Dear Colleagues:

Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been controversy about the purpose of U.S. foreign policy. For many years policy-makers were influenced by George Kennan’s concept of “containing” the Soviet Union. Now, what are the nation’s interests? In an attempt to fill a vacuum, there have been a series of attempts by foreign policy intellectuals to define a new narrative or “Grand Strategy” so as to distinguish “enduring, core strategic interests” from “others that are less central.” This question is viewed as especially important by the defense universities, but the answers need not be military.

President Obama is skeptical. He told The New Yorker’s David Remnick that “I don’t really even need George Kennan right now,” and instead needed the right strategic partners. Yet Obama has promoted ideas, such as addressing global warming, which could be viewed as core strategic issues for diplomacy and the nation but generally are not. They would have better prospects if fit into a “national strategic narrative” about the nation’s interests.

The Weatherhead School’s new Strategic Innovation Lab seeks to “catalyze and support the transition to a new U.S. grand strategy for the 21st century.” Its co-director, Patrick Doherty, was most recently a Senior Fellow in International Security at the New America Foundation. He will discuss the case for having a strategy and why it should focus on economics and sustainability as much as on traditional tools of foreign policy.

All best regards,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

Patrick Doherty is the founding co-director of the Strategic Innovation Lab at Case Western Reserve University. Previously he was at the New America Foundation, where he teamed up with retired Marine Col. Mark “Puck” Mykleby to launch the Grand Strategy Project. Doherty is the author of A New U.S. Grand Strategy, a white paper briefed to the White House and the Pentagon that outlines a plan to ensure American prosperity and security by leading the global transition to sustainability. In support of that goal, Doherty is co-authoring a book on the strategy to be published by Palgrave-Macmillan in early 2016. He has been quoted or published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, and ForeignPolicy.com. He has appeared on CNN, ABC, BBC, NPR, Bloomberg, and the Nightly Business Report, among others. Previously, Doherty was director of communications at the Center for National Policy and a senior editor at TomPaine.com. Before returning to Washington, he spent 12 years in the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans and the Caucuses working at the intersection of conflict and development.

Parking Possibilities

For participants who are accustomed to parking in the lot beneath Severance Hall, that lot will work but Clark Hall is a bit further away. You would exit from the underground lot at the exit marked Thwing Center. Then bear right, down the walkway with the new University Center on the left and Thwing Center on your right. Keep going down that walkway and you will walk between Mather House and Mather Dance. Then bear left on the diagonal walkway, which will take you between Mather Dance on your left and Haydn Hall on your right with Guilford (yellow building with a porch) ahead to your left. Before you reach Guilford, there will be a walkway heading off to your right, so past the front steps of Haydn, that goes straight to the first floor entrance to Clark Hall. Clark is the building covered with a net while it awaits some repairs. It is sound and pretty on the inside, though. An elevator or stairs can take you to the second floor and the Baker-Nord Center.

Otherwise, you can see how Clark Hall is located relative to parking and streets on the map in this link: http://humanities.case.edu/about/parking/.

The lot for the Church of the Covenant (off Euclid) and the Ford Road garage are both a bit closer than the Severance garage.

Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

April 24: Avoiding Vaccinations: Reasons and Consequences With Irena L. Kenneley, Associate Professor, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing.