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David Andelman    

Executive Director of The Red Lines Project, Award-Winning Columnist for CNNOpinion & Veteran New York Times and CBS News Correspondent

David A. Andelman, executive director of The Red Lines Project, and a veteran former New York Times and CBS News correspondent, is currently an award-winning columnist for CNNOpinion. His new book, A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Could Still Happen, was published in 2021 along with its Evergreen podcast. In connection with their debut, he has spoken to broad (virtual) audiences in New York, London, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Warsaw, and is booked to speak to groups in Paris, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, and New Delhi in the first half of 2021.

Represented by All American Speakers, he has spoken to corporate audiences from Montreal to Los Angeles. He appeared nightly on CBS News for a decade as senior European correspondent, and today appears frequently on CNN.

He was awarded the Deadline Club Award for Best Opinion Writing for his CNN commentaries in 2018 and again in 2019 for his Reuters columns. He served for seven years as Editor & Publisher of World Policy Journal. Previously he served as an executive editor of Forbes. Earlier, he was domestic and foreign correspondent for The New York Times in New York and Washington, as Southeast Asia bureau chief, based in Bangkok, then East European bureau chief, based in Belgrade. He then moved to CBS News where he served for seven years as senior European correspondent based in Paris. There followed service as Washington correspondent for CNBC, news editor of Bloomberg News and Business Editor of the New York Daily News. He has traveled through and reported from 86 countries.

He is the author of five books, The Peacemakers, published by Harper & Row, and The Fourth World War, published by William Morrow, which he co-authored with the Count de Marenches, long-time head of French intelligence. His third book, A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today was published in a Centenary Edition with foreword by Sir Harold Evans. He has translated from the French and written an epilogue to An Impossible Dream: Reagan, Gorbachev, and a World Without the Bomb published in June 2019 by Pegasus/Norton.

Andelman has written for Harpers, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, Readers Digest, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and is a member of the Century Association, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard Club of New York, National Press Club and the Grolier Club. He is President-emeritus of the Overseas Press Club of America and The Silurians Press Club, the oldest club in America for veteran journalists.

On December 1, 2021, at the French Consulate General in New York, Andelman was awarded the rank of chevalier (knight) of the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest civilian decoration.

Speech Topics

The Next China Crisis and How to Cope

Sometime in the next decade, the leadership of China has set as its mission to bring the vast interior of China—representing nearly two-thirds of its population—into the 21st century with one long pull. Imagine: a population twice the size of the United States suddenly becoming consumers of electricity, gasoline (for 500 million new cars!), housing, and the like. At the same time, how can such a 'new' China maintain a centralized, autocratic government? How do we in the West react to all this, and what will the impact be on China's neighbors (and potential competitors) from Taiwan and South Korea to Japan, and even Australia? How much of a role is there for western business, industry, and finance in facilitating this new Chinese revolution? David Andelman answers these questions, and more, in this forward-looking talk.

Opportunities in the Middle East: How to Seize the Moment of the Arab Spring

America and the West are losing the Revolution of the Arab Spring on a number of different levels. As has been the case for much of our relationship with the modern Middle East, back to the days following WWI, we are backing the wrong individuals, seizing on the wrong causes, and failing to understand or satisfy the most profound needs and desires of the people of the region—especially the young people. We are in so many ways at a crossroads here. For decades, we have been hostage to our support of Israel over the Palestinian cause. Suddenly, that is no longer center stage. We are at a point where we may still support Israel if we also support the forces of progressive change elsewhere in the region. This can, and should, equally be the posture of any corporation or business seeking to do business in the region. In this comprehensive and timely talk, David Andelman shows us that the right allies, suddenly, may also be the appropriate ones.

Democracy Run Amok: Diplomatic, Social and Financial Threats to Global Stability

Democracy, in its various forms, is becoming the single greatest threat to global stability and indeed the individual stability of so many countries where the United States and its allies are anxious to cultivate its establishment. Yet nearly everywhere we look these days, nations where revolutionary forces are embracing this idea—all too often hoping to lure the West, and especially the U.S. into an alliance—are failing their people and the cause of democracy writ large. At the same time, the establishment of "democracy" in one form or another in no way assures economic stability, a solid investment climate, or job creation, which is the ultimate force for stability and growth. In this sweeping and timely talk, David Andelman points us to other factors, signposts, and metrics that are far more reliable indicators of social stability and economic expansion. He takes us to Saudi Arabia, where an entire generation of mall rats is transforming the social landscape, and to Russia, where a new form of autocratic democracy is growing to stability on a foundation of oil. New challenges are all around us, Andelman says; this keynote charts and embraces them.

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