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Check out these upcoming episodes of WorldNow with Jim Falk, which is hosted by the World Affairs Council of Connecticut and presented in partnership with Councils nationwide, including AKWorld.
Jim Falk is Vice Chairman of the Board of Global Santa Fe, a member organization of the World Affairs Councils of America. He is the host of WorldNow with Jim Falk and the producer and host of The Forum, the weekly public affairs program on KSFR-FM, Santa Fe Community Radio (KSFR.org).
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Falk led the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth as President and CEO from 2001 to 2021, helping expand the organization’s role as one of the nation’s leading forums for international affairs and public policy. His guests have included diplomats, senior intelligence officials, policymakers, military leaders, scholars, journalists, and bestselling authors from around the world.
Through WorldNow and The Forum, he continues his commitment to fostering informed, civil dialogue on the international, political, social, and cultural issues shaping our world.
All the Presidents’ Wars – With Peter Bergen on WorldNow
How did the War on Terror reshape America – and the world?
Peter Bergen, the journalist who conducted the first televised interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997 and author of All the Presidents’ Wars, joins WorldNow with Jim Falk to examine the decisions of four U.S. presidents over 25 years of conflict and their lasting consequences: from the rise of ISIS and the Taliban’s return to Afghanistan to today’s war with Iran.
Peter Bergen is the author of seven books, including Manhunt, one of three New York Times bestsellers. Bergen is vice president at New America, professor at Arizona State University, and CNN national security analyst.
The details:
When: Thursday, October 8 | 7:00pm – 8:00pm ET
Where: Virtual, Zoom Webinar
Tickets: No charge, RSVP required
Tickets link: All the Presidents’ Wars
About the Book
All the Presidents’ Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America’s War on Terror by Peter Bergen
From the New York Times best-selling author, an eye-opening history of the United States’ war on terror across four presidential administrations.
2026 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11, the most devastating attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Within days, the United States began to declare its war on terror: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” President George W. Bush proclaimed. The resulting war on terror cost trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives, a series of misguided wars, and the damaged perception of American power. And yet despite its blunders, this campaign has kept America safe from large-scale foreign attack.
Based on hundreds of interviews, All the Presidents’ Wars focuses on critical decisions of four successive presidents—Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump—and their global consequences. One of the few journalists to interview Osama bin Laden and have unparalleled access to the US intelligence community, Peter Bergen covers the history that might have been avoided: the many terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups around the world; the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq, largely responsible for the Iraqi civil war in the mid-2000s; the birth of ISIS; the resurrection of Afghanistan’s Taliban; and Trump’s war with Iran. From the failure to capture and the eventual killing of Osama bin Laden to the disastrous rise of sectarian violence in the Middle East, Bergen traces the profound ramifications of this epoch in American life.
All the Presidents’ Wars also explores the innovations and unintended consequences of each presidency’s military and political decisions, including debates over military intervention and withdrawal; the tactics of special operations units, armed drones, and armies of counterterrorism partners; and whether the idea of war ever properly captured the defining conflict of recent American foreign policy. All the Presidents’ Wars is essential reading to understand America’s devastating war on terror and to avoid the mistakes of the past.
Pre-order a copy of All the Presidents’ Wars on Bookshop.org and support your local bookstore.
Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages – With Brett McGurk on WorldNow
Brett McGurk, former White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa and author of Brink (available Oct. 6, 2026), takes us inside the high-stakes negotiations to free the October 7 hostages and secure a ceasefire in Gaza.
McGurk led U.S. diplomacy on some of the region’s most consequential challenges, offering a rare firsthand look at the negotiations and decisions that continue to shape the Middle East today.
Brett McGurk served as a top national security advisor under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. He has been involved in U.S. military strategy, diplomacy, and foreign policy for nearly two decades, most recently as Obama and Trump’s envoy leading the campaign to defeat ISIS. He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court from 2001 to 2002, and was at the Court on the morning of 9/11, a day that changed history and his life. McGurk is currently the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute where he teaches and lectures on presidential decision-making in wartime.
The Details:
When: Thursday, October 15 | 7:00pm – 8:00pm ET
Where: Virtual, Zoom Webinar
Tickets: No charge, RSVP required
Tickets link: https://ctwac.org/event/brink-brett-mcgurk-worldnow/
About the Book
Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages by Brett McGurk
The first major insider account of the high-stakes negotiations to free the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7—written in gripping detail by the American mediator who was in the room through it all.
Having served four American presidents on matters of war and peace, Brett McGurk was no stranger to high-stakes diplomacy, but this was different. With American citizens missing, the hostages’ release critical to ending the war in Gaza, and the desperate situation for civilians, McGurk and his team faced impossible tradeoffs at every turn. Caught between Hamas’s maximalist demands and Israel’s determination that Hamas could not maintain power in Gaza, McGurk and his colleagues worked relentlessly over fifteen months to get a deal that most increasingly thought impossible.
Taking readers inside McGurk’s discussions and negotiations with President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and presidents, generals, spies, and diplomats in Qatar, Egypt, Oman, and more, Brink paints a portrait of a region one wrong choice away from tipping into total war, as Iran and its proxy militias seized upon the chaos to open fire on Israeli and American targets. With the 2024 election reshaping the political landscape and time running out on the hostages, McGurk found himself working hand in hand with an unlikely partner—Trump’s emissary from the New York real estate world, Steve Witkoff. They forged a bipartisan front when it mattered most—to secure a ceasefire and save lives.
A gripping account of diplomacy under fire, Brink takes readers from the Oval Office to the seats of power in the Middle East and offers a remarkable look inside a crisis that reshaped the world, the consequences of which are still unfolding today.
Pre-order a copy of Brink, available October 6th on Bookshop.org and support your local bookstore.
The World Ahead: 2027 – With Tom Standage on WorldNow
Each year, The Economist’s The World Ahead series examines the forces expected to shape the year ahead. Covering politics, technology, society, and beyond, the series, edited by Tom Standage, offers an ambitious and wide-ranging look at what’s next.
On December 3, Standage returns to WorldNow with Jim Falk to unpack his predictions for the trends that will define 2027.
Tom Standage is deputy editor of The Economist and editor of its future-gazing annual, “The World Ahead.” Standage directs the newspaper’s digital strategy and the development of new digital products and is the author of seven history books, including Writing on the Wall (2013), The Victorian Internet (1998), and A History of the World in 6 Glasses (2005). He studied engineering and computing at Oxford University and has written for other publications including the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and Wired.
The Details:
When: Thursday, December 3 | 12:00PM-1:00PM ET
Where: Virtual, Zoom Webinar
Tickets: No charge, RSVP required
Tickets link: https://ctwac.org/event/world-ahead-2027-worldnow/