institutions can meet the big problems of the day,” said Ian Johnstone, interim dean of The Fletcher School, professor of international law, and one of two faculty directors for the new Center for International Law and Governance. His co-director, Joel P. Trachtman, is a professor of international law and author of The Future of International Law: Global Government and other titles. The center will host a conference every year or two on a topical issue. Its first, focused on how to protect civilian institutions and infrastructure from cyberattacks during peacetime, drew about eighty academics, practitioners, and policy experts to the campus in September and will culminate in an edited volume of papers written by leading scholars and practitioners for TO HELP GOVERNMENTS

the project. Future conferences may tackle infectious disease, environmental challenges, and migration—the kinds of problems, Johnstone said, “where there are gaps in international law and governance, and where The Fletcher School’s multidimensional approach will make a difference.” In addition to its conferences and research projects, the center plans to provide executive education on international law and governance issues. It will involve all members of the law faculty at Fletcher, as well as political scientists, economists, policy specialists, regional experts, business scholars, and historians from Fletcher, Tufts, other academic institutions, think tanks, NGOs, and governments. The center’s inaugural conference was funded by Microsoft and Fletcher’s Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs. “We’re excited to translate the best multidisciplinary research into practical advice,” Trachtman said. “We’re offering policy solutions to problems that must be dealt with on a global scale.”

Co-directors of the new Center for International Law and Governance are Ian Johnstone, interim dean of The Fletcher School, left, and Joel P. Trachtman, professor of international law.

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PHOTOS: ALONSO NICHOLS, KELVIN MA

Assistant professor Sulmaan Wasif Khan, author of the new book Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping.

China’s Haunted History A country once splintered by warlords and foreign powers still fears division and threats from the outside. BY TAYLOR MCNEIL took power in China in 1949, the country had been falling apart at the seams for hundreds of years. By the early twentieth century, warlords ruled what were essentially independent fiefdoms, while foreign powers carved out their own spheres of influence on Chinese territory. So it’s not surprising that China’s leaders from Mao onward have been obsessed with keeping the country whole and free from outside influence. That’s the focus of Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, a new book by Sulmaan Wasif Khan, assistant professor of international history and Chinese foreign relations at The Fletcher School. It’s a history that speaks to the China of today, an economic colossus flexing its muscles on the international stage. “At a time when hopes and fears of China are fervent and ill-informed in equal measure,” Khan writes, “it is important to explore the calculus behind China’s decision-making, to attempt to see the world the way China’s leaders do.” BEFORE THE COMMUNIST PARTY

PHOTO: KELVIN MA

China’s grand strategy was never really spelled out as such, but has been implicit in its leaders’ actions, Khan argues. And it began long before 1949. Mao and his fellow communist leaders were focused from the early 1930s on consolidating territory, making concessions where they made sense, temporarily accommodating enemies of the revolution like Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek, all in an effort to secure their position as leaders of China. The civil war of the 1930s and the subsequent fight against the invading Japanese had but one goal for Mao: founding a united communist China. “Getting the state was always the goal; what that state would be—its borders, its peoples—was open to adjustment,” Khan writes. With the triumph of the revolution in 1949, Mao set about snuffing out dissent inside the country while expanding control of territories like Tibet, and built alliances around the world in an effort to minimize potential foreign interference. Not everything went according to plan, of course, during Mao’s long reign

until his death in 1976. There were spats with communists in the USSR, self-inflicted damage in the Great Leap Forward—the disastrous effort to quickly industrialize the country—and the Cultural Revolution. That movement, with purges of educated Chinese, mass displacement, violence, and executions, was created by Mao in 1966, and nearly undid the grand strategy. Mao’s successor, Hua Guofeng, was able to quash the Cultural Revolution, sidelining the communist officials who had helped lead it. He also paved the way for Deng Xioaping to return to power. Deng realized that securing China’s future meant modernizing its economy and military, which he accomplished in relatively short order. Under Deng’s watch, reforms were widespread and the country recovered from the worst of the Mao era. But the reforms were economic, not political—the Tiananmen Square massacre happened under Deng. “Reform and opening had been meant to protect the state,” Khan writes. “It had not been a prelude to democratization.” By the time Xi Jinping took power in 2013, a paradox emerged. “China has come of age as a great power,” Khan writes, and yet continues to perceive economic and political threats from the U.S. and neighboring countries. As Xi continues to consolidate power—he is general secretary of the Communist Party of China, president of the People’s Republic of China, and chairman of China’s Central Military Commission—he’s still following an earlier game plan. “Xi’s grand strategy differs from his predecessors’ in degree rather than kind,” Khan said. “It is more assertive, more muscular; there is a hustle, rooted in insecurity perhaps, to it. And since it is being pursued with China at its current weight and heft, what China perceives as defense can be seen as aggressive by the outside world.”

