Professor: Michael Cox

Session 1: The American Century Revisited

In 1941 the American publisher Henry Luce, the founder of Time  and Life magazines urged the U.S. to enter World War II in order to “create the first great American century.” But how  did the United States first become a world power and  then a superpower? And what did this mean for the United States and the world as a whole?.

Reading: Henry Luce, The American Century.

Session 2: Winning the Cold War and the End of History

After a forty year global struggle  pitting the United States against the Soviet Union,  the Cold War unexpectedly came to an end in 1989  followed two years later by the collapse of the Soviet Union.  How did the Cold War shape the world? How did it change the United States? Why did the US win the Cold War? But why did we fail to predict it would happen?.

Reading: Michael Cox, 1989 and why we failed to predict it.

Session 3: In search of purpose: The United States from Clinton to Trump 

Victory in the Cold War left the United States in an apparently unassailable position but without a clear strategic purpose. Clinton, G. W. Bush and Trump tried in their different ways to fill the void:  Clinton by promoting globalization, Bush by waging a war on terror; and Trump by attmepting to make ‘America great again’. What were the consequences?.

Reading: Michael Cox, Agonies of Empire: American power from Clinto to Biden, LSE Online Event.

Professor: Michael Cox

Session 1: Towards a new Cold War I : The United States and post- communist Russia

Through the 1990s and for a short period thereafter the United States sought to engage post-communist Russia in an attempt to draw it into the ‘rules-based order’. It is now clear that this strategy failed as the war in Ukraine shows only too clearly. But why did the US fail to integrate Russia? Could this have been avoided? And does the United States bear any responsibility for ‘losing’ Russia?.

Reading: Michael Cox, Ukraine: Russia’s War and the Future of the Global Order, LSE Press 2022.

Session 2: Towards a new Cold WarII : The United States and post- communist Russia

In 2001 Russia and China signed a Treaty of Friendship and Good Neigbourliness which few observers in the US took  seriously.  But by  2024,  one senior US official was warning that   China was giving ‘Russia every support behind the scenes’ in its war against Ukraine’  and doing so ‘largely out of view’. How seriously should the US and the West be taking the new quasi-alliance,  and what does it mean for the US-led liberal order?.

Reading: Michael Cox, “Best and Bosom Friends”: Putin, Xi and the Challenge to the West . LSE IDEAS Strategic Update, November 2022.

Professor: Peter Trubowitz

Session 1: US - China relations: from rapprochement to rivalry

Whereas America and China once considered each other strategic partners, today they increasingly view each other as strategic rivals. What explains this shift in US-China relations? Will tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to intensify or can they be managed? What are the implications for Europe and transatlantic relations?.

Reading: Odd Arne Westad, “Sleepwalking toward War: Will America and China Heed the Warnings of Twentieth-Century Catastrophe?,” Foreign Affairs, June 13, 2024.

Session 2: Geopolitics, anti globalism, and the West

Early hopes that Western democracies’ unified response to the war in Ukraine would break the populist, anti-globalist fever have not been fulfilled. Instead, since the invasion, anti-globalists have made deeper inroads in many liberal democracies, including the US.  What explains anti-globalism’s enduring strength in America and other Western democracies and what does it portend for the future of transatlantic relations?.

Reading: Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon, “Make the Center Vital Again,” Foreign Affairs May 3, 2023: 1-9.

Session 3: What´s at stake in the 2024 election?

What will the November election mean for transatlantic relations?  If Donald Trump is elected, are there reasons to think that the level of international volatility would be significantly greater than during his first term? What strategies might European and other leaders adopt to cope with the geopolitical challenges that a more erratic, inward looking America might pose?.

Reading: Peter Trubowitz and Peter Harris, “The end of the American century? Slow erosion of the domestic sources of usable power,” International Affairs 93 (2019): 619-639.

Lunch Cocktail Reception 

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