The Return of Great Power Politics: America in the 21st Century

This event will be live streamed on Facebook and our YouTube channel.

The post-WWII international order is coming to an end, and the global system is gradually returning to a state of harsher and more explicit Great-Power competition. Russia is standing ready on Ukraine’s borders, preparing an invasion. At the same time posing unrealistic demands on NATO, European and neighbouring countries’ security structures.

On the other hand, the rise of China, mostly at the expense of US superiority, is shaping global politics and will ultimately shift the entire global structure. China and Russia are both on a quest to expand their spheres of influence, and are actively contesting the US, the Transatlantic Alliance, the European Union, and western values.

At the moment we are standing amid a tense situation in Ukraine that already has far reaching consequences. The outcome of the current conflict will dictate the future of our geopolitical security landscape. Our distinguished speakers will discuss the return of great power rivalry and the US’ future role in European and transatlantic security in light of current events.

Prof. John J. Mearsheimer

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982.

He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He then started graduate school in political science at Cornell University in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1980.

He spent the 1979-1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982. During the 1998-1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Dr. Stephen Wertheim

Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a historian of U.S. foreign policy and international order and writes widely about contemporary problems in American grand strategy.

He has published scholarly research on U.S. ideas and projects of diplomatic engagement, international law, world organization, colonial empire, and humanitarian intervention. In his book, Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy (Harvard University Press, 2020), he reveals how U.S. leaders made a decision early in World War II to pursue global military dominance long into the future.

Dr. Asle Toje

Asle Toje is the Deputy Leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee which is responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a scholar and an author who has lived and worked in Germany, France, Belgium, England, and the United States. He was educated at the Universities of Oslo and Tromsø and received his PhD from Cambridge University.

While at Cambridge, Toje worked on three main fields of study: international relations theory, war studies and European studies. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis, titled “American Influence on EU Security Policies,” under the supervision of Geoffrey Edwards.

Toje moved to New York City in 2005 to join the doctoral fellows program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. His academic tutors was Kenneth Waltz. Toje was the Research Director at the Norwegian Nobel Institute from 2012-2018.