POSTPONED: Perspectives from Afghanistan – Virtual Program
May 26th, 2021 8:00AM -9:00AM
Instructions on how to join this virtual meeting will be sent the day before the program.
President Joe Biden has announced that all U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by September 11, 2021, marking an end to the United States’ “forever war.” A recent U.S. intelligence assessment anticipates the Afghan government and military will struggle to hold the Taliban at bay. What will happen to women and minorities? Is civil war the most likely outcome of U.S. withdrawal? Join the World Affairs Council on Wednesday, May 26, from 8am-9am PDT for a conversation with Kabul-based journalist Samiullah Mahdi for a discussion on the current situation in Afghanistan and what to expect when coalition forces leave. Former State Department official Dr. Katherine Brown, author of "Your Country, Our War: The Press and Diplomacy in Afghanistan," will moderate the conversation.
About the Moderator
Katherine Brown, Ph.D. is the President & CEO of Global Ties U.S., the largest and oldest citizen diplomacy network in the United States. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies.
Before joining Global Ties U.S. in 2018, Katherine was a Public Policy Manager at Facebook, Inc., where she was also in residence as a Council on Foreign Relations’ (CFR) International Affairs Fellow. From 2013-2016, she served as the Executive Director of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State, an office authorized by Congress to appraise and strengthen U.S. engagement activities with foreign citizens.
Katherine previously served in the U.S. government as an assistant to the National Security Advisor at the White House; as a communications advisor at the American Embassy in Kabul; and as a Professional Staff Member at the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the U.S. House of Representatives.
Katherine received her Ph.D. in Communications from Columbia University in 2013 and completed her doctoral fieldwork in Afghanistan and Pakistan where she examined their news media’s effects on governance, civil society and foreign policy. Her book, “Your Country, Our War: The Press and Diplomacy in Afghanistan,” was published by Oxford University Press in 2019.
She is a 2018-19 French American Foundation Young Leader; a member of the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy Advisory Board and the Alliance for International Exchange Board; and a former Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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