Geopolitical challenges: Where and what next?

Speaker: Dr. Chris Kilford, President, Canadian International Council, Victoria Branch

Topic: Geopolitical challenges: Where and what next?

 

The geopolitical challenges facing us now are seemingly endless.  Indeed, from Washington, to Moscow, Beijing, Kyiv and beyond countries are burning the midnight oil as they seek a way out of the turbulent times we live in.  Over the past 12 months, our speaker has travelled to Turkiye, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Bhutan, Poland and Latvia on official and semi-official visits where he had a chance to sit down with numerous officials including Canada's Ambassador to Turkiye, Kevin Hamilton to Taiwan's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Remus Li-Kuo Chen.  In March, Chris also spent two weeks in Poland and Latvia, visiting members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are training Ukrainian military personnel and leading NATO's Multinational Brigade in Latvia.  During his talk, Chris will speak about his various visits, what he learned while on the ground and what geopolitical trends we should be looking for going forward.

Biographical notes:

Chris enjoyed a 36-year career in the Canadian Armed Forces. From July 2009 to July 2010, he deployed to Canada’s Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan as the Deputy Military Attaché. On his return to Canada, he commenced Turkish language training, after which he was sent to Canada’s Embassy in Ankara, Türkiye where he was posted, from July 2011 until July 2014, as the Canadian Defence Attaché with cross accreditation to Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkmenistan. Chris retired from the Army in September 2014. Since then he has kept busy as a sessional professor with the Canadian Forces College in Toronto where he teaches online foreign policy courses. Chris is also a member of the national board of the Canadian International Council, the co-editor of its online foreign policy magazine 'Open Canada', and president of the CIC Victoria branch. He holds a PhD in history from Queen’s University.