Diplomacy and International Politics

The American economy is in an artificial coma, unemployment is soaring, and estimates of corona deaths in the U.S. are appalling. The President is currently speaking to the press almost daily about the situation. In the podcast, Tyson Barker, Deputy Director and Fellow at Aspen Institute Germany, and David Deissner, Managing Director of Atlantik-Brücke, speak with Peter Rough, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Cathryn Clüver, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, on the President's crisis management, the role of states in managing the pandemic, and more.

Dear America,

In London there is much talk of a new “spirit of the Blitz” in the face of another deadly threat to us all.

But 80 years on, that spirit is expressing itself very differently. When the Luftwaffe bombs fell, to continue with normal life was an act of patriotic defiance. Now as COVID-19 spreads, to continue with normal life is an act of punishable deviance.

How does the coronavirus change international relations? After the corona crisis, little will remain at the international level as it was before. A change in the balance of power is already becoming apparent: countries that are better able to cope with the crisis are likely to expand their influence, especially China, others will lose. And the border barriers within the EU represent a massive burden for cooperation in the EU. How can and should states react to this? Cathryn Clüver-Ashbrook, political scientist and expert for international and European relations at Harvard University, analyzes this in an interview.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns speaks to CNN's Jim Sciutto about the Iran crisis.

Washington should adjust its coercive economic strategy to reflect a broader use of tools beyond sanctions. Given the degree of political interference in China’s banking system via formal state ownership and the indirect influence of opaque party committees, penalties imposed against the country’s banks are unlikely to produce a meaningful change in behavior.

Like with the Soviet Union, America once again finds itself in a global competition with Beijing today, albeit with many more consequences for Washington’s financial statecraft.