The Watson School of International and Public Affairs celebrated its July opening in a Saturday launch event that featured keynote speaker Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the country’s top-ranking military officer — between 2019 and 2023.
In his speech, Milley shared a historical perspective on the current political moment, identifying threats to the world and domestic order and encouraging students to defend American values.
Before he ascended to the position in September 2019, Milley grew up in a military family — the son of two World War II veterans. At the event, Milley said he similarly joined the military to defend the values of the U.S. Constitution, despite his father’s objections.
Milley began his term under President Trump’s first administration, and clashed with the president in several high-profile conflicts. He retired in September 2023, two years into former President Joe Biden’s administration.
In his keynote speech, Milley first spoke of the current international order, which he said has been in place since the end of World War II.
Milley explained that America has written the rules that “are the back office of the world today.”
“Those rules serve to maintain some degree of stability in the international system, and I think that’s important and in American interest to keep those rules going,” he said.
Milley explained that current challenges to that world order include Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s rapid, industrialized rise to global power — what he considers the greatest threat to America today.
He then pivoted to discuss the domestic order in the United States, which he said was defined by the values in the U.S. Constitution. While noting the current presence of political uncertainty in the country, Milley claimed that turmoil has always been present — pointing to the Civil War, the Great Depression and protests during the Civil Rights movement.
Today, “there is political polarization — that is true — but that domestic order is under stress,” he said. “Although it’s bending and it’s under stress, it’s not broken and it’s not going to crack.”
Milley said it is important for students today to understand both the domestic and the international orders “to have the knowledge, the skills and the attributes to reinforce those orders so that those orders don’t break.”
To achieve these goals, he encouraged students to study, be committed and hold the “moral courage” to protect American values.
He finished his keynote by urging students to “preserve and protect” the principles of the Constitution, which he said are the foundation of America and the foundation of the new Watson School.
After his speech, Dean of the Watson School John Friedman and Milley sat down for a question-and-answer session where they spoke about Milley’s background, his time as a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his views on the current issues facing the country.
When asked by Friedman about distrust in the current government, Milley asserted that past U.S. unrest was more severe than that of the current moment.
“I’m not saying there are not red flags waving in the wind,” he said. “But let’s not jump to conclusions as to where we are as a country.”
“We need to all give way together, move to the middle, deal with each other in civil ways and realize that document — the Constitution — provides the means and mechanisms to evolve with the times,” Milley added.
He noted that President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in American cities, though controversial, is not illegal. He pointed to historical use of federal troops in cities, including to quell unrest and end the violent targeting of Black residents in New York City’s Civil War draft riots, which led to hundreds of civilian deaths.
“When you introduce the United States military onto the streets of America, my advice is caution,” Milley said. “It’s legal, it can be done, there’s authorities to do it, but understand the instrument you’re to use, understand the conditions in which you’re using it, limit the scale, scope and size of the operation.”
At the same time, “it’s not my recommendation,” he said.
Event attendee Ryan Choo ’29, a prospective international and public affairs concentrator, was fascinated by Milley’s stance on political polarization.
“The things they talked about, like how we can really bring people together regardless of what labels are put onto us, I think that was really refreshing,” Choo said.
Before Milley’s speech, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 opened the event by sharing a summary of the Watson School’s history back to its time as the Council for International Studies. The council was founded in 1979 and first led by then-professor Newell Stultz under the tenure of then-President Howard Swearer. It grew throughout the years, ultimately becoming the Watson School in July.
After Paxson’s welcome speech, Friedman reflected on the launch of the new school at Brown.
“Building a school like this at Brown is such a wonderful thing because that interdisciplinarity that is needed to make progress on the world’s most difficult policy problems, it just comes naturally here in the air,” he said.
Ian Ritter is a senior staff writer for university news. A junior studying chemistry, he covers the graduate schools & students and admissions & financial aid beats. When he isn’t at The Herald or exploding lab experiments, you can find him playing the clarinet, watching the Mets or eating Ratty carrot cake.
