Since its victory in the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy has been largely a failure. Neither Republicans nor Democrats seem able to manage world affairs as successfully as they once did. Donald Trump took office pledging to fix the problem and “make America great again,” but his actions as president have done nothing to make Americans or the world either safer or more prosperous. What would a more realistic and successful foreign policy look like, and what needs to change in order to implement it?
Stephen M. Walt (@stephenWalt) is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He previously taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, where he served as Master of the Social Science Collegiate Division and Deputy Dean of Social Sciences. He has been a Resident Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, and he has also served as a consultant for the Institute of Defense Analyses, the Center for Naval Analyses, and the National Defense University. He presently serves on the editorial boards of Foreign Policy, Security Studies, International Relations, and Journal of Cold War Studies, and he also serves as Co-Editor of the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, published by Cornell University Press. Additionally, he was elected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 2005.
Professor Walt is the author of The Origins of Alliances (1987), which received the 1988 Edgar S. Furniss National Security Book Award. He is also the author of Revolution and War (1996), Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (2005), and, with co-author J.J. Mearsheimer, The Israel Lobby (2007). His latest book is The Hell of Good Intentions.
Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Professor of International Relations and Director of the US Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
The LSE's United States Centre (@LSE_US) is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America. Our mission is to promote policy-relevant and internationally-oriented scholarship to meet the growing demand for fresh analysis and critical debate on the United States.
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This event is part of the LSE US Centre's Phelan Family Lecture series.
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