The news this month has been filled with former Camden Conference speakers discussing national and international rising tensions. Two speakers from 2015’s Russia Resurgent Conference have discussed the relationship between the West and Russia following the nerve-agent attack on a former spy in Britain. Quoted in The Irish Times: “A multi-faceted diplomatic war has begun between Russia and the West,” Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of the respected Russia in Global Affairs journal, wrote on his Telegram account on Monday. Diplomacy was supposed to preserve lines of communication at times of crisis, he said. “But what is happening today seems like a negation of that function.” In an article in US News and World Report, Russia expert at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, Matthew Rojansky said, “The risk of escalation doesn’t just come from tit-for-tat punishments.” Rojansky cited the potential for more aggressive moves from the Middle East to the cyber realm.

China and its growing engagement in global affairs is the featured topic of the 2019 Conference. “President Trump has had some impact on China,” stated former Conference moderator and speaker, Nicholas Burns in a CNBC interview. “The Chinese have done more in the last year than they had done previously,” Burns said. He also said the Trump administration has been able to get “bigger sanctions, stronger sanctions and resolutions out of the U.N.”

“President Trump has kept Kim Jong Un off balance,” said Burns, whose 27-year career in foreign service spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations. “I think this is positive that the president and Kim Jong Un are going to turn towards diplomacy because we were headed for a collision with North Korea.”