Will Europe Meet this Moment?

Will Europe Meet this Moment?
Friday, Apr. 4th. | 2:00p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
William H. Hannon Library (WHH), WHH 322 (VDA Family Suite)

Europe has awoken to a stark new geopolitical reality. The post-Cold War era of European integration, transatlantic cooperation, and benign globalization is gone. For over three years, Russia has waged a brutal war against an EU aspirant country, committing heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity. China lurks in the shadows while it props up the Kremlin, manipulates markets, and exploits economic dependencies. The lynchpin of European security, the United States, suddenly appears willing to walk away from its collective defense commitments and threatens Europe with a trade war. Meanwhile, internal challenges like oligarchic populism, de-industrialization, and over-regulation keep holding Europe back. Can European leaders muster the political will to address today's internal and geopolitical challenges? And what will it take for them to do so?

Join us as Ambassador Michael Carpenter, who served in the Biden Administration as Special Assistant to the President, and Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council, shares his insights.
Ambassador Michael Carpenter served in the Biden administration as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council. From 2021-24, he was the U.S. Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security organization representing over a billion people across 57 countries. For that role, he was confirmed by the United States Senate by unanimous consent.

Previously Ambassador Carpenter was Senior Director and then Managing Director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania. In the Obama administration, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and Conventional Arms Control. He also worked as a Special Advisor to the Vice President and as Director for Russia at the National Security Council. Before that Carpenter was a career Foreign Service Officer with the State Department. He served overseas in the U.S. Embassies in Poland, Slovenia, and Barbados as well as in Washington.

Carpenter received four Superior Honor Awards and three Meritorious Honor Awards from the State Department. He has also received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the International Research & Exchanges Board, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Ambassador Carpenter holds a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University a M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. He speaks fluent Polish and Slovenian, as well as some German, French, and Czech. He enjoys skiing, hiking, movies, and traveling with his family.