Elections 2020: America’s role in the world

Transcript: A conversation with Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Robert C. O’Brien

By Atlantic Council

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Robert C. O’Brien discussed key security challenges facing the next US presidential administration, as well as opportunities for renewed global cooperation.

US needs to change the way it invests in defense if it wants to compete with rising rivals

By David A. Wemer

Successive years of stagnant defense spending levels and the prospect of lasting economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic could threaten to leave the United States handicapped in its growing military competition with rising powers China and Russia

US trade policy after November: A must-do agenda

By Marc L. Busch

Regardless of the political balance of power after November, there are two things that need to get done, and fast: the unblocking of the WTO Appellate Body and a new trade deal with Europe to match Canada's and Mexico's.

Adviser on Biden’s foreign policy: Start at home and repair alliances

By David A. Wemer

One of his chief foreign policy advisers said that a future Biden White House would focus its foreign policy on revitalizing the United States at home, rehabilitating frayed alliances, and building a team of democracies to solve the world’s biggest challenges.

What’s at stake for energy in the 2020 election: An update

By David Goldwyn and Andrea Clabough

In the seven months since the publication of the Atlantic Council’s issue brief, “Election 2020: What’s At Stake For Energy,” the social and political landscape of the United States can hardly have changed more dramatically. This issue brief updates the Atlantic Council’s prior analysis and considers the new context surrounding a Trump re-election scenario and a Biden election, and the consequences for the energy sector.

Hillary Clinton: The work awaiting the next US president will be ‘overwhelming’

By Katherine Golden

Just ahead of the Democratic National Convention, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris were to win the 2020 US presidential election, their administration must be prepared to advance on several domestic and international fronts simultaneously because the work they’ll face is “rather overwhelming.”

Transcript: A conversation with Hillary Clinton on the 2020 election and America’s role in the world

During an Atlantic Council Front Page event broadcast on August 17, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “we’re going to have to quickly move to try to regain leadership and rebuild our alliances and make clear to our competitors and adversaries that… the vacuum is no more, that the United States is going to resume a position of global leadership and bring people together around common threats, whether it be climate change or the global pandemic.”

What we’re forgetting about the Cold War

By Mathew Burrows

As President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden each accuse the other of going soft on China, we have forgotten the tense moments, close calls, and widespread suffering of that first Cold War and somehow grown fond of it instead.

China’s Xi casts his vote in U.S. elections. (Hint: it’s not for Trump or Biden)

By Frederick Kempe

China is creating new facts on the ground, expanding its influence across the world – from the Balkans to the South China Sea – as the United States wrestles with the myriad distractions of coronavirus, recession, racial upheavals and presidential elections. It will take a far more focused and consistent Washington, acting with greater cohesion alongside its global allies, to deter any such aspirations.

Infrastructure interdependence a threat to upcoming elections

By Nicholas Cunningham

Recent developments indicate that Russia could exploit the interdependent nature of our critical infrastructure to disrupt our elections via well-timed cyberattacks. How prepared are we to address election interference that goes beyond information operations?