U.S. Defense Strategy & the China Challenge
Assess U.S. defense strategy to counter China’s rise.
In the final week of the Political Studies Program, fellows will turn to the study of America and the world.
Fellows will consider the multiple, competing foreign policy crises America faces today – from great-power competition to authoritarian alternatives to democracy and other scourges that were presumed to have been safely consigned to the ash heap of history.
Image Credit: Globe, Ryan Gacayan, via Flickr
Vance Serchuk interviews Gen. Petraeus on leadership & biography.
This course is part of our residential Political Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 36 fellows will be selected.
Faculty
Matthew Kroenig
Matthew Kroenig is a Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A 2019 study in Perspectives on Politics ranked him as one of the top 25 most-cited political scientists of his generation. He has served in several positions in the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the Bush and Obama administrations.
Matthew Kroenig
Matthew Kroenig is a Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A 2019 study in Perspectives on Politics ranked him as one of the top 25 most-cited political scientists of his generation. Dr. Kroenig is the author or editor of seven books, including The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the US and China, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters, and Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons.
Dr. Kroenig is the Director of the Global Strategy Initiative and Deputy Director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He writes a bi-weekly column for Foreign Policy. He has served in several positions in the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the Bush and Obama administrations, including in the Strategy office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the CIA’s Strategic Assessments Group. He regularly consults with a wide range of U.S. government entities. In 2005, he was the principal author of the first-ever, US-government-wide strategy for deterring terrorist networks.
Dr. Kroenig provides regular commentary for major media outlets, including PBS Newshour, Fareed Zakaria GPS, BBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR All Things Considered, and C-SPAN. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds an MA and PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives with his wife and children in Georgetown. Follow him on Twitter @kroenig.
Vance Serchuk
Vance Serchuk is Executive Director of the KKR Global Institute and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Serchuk served for six years as the senior national security advisor to Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut).
Vance Serchuk
Vance Serchuk is Executive Director of the KKR Global Institute and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Serchuk served for six years as the senior national security advisor to Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut). In this capacity, he worked on a broad range of international issues, including comprehensive sanctions legislation, the U.S. rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, and the U.S. response to the Arab Spring, traveling to over 60 countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.
From January to July 2013, he was a Council on Foreign Relations-Hitachi International Affairs Fellow, based in Japan, and a regular columnist for the Washington Post. His writings have also appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Serchuk is a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, and was a Fulbright scholar in the Russian Federation.
Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session
Grand Strategy
Monday, July 25
Readings:
- Robert Kagan, The World America Made (2013)
- Matthew Kroenig and Ash Jain, Present at the Re-Creation, Atlantic Council, (2019), pp. 1–29
- Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, White House, March 2021
- Fact Sheet: 2022 National Defense Strategy, U.S. Department of Defense, March 28, 2022
Discussion Questions:
- What are the key features of the U.S.-led international system?
- What have been the results for the American people and the world?
- Would an alternative system have produced better results?
Tuesday, July 26
Readings:
- H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds, Chs. 3–4
- Matthew Kroenig, The Return of Great Power Rivalry, Ch. 12 (entire book optional)
Discussion Questions:
- Is the U.S. government correct in characterizing China as the greatest threat to U.S. national security?
- Do the United States and its allies have a clear strategy to compete with China?
- How could U.S. and allied strategy be strengthened?
Wednesday, July 27
Readings:
- H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds, Chs. 1–2
- Matthew Kroenig, The Return of Great Power Rivalry, Ch. 11
- Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development, February 4, 2022
Discussion Questions:
- Did the Russian invasion of Ukraine usher in a new phase of great-power politics?
- How should the West revise the European security architecture?
- Can Washington deal with Russia and China at the same time, and if so, how?
Thursday, July 28
Readings:
- H. R. McMaster, Battlegrounds, Chs. 7–10
- Matthew Kroenig, “Time to Attack Iran,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 2012)
Discussion Questions:
- Why does Washington oppose a nuclear-armed Iran?
- Was the Iran deal successful in stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions?
- How can the U.S. and its allies and partners improve strategy and policy toward the Middle East?
Friday, July 29
Readings:
- Matthew Kroenig, “The Special Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons,” Issue Brief, Atlantic Council, September 2021
- Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “The New Nuclear Age,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2022)
Discussion Questions:
- How has great-power competition changed the deterrence environment for nuclear weapons?
- How should the U.S. meet the challenge of “strategic tripolarity,” where it faces two near-peer nuclear powers?
- Is limited nuclear war more likely? How can the U.S. deter such a war, and what options does it need to fight one?
