2025 Peace & War Summit

The international community is confronted with numerous significant challenges, including military conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, an emerging new Cold War between democracy and authoritarianism, natural disasters prompted by climate change, and economic instability triggered by unstable geopolitical conditions.

Along with these global challenges, Latin America is not immune from multiple serious problems. Many Latin Americans who suffer from perilous domestic circumstances due to the omnipresence of drug cartels, a near-constant barrage of gang violence, and volatile political and economic situations seek to immigrate to the United States. Such an endeavor is undertaken in a variety of extra-legal capacities that result in grim human rights violations and tensions between the U.S. and Latin American nations (as well as internally among U.S. communities). Countries like Venezuela, Haiti, and El Salvador are experiencing chaotic domestic political conditions due to rampant corruption at the highest levels that has trickled down to infect nearly the entire populace. Beyond cartels, gangs, and corruption, the size of the earth’s lungs, the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is rapidly diminishing due to unconstrained economic development plans and the monetization of displacement. Furthermore, while the U.S. has long maintained a dominant position in Latin America since the Monroe Doctrine was declared in 1823, China and Russia seek to enhance their political and economic influence throughout the region. With such realities in mind, Norwich University’s 6th Peace and War Summit thoroughly addresses the significant challenges that Latin American nations have faced by way of scholarly presentations and discussions and the involvement in such conversations of Vermont-based organizations that work with the Vermont Latin American community."