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On the Shelf VISIBLE HANDS: GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY This deeply informative book, by professor of policy and international business JETTE STEEN KNUDSEN and co-author Jeremy Moon, provides a corrective to the existing literature on the social responsibility of multinational corporations by examining the growing role of the state in regulation. It also analyzes the relationship between domestic and international policy and the prevailing, if erroneous, notion that government is irrelevant to corporate social responsibility.

ANATOMY OF FAILURE: WHY AMERICA LOSES EVERY WAR IT STARTS Despite its strength, the U.S. has repeatedly failed to win military interventions since World War II. The reason, argues businessman, former naval officer, and senior advisor to the Atlantic Council HARLAN K. ULLMAN, F72, F73, F75, is the inadequate strategic thinking and lack of understanding that have hampered the nation’s commanders in chief. Combining analysis and anecdotes, Ullman proposes a new “brains-based approach” for effectively deploying force.

BY ELIZABETH GEHRMAN

HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE ERA OF THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Available for free download at springer. com, this group of eight essays with an introduction by editor NANCY GLEASON, F07, F11, looks at how the “fourth industrial revolution”—technology and its resulting “automation economy”—is changing the way information is disseminated; how the change is affecting higher education; and how higher ed institutions around the world should adapt.

THE CONFLICTED SUPERPOWER: AMERICA’S COLLABORATION WITH CHINA AND INDIA IN GLOBAL INNOVATION Developing economies like China and India are embracing innovation, but the U.S. is inconsistent in its acceptance of the intellectual capital these emerging powers increasingly provide. Policy on foreign students, skilled immigration, and global research and development is “more erratic than strategic,” argues ANDREW B. KENNEDY, F95, with labor and anti-immigration sentiment resisting the openness sought— and increasingly won—by the academic, scientific, and high-tech communities. Kennedy teases out the issues with detailed research.

EURASIA’S MARITIME RISE AND GLOBAL SECURITY: FROM THE INDIAN OCEAN TO PACIFIC ASIA AND THE ARCTIC These fourteen essays, edited by GEOFFREY F. GRESH, F07, F11, and dedicated to the former director of the Maritime Studies program, John Curtis Perry, examine a range of topics including shipping issues, security concerns, militarization, and climate change. In his foreword, Dean Emeritus James Stavridis, F83, F84, calls the book “a much needed analysis on the increasingly interconnected nature of Eurasia’s maritime affairs.” Faculty and other alumni contributed.

THE FOLDED PAPER: INVENTING CYBERDIPLOMACY Author SIOBHAN MACDERMOTT, F13, calls her sixth book “a vision, a plan, and a call to action” as governments increasingly work to engage citizens online with varying degrees of success, and international cyberdiplomacy moves toward inevitability. With a foreword by Dean Emeritus Stavridis.

Have you published a book this year? Let us know by emailing heather.stephenson@tufts.edu.

Champion of the Arts Juilliard-trained organist Patrick Kabanda, F13, found refuge in music as a child surrounded by political instability and grinding poverty in his native Uganda. In The Creative Wealth of

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Nations: Can the Arts Advance Development? he delves into the value of the arts for global environmental stewardship, international trade, cultural tourism, and more.

PHOTO: J.D. SLOAN

Bon Appétit (and Bonne Santé) Writer and photographer Tania Teschke, F99, invites you to revisit French food and wine traditions in The Bordeaux Kitchen, her new culinary guide with a Paleo twist. An American who is fluent in French, Teschke lived and cooked in Bordeaux from 2013 to 2016 while her husband, Toby Wolf, A99, F99, served as U.S. consul, but her interest in nutrition and healing dates back to a life-threatening ruptured appendix while working in Kazakhstan in her 20s. Along with the recipes in the book, she shares a gastronomic philosophy for good health and a well-nourished family.

