CSS News

Join The American Conservative on December 2nd at The Catholic University of America as we explore these questions with top experts in the field.

Applications for the Spring 2021 semester are open—apply now!

Join us for a special online forum featuring Special Envoy Mick Mulvaney in discussion with Professor David Walsh of CUA.

We are particularly interested in papers that speak to the “moral, cultural, political, social, and financial costs of imperial ambitions, military interventions, and nation-building.”

This presentation, based on his recently published book, uses insights from the ancient world to support critical thinking and policy formulation toward a region in which the United States continues to have significant interests.

Unilateralism represents a reversal of the old spirit of constitutionalism and checks-and-balances. Just as, domestically, particular interests need to accommodate other interests, so, internationally, states need to check and balance each other.

Founding Director Claes G. Ryn's A Common Human Ground: Universality and Particularity in a Multicultural World is out now with new new preface from the University of Missouri Press. In this book, Professor Ryn sets forth a philosophy of human interaction that he applies to foreign policy and international relations. The book is available for purchase now.

2019 will witness two book releases from CSS scholars.

Please join us for the first event in a film series highlighting the plight of Christian communities in the Middle East.

An upcoming lecture by Andrew Gilmour, a decorated 32-year veteran of the CIA.

Justin T. Logan has been appointed Director of Programs and Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship.

The Center will co-sponsor a lecture by Ambassador (retired) Kathleen Stephens, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2008-2011.

Starting wars without any idea of how we will end them, on what terms, and with whom, is a recipe for endless disaster.

Join us for a lecture by our newly appointed Visiting Fellow, Lawrence Wilkerson. Open to media and the general public.

What is distinctive to CSS’s intellectual orientation?

Which figures and organizations actually set the tone for American foreign policy? Andrew Bacevich, Michael Glennon, and Louis Fisher discuss.

With a mix of fanfare and gravitas, Catholic University formally launched the Center for the Study of Statesmanship (CSS) Sept. 13 at the National Press Club in downtown Washington, D.C. Invited speakers and the center’s directors discussed the modern political and diplomatic climate and why the need for such an endeavor — one that places a premium on restraint and the decentralization of power in foreign affairs, as well as the questioning of assumptions that lead to conflict — is so very great today. University President John Garvey, in his welcoming remarks, called the center “intellectually exciting and morally necessary,” both in the global context and as part of the University’s efforts to “form our students to become the next generation of virtuous leaders.” A crowd of about 75 people watched a brief video about the CSS and listened as Doug Bandow, columnist for Forbes.com and a foreign policy scholar at the Cato Institute; Most Rev. Timothy Broglio, archbishop of the Military Services, USA, and a former Vatican diplomat; and Claes Ryn, professor of politics and CSS executive director, fielded questions from the center’s managing director and research fellow, William Smith. Topics ranged from the treatment of Christians in the Middle East to the Trump administration’s game of nuclear brinksmanship with North Korea to the seemingly endless conflicts facing the United States. Both Bandow and Archbishop Broglio decried the punishing toll of being a nation continually at war — for the last 16 years. “The cost is extraordinary,” said Bandow, “in lives, in money.” Archbishop Broglio offered a unique insight into the minds of those who serve in the military, whom he called “the community that’s most interested in peace, because they pay the price when war is the reality.” Ryn eloquently traced the tradition of American statesmanship, going back to the Founding Fathers and the founding document, the U.S. Constitution, which he said “put a very heavy emphasis on the need to restrain human beings, because you can’t trust them with too much power.” But that restraint has seemingly been lost, he lamented, with the rise of American exceptionalism, which posits that America is so virtuous by nature it has no need of self-discipline in its quest to remake the world, instead awarding itself vast new powers along the way. Only through the intervention of parents, church, and community can more admirable human traits, such as courage, courtesy, virtue, and modesty, be cultivated, he said. “This is where Catholic tradition comes into play,” Ryn said, bringing the conversation back full circle to the center and why it’s so appropriately housed at Catholic University. “When the going gets rough, when the passion gets high, what’s going to avert war? In the end, the only people who can step back from the passions of the moment are the people with this kind of character who can recognize that human beings are on the other side.” Archbishop Broglio, who has served the Vatican as a diplomat in Ivory Coast, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, and is also a member of the center’s council of advisors, agreed. “One of the most important things is the insertion of Catholic social teaching and Catholic philosophy into the realm of statesmanship and foreign affairs,” he said. “I think it’s very exciting.” With a mission to employ research, teaching, and public discussion to “defuse conflict and foster respectful foreign and domestic relations,” the timing could hardly be better. Once the center is fully staffed with professors and visiting fellows, Smith envisions it becoming an important voice in the broader conversation, “a think tank within a university,” he said. Specific areas of study will include diplomacy, military affairs, intelligence, and constitutionalism, among others. The center will offer faculty research grants and graduate study opportunities, and make its presence felt through conferences, seminars, speeches, and publications. Its 12-member council of advisors includes historians, current and former members of the U.S. Congress, and news media figures. Calling the CSS “kissing cousins to some of our Libertarian colleagues” in terms of advocating American constitutionalism and the exercise of limited power, Smith was quick to note that the center would come at its positions “though a different philosophical perspective,” reaching its conclusions through a Christian and Catholic lens. The center falls under Catholic University’s Institute for Human Ecology, which itself was created in response to Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home. For more information on the Center for the Study of Statesmanship, visit css.cua.edu. Click here to go to the original article

