UPDATE: Due to the ongoing global pandemic the Future of American Grand Strategy conference will be conducted over Zoom.
This conference will have three purposes. First, it will explore why Americans voted for Trump, and what they claim they were trying to achieve with their vote. Second, it will assess the current debate over U.S. grand strategy, as well as what America’s grand strategy should be moving forward. Third, it will investigate public opinion and foreign policy attitudes as they relate to American grand strategy. These discussions will include the normative foundations, perceptions of costs and fairness, and elite rhetoric that either buttress or undermine American grand strategy and associated foreign policies.
Conference Schedule
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2020
9:30-9:55 a.m. Randall Schweller, Opening Remarks
9:45-11:00 a.m. Tim Luecke and Sonja Niemeier, “Why Trump?”
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. David McCourt, “The End of Engagement: Expertise, Domestic Politics, and U.S.-China Strategy Under Trump”
12:15-1:15 p.m. Lunch
1:15-2:30 p.m. Daniel Drezner, “Grand Strategy in a Fractured Marketplace of Ideas”
2:30-3:45 p.m. Hal Brands, “One War Is Not Enough”
3:45-4:00 p.m. Coffee Break
4:00-5:15 p.m. William Wohlforth, “Theory, Counterfactuals, and the US Grand Strategy Debate”
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2020
9:00-10:15 a.m. Sarah Croco, “Making them Pay: Using the Norm of Honesty to Generate Costs for Political Lies”
10:15-10:30 a.m. Coffee Break
10:30-11:45 a.m. Lindsay Cohn, “The Institutionalization of Foreign Policy Constraint: Cost Perception and Public Opinion”
11:45 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 p.m.-2:15 p.m. Christopher Gelpi, “The Trump Taboo Test: Elite Rhetoric and the Normative Foundations of American Grand Strategy”
2:15 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Kathleen Powers, “What’s Fair in International Politics? Equity, Equality, and Foreign Policy Attitudes”
3:30-3:45 p.m. Coffee Break
3:45-4:00 p.m. Randall Schweller and Andrew Byers, Concluding Remarks
PARTICPANTS