With Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow in Zurich, debating US policies

[News release] In Zurich, IWP Annenberg Professor J. Michael Waller and Cato Institute Senior Fellow Doug Bandow gave contrasting presentations on US foreign policy to Swiss business executives and alumni of the American Swiss Foundation’s Young Leaders program.

Martin Meyer, Culture Editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, moderated at the well-attended event, held at the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue overlooking Lake Geneva. The newspaper is considered the most important in Switzerland.

Waller gave an independent representation of the development of some of the United States government’s most controversial approaches to national security and foreign policy since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Bandow, a noted libertarian who opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, was more critical of US policy, but spoke in a way that reflected well on the United States.

Both Americans are alumni of the Young Leaders program, a  privately-funded public diplomacy effort to promote American-Swiss relations. Bandow participated in 2000, and Waller in 2002.