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) President Donald Trump has adopted a tough line on North Korea and announced the deployment of more American troops to Afghanistan, actions that seem to signal a resumption of an interventionist and confrontational foreign policy. At that same time Catholic University is launching a Center for the Study of Statesmanship (CSS), whose purpose is to explore the sources and prospects for leadership in keeping with the spirit of restraint and compromise characteristic of American constitutionalism. At an event at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Sept. 13, speakers will offer brief remarks about current American foreign policy challenges and the role that the center can play in enriching and redirecting public discussion. Those who will offer remarks include:

• Most Rev. Timothy Broglio, archbishop for the Military Services, USA and a former Vatican diplomat who will discuss the impact of American interventionism upon Christians in the Middle East as well as the stresses and strains of U.S. interventionism upon the U.S. military and their families
• Doug Bandow, a columnist for Forbes.com and a foreign policy scholar at the Cato Institute who will discuss recent policy failures of U.S. interventions and the future of American foreign policy under President Trump
• Claes Ryn, professor of politics and executive director of CSS, who will discuss dubious assumptions behind interventionism and how a new U.S. foreign policy of restraint is in the American constitutional tradition.

Speakers will be available to the media following the brief program. The event runs from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The National Press Club is located on the 13th floor in the Fourth Estate Room at 529 14th St., NW, Washington, D.C. CSS comes under the umbrella of Catholic University’s Institute for Human Ecology, which was established to take up Pope Francis’s call in Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home to study the relationships of human beings to one another and the world around them. The center will promote research, teaching, and public discussion about how statesmanship can defuse conflict and foster respectful foreign and domestic relations. Ryn has written extensively on the dangers of abstract ideology in foreign and domestic affairs and about the moral and cultural preconditions of good relations among persons, peoples, and civilizations.

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MEDIA: To schedule an interview or attend this event, contact the Office of Marketing and Communications at communications@cua.edu or 202-319-5600. ABOUT: The Catholic University of America is the national university of the Catholic Church and the only higher education institution founded by the U.S. bishops. Established in 1887 as a papally chartered graduate and research center, the University comprises 12 schools and 26 research facilities and is home to 3,241 undergraduate and 2,835 graduate students. Need an expert? The University Experts Guide features faculty from more than 100 disciplines.

The Catholic University of America announced today the establishment of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship to promote research, teaching, and public discussion about how statesmanship can defuse conflict and foster respectful foreign and domestic relations.