Experience the World. A World of Experience. Cruising Coastal Vietnam November 5–19, 2019 With James Stavridis, Dean Emeritus of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Admiral USN (Ret.), Former Supreme Allied Commander of the NATO Alliance

tuftstravellearn.org

PHOTO: TANIA TESCHKE

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Connect CLUB NEWS BANGLADESH The president of the Fletcher Club of Bangladesh, SARWAR SULTANA, F98, a retired U.N. official, organized a lunch at the International Club in Dhaka on April 21. The gathering was to welcome SANG YEOB KIM, F17, a UNDP SDGs analyst and former security council advisor to the Chilean mission to the U.N.

Bangladesh

HOUSTON

Kenya

BANGLADESH The president of the Fletcher Club of Bangladesh, SARWAR SULTANA, F98, a retired U.N. official, organized a lunch at the International Club in Dhaka on April 21. The gathering was to welcome SANG YEOB KIM, F17, a UNDP SDGs analyst and former security council advisor to the Chilean mission to the U.N. Ukraine

HOUSTON

The Fletcher Club of Houston defied the Texas summer heat with an outdoor happy hour on June 28. In attendance were ELENA NIKOLOVA, F14, JORDAN SWEENEY, F18, CUTLER DAWSON, F18, MARIEL SANCHEZ, F16, ROB FITZGERALD, F19, and KARLA SCHIAFFINO, F17, who was visiting from Mexico City.

KENYA On August 11, the Fletcher Club of

Philippines

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KENYA On August 11, the Fletcher Club of Kenya met in Nairobi to see former classmates and cheer on current Fletcher students who were taking internships in the region. It was a lovely afternoon and the group looks forward to welcoming more alumni in the future! In attendance and photographed were, from left to right, MARIA PLACHT, F08, GEORGE WOLF, F08, VIVIANE CHAO, F02, LAURA GOODWIN, F11, FRANCIS SITUMA, F92, F95, ANNE ANGWENYI, F02, YUSUF HASSAN, HIBA TAZI, F19, AIDA MENGISTU, F00, and LUXI LIU, F19. On September 26, the club welcomed GMAP administrators and held an alumni get-together. Those in attendance included BRIAN FRIEDMAN, F15, KURT TJOSSEM, F94, AKINYI WALENDER, F18, JUDGE

JOYCE ALUOCH, F08, WILFRED NDERITU, F11, MARIA LANTZ, F08, LAURA GOODWIN, F11, TALLASH KANTAI, F13, BETTY NGARE, F18, VIVIANE CHAO, F02, ANNE ANGWENYI, F02, and IFE OSAGA-ONDONDO, F04.

NEW YORK This summer, more than thirty Fletcher Club of New York members gathered for their annual picnic in Bryant Park. The potluck festivities included families, friends, pets, and babies on the way!

PARIS On April 23, the Fletcher Club of Paris held an event at the Swiss Embassy in France. Former French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine spoke on “Today’s Worldwide Geopolitical Risks and the Role of Diplomacy as Preventing Risks,” moderated by journalist Nicolas Beytout. Among the attendees were, from left to right, Nicolas Beytout, editor in chief of l’Opinion, former French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine, Swiss Ambassador in France Bernardino Reggazoni, HEID Career Service Officer Carine Leu-Bonvin, and IVAN MONÈME, F90, head of alumni associations of Fletcher and HEID in Paris.

PHILIPPINES The Fletcher Club of the Philippines gathered for a happy hour on May 10. Alumni in attendance included MIA CORPUS, F11; HELEN PALFREYMAN, F04; JONA LAI, F02, with her husband Matthew Green; Club Leader CATHERINE HARTIGAN-GO, F92, and her husband

Kenneth; MOTOO KONISHI, F80; LILA SHAHANI, F04; LILIAN LEHMANN, F11; SHOTARO SASAKI, F05; and ERIC TAMAYO, F11.

