Defending Democracy Abroad: Afghanistan and the End of Western Nation-Building?

After the Western military withdrawal, the rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban ends two decades of Western efforts to rebuild the nation based on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Now, the gains in education, social and economic welfare as well as the legal system are at stake for millions of Afghans. Women are afraid to lose their rights yet again, refugees are trying to flee the country. Why did nation-building fail in Afghanistan? Did the West pursue the wrong approach? Does Afghanistan mark the end of the West’s efforts to promote and defend democracy abroad?

Join the American Council on Germany and 1014 for a transatlantic conversation with Judy Dempsey, Editor-in-Chief at Carnegie Europe; Dr. Markus Kaim, Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International Security Affairs (SWP); and Dr. Kori Schake, Director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.

Judy Dempsey is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of the Strategic Europe blog. She is also the author of the book The Merkel Phenomenon(Das Phänomen Merkel, Körber-Stiftung Edition, 2013).

She worked for the International Herald Tribune from 2004 to 2011 as its Germany and East European Correspondent and from 2011 to September 2013 as a columnist. Dempsey was the diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times in Brussels from 2001 onward, covering NATO and European Union enlargement. Between 1990 and 2001, she served as Jerusalem bureau chief (1996–2001), Berlin correspondent (1992–1996), and Eastern European correspondent in London (1990–1992) for the Financial Times. During the 1980s, Ms. Dempsey reported on Central and Eastern Europe for the Financial Times, the Irish Times, and The Economist. Ms. Dempsey graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, where she studied history and political science.

Dr. Markus Kaim is Senior Fellow in the International Security Division of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs – Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP). He has taught and held fellowships at universities on both sides of the Atlantic: As DAAD Professor of German and European Studies at the University of Toronto (2007-2008), as Acting Professor of Foreign Policy and International Relations at the University of Constance (2007), as Visiting Fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies/ Johns Hopkins University (2005), as Adjunct Professor at the Department for Political Science, University of Zurich (since 2012) and as Guest Instructor at the Hertie School, Berlin (since 2012). He studies political science, history, philosophy, and comparative religion in Bonn and Jena.

Dr. Kori Schake is a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Before joining AEI, she was the deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. She has had a distinguished career in academia and government, working at the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the National Security Council at the White House.

Dr. Schake is the author of five books and has been widely published in policy journals and the popular press, including in CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, Politico, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and War on the Rocks.

Dr. Schake has a Ph.D. and MA in government and politics from the University of Maryland, as well as an MPM from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Her BA in international relations is from Stanford University.