Speeches
America’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East
One China, Two Freemans
I am delighted to join Professor Carla Freeman here this evening. I admire her as a scholar even as I remember her as a remarkably muscular and willful infant, gifted student and ballerina, and the beautiful young woman whom I gave away in marriage when she was twenty-three. Carla is my eld
China’s Current Problems and Prospects
The dominant features of Chinese politics in this decade have been the rise of Xi Jinping, the return of repressive autocracy, and an inconclusive effort to re-engineer China’s economic model.
The End of the American Empire
I’m here to talk about the end of the American empire. But before I do I want to note that one of our most charming characteristics as Americans is our amnesia. I mean, we are so good at forgetting what we’ve done and where we did it that we can hide our own Easter eggs.
America's Persian and Arabian Wars
Sometime between 460 and 450 B.C.E., Herodotus wrote The Persian Wars, his account of the Greeks' two wars with the Persians, which spanned thirteen years. Even in a time when trends and events unfolded more slowly than they seem to now, that was a famously lengthy conflict.
Recovering Diplomatic Agility
This is the third of three lectures on the United States’ global role in the 21st century.
The United States in the New World Disorder
This is the second of three lectures on the United States’ global role in the 21st century. The first deals with the causes and consequences of the crumbling of the Pax American. The third addresses the need for renewed agility in American diplomacy.
The Crumbling of the Pax Americana
This is the first of three lectures on the United States’ global role in the 21st century. The second will address American floundering in the new world disorder. The third will speak to the need for unprecedented agility in American diplomacy.
Lessons from America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East
Twenty-six years ago, when the elder President Bush asked me to be his ambassador to Saudi Arabia, he assured me that "nothing much ever happens in Arabia." That had been the case for quite a while. Now no one would refer to any part of the Middle East – even the Arabian Peninsula – as a zone o
U.S.-Japan Security Cooperation after the Pax Americana
World War II ended with the obliteration of Japanese hegemony in the Western Pacific and its replacement by that of the United States. We Americans disarmed Japan and imposed a pacifist constitution on it.