PORTLAND, OREGON The Fletcher community in Portland is active again! First, there was a welcome event for accepted students on March 27 at the home of EDIE JOHNSON MILLAR, F85. This reception was attended by three prospective students and four alumnae: ELIZABETH BENNETT, F08, KRISTEN RAINEY, F06, APRIL RINNE, F04, and SARAH SALEEB, F17. The group held a convivial wine tasting on May 24 at Cerulean in the Pearl district of downtown Portland, with ELIZABETH BENNETT, F08, PAMELA JACKLIN, F67, ALDER KOVARIC, F08, EDIE J. MILLAR, F85, SARAH SALEEB, F17, and NOAH SIEGEL, F01. On August 1, the club enjoyed a wonderful summer barbecue at the elegant historic home of PAMELA JACKLIN, F67, in the Goose Hollow district. Guests included BRUCE AYLWARD, F90, F98, KAREN AYLWARD, F89, ELIZABETH BENNETT, F08, VIRGINIA CORNYN, F63, WILLIAM JAMES DANGEL, F17, ALDER KOVARIC, F08, EDIE J. MILLAR, F85, ZOE NIELSEN, F01, SARAH SALEEB, F17, and incoming Fletcher student SARA MILLER.

UKRAINE VALERIA SCOTT LAITINEN, F98, stepped down as leader of the Fletcher Club of Ukraine in June and OLENA TREGUB, F13, has since taken over. The club welcomed assistant professor of international history Chris Miller to Kyiv on May 10 and enjoyed a lively discussion about increasing ties between Fletcher and

New York

Ukraine and about the future of the country. Pictured, from left to right, are OLENA TREGUB, F13, JEFF ERLICH, F07, Assistant Professor Chris Miller, SEBASTIAN KNOKE, F02, ANDRIJ PIVOVARSKY, F03, TAMTA OTIASHVILI, F16, and VALERIA LAITINEN, F98.

SHARED INTEREST GROUPS FLETCHER LAWYERS NETWORK At the 2018 Alumni Weekend, the new Fletcher Lawyers Network hosted a reception for alumni, LLM graduates, and law faculty. Network Co-chair LOUISE JULIN, F17, and Professor John Burgess welcomed the 2018 LLM graduates, and provided a brief presentation on plans for the network. The event was a great opportunity for alumni to connect and for members to contribute ideas on how to develop the network. If you want to get in touch, please email FletcherLawyersNetwork@ gmail.com.

FLETCHER WOMEN’S NETWORK Fletcher Women’s Network, co-chaired by KARI SIDES SUVA, F11, and MARIANA STOYANCHEVA, F05, is hard at work on a variety of initiatives. Check out the group’s Strategic Plan (http://bit. ly/FWNstrategicplan) for more information and to give feedback. The group’s updated website (http://bit.ly/FletcherWomensNetwork) includes a new section listing books by Fletcher women. The network is engaging with Fletcher clubs to help women start groups around the globe and members are excited about its upcoming pilot mentoring program for Fletcher alumnae, to provide support on issues regarding personal and professional development. Want to get involved? Contact the rganizers at fletcheralumna@ gmail.com.

Fletcher Lawyers

Paris

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Connect CLUB CONTACTS UNITED STATES

