The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today with Hal Brands
“If you want to know how America can win today's rivalries with Russia and China, read this book about how it triumphed in another twilight struggle: the Cold War.”— Stephen J. Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush
The United States is entering an era of great-power competition with China and Russia. Such global struggles happen in a geopolitical twilight, between the sunshine of peace and the darkness of war. In this innovative and illuminating book, Hal Brands, a leading historian and former Pentagon adviser, argues that America should look to the history of the Cold War for lessons in how to succeed in great-power rivalry today. Although the threat posed by authoritarian powers is growing, America’s muscle memory for dealing with dangerous foes has atrophied in the thirty years since the Cold War ended. In long-term competitions where the diplomatic jockeying is intense and the threat of violence is omnipresent, the United States will need all the historical insight it can get. Exploring how America won a previous twilight struggle is the starting point for determining how America can successfully prosecute another high-stakes rivalry today.
Registration
Complimentary Registration
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Schedule
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
12 pm MST | 3 pm EDT
Venue
Zoom Meeting
The link for this webinar will be included in your registration confirmation email.
Speaker
Hal Brands
Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He is the author or 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), What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (2014), Latin America’s Cold War (2010), From Berlin to Baghdad: America’s Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (2008), The Power of the Past: History and Statecraft (co-edited with Jeremi Suri, 2015), and The Last Card: Inside George W. Bush’s Decision to Surge in Iraq (co-edited with Jeffrey Engel, Timothy Sayle, and William Inboden, 2019). His newest books are The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, co-authored with Charles Edel, and COVID-19 and World Order, co-edited with Francis Gavin.
Hal 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.
Moderator
Jim Falk
Jim Falk retired in March 2021 as president of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth; he is now its president emeritus. He is a member of the board of Global Santa Fe where he chairs the program committee. Jim’s interest in travel and global affairs grew from his years spent in Tunisia where he attended a French lycée. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and earned his MA in Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia with a focus on international law and Middle East politics. Jim co-hosts McCuistion, a public affairs program, on KERA-Dallas. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an advisory member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. He was appointed in 2012 Honorary Consul for the Kingdom of Morocco.
