Condoleezza Rice speaks on Russia, the Middle East, immigration, and advice for students during Korbel school’s 50th anniversary dinner

Speakers Condoleezza Rice and Christopher Hill
Photo By: August Smith

Condoleeza Rice, the secretary of state from 2005 to 2009, is a distinguished American diplomat. Rice studied at the Josef Korbel school of international studies at University of Denver, and went on to have an important political career thereafter. 

During this hour long keynote interview with dean of the Korbel school Christopher Hill, Rice addressed topics such as the political situations in Russia and the Middle East, immigration in America, and gave advice to students in the Korbel school. 

After some introductory talk, Hill and Rice open up the conversation by talking about Rice’s experience working with the Middle East. 

Rice, speaking about how the states are governed, stated that “these states were held together by somebody oppressing somebody else…either dictators or monarchs kind of holding people together by royal fiat,”. 

Rice outlined a very complex system of governance in the Middle East, asking “when popular pressures and our invasion of Iraq started to break these states apart, and the revolt against Assad in Syria, what’s going to hold them together?” 

The answer, it seems, is very complex. Then, likening the complexities of these political situations to issues concerning Russia, Rice then stated “Vladimir Putin is an example of why just saying sanctions is a mistake,”

“It feels better that we say something about sanctioning them so that they can’t get short term debt for oil and gas investment but the Europeans don’t do the same thing so it actually makes you look weaker to do those things, so what do you do?”. 

Although this interview took place in 2014, these statements are especially relevant today considering the current situation with the war in Ukraine. 

Rice also had some statements regarding Ukraine, again all the way back in 2014. Rice stated in response to the previous quote that “I would arm the Ukrainians…you want to fight in Ukraine, its going to be bloody and you’re not going to like it because we are going to arm the Ukrainians,”. 

However, she also addressed some inadequacies in the Ukrainian government as well, stating that “the Ukrainians need to get their political act together as well,” about 20 minutes in to the interview. 

Moving on to the topic of immigration, Rice dove right in to the issue, stating that “we the people isn’t an exclusive concept,”. 

“We have got to keep importing the talent…40% of all silicon valley startups have at least one foreign founder,” stated Rice about 26 minutes in to the interview. 

Rice’s position clearly supports continuing to accept immigrants from foreign nations, and even more so supports the idea that America has a responsibility to our foreign brothers and sisters.

Rice stated that “the United States is, in our poorest places, a rich country; so we should take responsibility for people who are trapped in poverty,”. 

Finally, Rice took questions from the audience and provided advice to students in the Korbel school. 

“You have to identify yourself and set yourself apart as someone who can do something,” Rice stated when asked about potential strategies to setting oneself apart when breaking in to the professional world. 

“If you can use a statistical model to buttress what you’re doing, you will be much stronger…people use statistics to obfuscate and you have to be able to push through that,” continued Rice. 

When asked about how she could possibly prioritize tasks within such a large amount of work, Rice again offered succinct and realistic advice:

“There are days you don’t get to prioritize…[but] when it’s not that big a crisis I tried…to say at the end of this month these are the 5 things I want to have moved forward,”.