A New Security Dialogue, a New Security Deal

H.E.  Mircea Geoana
Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Romania

Photos

Cambridge, MA — H.E. Mircea Geoana, Foreign Minister of Romania, visited Harvard on September 13, 2002, and delivered the opening address of the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern Europe’s annual lecture series at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. During his visit, Minister Geoana was received by Harvard President Lawrence Summers, (former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury) and also by the Dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Joseph Nye. Minister Geoana also conferred with prominent professors, met with a contingent of Romanian students studying at Harvard, and registered his visit in the official University guest book.

Foreign Minister Geoana’s highly attended lecture, A New Security Dialogue, A New Security Deal, focused on the contemporary challenges faced by the international community in the post-September 11 era and the increasing inability of present day institutions to respond. He argued that a new architecture of global governance must be created to in order to address the most difficult problems of this era—poverty and the enormous gap in levels of development among nations—which have become the root causes of new generations of threats such as terrorism. The Foreign Minisiter also noted that this cannot be accomplished until the U.S. and Europe bring their increasingly divergent views of what it means to be a world power into conformity. His address concluded with a discussion of the Middle East and the need to offer the peoples of the region an alternative to radicalism, to encourage a new generation of leaders and to promote the growth of civil society.

Minister Geoana’s dynamism and commitment to contributing to regional and global development served as a source of inspiration to the many students engaged in the study of leadership and public service who were present at the event.