News Release

In September 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, President George Bush announced the beginning of a new world order. By promptly following this statement with an American-led coalition to repel Saddam Hussein's aggression, Bush signaled the beginning of a new era of American international intervention. Many argue that American foreign policy has not consistently adhered to this new doctrine of world mediation through intrusive intervention, varying its intent as well as its actions in a variety of scenarios including campaigns in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. At the same time, congressional efforts to lessen America's participation in the international arena has the potential to drastically alter its power and influence. These variables combine to make it more difficult than ever for the United States to agree on an appropriate political stance between isolationism and interventionism.

The 1998 Johns Hopkins Symposium on Foreign Affairs, Superpower or Supercop? America's Response to the New World Order, will provide an exciting forum for discourse on America's difficult position in the wake of the changing international political climate. The symposium, run entirely by Hopkins undergraduates, will include many distinguished speakers, including Maryland Congressman Ben Cardin, Taiwanese Ambassador Stephen Chen, Russian Ambassador Yuli M. Vorontsov, Pakistani Ambassador Riaz Khokhar, Maryland Congressman Robert Ehrlich, Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes, Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Ben Elissar, Mexican Ambassador Jesus Reyes-Heroles, Japanese Ambassador Kunihiko Saito and former national security advisor Anthony Lake. (Follow this link for speaker biographies.)

The Johns Hopkins Symposium on Foreign Affairs was formed through the merging of the Woodrow Wilson International Studies Symposium and the International Studies Forum Symposium and is in its first year. Speakers for the precursors have included former South African president F.W. deKlerk, former U.S. secretary of defense Les Aspin, and UN Under- Secretary-General Karl Paschke and have covered such diverse topics as nuclear proliferation, the evolution of globalism in space, and United Nations reform.

This year's symposium director is Tom Narayan. He can be reached at (410) 903-3987. Admission to all lectures is free and they are open to the public.