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The Future of US Grand Strategy: Implications for Europe

invitation only · SEMINAR · 03.03.2023 10:00 - 11:30

invitation only
Speakers

invitation only

Debates within the American foreign policy establishment over the country’s grand strategy have grown increasingly contentious in recent years. This ferment has been driven forward by a posited power shift in the international system from the United States to China, US missteps in the “forever wars” of the Greater Middle East, a perception that the American public has grown wary of global engagement, as well as deepening polarisation in US domestic politics between the Republican and Democratic camps.

This FIIA seminar zooms in on the key questions currently animating US grand-strategic debates against the backdrop of the Russian war of aggression in Europe and in anticipation of the approaching US presidential election season. In what ways might the contours of strategic competition between the US and its allotted great-power rivals China and Russia evolve, and what implications could this have for US allies and partners, including Finland? What are the prospects of US commitment to international institutions and free trade in the coming years? How might the United States prioritise between the European and Indo-Pacific theatres in the future?

The event is a joint endeavor by the Center on US Politics and Power (CUSSP) and FIIA’s research project “Finland’s evolving role in Euro-Atlantic security”.

Speakers

Opening presentation

Ville Sinkkonen

Postdoctoral Fellow, FIIA

Ville Sinkkonen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Center on US Politics and Power. His research focuses on US foreign policy, great-power politics, normative power, and the politics of trust in international relations. Sinkkonen is the author of A Comparative Appraisal of Normative Power: The European Union, the United States and the January 25th, 2011 Revolution in Egypt (Brill, 2015), and his work has been published in the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, European Review of International Studies and European Foreign Affairs Review, among others. He holds an LL.D. (International Law) from the University of Turku, where he defended his doctoral dissertation Failing hegemony? Four essays on the global engagement of the United States of America in the 21st Century in December 2020. Sinkkonen is the chairperson of the Finnish International Studies Association (FISA) and co-editor of the Nordic Review of International Studies (NRIS).

Keynote

Colin Dueck

Professor, George Mason University/Nonresident Senior Fellow, AEI

Colin Dueck is a Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and a senior non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He studied politics at Princeton University, and international relations at Oxford under a Rhodes scholarship. He has published four books on American foreign and national security policies, Age of Iron: On Conservative Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2019), The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today (Oxford 2015), Hard Line: The Republican Party and U.S. Foreign Policy since World War II (Princeton 2010), and Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy (Princeton 2006.) Dueck has provided congressional testimony and published articles on these same subjects in journals such as International Security, Orbis, Security Studies, Review of International Studies, Claremont Review of Books, Political Science Quarterly, American Affairs, and World Policy Journal, as well as online. His current research focus is on the relationship between party politics, presidential leadership, American conservatism, and U.S. national security strategies. He has worked as a foreign policy adviser on several Republican presidential campaigns, and acted as a consultant for the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Council.

Comments

Minna Ålander

Research Fellow, FIIA

Minna Ålander is a research fellow in the European Union research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) where her research focus is on German foreign and security policy. She is also part of the research project analyzing Finland’s evolving role in Euro-Atlantic security, led by Matti Pesu, where she particularly focuses on Finnish security and defence policy, Northern European security and Nordic defence cooperation. Previously, Ålander worked at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. She holds a joint Master’s degree in international relations from Free University Berlin, Humboldt-University of Berlin, and University of Potsdam.

Chair

Matti Pesu

Leading Researcher, FIIA

Matti Pesu is a Leading Researcher in the Finnish foreign policy, Northern European security, and NATO research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). From May 2022 to April 2023, he leads a research project analyzing Finland’s nascent NATO policy and the country’s evolving role in Euro-Atlantic security. Since the beginning of 2023, Pesu has been leading FIIA’s Nordic network. Pesu has worked at FIIA since 2017 as a Visiting Fellow, Research Fellow, and Senior Research Fellow. He has also worked at Tampere University, the European Commission, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. In 2012–2018, he was actively involved in the leading Finnish online magazine on international politics, The Ulkopolitist¸ most recently as a Managing Editor. He has published extensively on Finnish foreign, security, and defence policy, defence cooperation, Baltic Sea security, and Euro-Atlantic security. Pesu completed his PhD on the role of ideas in Finnish foreign policy at Tampere University in 2019.