Storella Delivers Harvard Club Lecture on America’s Place in the World
On October 5, 2021, Ambassador Mark C. Storella, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, delivered a lecture at the Harvard Club of Boston about the multiple factors shaping America’s place in the world and how that role might evolve and adapt to 21st-century realities. Over 150 alumni from Harvard University and associated universities attended the virtual event.
Storella kicked off his lecture, titled “After Afghanistan – What is America’s Place in the World Now,” stating that we live in an era of unprecedented global disruption, from climate change to pandemics, from terror to cybercrime to the rise of China. Against this dramatic background, tragic images of America’s hasty evacuation from the Kabul airport have heightened discussion over America’s place in the world. He argued that the Afghan withdrawal itself did not mark the end of the so-called “American Century” but that the world has changed in important ways that will require the United States to take a fresh approach to global leadership and to protecting American interests.
With American power relatively – but not absolutely – diminished, the U.S. will have to devote more energy to building variable partnerships to meet emerging global challenges. Storella argued that American leadership will depend on the U.S. demonstrating that it not only has a vision and a will to lead but also that America is competent in doing so. He concluded by stating that, for the U.S. to meet these challenges, the most important requirement will be for Americans to renew their faith in America’s own institutions and its founding creed to permit the nation to act with greater common purpose and consistency in a dangerous world.
Participants’ questions and comments focused on the future of American diplomacy and of the State Department, the impact of the global war on terror on American global leadership, and the role of an emerging China.
Ambassador Mark C. Storella was a United States Foreign Service Officer for over three decades serving as Ambassador to Zambia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, and Dean of the Leadership and Management School of the Foreign Service Institute. Storella is recipient of the Presidential Rank Award, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Excellence in Service Award, the Thomas Jefferson Award presented by American Citizens Abroad, and several Department of State superior and meritorious honor awards. Learn more about Ambassador Storella on his faculty profile.