ASU President Michael Crow joins US Global Leadership board

The U.S. needs to be more engaged in the world during global crises. That’s the message from some Arizona leaders attending the U.S. Leadership Coalition Monday.

“It’s about the use of what’s called ‘smart power,'” said Arizona State University President Michael Crow, who just joined the USGLC’s board of directors. “Education, health care, training enhancement and so forth, so that through that use of ‘smart power,’ we can later avoid the use of hard power which is military power.”

Crow along with top business and community leaders talked about America’s efforts abroad and how they are directly linked to Arizona security and economic prosperity.

“All global issues now affect all of the economies around the world,” Crow said. “If there was to be a collapse in Africa that’s derivative of a virus, or if there’s a expansion of religious fascists that ISIL or ISIS represents in certain parts of the world, that creates disruptive wave patterns through all of global economy the political structure, everything.”

Those are things that we want to work to try to avoid, he said.

“If more American universities and more American corporations were working together to advance these kinds of outcomes, you’d get a lot of American spirit and American drive and American energy out there in the world,” said Crow.

Last year, Arizona exported 19 billion in goods and services to foreign markets.