This course will focus on the weakening of the old global order—of rules, guardrails and solid international institutions—that served the world well for eight decades and the advent of a new, less predictable, more violent and unstable world of disorder for the years ahead.
We will focus first and foremost on the changing leadership role of the United States—now more unilateral, less tied its allies and partners and implementing trade, immigration and environmental policies that are making global cooperation much more challenging. We will also pay close attention to the rise of China’s power and to its difficult, and competitive relationship with the United States.
A major objective will be to debate whether the U.S. and China, along with India, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, the European Union and others can manage to address consequential challenges effectively for the decade ahead—the promise and potential peril of A.I., quantum computing and other technologies, nuclear proliferation, climate change, cyber, the wars in Ukraine and Iran, and other threats to global stability and peace.
Finally, we will examine the expanding role Middle Powers are exercising as stabilizers in the global system. We will conclude the course by investigating what the world power balance may look like in 2050 and determine whether there may even be promising economic and technological trends that might give us urgently needed hope as we think about the global future.