Beschreibung

Study Group: Is America Really Back?

Conversation group with d.a.i. teacher Scott Stelle. With President Biden in the White House, are the grownups back in charge? Though America's mass vaccine rollout occurred smoothly, it's now meeting popular resistance in certain milieus and regions. If the government cannot persuade enough people to get vaccinated, in order to reach herd immunity, will mandatory vaccinations be implemented? Will there be another lockdown this winter, which would negatively impact the economy, and will these things further polarize the country? This quarter, we are going to focus on these domestic concerns as well as American foreign policy, especially, against the global backdrop of a rising China.

It seems like months since we'd heard of any news besides the pandemic. Yet, President Biden faced his first international challenge when he unilaterally pulled troops out of Afghanistan right before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, resulting in the Fall of Kabul soon after. Still, Biden stood by his decision to end the “forever wars” and blamed Afghanistan and his predecessors, thereby deflecting criticism of his mismanaging the situation. In the short term, the U.S. got out without any major problems – domestic and international – as the Taliban took over. Yet, Biden will own the long-term consequences of this policy. Although most Americans, in principle, agreed with the pullout, it has quickly become a partisan issue.

For having wanted to reaffirm multilateralism and especially the trans-Atlantic alliance, Biden's Afghanistan policy seems to have ignored the wishes of his European partners. So, for foreign leaders, one question remains: Is America really stable and will Trumpism be back in four years?

In English

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Further dates: Fr. 17.12.

Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Tübingen (d.a.i.)

Karlstrasse 3
72072 Tübingen

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