TEXAS

BULGA R I A

GREECE

ALASKA

SCOTT STANFORD, F13

nadia.milanova@skynet.be

gregory@alumni.tufts.edu

JOHN D. MOORE, F02

jdmoore_1@hotmail.com A R IZONA

MORGAN LERETTE, F13

morganlerette@gmail.com CA L IFOR N I A

LOS ANGELES

MARK NGUYEN, F98

mark@planetlarecords.com SAN DIEGO

BOB STECK, F81

robert.steck@ml.com SAN FRANCISCO

BEN BALL, F02

AUSTIN

scott.stanford71@ gmail.com HOUSTON

ELENA NIKOLOVA, F14 enikolova@alumni. upenn.edu

hsu.sherrie@gmail.com

COLOR A DO

A RGENTINA

SAM STONBERG, F10

LUIS ROSALES, F98

sstonberg@gmail.com

lrosal@hotmail.com

DISTR ICT OF COLUMBI A

ARMENIA

ADITI MANOCHA, F16

ARUSYAK MIRZAKHANYAN, F04

aditimanocha7@gmail.com

arousiakm@yahoo.com

F LOR I DA

AUSTR A L I A

STEPHEN BERGEY, F06 stephen.bergey@ alumni.tufts.edu H AWA I I

GREGG NAKANO, F01

gmnakano@gmail.com

MELISSA CONLEY TYLER, F96 m.conleytyler@gmail.com AUSTR I A

TIHOMIR TSENKULOVSKI, F09 ttsenkulovski@gmail.com BA NGL A DE SH

SARWAR SULTANA, F98

I L L I NOI S

sarwar_sultana@hotmail. com

greggrbaker@yahoo.com

BELGIUM

GREGG BAKER, F85

M ASSACHUSETTS

BOSTON

ADRIA CHAMBERLAIN, F08 fletcherboston@gmail.com NE W YOR K*

NEW YORK CITY AND TRI-STATE AREA

CLAUDIO GULER, F15 fletcherschool.nyc@ gmail.com OR EGON

EDIE MILLAR, F85

GEORGE-MARIAN ISBASOIU, F16

george.isbasoiu@gmail. com

ROBERT MICALLEF, F01

robert.c.micallef@gov.mt BOSN I A A N D HE RZEGOV I NA

HARIS MESINOVIC, F00

harismesinovic@hotmail. com BR AZIL

millarhk@hotmail.com

BRASILIA

KRISTEN RAINEY, F06

rick.ortiz@trade.gov

rainey@alumni. princeton.edu

P E N N S Y LV A N I A

PHILADELPHIA

JOCELYN BRADDOCK, F12 jocelynbraddock@ gmail.com

JONATHAN MARTIN, F12 jamartin4@gmail.com PITTSBURGH

TOM ETZEL, F11

etzelcpa@comcast.net

HU NGA RY

LAURENCE NGUYEN, F11

orban_anita@yahoo.com

N ICA R AGUA

CALGARY*

SONYA RAMIAN, F08 CHILE

ANDRES MONTERO, F85 amontero@intertrust.cl

mrbenball@hotmail.com

GEORGI A

CA NA DA

tzovig@gmail.com

SHERRIE HSU, F17

ENRIQUE ORTIZ, F90 HOLLY LOOMIS, F17

holly.loomis@tufts.edu SÃO PAULO

PAULO BILYK, F92

paulo.bilyk@riobravo. com.br

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DAVID CHIH-HSIANG WU, F10

gaspar.y.rodriguez@gmail. com

radka.betcheva@gmail.com

WA SH I NGTON

emily@utahcf.org

NETHERLANDS

chwu1973@gmail.com

EMILY KUNZ, F15

U TA H

GREGORY DIMITRIADIS, F06 THOMAS VARVITSIOTIS, F99

RADKA BETCHEVA, F11

laurence.nguyen@alumni. tufts.edu MONTREAL*

INTERNATIONAL

Seeking new leadership

NADJA MILANOVA, F12

GERMAN OLAVE, F97

germanolave@gmail.com

tv@vando.gr

ANITA ORBAN, F01 INDI A

BANGALORE

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sandhyagupta02@gmail. com MUMBAI

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hsumser@gmail.com PHILIPPINES

POL AND

ANNIN PECK, F17

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JA PA N

ROM A NI A

MARIKO NODA, F90

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K E N YA

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STELLA CUEVAS, F95 stcuevas@ymail.com CO STA R IC A

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CZECH REPUBLIC

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FELIX HOFMANN, F13 fe.ho@me.com FRANKFURT

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JAY DONG, F00

jaydong2000@yahoo.com

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chidisegni@gmail.com

CHIARA DI SEGNI, F15

anne_angwenyi@alumni. tufts.edu vivianechao@gmail.com KOSOVO

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ram_thapaliya@yahoo.com

PAUL HSU, F65

PERU

jordan@herzbergmanagement.com

lokwokling@gmail.com

fredericganner@googlemail.com

mumtaz@mfapk.org

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DEIDRE LO, F90

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swissfletcherclub@gmail. com ZURICH

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TA I WA N

CHINA

BEIJING

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SW ITZER L AND

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SUKHEE HAN, F94

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F LETCHE R M AGA ZIN E | W IN TE R 2018

