Looking around the globe at present and incoming challenges can be an overwhelming task on any given day. Observers and practitioners in the fields of geopolitics and diplomacy are moving through a world of “polycrises” –an overlapping landscape of issues like the return of great power competition, challenges to democracy and rules-based order, preparation for the next pandemic, climate change, artificial intelligence and machine learning, outer space, and the war in Ukraine, among other things. If the U.S. is to be a leader in confronting polycrises and a world in rapid flux, it is essential that we have a reinvigorated and laser-focused American diplomacy. In order to form a more modern U.S. diplomatic corps what is required?

Join us for a discussion with Ambassador Jo Ellen Powell, a career member of the United States Foreign Service who served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Resources,U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania and Consul General in Frankfurt, Germany and is currently the Executive Director to the Una Chapman Cox Foundation, on the recently released Blueprints for a More Modern U.S. Diplomatic Service.  More than simply another report, Blueprints (authored by legions of former ambassadors and foreign service professionals with decades of experience) delivers a long-awaited, accessible call-to-action that offers a renewed and revised mission and mandate for America’s diplomatic service.

Blueprints for a More Modern U.S. Diplomatic Service is a product of The American Diplomacy Project – Phase II, which is co-chaired by Ambassadors (ret.) Marc Grossman and Marcie Ries and implemented in collaboration with the Una Chapman Cox Foundation, the Leadership, Diplomacy and National Security Lab at the Arizona State University, and the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Read Blueprints for a More Modern U.S. Diplomatic Service

This program is free and open to the public but registration is required