- A debate about US foreign policy
In the wake of the September 11th attacks, the US launched the “war on terror”. The “Bush doctrine” was proclaimed. The “neocons” seemed to have a hold on policy-making. For some, this was an unprecedented attempt by the US to seek world dominance and reshape international relationships. Others, however, stress continuity. There is little, they suggest, that is new about the “Bush doctrine” or fundamentally different about the US response to the threats that it now faces.
Scott Lucas and Timothy Lynch have very different views. They will discuss the Bush record, consider the “war on terror”, and look ahead to the policies that may be adopted by the new administration.

The Speakers:

Scott Lucas has been on the staff of the University of Birmingham since 1989 and has been Professor of American Studies since 1997. A specialist in US and British foreign policy, he has written and edited seven books. He is the Executive Director of Libertas: The Centre for the Study of US Foreign Policy, Adjunct Professor of the Institute for North American and European Studies at the University of Tehran, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for American Studies and Research at American University Beirut. He is also the Associate Editor of the Journal of American Studies. Scott is currently completing two articles on the legacy of the Suez Crisis and a trilogy of articles on US foreign policy, political warfare, and “liberation” from the Cold War to the War on Terror. This will be followed by a breakthrough book, Empire of Liberation?: How America (and the Bush Administration) Failed to Lead the World, to be published in 2009 or 2010.

Timothy Lynch is Senior Lecturer in US Foreign Policy at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He has taught extensively at university level in the US, UK and Ireland since 1997 and is a regular commentator on British and American TV and radio. He is the author of Turf War: The Clinton Administration and Northern Ireland (Ashgate, 2004) and, with Robert Singh, After Bush: The case for continuity in American foreign policy (Cambridge University Press, 2008). A Fulbright scholar, he holds a PhD in political science from Boston College (2003). He is currently writing a history of US foreign policy after the cold war for the Cambridge Essential Histories Series and a study of US national security decision-making in the wake of infamous attack (Days of Infamy).