On Wednesday, December 5, in partnership with Saint Joseph’s University Erivan K. Haub School of Business and The Anthony Carfagno Lecture Series, the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia presented the first of its 70th Anniversary Signature Events Series, featuring keynote remarks by the Honorable Michael McFaul, United States Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).
Ambassador Michael McFaul is the author of From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, and one of our nation’s leading commentators on US-Russian relations. He may be also the only recent American ambassador to any country to personally become a subject in a summit between the President of the United States and another major world leader.
The 1980’s presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan burned into the American consciousness an image of our country’s relationship with Russia – the image of the need for strength and vigilance against a scary “bear in the woods.”
With the fall of the Soviet Union, many thought the bear was gone, but since the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, concern about the expansion of Russian power and influence in the world – from Russia’s annexation of Crimea to hybrid warfare in Ukraine to cyber-attacks on the electoral systems of the Western democracies – has returned in many quarters.
Is the bear back in the woods and, if so, what is to be done about it?
