In this talk, Emma Sky, director of the International Leadership Center at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, will discuss how the United States’ framing of its response to 9/11 in terms of the Global War on Terror created a sense of being forever at war – and never winning.
She will explore where U.S. foreign policy goes from here. Today, the primary U.S. national security concern is no longer terrorism, but great power competition. The rivalry between the United States and China is ultimately over which country offers a better road to progress. Although America remains powerful both militarily and economically, its international reputation as the standard-bearer of democracy has been greatly tarnished by two decades of fighting without winning since 9/11, by its hypocritical human rights violations, and by its own political dysfunction. The manner in which the U.S. exited Afghanistan also brings into questions the reliability of the U.S. as a partner.
