Santos, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his efforts to end a five-decades-long civil war with a guerrilla group that killed more than 200,000 people in the South American country, served as president of Colombia from 2010 to 2018.

Known as a tenacious negotiator, Santos said, “The big challenge in the 140 conflicts currently in the world is that leaders need to sit down and talk in very constructive ways.”

Titled “The Power of Long-View Leadership,” the event included opening remarks from Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), as well as a brief response followed by an audience Q&A moderated by Héctor Hoyos, director of the Center for Latin American Studies.

Díaz-Cayeros said, “This discussion is especially timely and vital today as we confront global challenges – not only here in the United States but throughout the hemisphere and around the world – that demand both moral courage and a strategic vision.”

Listening, talking

In November 2024, Santos was appointed Chair of The Elders, the organization founded by Nelson Mandela to advocate for peace, justice, human rights, and a sustainable planet.

In his address, Santos explained the process of bringing the guerrilla group – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or “FARC” — to the peace negotiating table. A meeting in the late 1990s with Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist, was particularly inspirational.

“He taught me why that program (in South Africa) to bring victims and perpetrators together to reconcile for the future was so important,” said Santos, who described it as the most interesting conversation he’s ever had about peacemaking.

So, he started studying peace processes all around the world — the ones that were successful, the ones that failed, and the ones that still held out hope. Gradually, he identified the conditions that were necessary to begin an authentic peace process with the FARC.

“What had my predecessors done wrong? What could I bring from other examples around the world?” He came to understand that three key conditions existed in the Colombian dynamic.

“As long as the guerrillas think that they will win through violence,” Santos said, “they will never sit down in good faith. They have to be convinced that they will never achieve power through violence. Second, the leaders of the guerrillas themselves personally have to be involved in the negotiations.”

Finally, he said, Colombia’s neighbors needed to support the peace process, or the guerrillas would always use those neighbors as safeguards and not commit to the peace process.

Santos brought on advisors who had successfully negotiated peace deals in other global hotspots. Some of the advice was especially sage.

“I was told to treat the FARC not as our enemies but as our adversaries. Enemies you eliminate. Adversaries you beat.” So, he instructed his military to make policy changes and to be conscious of all their actions, which they would live with forever.

“Treat them (FARC members) as human beings,” Santos said. “They have mothers, they have fathers, so while you fight with them, understand that they're human beings. So, I changed the whole military doctrine.”

A 2016 national referendum in Colombia rejected the peace deal by a narrow margin. Since then, the government and FARC have largely upheld the ceasefire and called for a broader national dialogue to continue the peace process.

Today, Santos is concerned that the gains from Colombia’s peace agreement with the FARC are unraveling. “The difficult path in every peace process is how to reconcile in order to have peace in the long run.”
 

Humanity’s clock ticks

In January, Santos was invited to deliver an address at the annual unveiling of the Doomsday Clock’s time, which is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He noted that the only criteria that existed through the 1990s was the possibility of nuclear war. Now, existential threats to humanity’s fate have rapidly expanded, including climate change, AI, pandemics, and biological threats.

At 89 seconds to midnight, the Doomsday Clock stands closer to catastrophe than at any moment in its 77-year history, Santos said. The clock speaks to the threats that confound and confront us — and the need for cooperation, unity, and bold leadership to turn back its hands.

Unfortunately, what is happening around the world reflects the contrary, Santos said. The multilateral system, the respect for the rule of law, and the respect for protocols are all under attack.

Long-term leadership that makes decisions — not according to the next election, but according to the well-being of future generations — is what the world truly needs, Santos noted.

“How can we do what we did in Colombia on the world stage? That is the great challenge, and that’s when dialogue is imperative,” he said.
 

Instead of competing amongst each other to see who wins this or who wins that, Santos urged that “world leaders need to sit down and talk about how to work together to avoid nuclear war, control climate change, regulate AI, and more.”

“Every second counts,” he concluded.

Student and community engagement

Following the lecture, Professor Héctor Hoyos praised Santos for his unwavering commitment to education, both as President and throughout his career. Reflecting on a personal experience, Hoyos shared a formative moment from his own childhood, when he received a letter from then-Secretary of Education Santos, recognizing him as one of Colombia's most promising young students. "I want to thank you publicly for that gesture, which went a long way," Hoyos said of the experience that inspired him to pursue the scholarly path he follows today.

The lecture also sparked lively engagement among students, many of whom lined up to ask thoughtful questions about applying Santos’ insights to current global challenges. Their inquiries reflected a desire to connect lessons from Colombia’s peace process to diverse contexts around the world. Santos, practicing the very principles of dialogue he had emphasized, listened attentively, responded thoughtfully, and demonstrated a genuine willingness to engage in a constructive exchange of ideas.

After the event, Santos joined more than twenty students from the Graduate School of Business and other programs for a lunch, where discussions continued on leadership, peacebuilding, and the importance of dialogue in addressing contemporary issues.