Peace Watch

20th Anniversary Reception

April/May 2005

Institute president Richard H. Solomon addresses guests at the Institute's 20th Anniversary reception.
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The Institute held a reception on Capitol Hill on March 16, 2005 to salute current and former members of Congress for their roles in creating and supporting the Institute over the past two decades. In his remarks to the more than 250 guests at the reception, Institute president Richard H. Solomon reaffirmed the Institute’s commitment to fulfilling its congressional mandate to “search for nonviolent approaches to dealing with international conflict.”

We are honored to have this impressive turnout to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Here tonight are many of our friends, supporters in Congress, Board members, and staff to help us celebrate. I should also note with appreciation the presence of 50-some diplomats from more than 25 countries. In its origins the Institute was not conceived as an operational organization; its primary purpose was public and professional education. But the world, and the Institute, has changed. Over the past decade we have been active in more than 100 countries all over the globe!

Tonight we have the special opportunity to express our appreciation to Congress—for its foresight in establishing the Institute, and for its ever-increasing support of our work.

In public service, it is not often that one has the opportunity to help build a national institution, one dedicated to dealing with perhaps our greatest foreign policy and national security challenge—indeed a challenge facing all of humankind: getting control of international violence, learning to deal with conflicts by political and other nonviolent means. In times past, military conflicts among states seemed part of the natural order of things, but we live in an era threatened by weapons of mass destruction, a time of a weakened nation-state system, and of ineffective international organizations. If we fail to transform the way we deal with conflict, we—the world—face a bleak future.

Congress has entrusted the Institute with the heavy responsibility of meeting this challenge. Our creators, people of great vision such as Senators Spark Matsunaga and Jennings Randolph, and Congressman Dan Glickman—whom you’ll be hearing from shortly—saw the need for an independent federal institution that would train peacemakers. They foresaw a “national peace academy” that would train professionals in the skills of conflict management, just as our military academies train professionals in the skills of war fighting.

The Institute has come some distance in meeting the challenge of professionalizing peacemaking, and tonight we want to reaffirm our dedication to this great challenge, to the obligation of supporting policymakers in Congress and the administration in the search for nonviolent approaches to dealing with international conflict.