Public event

Challenges in international security: Introduction to grand strategy

The United States and the Western world no longer enjoy the unchallenged primacy and margin of security they possessed during the post-Cold War era. They will need a smart, disciplined grand strategy to navigate the dangerous world ahead. But grand strategy is one of the most polarising and least understood concepts in the foreign policy lexicon. Getting grand strategy right in the real world first requires getting grand strategy right as a concept. Join us for a presentation by Hal Brands on his recent research on grand strategy.

This event is part the new speaker series "Challenges in international security" hosted by the Centre for International Security.

Guest speaker

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He is the author and editor of several books, including American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (2018), Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order (2016), and What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (2014). His newest book is The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, co-authored with Charles Edel. Hal Brands served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Strategic Planning from 2015 to 2016. He has also served as lead writer for the Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States, and consulted with a range of government offices and agencies in the intelligence and national security communities.

Chair

Marina Henke is Professor of International Relations at the Hertie School. She researches and publishes on military interventions, peacekeeping, and European security and defense policy. Before joining the Hertie School, she was an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, specialising in international relations and at Princeton University where she was a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Henke holds a PhD in Politics and Public Policy from Princeton University, a Double-MS in Development Studies and International Political Economy from Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics, and a BA in Economics, Politics and Latin American Studies from Sciences Po Paris.

About the "Challenges in international security" speaker series

The series invites senior scholars, decision-makers and policy experts to discuss critical global security challenges and their potential solutions.

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