BRATTLEBORO — The Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) will present its annual Galbraith Lecture on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. at Brooks Memorial Library with Ambassador Peter Galbraith.
Recently returned from Ukraine and Moldova, Galbraith will provide an update on the military and political situation in Ukraine and assess the future prospects in his talk, entitled “The Ukraine War: What Now? What Next? and How Does It End?”
Galbraith will consider the war's implications for Ukraine, for Russia and Putin, for the peace of Europe, and for our ability to meet existential global challenges such as climate change. He will discuss the danger that Russia might use nuclear weapons and how the world might respond, as well as possible outcomes and settlements.
Few American diplomats have had as much direct experience in wartime diplomacy as Ambassador Galbraith. Serving as the first U.S. ambassador to Croatia, he negotiated the 1995 peace agreement that ended that country's war, and he was part of the team that negotiated the Dayton Accords for peace in Bosnia.
Working for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Galbraith was on the front lines of the Soviet War in Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq War, the Sri Lanka Civil War, the first Gulf War, and the 1991 Kurdish uprising. His last diplomatic posting was as an Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations in Afghanistan.
In recent years, he has been a regular visitor to Northeast Syria, where he advises the Syrian Democratic Forces on negotiation strategy and, separately, is reuniting Yazidi women kidnapped by ISIS with their children born as a result of rape.
Galbraith is an esteemed member of the Windham World Affairs Council. He is an author, academic, commentator, politician, and policy advisor. The annual Galbraith Lecture honors his father, John Kenneth Galbraith, who was an important author of more than 30 books, including The Affluent Society, and a public intellectual and economist who believed the economy should work to fulfill the needs of the people. Short audio pieces on John Kenneth Galbraith narrated by journalist Joyce Marcel and Peter Galbraith can be heard on the Brattleboro Words Trail at bit.ly/687-galbraith.
Ambassador Galbraith is a Vermonter who served two terms as a state senator from Windham County from 2011 to 2015 and was a candidate for governor of Vermont in 2016. He is the author of two critically acclaimed books on the Iraq War, including the prescient bestseller The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End.
He was an assistant professor of International Relations and Economics at Windham College in Putney from 1975 to 1978. Later, he was a professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College in 1999 and between 2001 and 2003. In addition to his books, Ambassador Galbraith has written extensively for a range of publications, including The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Washington Post , and The Guardian.
For 60 years, WWAC has gathered an eclectic range of individuals with international engagement and experience to help create free community events and facilitate youth outreach.
This event will be held in person and online. Registration is required at Eventbrite at bit.ly/3eKLCMq. Masks are required. The event is free but a donation of $10 to support WWAC is suggested.
Find out more at windhamworldaffairscouncil.org.