Know the present,
own the future.
Leaders are shaped by what is happening around them: what are the events and ideas that will inspire and caution you?
Vision for the future requires a rich grasp of the present. Leaders understand their context and engage with the ideas and movements shaping our future.
On Thursday, 31 October 2024, esteemed US journalist and best-selling author Robert D Kaplan will deliver a timely discourse on The Tragedy of 21st Century Geopolitics.
The Hon Kim Beazley AC and the Hon John Howard OM, AC pictured with past event attendees.
What you will learn:
• Crisis Management: Benefit from Kaplan’s real-world experience consulting on global conflicts, preparing you to lead effectively in high-stakes environments with competing priorities.
• Global Awareness: Hear from an award-winning foreign affairs expert and broaden your understanding of international dynamics.
• Strategic Insights: Benefit from Robert D. Kaplan’s extensive experience advising Global Powers, from briefing President George W. Bush in 2001 to advising the Pentagon and the U.S. Navy, gaining actionable insights into how top decision-makers approach global security issues.
• Geopolitical Expertise: Learn from one of the world’s top geopolitical thinkers, offering a real-world perspective on navigating contemporary international affairs.
• Foreign Policy Lessons: Kaplan has shaped foreign policy, learn the practical challenges of global governance.
When:
Thursday, 31 October 2024
5:30pm – 6:00pm: Registration
6:00pm – 8:00pm: Event
Cost: Free
Where:
The Domain Theatre
Art Gallery of NSW
Art Gallery Road, Sydney
Register for free
Register for The Tragedy of 21st Century Geopolitics Event with Robert D. Kaplan
Be part of a community of insight
The challenge of leadership decisions
"My own moral humiliations are the knowledge that a book I wrote had the result, however unintended, of delaying a president’s response to mass murder in the Balkans, and that I helped promote a war in Iraq that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths."
-Robert D. Kaplan,
The Tragic Mind
Upcoming Event
The Tragedy of 21st Century Geopolitics
The Tragedy of 21st Century Geopolitics
Tragedy is not common misfortune or vile crimes, but the triumph of one good over another that causes suffering. Tragedy is about the narrow choices we face, however vast the landscape. The 21st Century – in Ukraine, Gaza, the South China Sea – offers a proving ground for ancient tragedy…
The Hon Kim Beazley AC and the Hon John Howard OM, AC pictured with past event attendees.
What you will learn:
• Crisis Management: Benefit from Kaplan’s real-world experience consulting on global conflicts, preparing you to lead effectively in high-stakes environments with competing priorities.
• Global Awareness: Hear from an award-winning foreign affairs expert and broaden your understanding of international dynamics.
• Strategic Insights: Benefit from Robert D. Kaplan’s extensive experience advising Global Powers, from briefing President George W. Bush in 2001 to advising the Pentagon and the U.S. Navy, gaining actionable insights into how top decision-makers approach global security issues.
• Geopolitical Expertise: Learn from one of the world’s top geopolitical thinkers, offering a real-world perspective on navigating contemporary international affairs.
• Foreign Policy Lessons: Kaplan has shaped foreign policy, learn the practical challenges of global governance.
When:
Thursday, 31 October 2024
5:30pm – 6:00pm: Registration
6:00pm – 8:00pm: Event
Where:
The Domain Theatre
Art Gallery of NSW
Art Gallery Road, Sydney
Dress code:
Business Attire
About The Tragic Mind:
On Thursday, 31 October 2024, esteemed US journalist and best-selling author Robert D Kaplan will deliver a timely discourse on The Tragedy of 21st Century Geopolitics.
Tragedy, he argues, is not common misfortune or vile crimes, but the triumph of one good over another which leads to suffering. Tragedy is about the narrow choices we face, however vast the landscape. In the 21st Century, Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and the South China Sea offer a proving ground for ancient tragedy.
Join us for this Ramsay Event Series offering, a free public talk by a prominent US public intellectual. The series provides a deeper awareness and insight into how Western civilisation has shaped the world we live in, by presenting great thinkers and facilitating networking and conversation between them and the leaders of tomorrow.
Robert D. Kaplan
Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of twenty-two books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including The Loom of Time, The Tragic Mind, Adriatic, The Good American, The Revenge of Geography, Asia’s Cauldron, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He was a member of the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board and the U. S. Navy’s Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers”.
Would you know if you were caught in an activist mob?
How world leaders feel the impact of their decisions
Barack Obama:
“I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.”
Barack Obama, during a 2013 press conference, referring to international norms against the use of chemical weapons.
Xi Jinping:
“China will never allow any country to infringe on its territorial waters and airspace in the South China Sea.”
Xi’s assertion of China’s claims over disputed areas heightened tensions.
Angela Merkel:
“If we start having to apologise for showing a friendly face, then this is not my country.”
Angela Merkel stood firm on her stance even as the refugee crisis polarised Europe.
Vladimir Putin:
“We are demilitarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine… this is about protecting people who for eight years now have been facing humiliation and genocide.”
On the invasion of Ukraine.
Bill Clinton:
“I never want to see another Srebrenica in my lifetime, and I will do all I can to honor those who lost their lives here by building a better world.”
This reflected the West’s slow response to the Bosnian genocide.
About
The Ramsay Centre
The Ramsay Centre was established in March 2017 through an extraordinary endowment by the late Mr Paul Ramsay AO. Mr Ramsay was a leading Australian businessman and philanthropist. He was deeply grateful for the opportunities his country had given him, as one of many nations that had benefited from being part of the long continuum of Western civilisation.
To ensure others – especially young Australians – would appreciate this heritage, Paul resolved to establish a centre dedicated to the study of Western civilisation. The Centre is funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, which Paul established in 2006.
The Centre’s objective, set out in our Constitution, is to advance education by promoting studies and discussion associated with the establishment and development of Western Civilisation, including through establishing scholarship funds and educational courses in partnership with universities.
To this end we have forged partnerships to offer western civilisation degrees and related scholarship programs with the University of Wollongong, the University of Queensland and Australian Catholic University.
We have also established one of the most generous postgraduate scholarship programs in Australia. The Ramsay Postgraduate Scholarships are open to Australian graduates from a range of disciplines, for study at prestigious overseas institutions. Our first scholarships were awarded in 2021. In addition to these tertiary opportunities, the Centre runs a public outreach program of events designed to promote a wider appreciation of Western civilisation.
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