‘Understanding America’s Role in a Changing World’
Diplomacy is often invisible when it works—and painfully visible when it fails. Encore Learning’s upcoming series of six courses invites participants to step behind the headlines and explore how the United States engages with a rapidly changing world through diplomacy, strategy, and power short of war.
Drawing on the expertise of former ambassadors, senior government officials, and seasoned scholars, the series examines how global relationships are formed, challenged, and redefined in an era of rising competition, persistent conflict, and shifting alliances.
The courses share a perspective on diplomacy with real-world cases and lived experience. Diplomacy: Origins, Evolution, Future with Alex Karagiannis begins by separating Hollywood portrayals from reality, tracing the development of diplomacy as a practice, and examining how U.S. institutions navigate today’s volatile international environment. Participants gain insight into how national security and economic decisions are made—and how diplomatic missteps can reverberate far beyond Washington.
Two courses focus on regional dynamics where U.S. diplomacy is being tested. Tibor Nagy’s course, Africa 2.0: A Deeper Look, explores the continent’s complex political, economic, and demographic transformations, examining conflicts, development challenges, and the renewed global competition for influence in Africa. In Rob Albro’s course, China’s “Belt and Road” Expands: The U.S., Latin America, and the New Cold War?, participants examine China’s growing footprint in Latin America and what this strategic rivalry means for U.S. influence, regional sovereignty, and the future of global geopolitics
Other courses delve into how governments make high-stakes decisions under pressure. Foreign Policy Decision Making and Iran with Stephen Gailliot uses recent crises and military interventions to illuminate how leaders act when information is limited and consequences are profound. In Political Warfare and the Gray Zone, Drew Duggins broadens the lens further, exploring how nations pursue their objectives through influence, disinformation, economic leverage, and other tools that fall short of open conflict—techniques increasingly central to U.S. relations with Russia, China, and Iran.
Global Hot Spots, a multi-session course featuring expert briefings on regions in crisis, from Ukraine and the Middle East to Haiti, Nepal, and Central Europe. Former U.S. ambassadors and policy specialists assess what is at stake in these fragile moments and how American diplomacy, alongside international partners, seeks to prevent instability from spreading.
By combining historical perspective, contemporary analysis, and firsthand experience, Encore Learning’s diplomacy series offers participants a deeper understanding of how the United States has engaged with the world—and why that engagement matters now more than ever.