Connect IN MEMORIAM 1940s HELEN (SUE) CARPENTER LOW, F49, on April 26, 2018, at an assisted living establishment in Ashland, Massachusetts, at ninety-one. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on October 9, 1926, and moved with her family to Ohio when she was seven. She won a highly competitive State of Ohio scholarship and graduated from Denison University Phi Beta Kappa with an Economics major. She earned her master’s degree from The Fletcher School, and completed her Honors at Oxford University as a Fulbright Scholar in 1951. She married Stephen Low in 1956 and together they started a life in the Foreign Service with tours in Uganda, Senegal, Brazil, Zambia, Nigeria, and a stint in Santa Barbara in 1982. After leaving the Foreign Service, they spent five years in Bologna, Italy. As well as raising three sons, she was active improving the status of Foreign Service spouses, writing papers for various government departments and nongovernmental organizations, leading and supporting women’s groups overseas and at home, traveling, and maintaining a keen interest in current affairs, music, art, geology, photography, philosophy, and spirituality. She is survived by her three sons and their families, including five grandchildren.

1950s ANN MYERS LIACOURAS, F59, age eighty-one, a lawyer and the widow of former Temple University president Peter J. Liacouras, on July 18, 2018, of Lewy body dementia at Waverly Heights in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. She

graduated from Greenwood High School in Mississippi and from Millsaps College. She received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study at The Fletcher School, where she earned a master’s degree, then went on a Fulbright scholarship to study political science at the Australian National University and completed the coursework for a doctorate in political science at Bryn Mawr College. She interrupted her studies for family reasons, and raised four children in Gladwyne with her husband, Peter, whom she married in 1958. She was active in Democratic politics, serving as a committeewoman in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, and was elected a delegate to the 1988 Democratic National Convention after serving for the Michael Dukakis presidential campaign. At thirty-seven, she returned to school to earn a law degree at Temple University. She was a first-year law student at the time her husband was dean of the law school and graduated in 1977. She worked as a law clerk for two Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justices, then joined the Beasley Law Firm LLC as a trial lawyer handling civil litigation. In the late 1980s, she joined the Education Law Center, working to ensure that children living in poverty or with disabilities had access to a quality public education. She loved the theater and was a longtime patron of the arts. She served on the board of directors of the Walnut Street Theatre for two decades. She is survived by four children, three grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

F LETCHE R M AGA ZIN E | W IN TE R 2018

1960s WILLIAM (BILL) WAINWRIGHT, F65, on May 19, 2018, after a fifteen-month battle with brain cancer, in his hometown of Martinez, California, where his family has ties going back four generations. A graduate of Alhambra High School, he graduated from Claremont-McKenna College with a BA in Humanities emphasizing French literature. He earned two master’s degrees, and then a PhD at The Fletcher School. He had a multifaceted career in banking, politics, and translation services. Fluent in French, he was an ad hoc translator for reporters at the Vietnam Paris Peace Talks. For the past twenty years, he was a translator in a business and financial communications firm. He continued working until this spring, when illness forced his retirement. He was instrumental in arranging the Class of 1965’s 35th reunion at The Fletcher School. He is survived by four children, two grandchildren, and nieces and nephews. DANTE CAPUTO, F67, H89, the foreign minister of Argentina from 1983 to 1989, on June 20, 2018, after a long battle against cancer. His biggest success was the 1984 Beagle Channel treaty with Chile, and he was also a co-founder of the Mercosur trade bloc in 1985. He made an early exit from his role as foreign minister to preside over the United Nations General Assembly in 1988, remaining active in international peacekeeping for years afterward. He played an important role in forming the Alliance between the Radicals and Frente Grande ex-Peronists that took Fernando de la Rúa to the

presidency in 1999. He graduated with a political science degree from the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aire, with a master’s degree from The Fletcher School, and with a doctorate in sociology from the University of Paris. RUDOLPH (RUDY) ROUSSEAU, F69, F70, on August 26, 2018. He earned his master’s degree and doctorate from The Fletcher School. He was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later served as a dedicated member of the intelligence community. He worked with Congress from both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, preparing hearings as a staffer and testifying as a government witness. Then he taught the next generation at Georgetown University. His professional interests included helping the impoverished of the world and assuring the excellence of American intelligence products. He was throughout his career an objective analyst and policymaker who used the U.S. national interest as his North Star. He retired a few years ago at his home in Washington, D.C. He will be remembered for his dry wit, entertaining stories, abiding honesty, love of ice hockey and fly fishing, dominant role as a lineman on the Fletcher football team, and his devotion to his family. He is survived by his wife, Ellen Kane, and two sons.

