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Symposium

Hauser Symposium: America at 250

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From U.S. Foreign Policy Program.

This symposium explores the development of the U.S.-led international order from the post–World War II era to the present, examining the foundations of American global engagement, the trajectory of the post-Cold War period, and the policy shifts of the Trump era. Together, the panels analyze how these distinct phases have shaped U.S. foreign policy, international institutions, and patterns of global cooperation and competition.

Click here to view the full agenda.

This Hauser Symposium is made possible by the generous support of the Hauser Foundation.

This symposium is also part of CFR’s America at 250 Series. To mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. declaration of independence, CFR is dedicating a year-long series of articles, videos, podcasts, events, and special projects that will reflect on two and a half centuries of U.S. foreign policy. Featuring bipartisan voices and expert contributors, the series explores the evolution of America’s role in the world and the strategic challenges that lie ahead.

In Person Session One: Postwar Choices—Embracing Global Engagement After 1945

Panelists explore how the decisions made in the aftermath of World War II set the United States on a path toward active global engagement, reshaping international politics, security, cooperation, and institutions

Speakers

  • Rana Mitter
    S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy School
  • Benn SteilCFR Expert
    Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Jeremi Suri
    Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs and Professor of Public Affairs and History, University of Texas at Austin; CFR Member

Presider

Introductory Remarks

Transcript

FROMAN: Well, good afternoon, everybody. It’s great to see everybody here. Nice, full room, and in addition we have a couple hundred people on Zoom listening in as well. Welcome to this Hauser Symposium.

And first I’d like to thank Rita Hauser, of course, whose guidance and support—(applause)—makes such a lasting impact on this institution. She established the Hauser Symposium almost two decades ago to focus the Council each year on a defining challenge or opportunity facing the United States. And the subjects have ranged broadly, from the domestic evolution in China to the Axis of Autocracies. This is the eighteenth symposium, and this year’s theme is particularly fitting: America at 250. This is part of our broader America at 250 set of programming that we’re doing.

There’s no question that we’re at a historic inflection point, but the debate over America’s role in the world is in some ways nothing new. Our Founding Fathers warned against entangling alliances, and many would be called isolationists by today’s standards. The nineteenth century brought territorial expansionism and hemispheric dominance. Sounds kind of familiar. And the twentieth century offered hard lessons of its own, from the isolationist instincts of post-World War I, to...

In-Person Session Two: The Lost Promise of the Post-Cold War Era

Panelists discuss why the optimism of the early post-Cold War years, marked by hopes of a unipolar global order, liberal convergence, and expanding globalization, gave way to renewed great power conflict and growing global rivalry.

Speakers

  • Lien-Hang T. Nguyen
    Dorothy Borg Associate Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia, Columbia University; CFR Member
  • Stephen M. Walt
    Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations, Harvard Kennedy School; CFR Member

Presider

  • Linda RobinsonCFR Expert
    Senior Fellow for Women and Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Transcript

ROBINSON: Good afternoon. We’re going to get started right away. Welcome to Panel Two of the Rita Hauser Symposium, “The Lost Promise of the Post-Cold War Era.”

We’re privileged to have three distinguished speakers here to address this period. First, we have Hang Nguyen from Columbia University; Steve Walt of Harvard Kennedy School; and Charlie Kupchan on screen, who’s our senior fellow as well as a professor with Georgetown University.

I’m going to take a bit of an issue with the title as “The Lost Promise” because I think what we want to do in this session is really tease out some of the nuance in the different periods of this thirty years since the end of the Cold War.

So what I’d like to do is start by asking the panelists to discuss the immediate post-Cold War period, namely, the Bush—George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations to just try to tease out some of the things that they were presented with, what they did, what worked, and what didn’t.

And I’d like to start, partly because I know the last panel did not get to the Vietnam War—to start and ask Nguyen to ask—to talk about both the legacy...

In-Person Session Three: The Trump Era and the Future of the U.S.-Led Order

Panelists assess how Trump-era policies altered the international system and what comes next for the U.S. role globally.

Speakers

  • Robert W. Kagan
    Stephen and Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology, Brookings Institution (speaking virtually)
  • Rebecca LissnerCFR Expert
    Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and Director of the Future of American Strategy Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Leslie Vinjamuri
    President and Chief Executive Officer, Chicago Council on Global Affairs; CFR Member

Presider

  • Gideon RoseCFR Expert
    Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Transcript

ROSE: Welcome, everybody. My name is Gideon Rose. I’m an adjunct senior fellow here at the Council. And welcome to the third session of our Hauser Symposium. This one will be on “The Trump Era and the Future of the U.S.-Led Order.”

We’ve heard a lot of really first-rate historians and policy analysts; and we’ve talked a lot about contingency, and about the choices that were made and couldn’t be made, and some of the things that might have been done differently. And I think all that is true and all of this has been a really interesting discussion, but there’s also a structural context in which all these policy choices that we’ve been talking about have been made. And I think it’s actually useful to step back, especially for this final panel, to look at the larger structural context because we may be at one of those hinge points in history in which we’re not just making choices about an individual issue or an individual situation or with individual policymakers, but we may be confronting one of these large structural chances in international relations in a new era which will guide all the choices that people make.

So what...