Seminar Abstract

The achievements of the industrial and information ages have brought astounding progress.   Human beings are wealthier and healthier than at any time in history. Individuals have information processing capabilities formerly available only to the governments of advanced nation-states. Never has humanity been more interconnected. Yet if the future is full of opportunity, it is also full of dangers. Individuals and small groups can have enormous destructive capabilities. The rise of populist movements and pressures on the liberal international order, coupled with the success of authoritarian regimes, portend a difficult future. The best of times also threatens the worst of times. This is the paradox of progress.

About the Speaker

Christopher A. Kojm is a Professor of Practice at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, a position he has held since 2014. He directs the School’s Leadership, Ethics and Practice Initiative. He served as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2009 to 2014, and taught previously at the Elliott School (2007-09) and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School (2004-07).

Earlier in his career he served as Deputy Director of the 9/11 Commission (2003-04), as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1998-2003), as a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (1984-98) under Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, and as a writer and editor at the Foreign Policy Association in New York City (1979-1984).