In the second and final 2020 Presidential Debate on Oct. 22, President Donald Trump and former Vice-President Joe Biden sparred on America’s approach towards China and Russia and the rumored ‘entanglements’ each of them had in the countries. 

Aside from this argument, foreign policy was barely discussed in the 90-minute debate, which was initially billed as a foreign policy-related event. The Middle-East was not brought up once. 

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a CNN opinion piece that foreign policy is “an inside the beltway issue, completely untethered from the priorities of the vast majority of Americans — who are focused today on the health and economic wellbeing of their families” as an explanation to why a greater emphasis wasn’t put on foreign policy in the debate. 

AU senior Sean Quiggley disagrees with this sentiment and believes foreign policy is a major facet of American politics. 

Quigley, a double major in international political studies and economics, is the president of the Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS) on campus. The group is dedicated to promoting constructive debate on basic principles and contemporary issues in foreign, economic, and national security policy.

Although AU has their own branch, AHS is a non-partisan, not-for-profit, national organization founded in 2010. According to their official website, alexanderhamiltonsociety.org, AHS was “established to confront U.S. foreign, economic, and national security policy failures at their source — American universities — and to provide our students with the experiences they would otherwise not gain, in all the fields from which they will influence U.S. policy.”

Quigley is in the midst of his first year as president. 

“I’m still learning the ropes,” he said. “But Covid has actually made the transition a little easier. Most of what we do is have group discussions where we host reputable speakers on certain subjects, and now it’s easier to get them in as it’s all online.”

The group has had guest speakers come from the national security council, state department, and other professional foreign policy institutions.

On Sept. 23, AHS hosted a conversation with Dr. Ryan Berg. Berg is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institution (AEI).

The discussion focused on the Venezuelan opposition and the role of the U.S. in ensuring free and fair elections in regards to the Venezuelan national assembly elections coming up in December. 

When professional guest speakers aren’t scheduled, the AHS holds more casual discussion-based events. These events are planned and led by AU junior Konrad Hodgman. 

Hodgman majors in international political studies, history and political science and serves on the AHS executive board as treasurer and events coordinator.

“Basically I put together promotional material and research current events so that we can send out emails to our members and advertise to the wider campus community about these small discussion based events,” Hodgman said. “The next one I’ve planned will be on Oct. 28 and basically I will just be up front presenting a slideshow on the subject, then depending on the level of expertise, it can be anywhere from a lecture to more of a group-based dialogue. I hope for them to be a mixture of both.”

The Oct. 28 discussion is titled “Crisis in Central Asia” and will focus on a recent flare-up of violence in Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as election turmoil in Kyrgyzstan. The three nations are all former parts of the Soviet Union, a theme that Hodgman plans to delve into during the discussion.

“We’re trying to get back into the flow of scheduled meetings like we did weekly and bi-weekly last year,” Quigley said. We haven’t been able to get that running yet but we do have multiple discussions planned. On Nov. 13 we’ll have a meeting about Russian disinformation campaigns and their disruption strategies.”

Quigley believes the group is important for many majors and beneficial to anyone interested in foreign policy.

“I think that if anybody has any interest in foreign policy or national security, be they in Ashbrook or not, we’d be glad to have you,” Quigley said. “You can learn a lot about the issues we cover and we also run some programs to help people get internships in this field.” 

Students interested in joining the AHS on campus can join via the CORQ app or contact Quigley through his email address at [email protected].