2024.1.19
Ideas and Analyses
Challenges facing the U.S. and Japan in 2024:
Russia-Ukraine War, Middle East, China, and the U.S. Presidential Election
On January 17, 2024, the Japan-U.S. Program invited two distinguished experts Dr. Hal Brands and Dr. Zack Cooper to hold a discussion, "Challenges facing the U.S. and Japan in 2024: Russia-Ukraine War, Middle East, China, and the U.S. Presidential Election." Since the beginning of the Biden administration, the U.S. has faced three regional security issues: Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas, and competiton with China. In addition, the U.S. presidential election is coming up in 2024 amidst these circumstances. How does this destabilizing security environment and dynamics of domestic politics affect the U.S. strategy, which wants to focus on strategic competition with China? And what are the roles and challenges of the Japan-U.S. alliance under this circumstance? In this episode, Dr. Brands and Dr. Cooper discuss a wide range of issues, including the current international order and the U.S.-China relations, the impact of the U.S. domestic politics, and their implications for the Japan-U.S. alliance and the security of the Indo-Pacific region, such as the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
You can listen to the podcast below.
Podcast
| Recorded on | Wednesday, January 17, 2024 (JST) |
|---|---|
| Discussants | Dr. Hal Brands and Dr. Zack Cooper |
*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this discussion are those of the speakers and do not represent the views of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and the institutions to which the participants belong.
Related Articles:
- Hal Brands, “Biden’s Foreign Policy Had a Rough 2023, and 2024 Looks Rougher,” Bloomberg, December 21, 2023
- Hal Brands, “Biden’s Foreign Policy Vision Is Officially Dead,” Bloomberg, October 29, 2023
- Zack Cooper, “Does America Have an End Game on China?” China File, December 15, 2023
- Zack Cooper, “American Strategy and the Liberal International Order,” in Yuichi Hosoya and Hans Kundnani (eds.) The Transformation of the Liberal International Order (Singapore: Springer, 2023)
Hal Brands
Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He is the author or editor of several books, including, most recently, The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great-Power Rivalry, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, co-authored with Michael Beckley, and The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age.
Hal has served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Strategic Planning and lead writer for the Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States. He is a member of the State Department's Foreign Affairs Policy Board and consults with a range of government offices and agencies in the intelligence and national security communities. His writings have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other outlets; he has lectured widely on foreign policy and global affairs to audiences in government, academia, and the private sector.
Zack Cooper
Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US strategy in Asia, including alliance dynamics and US-China competition. He is also a lecturer at Princeton University and a partner with Armitage International.
Before joining AEI, Dr. Cooper was the senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He previously served on staff at the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. National Security Council. Dr. Cooper received a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.P.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University.
Dr. Cooper has been published in academic journals, including International Security and Security Studies, and in the popular press, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among other outlets. He has also authored a variety of studies on Asia, on topics including US military strategy and posture in Asia, Chinese coercion, and US defense cooperation with regional allies and partners. He is the coeditor of two books, Postwar Japan: Growth, Security, and Uncertainty Since 1945 (CSIS/Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) and Strategic Japan: New Approaches to Foreign Policy and the U.S.-Japan Alliance (CSIS/Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
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