Socrates Central Europe 2024
On January 11-13, 2024, Aspen Institute Central Europe will organize the Socrates Seminar, in partnership with the Aspen Institute Socrates Program.
The Seminar will be organized at the Jabłonna Palace, 30 minutes outside of Warsaw, Poland. Over the course of 3 days, we will explore, in a transatlantic context, how the current strategic competition and the broadening definition of security are impacting the existing approaches in operationalizing societal and democratic resilience.
If you are interested in participating, please contact socrates@aspeninstitute.org.
The Future European and Global Architectures:
The Nexus between Resilience, Security & Innovation
We are now at pivotal time for European and transatlantic relations as strategic competition continues to rise. Autocracies tout their own systems as “efficient”, and they use a broad array of tools to amplify fissures and undermine confidence within democracies. In addition, digital transformations are disrupting the foundations of diplomacy and defense. This Socrates Seminar will discuss ways to advance the development of a comprehensive and dynamic yet operational approach to resilience. Does liberal democracy deliver? How does Europe and North America respond to challenges in the context of wider systemic transformations? What are the opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies, and how the transatlantic community can improve its resilience and mobilize key resources in order to be competitive in this era of great security and technological challenges?
The scale and complexity of critical economic, environmental, technological, and human flows have increased dramatically, as has the dependency of many societies on such flows. Increased interconnectedness and digitalization can bring prosperity, but they can also generate vulnerabilities, as state and non-state actors seek to manipulate and exploit dependencies. Critical societal functions are increasingly susceptible to disturbances, interruptions, and shutdowns.
Furthermore, as part of the wider technology and democracy debate, the Seminar will address online disinformation and fake news and the pressure these tactics place on institutions and on individuals. Undertaken sometimes as part of fully-fledged influence campaigns, these tools aim at eroding trust in institutions such as NATO, the EU, and the governments of their member states and partner countries. This triggers a relevant ethical and societal debate with regard to the real impact of tech on our democracies.
Moderated by Ambassador Paula Dobriansky, is a foreign policy expert and former diplomat specializing in national security affairs. She is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and is Vice Chair of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council.
