Peace and War Summit
The Peace and War Summit examines significant international issues in order to recommend viable solutions. The Summit is a two-day event that will host government officials, prominent scholars, and policy experts at Norwich University—America’s oldest private military college, located in Vermont. The culmination of the event is the publication of the Journal of Peace and War Studies
Welcome to the Summit!
March 17 to 18, 2025
Latin America in the 21st Century: Retreat or Progress?
The international community is confronted with numerous significant challenges, including military conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, an emerging new Cold War between democracy and authoritarianism, natural disasters prompted by climate change, and economic instability triggered by unstable geopolitical conditions.
Along with these global challenges, Latin America is not immune from multiple serious problems. Many Latin Americans who suffer from perilous domestic circumstances due to the omnipresence of drug cartels, a near-constant barrage of gang violence, and volatile political and economic situations seek to immigrate to the United States. Such an endeavor is undertaken in a variety of extra-legal capacities that result in grim human rights violations and tensions between the U.S. and Latin American nations (as well as internally among U.S. communities). Countries like Venezuela, Haiti, and El Salvador are experiencing chaotic domestic political conditions due to rampant corruption at the highest levels that has trickled down to infect nearly the entire populace. Beyond cartels, gangs, and corruption, the size of the earth’s lungs, the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is rapidly diminishing due to unconstrained economic development plans and the monetization of displacement. Furthermore, while the U.S. has long maintained a dominant position in Latin America since the Monroe Doctrine was declared in 1823, China and Russia seek to enhance their political and economic influence throughout the region. With such realities in mind, Norwich University’s 6th Peace and War Summit thoroughly addresses the significant challenges that Latin American nations have faced by way of scholarly presentations and discussions and the involvement in such conversations of Vermont-based organizations that work with the Vermont Latin American community."
Schedule
Monday, March 17
9 – 9:50 a.m.: Mack Hall Auditorium
WELCOME REMARKS
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
10 a.m. – 10:50 p.m.: Mack Hall Auditorium
PANEL SESSION I
Student Moderators:
Presenters:
11 a.m. – 11:50 p.m.: Mack Hall Auditorium
PANEL SESSION II
Student Moderators:
Presenters:
1 p.m. – 1:50 p.m.: Mack Hall Auditorium
PANEL SESSION III
Student Moderators:
Presenters:
2 p.m. – 2:50 p.m.: Mack Hall Auditorium
PANEL SESSION IV
Student Moderators:
Presenters:
3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.: Mack Hall Auditorium
STUDENT PANEL SESSION
Moderator:
Presenters:
Tuesday, March 18
SUMMIT CONTACT
Yangmo Ku, Executive Director
Associate Professor, Political Science, Norwich University
Associate Director, John and Mary Frances Patton Peace & War Center
Keep the conversations flowing. Join The Norwich University Peace & War Center on Facebook.
THE 2024 EDITION OF THE JOURNAL OF PEACE AND WAR STUDIES (JPWS)
The 2024 issue of the Journal of Peace and War Studies gives special focus to the theme, “War, Memory, and Reconciliation.”
Past Summits
March 18, 2024
-
War, Memory, and Reconciliation
Recently, a series of conflicts in Europe and the Middle East have erupted, bringing with them devastating human and economic tolls. While the international community has worked to prevent these regional conflicts from spilling over into wider, global incidents, they’ve paid little attention to the human and political consequences that will linger as traumatic memories for years and decades to come. Norwich University’s 5th annual Peace and War Summit will explore wartime memories, and how nations can reconcile these traumatic events to better understand how the aftermath of a nation’s wartime experiences affects their citizens, infrastructure, and political climate long after the guns have been silenced.
March 20 to 21, 2023
WATCH DAY ONE WATCH DAY TWO
-
Peace in the Middle East: An Impossible Mission?
The world community is confronted with a series of significant challenges. These challenges include escalating great power rivalries between the U.S. and China/Russia, concerns over nuclear war, economic instability, climate change, and pandemics. In this global context, the Middle East is engulfed in turbulent geopolitical dynamics, such as the power vacuum caused by U.S. disengagements in the region as well as the intensification of sectarian competition between Iran, its proxies and Israel and Sunni Arab countries. Thus, the Middle Eastern regional order remains complex and unstable while facing the lingering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, unstable economic conditions, and tumultuous civil war-like conditions in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Norwich University’s 4th Peace and War Summit thoroughly addressed these challenges in the Middle East to advance our understanding of the region and outline effective solutions to construct a more peaceful regional order.
March 21 to 22, 2022
WATCH DAY ONE WATCH DAY TWO
-
Deciphering the Russian Riddle: National Interests & Geopolitical Competition
The Peace and War Summit examines significant international issues in order to recommend viable solutions. The Summit is a two-day event that will host government officials, prominent scholars, policy experts at Norwich University—America’s oldest private military college, located in Vermont. The culmination of the event is the publication of the Journal of Peace and War Studies. The 3rd Summit, March 21-22, 2022, scrutinized various challenges deriving from Russia, which range from its territorial intrusion into Ukraine and Georgia to intervention into Syria to growing military partnership with China to its cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns.
October 4 to 8, 2021
-
ISOMA Special Edition: Preparing Military Leaders to Effectively Resolve 21st Century Challenges
The International Symposium of Military Academies (ISOMA) is a biennial international exchange forum focused on the training of young military officers and planned under the guidance of the International Association of Military Academies. The event included representatives from a variety of nations and explore meeting civil-military challenges through military leader relationships; developing military leaders’ capacity beyond traditional conceptions of land, sea and air; and leadership, ethics and educational challenges under the theme of Preparing Military Leaders to Effectively Resolve 21st Century Security Challenges. Norwich University was honored to be the first institution in the United States to host the symposium.
April 15 to 16, 2020
-
On the Path to Conflict? Scrutinizing US-China Rivalry
The Peace and War Summit examines significant international issues in order to recommend viable solutions. The Summit is a two-day event that hosts government officials, prominent scholars, policy experts at Norwich University—America’s oldest private military college, located in Vermont. The culmination of the event is the publication of the Journal of Peace and War Studies. The 2nd Summit, April 15-16, 2020, dealt with the rivalry between the United States and China, a rapidly rising challenger in world politics. Specifically, the Summit highlighted challenges derived from military/security, economic, and technological angles.