What's Up at NCWA?

NCWA Launches Strong Array of Programs for the Season

By MARK SCHWAB
President, NCWA

Welcome to an exciting new season of the Naples Council on World Affairs!

We are pleased that we will launch our lecture season from our new venue, the Naples United Church of Christ, 5200 Crayton Road in Naples, a few blocks west on Seagate from the Waterside Shops. Our survey of members a few months ago told us that you wanted a more convenient location, essentially farther north, and after a lengthy search of venues across Naples, we found a place where the ambiance and the sound are excellent and the welcome is warm. 

We encourage you to attend in person as often as possible and strengthen the important social connections that were such a strong part of the Naples Council experience before the pandemic.

We have a timely schedule of lectures by experts on the urgent subjects of our times, ranging from China to Russia, to NATO, to the Middle East to artificial intelligence to immigration. Developments in these regions and subjects will affect our lives in ways that we know will be impactful and in many ways we can’t yet foresee. It’s important as citizens for us to be as informed as possible in uncertain times.

Again this year, we welcome your guests at lectures. Information in our newsletter and on our website will tell you how to register them online or at the front desk at lectures. We hope you will remember to select guests who are eligible to become NCWA members, namely who reside in our area at least during “season” and who have strong backgrounds or interest in international affairs so that they can contribute to our nonpartisan dialogue.

A deeper exploration of the complex issues confronting our nation and the world will begin in January during the eight weeks of Great Decisions small discussion groups. As Great Decisions members know, a combination of attending lectures and Great Decisions discussions broadens our understanding to an extraordinary level. Enrollment in Great Decisions is open now. Guests also will be welcomed at Great Decisions meetings. More information will be available soon.

Our student programs and Model UN will be strong again this year. Again, we have exciting programs in store that will help prepare the next generation for the complex world that awaits them. For information on the 14 young people who attended summer study programs in North America and abroad, check out our website under School Programs (click here for international programs, and here for North American scholarships). We welcome your participation as volunteers and donors to support these programs to prepare our young people for the challenges of tomorrow (Contact Mark Walchak at mwalchak@gmail.com). 

Your Board of Directors is here to respond to your questions and suggestions. Enjoy your season!

"Out of Peril and Chaos:
Can We Find Order??"

2024 Lectures and Programs
3:45 and 7:30 pm

Monday, November 4:  “Pipe Dream or Strategic Windfall: What the United States Should Expect from India in a Changing World Order” Dr. Daniel S. Markey, a senior advisor on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace and a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Monday, November 18:  Germany, NATO and Nuclear Doctrine: “Germany after Merkel - Still a Leader of the Free World?” Dr. Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University in the Center for German and European Studies.

Monday, December 2:  "Are We Embedded In a New Cold War? Will Russia Win?" Ian J. Brzezinski leads the Brzezinski Group, which provides strategic insight and advice to commercial and government clients, and is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on Strategy and Security. 

Monday, December 9:  “The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present and Future in the Middle East”, Steven Cook, the Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies, Council on Foreign Relations.

Also, a special discussion of his book by the same title will be held on December 9 from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm (box lunch included). Stay tuned for details.

2025 Lectures
Background Information
On the Lecturers Is Being Prepared

January 6:  "The Next World Order: Does Europe Still Matter?" Dr. Charles A. Kupchan

January 27:  "Will China become the World’s Strongest Power?" Ryan Hass

February 10:  "Iran’s New Patrons," Dr. Ray Takeyh 

Friday, February 21:  The Ninth Biennial National War College Event: Multiple speakers, “Our National Security”

March 10:  "American Statecraft," Aaron David Miller, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

March 24:  "Artificial Intelligence," Ylli Bajraktari 

April 7:  "Immigration," Eddie Aldrete, Senior Vice President of International Bank of Commerce, chairman, National Immigration Forum.

