Wendt Scholar Nicholas Eberstadt

"Discontinuity plays a critical part in determining the risks and opportunities that national actors must face in the world arena. The magnitude of the dangers posed (or alternatively, the rewards offered) by sudden discontinuities can be very great indeed. Therefore, as a matter of statecraft, it is highly prudential to the degree feasible to prepare for the unexpected."

If we wish to consider the international policy challenges that may face the new U.S. president, we might begin by reflecting on the experience of the outgoing Bush administration.

The first year of the Bush administration saw the September 11 terrorist attacks by al Qaeda on the U.S. homeland. The final year of the Bush presidency saw a global financial panic in which governments around the world committed trillions of dollars of taxpayer-funded subsidies and public guarantees in the hope of keeping a global economic crisis from spiraling even further out of control. . . .

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Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy at AEI.