America at Risk: Breaking the World Order

GTT is cross-posting this event for our coalition member TPD
This should be a fascinating look into US Foreign Policy from seasoned professionals in the arena. 

The Transylvania Partners for Democracy (TPD) will hold a public forum in the Rogow Room of the Transylvania County Library, Wednesday evening, February 18, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. The subject is U.S. foreign policy. 

This is the first in a series of public gatherings this year sponsored by TPD that describe the impact and consequences of major federal policies and actions for Transylvania County citizens.  

For more than 75 years, administrations of both parties generally shared a U.S. Foreign Policy based upon a rules-based American-led international order, working closely with democratic allies. The current administration’s official “2025 National Security Policy” has replaced these bipartisan policies, adopting a transactional, great-power approach emphasizing spheres of influence and economic priorities. TPD has invited three local experts, Dr. Roger Herbert,  former Ambassador Peter Chaveas, and Dr. Jordan Kuck, to draw upon their unique expertise to assess these changes. Their remarks and discussion will be followed by a question-and-answer session. 

Following a 26-year career as a Naval Special Warfare (SEAL) officer and three years as director of the Outdoor Academy in Pisgah Forest, Roger Herbert joined the faculty of the U.S. Naval Academy where he served until 2021 as the Robert T. Herres Distinguished Military Professor of Ethics.  He holds a Ph.D. in international relations and political theory from the University of Virginia.  His publications include “The Ethics of Special Ops,” (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and “Ethics at War: How Should Military Personnel Make Ethical Decisions,”(Routledge, 2024).  He is currently a Research Fellow in the Future Security Initiative at Arizona State University and serves on the Board of Trustees for Brevard College and the Eagle's Nest Foundation. 

Peter Chaveas is a native of Philadelphia. He and his wife, Lucille, retired to become full time residents of Brevard in 2008. They met while training for the Peace Corps in the late ‘60s, an experience which led him to a 34-year career in the U.S. State Department Foreign Service, mostly in western and southern Africa but also in France, Germany and Washington. Assignments included two ambassadorships in Malawi and Sierra Leone and four years as political advisor to the Commander of U.S. Military Forces in Europe. Following retirement from the Foreign Service, he joined the Defense Department's Africa Center for Strategic Studies and retired as its director in 2008. 

Jordan Kuck is associate professor of history and chair of Humanities at Brevard College. He is an expert on the modern history of Russia, Ukraine and northeastern Europe and has contributed chapters to three recent or forthcoming books, “Dictatorship and Daily Life in Twentieth Century Europe”; “Transnational and Transatlantic Fascism in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1918–2018”; and “Food and Food Policies under 20th-Century European Dictatorships.” His work has been supported by a Fulbright Award, a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, as well as a grant from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. He grew up on a farm near Kearney, Nebraska.

 Terry Decker, a former U.S. Air Force Russian linguist and analyst, educator and specialist in organizational development will moderate the panel.