Robert Art, Selective Engagement after Unipolarity
Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 4:30-5:45pm, Adamson Wing, Baker Hall 136A
The rise of China, the rapid growth of large developing country economies, and the weakening of America's economic strength are ushering in a new era where America's military and economic power, while still formidable, carries less clout than before. What adjustments in its national interests and grand strategy does the United States need to make in order not to suffer the Lippmann Gap -- where a country's resources fall short of its commitments? Why is selective engagement preferable to the other two contending grand strategies -- primacy and restraint?
---
Robert J. Art is Christian A. Herter Professor of International Relations at Brandeis University, where he teaches international relations and specializes in national security affairs and American foreign policy. He is also a research associate of the Security Studies Program at MIT and Director of MIT’s Seminar XXI Program.
Professor Art received his B.A. from Columbia College in 1964 (summa cum laude) and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1968. He has received grants from the Center for International Studies at Harvard University, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Century Foundation. In 2006 he received the Distinguished Scholar Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association. In 2008 a conference was held in his honor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service to celebrate his scholarly contributions to international relations and American foreign policy.
Professor Art is a former member of the Secretary of Defense’s Long Range Planning Staff (1982), a former chair of the Politics Department and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University. He has consulted for the Central Intelligence Agency and currently is a faculty associate of the National Intelligence Council. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the scholarly journals International Security, Security Studies, and Political Science Quarterly. Since 1982, he has co-edited, along with Robert Jervis and Stephen Walt, Cornell University’s “Series in Security Studies.”
Professor Art has lectured at numerous American and foreign universities and research institutes, including the U.S. National War College, the National War College (Beijing), the Fuhrungsakademie (Hamburg), the Institute for War Studies (King’s College), the NATO School at Oberammergau, and the School of International Studies at Peking University.
He has published over 40 articles in scholarly journals and written these three books: The TFX Decision: McNamara and the Military (1968); A Grand Strategy for America (2003) – a finalist for the Arthur B. Ross Award of the Council on Foreign Relations; and America’s Grand Strategy and World Politics (2009). In addition, he has co-edited and contributed to the following books: Reorganizing America’s Defense (1985), with Vincent Davis and Samuel P. Huntington; U.S. Foreign Policy: The Search for a New Role (1993), with Seyom Brown; The United States and Coercive Diplomacy (2003), with Patrick Cronin; and Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past (2007), with Louise Richardson. Finally, he has co-edited two readers– International Politics (with Robert Jervis), currently in its 11th edition, and The Use of Force (with KennethWaltz), currently in its 7th edition.
Sponsored by the Center for International Relations and Politics.