1970s NORBERT FRANCIS KOCKLER, F71, age ninety-two, on May 27, 2018, of cancer at his home in Alexandria, Virginia. Born in Philadelphia, he was orphaned at the height of the

IN MEMORIAM

Depression, but was fortunate to be placed at Stephen Girard College, where he excelled in academics and music. After high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, serving in World War II in the South Pacific, including on Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Philippines. He used the GI Bill to attend Dickinson College, where he majored in public administration. He enjoyed a twenty-eight-year career with USAID, serving at the Organization of American States and at eight duty stations in Latin America and Vietnam. In Quito, Ecuador, he met and married

Cecilia, his wife of fifty-seven years, on whom he relied for strength until the very end. He cherished his wife, four children, three daughters-inlaw, and four grandchildren, and they equally adored him. He was loving, generous, thoughtful, kind, and sweet. He had a passion for the English language and wrote beautifully. He also loved classical music, literature, baseball, crossword puzzles, walking, and humor most of all. He volunteered at Metropolitan Washington Ear, reading for people with visual impairments, and taught literacy to adults. He lived a life in humble service to his country and

TED ACHILLES 1936-2018

Elizabeth Parker Powell, F62, greets her classmate Ted Achilles, F62. THEODORE “TED” CARTER ACHILLES, JR.,

F62, who co-founded a school for girls in Afghanistan, died August 21 in Portland, Oregon. A memorial service was held at Tufts on October 13. In 2008, Achilles helped start the nonprofit School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA), which now educates seventy girls from twenty-three of Afghanistan’s provinces. “His life and work represent the very best of American involvement in Afghanistan,” friend and former SOLA board member Cornelia Schneider, F06, wrote in an online remembrance. Achilles first traveled to Afghanistan in 2002. The next year he helped establish an office of a global shipping company in Kabul. In 2004, he became the Afghanistan director of the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program, funded by the U.S. State Department,

PHOTO: KELVIN MA

the people around him and left an indelible imprint on his family and friends. JOHN F. BENDER, F73, a resident of McLean, Virginia, at the Adler Center for Caring in Aldie, Virginia, on April 9, 2018. He had lung cancer. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Princeton University, and The Fletcher School, he had a distinguished career with the federal government, specializing in intelligence and security issues, with assignments in the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, and Asia. He retired in 2007. He served with the

First Marine Division in Vietnam (Kilo 3/7) as a rifle platoon and company commander from 1968-69. His personal decorations included the Bronze Star, Navy Commendation, and Purple Heart medals. He retired from the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 2005 with the rank of colonel. He is survived by Margaret, his wife of forty-nine years, their two daughters, a grandson, a sister, and a brother. His example lives on in the men and women he led and mentored, and in his daughters and grandson, of whom he was immensely proud.

which provided scholarships to young Afghans to study in American high schools. When Achilles saw how few of the students chose to return to their home country, he set out to establish better educational and job opportunities within Afghanistan. “Solutions to Afghanistan’s often seemingly intractable problems will come from educated Afghans, especially Afghan women, and cannot be imposed from the outside,” he said. “But we can help train and support those new leaders.” Achilles co-founded SOLA with Shabana Basij-Rasikh, an alumna of the YES program who was then attending Middlebury College. She is now SOLA’s president. “Over the years, whenever I was in doubt, whenever I felt I wasn’t good enough, I would call Ted,” she wrote in a letter announcing a gathering to honor his legacy, “and at the end of every single call I would feel like I was on top of the world.” Achilles was born on January 14, 1936, in Washington. He graduated from St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Yale University before earning his Fletcher degree. In 1961 he married Joan Baker. He served as an Army Ranger and during the 1960s and 1970s worked in banking. He was the chief executive of Morrow Electronics, Inc., in addition to holding other executive positions, and served two terms in the Oregon legislature. He retired in 1996. Achilles oversaw the endowment of the Atlantic Community Scholarship at Fletcher in honor of his father, Theodore Carter Achilles, a U.S. diplomat who served as the American ambassador to Peru and helped draft the North Atlantic Treaty that established NATO in 1949. Achilles is survived by two sons, three daughters, a sister and brother, and eleven grandchildren.

