The Pandemic and the World: Four Things That Will Change (And Two that Won't)
The COVID-19 pandemic has been described as history's first global event, in that it has produced significant effects across virtually all of the world's population simultaneously. Its reverberations will shift elements of world order in ways we are only now beginning to perceive. Globalization, the scope of international cooperation, U.S.-China relations and the future of democracy will each be different after coronavirus, and this lecture will explore the pandemic's implications in each of these areas. It will also examine elements of the global situation that will not change, including the role of competitive nation-states and the "order of the order." Here are links to two articles (Foreign Policy and The Atlantic) that you may find useful ahead of the talk.
Richard Fontaine also currently serves as executive director of the Trilateral Commission and has been an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He served as president of CNAS from 2012-19 and as senior advisor and senior fellow from 2009-12. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Fontaine served as foreign policy advisor to the McCain 2008 presidential campaign and subsequently as the minority deputy staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Prior to that, he served as Associate Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) from 2003-04. He also worked on Southeast Asian issues in the NSC's Asian Affairs directorate. At the State Department, Mr. Fontaine worked in the office of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and in the department's South Asia bureau. Mr. Fontaine began his foreign policy career as a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focusing on the Middle East and South Asia. He also spent a year teaching English in Japan.
