Europe

The panel considers how the US, UK and EU can contribute to a global response. It also asks what a global response to the health and economic crisis in the developing world would look like.

After 400 years of systemic discrimination against black people in America, the volcanic reaction to video of the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis has pushed America to another major inflection point in its seemingly endless struggle with race. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, both black people and allies from other racial identities, have taken to the streets to decry police brutality and systemic discrimination, and to demand change. PolicyCast Host Thoko Moyo welcomes Harvard Kennedy School Professors Khalil Muhammad and Erica Chenoweth for a discussion on the demanded change.

As the world's two largest economies, the United States and China are condemned to a relationship that must combine competition and cooperation. For the United States, exceptionalism now includes working with the Chinese to help produce global public goods, while also defending values such as human rights.

Juergen Braunstein and Sachin Silva argue that sovereign wealth funds may be central to governments' efforts to balance public responsibility with private interests in post-pandemic economies.

Grand strategy is hailed by some as a silver bullet for resolving policy drift, while others reject it as a hubristic term. The author argues that expectations of this concept need to be revised. The first half of this article addresses the study of grand strategy. The author identifies and critiques the prominent conceptual frameworks for evaluating grand strategy. He offers an alternative approach for measuring the quality of a state's grand strategy, based on the notion of proportionality. The second half is tailored towards policymakers, as the article assesses the ways in which grand-strategic thinking can be improved in government.

Stephen Walt offers what he considers to be the top five silver linings from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The recent ruling of the German Constitutional Court on the ECB was an economic and political bombshell. The deep controversy that resulted – within Germany and on a European scale – illustrates that the ambiguity surrounding the euro area’s legal order and architecture may have reached its limit.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Roy and Barbara Goodman Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, Harvard University, discussed the effect the current pandemic has on the relationship between Europe and the United States with Atlantik-Brücke-Chairman Sigmar Gabriel.

The COVID-19 recovery response from the UK government should include increased and well-targeted R&D investments to foster the energy transition and a more sustainable economy.

Former U.S. lead climate negotiator Sue Biniaz shares her thoughts on the postponement of COP26 in this interview by Professor Robert Stavins. Stavins and Biniaz explore ways to reimagine future United Nations climate negotiations, unresolved concerns from COP25, and how the United States might approach rejoining the Paris Agreement.