NCWA Book Club Schedule Includes Anne Applebaum on Autocracy

The NCWA Book Club meets via Zoom on the first Tuesday of the month from 12:00 to 1:30 pm, November through April. Next dates are January 7, February 4, March 4 and April 7.

By BILL KORSTAD
NCWA Book Club Chair

On January 7, we’ll discuss Anne Applebaum's new book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, a New York Times bestseller. From the Pulitzer-prize winning author, it is an alarming account of how autocracies work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organize to defeat them.

We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st Century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.

International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan's essay calling for "containment" of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.

For more information, contact Bill Korstad at bkorstad@mac.com or 303-887-7116.

Five candidates for future books are listed below. Please give Bill your suggestions. 

• India is Broken by Ashoka Mody 
  

The book is a provocative new account of how India moved relentlessly from its hope-filled founding in 1947 to the dramatic economic and democratic breakdowns of today. Our November 4 NCWA speaker, Daniel Markey, recommended this book in his presentation.

• The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High Tech Warfare by Christian Brose
  

For generations of Americans, our country has been the world's dominant military power. How the U.S. military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America's traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and a growing military threat is posed by rivals such as China. America is at grave risk of losing a future war. (I'd like to find a book on non-kinitic warfare, but this is the best I’ve found so far). 

• More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
  

More and More and More demolishes this disastrous fallacy, showing how our industrial age and beyond has in fact been powered by an ever-greater accumulation of each major energy source feeding off the others. Using a fascinating array of examples from past and present, from the whaling and candle-making industries of the 19th Century to our post-nuclear age today, the author describes how humanity has gorged on all forms of energy—with whole forests used to prop up coal mines, and fossil fuels remaining central to the creation of innumerable new products we rely on every day. While nations have signed climate agreements aimed at reducing fossil fuels, the sad truth is that the world today burns more wood, coal, and carbon than ever before.

• The Art of Diplomacy by Stuart Eizenstat
  

Inside the greatest diplomatic negotiations of the past 50 years. In one readable volume, diplomat and negotiator Stuart E. Eizenstat covers every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord. Written from the perspective that only a participant in top level negotiations can bring, Eizenstat recounts the events that led up to the negotiation, the drama that took place around the table, and draws lessons from successful and unsuccessful strategies and tactics. Based on interviews with over 60 key figures in American diplomacy, including former presidents and secretaries of state, and major political figures abroad, Eizenstat provides an intimate view of diplomacy as today’s history. The Art of Diplomacy will be an indispensable volume to understand American foreign policy and provide invaluable insights on the art of negotiation for anyone involved in government or business negotiations.

• Disorder by Helen Thompson 
  

This book is a long history of this present political moment. It recounts three histories -- one about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about Western democracies -- and explains how, in the years of political disorder prior to the pandemic, the disruption in each became one big story. It shows how much of this turbulence originated in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies, and it explains why, as the green transition takes place, the long-standing predicaments energy invariably shapes will remain in place.

NCWA Moves Lectures and Events to New Location

In response to a survey last year, NCWA members strongly suggested they would prefer a more convenient venue for our flagship lecture program.

The Board of Directors announced in September that it has acted on the members' suggestion, and beginning with the 2024-25 season, our lectures will be presented at the Naples United Church of Christ (NUCC), 5200 Crayton Road, Naples 34103. 

While it is only a couple of miles north of our former venue at Moss Hall, it is closer to the core geography where most of our members live.

The Board considered nearly a dozen locations before selecting NUCC. The staff is experienced in hosting large organizations, most recently including The Naples Players while they waited for their theatre to be renovated and major events by Greater Naples Leadership. Both groups expressed high satisfaction with NUCC as their venue. (A map to assist members in locating NUCC is included below).

The NUCC sound and video system has an in-house professional sound and video technical staff who will direct the technology at our events. We will continue live streaming for our members who prefer to join us from home. And as usual, the videos will be available for our members on our website shortly after the presentation and will be aired the following Sunday on our partner radio station, WGCU.

