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Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Lecture in Public Policy
September 13, 2017 @ 5:00 pm
Are the US and China Destined for War?
Professor Graham Allison is a distinguished scholar of U.S. national security and defense policy. The Douglas Dillon Professor of Government and founding dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, he is former director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He currently serves on the advisory boards of both the secretaries of state and defense and of the director of the CIA, and he is a former member of the Defense Policy Board under seven secretaries of defense during both Republican and Democratic presidencies. He also has served as Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense under President Reagan and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans under President Clinton, and was awarded the Defense Department’s highest civilian award, the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, for “reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.” His lecture is also the subject of his recently released book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (2017) which is currently being widely reviewed and discussed.
For those interested in advance readings, the following sources may be useful:
A summary of his argument: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/
One positive and two critical reviews:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/19/are-china-and-the-united-states-headed-for-war