W IN TE R 2018 | F LETCHE R M AGA ZIN E

Detail

Betraying the Dead?

My support for a former militia leader in Iraq inspired criticism—and soul searching. BY COLONEL MICHAEL D. SULLIVAN, F18

Colonel Michael D. Sullivan on one of his five tours in Iraq.

published my article, “I Fought Against Muqtada al-Sadr. Now He’s Iraq’s Best Hope.” In it, I argued that the former militia leader, fresh from a major victory in the May 2018 parliamentary elections, had reinvented himself as both an Iraqi nationalist and pragmatist. I said his coalition was the group most likely to create a stable government that could combat corruption, defuse sectarianism, and rebuild a viable middle class. It was something I never thought I would say during my four other tours to Iraq. Yet I formulated the ideas while deployed in Iraq as part of the Office of Security Cooperation from June 2017 to June 2018. The reactions were swift. Sadr and his militias were responsible for the deaths of many American soldiers, including some of my friends. How could I support the man who was once my enemy? Although I received supportive responses from employees of the departments of State and

N JUNE, FOREIGN POLICY

F LETCHE R M AGA ZIN E | W IN TE R 2018

Defense, as well as from other friends working within Iraq, others were critical, especially some veterans who had served in Iraq between 2003 and 2010. Some of my fellow veterans doubted my motives and experience, arguing that Sadr was actually an opportunist, and not a pragmatist—I do not disagree. I also received a surprising number of messages from people with no connections to Iraq, many of whom said that the article helped them get a better picture of what was happening there. Most powerful for me were the messages from those who lost family, friends, and soldiers to Sadr’s militias. The loss of their friends would not—could not—let them ever see Sadr as anything other than a terrorist. These responses really hit home, since I had also lost friends to Sadr’s militias and attacks. I empathized and each message pushed the knife-edge of doubt deeper. No one outside of the Iraqis has more invested in Iraq than those of us who fought to keep its people safe, allow its government time to develop its own security forces, and confront different terror groups away from American soil. And yet even today, as these messages cause me to question my own writings, I still stick by my original message: Sadr and his party remain Iraq’s best hope. Saying this about someone who I know sent his militias to fight against us, wounding and killing United States soldiers, did not come easy. But after spending another year on the ground in Baghdad, I felt it needed to be said. “Business as usual” has not gotten Iraq, or our continued efforts, anywhere close to providing the stability the Iraqi people deserve. For them, Sadr and his political coalition deserve a chance. I’d like to think this is what so many of us fought for. Colonel Michael D. Sullivan is an assistant professor at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University. His views are his own and do not represent the National Defense University, U.S. Department of Defense, or any other government agency.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF COLONEL MICHAEL D. SULLIVAN

“ Fletcher has so much to give to the world” “Gift planning has bridged two cherished parts of my life,” says Linda Dixon, J63, F99. By creating a charitable trust, Linda will provide income to her sister Valerie (who was a devoted caregiver to their parents) and later will benefit Fletcher students and undergraduate students at Tufts. “I’m so proud to be a part of Fletcher’s future through my trust. Fletcher is cultivating leaders who are dedicated and prepared to serve the world, and we need their service more than ever.” Dixon’s Fletcher degree is one of many rich connections to the Tufts community. A member of the Tufts Class of 1963, she later returned to the university to serve a 19-year tenure as Secretary of the Corporation, working with its Board of Trustees. Today, she serves as university gift planning chair for the Brighter World campaign, helping to take the university into a new era of education, leadership, and service. She hopes other members of the Fletcher community may discover gift planning strategies that can help them meet multiple goals, with simple instruments like a charitable trust. “Fletcher has already made an enormous difference in the world, and it has much more to give,” Dixon says. “I’m honored to be part of building that future.”

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5 Mr. President?

26 Leading the Charge

29 A New Degree

FORCE OF NATURE Inside alumna Cristiana Paşca Palmer’s desperate fight to slow the global wave of plant and animal extinctions—before it’s too late. Page 22