In addition, NUCC offers other meeting facilities for special programs.

Ample free parking is available. The ambiance of the grounds at “The Gathering Place” at the entrance to NUCC is conducive to social gatherings and informal greetings of friends, and the Waterside Shops nearby provide a wide choice of places for drinks and dinner with friends. 

Our President’s Club luncheons will be held at Seasons 52, at 8930 Tamiami Trail North (at U.S. 41 and Vanderbilt Beach Road), which will provide a separate room, dedicated wait staff and three menu choices (and their famous petit dessert selection!) If you are not already a member of the President’s Club we suggest you consider joining to enjoy more intimate engagement with our distinguished lecturers. Click on this link for more details.

The Board hopes members will return to in-person attendance at lectures and special events and enjoy a fresh atmosphere.  We will be excited to greet you in person at NUCC!

Guest Programs Will Continue

Members are invited to bring guests to lectures again this season!

Guests should be eligible to become members, namely residents of the Southwest Florida area either year round or during "season" and persons who have a strong interest in international relations and global affairs and can contribute to our nonpartisan dialogue. Online procedures for registration of your guests have been updated: For information and registration, click here. Or, you may register them at the greeting desk at the lecture you desire to attend (There's plenty of room at our new venue at Naples United Church of Christ, 5200 Clayton Road).

Great Decisions also will continue its guest program. Group leaders will announce the procedure as the January start date for the program nears.

NCWA International Affairs Programs Prepare Young People 
To Find Their Place in a Complex World

Model UN Ralph Bunche Award

Abigail Shaw of Gulf Coast High School received the Ralph Bunche Award for a top senior and received a check for $6,500. Model UN Chair Alan Van Egmond presented the award.

Model UN Coughlin Scholarship

Alan Van Egmond, Model UN chair, presented the FGCU-NCWA Professor Richard W. Coughlin Model UN Scholarship to Palmetto Ridge High School senior Ludmie Cesar. 

The scholarship was a stipend of $2,500 from FGCU and $500 from NCWA for educational expenses. Because  of Ludmie's achievements as a Florida Bright Futures Medallion Scholar and recipient of a FGCU Silver Award, she will attend FGCU free of charge. A new Model UN judge, Jack Gulati, and the Gulati Family Foundation contributed NCWA's portion of the award.

Ludmie enrolled at Palmetto Ridge High School as a sophomore when her family emigrated from Haiti. She also received the high school's World Language Award and an academic award for consistently maintaining a grade point average of 3.5 or higher.

Mark Walchak, chair of NCWA's School Outreach Committee, went to the classroom of Meghan Joyce, coach of the Aubrey Rogers High School AWQ team that won first place in local competition, to present the NCWA 2024 Educator of the Year award. 

Some of the Many Benefits of Membership in NCWA

Sign Up for GlobalPost (formerly DailyChatter)

This informative and nonpartisan daily emailed newsletter on international     events is a quick way to stay current and enhance your understanding of       our lectures and Great Decisions discussions. It is a free benefit of NCWA membership! Click here to subscribe.

Travel with WACA Members

NCWA members enjoy the companionship of like-minded explorers when they explore the world with the World Affairs of America (WACA) travel program. Administered by the Philadelphia Council, the program features tours led by Council members to a wide variety of destinations. For more information on trips, go to www.wacphila.org.

A Deep Dive into Critical Foreign Policy and Diplomacy Issues

The Naples Council on World Affairs (NCWA) is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our mission is to educate, inspire and engage our community in international affairs and global issues. 

Member benefits: Lectures by foreign affairs experts; small nonpartisan Great Decisions discussion groups; rich student programs, including Model UN, Academic WorldQuest competitions for middle school and high school students; scholarships for North American and overseas study; support for teachers, schools and students' careers in international affairs; book club, and opportunities for members to get involved in meaningful programs!