Enlarging NATO: grave mistake or vital cause?

On Tuesday, July 28th, from 12-1 pm ET, join the Quincy Institute for a virtual panel: “Enlarging NATO: Grave Mistake or Vital Cause?” Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. presidents have put enlarging NATO at the center of their policy toward Europe. Increasingly, however, enlargement is being questioned by policymakers and analysts in the United States, Europe, and beyond. Three decades on, what were the consequences for the United States, its NATO allies, and states outside the alliance? Launching a new special issue of International Politics, the panelists will debate the costs and benefits of enlargement and ask whether and how the United States should change course going forward. The panel will feature Alexandra Chinchilla, PhD candidate at the University of Chicago; Rajan Menon, Chair in Political Science at the City College of New York; Sara Moller, Assistant Professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University; Bill Wohlforth, Professor of Government at Dartmouth College; and moderator Josh Shifrinson, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and Assistant Professor with the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.

Panelists

Sara Moller

Sara Bjerg Moller is an Assistant Professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. A former Eisenhower Fellow at the NATO Defense College and an expert on alliance politics, her work examines the evolution of NATO’s conventional force posture and military strategy. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and has a Masters in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

William Wohlforth

William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth. He is the author or editor of nine books and some 70 articles and book chapters on topics ranging from the Cold War and its end to unipolarity and contemporary U.S. grand strategy. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and has served as a consultant for the National Intelligence Council and the National Bureau of Asian Research. His most recent book, with Stephen Brooks, is America Abroad The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century (ppbk, Oxford 2018).

Alexandra Chinchilla

Alexandra Chinchilla is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Chicago. For 2020-21, she is also a USIP-Minerva Peace and Security Scholar, a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame International Security Center, and a Data Research Fellow at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST). Alexandra researches international security and political violence, with a focus on how great powers shape the militaries of non-great powers. Alexandra earned an MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago, and a BSFS from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Rajan Menon

Rajan Menon holds the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Chair in Political Science at the City College of New York/City University of New York and a Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He has also taught at Vanderbilt, Lehigh, and Columbia. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Fellow at the New America Foundation, and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is the author of several books, including The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention; The End of Alliances; Ukraine in Conflict: The Unwinding of the Cold War Order, coauthored with Eugene B. Rumer; and Soviet Power and the Third World.

Josh Shifrinson (Moderator)

Joshua R. Shifrinson is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute and Assistant Professor with the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Shifrinson’s research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, European and Asian security, alliance politics, and diplomatic history. He is the author of Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts (2018). Other work has appeared in International Security, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Quarterly, The Journal of Strategic Studies, International Politics, and other venues. Shifrinson earned his BA with Brandeis University and a PhD in political science/international relations from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.