The United States is entering into a decade of “persistent violence,” said Gen. George W Casey, Jr., chief of staff of the U.S. Army, in his keynote address at the 11th annual Joseph Korbel dinner, hosted by the Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies last Tuesday.

The dinner attracted 568 guests. Casey said the United States faces a new kind of enemy, not the traditional state versus state conflict.

The new era of warfare that has ushered in the 21st century is not one in which states are fighting other states, but where states are fighting other centers of power, including terrorist organizations, Casey said.

“It’s a far more complex environment than a fixed enemy,” he said. “We are at war with the global extremist network, and they’re out to destroy our way of life.”

Casey mentioned some of the professors he had while at DU, including Karen Feste, Arthur Gilbert and Jonathan Angle.

Gen. Casey earned a Masters degree in International Relations from DU in the early 1970s.

While a graduate student, he took a course taught by Gilbert called “How Wars Start.”

Casey was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award at the dinner for his service in the military.B

Also honored at the dinner were Jane and Fred Hamilton, who were presented with the Josef Korbel Humanitarian Award.B

The most notable Hamilton contributions to the DU campus are the Frederic C. Hamilton Family Recital Hall in the Newman Center for the Performing Artsand Hamilton Gymnasium in the Ritchie Center. In addition, Fred Hamilton contributed $20 million to the new wing of the Denver Art Museum that was completed in October 2006 and is named the Frederic C. Hamilton Building, after its largest private donor.

Jane Hamilton has sat on the DU Board of Trustees for 32 years. Two of the couple’s children attended DU.

Funds raised at the Josef Korbel dinner go to the Josef Korbel School Scholarship Fund, which awards $1.9 million a year to international studies graduate students with needs.