Presented 10/17/22 at the University of Minnesota Duluth by Thomas Hanson, retired US Foreign Service Officer for the US State Department and the Alworth Institute Diplomat in Residence.

The United States has come to rely increasingly on economic sanctions as a weapon short of war. Today's widerangng sanctions against Russia over Ukraine will have severe repercussions not just for Moscow, but also for our European allies and for the global economy as a whole, including the future role of the dollar. Thomas Hanson will discuss why this policy option is central to US foreign policy under the Biden administration, and he will analyze the current and future impact on the US and global economies.

When with the U.S. Department of State, Thomas Hanson's foreign postings included East Germany, France, Norway, the Soviet Union, Sweden, and Georgia. He also assisted in opening new embassies in Mongolia and Estonia. Hanson has also worked on the Foreign Relations Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was Director for NATO and European Affairs at the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, D.C. He serves on the St. Paul-Minneapolis Committee on Foreign Relations and as a lecturer/consultant for the Minnesota International Center. He is an occasional foreign affairs commentator on Minnesota Public Radio and serves on the boards of the Minneapolis chapter of the Oslo Center for Peace. Hanson graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in International Relations. He holds graduate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; the Geneva Institute of Advanced International Studies in Switzerland; and the National School of Administration (ENA) in Paris, France. He has served as the Alworth Institute's Diplomat in Residence since the fall of 2009.