America: the twilight years?

Podcast: listen to the Battle of Ideas debate.

Despite President Obama’s bold rhetoric against and aerial bombing of IS, US foreign policy from Syria to Ukraine appears rudderless and impotent. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, claims the failure of politics in Washington has hastened ‘the emergence of a post-American world’. The American political class appears at an impasse. Recovery from the recession has been weak. China looks likely to overtake the US in GDP by the end of the decade. Yet America is still the world’s largest economy and greatest military power, with the world’s top universities and cutting-edge research. Is the US truly facing being replaced as the world’s leading power? Or is the declinist view overly pessimistic?

SPEAKERS

Dr Yaron Brook
Executive director, Ayn Rand Institute

Dr Jenny Clegg
senior lecturer, Asia Pacific Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston

Dr Sue Currell
chair, British Association for American Studies; reader, American Literature, Sussex University

James Matthews
management consultant; founding member, NY Salon; writer on economics and business

Sir Christopher Meyer
chairman, PagefieldAdvisory Board; former British Ambassador to the United States