Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony
Dr. Kori Schake

January 18, 2018

History records only one peaceful transition of hegemonic power: the passage from British to American dominance of the international order. What made that transition uniquely cooperative and nonviolent? Does it offer lessons to guide policy as the United States faces its own challengers to the order it has enforced since the 1940s? To answer these questions, Dr. Schake’s recently published book, Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony explores nine points of crisis or tension between Britain and the United States, from the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 to the establishment of the unequal “special relationship” during World War II.

Dr. Kori Schake is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She has served in various policy roles including at the White House for the National Security Council; at the Department of Defense for the Office of the Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department for the Policy Planning Staff. During the 2008 presidential election, she was Senior Policy Advisor on the McCain-Palin campaign. Together with Jim Mattis, she is editor of the book Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. Dr. Schake teaches Thinking About War at Stanford, is a contributing editor at the Atlantic, and writes for War on the Rocks and Foreign Policy. Her recent publications include: Republican Foreign Policy After Trump (Survival, Fall 2016), National Security Challenges for the Next President (Orbis, Winter 2017), Will Washington Abandon the Order? (Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2017). Her history of the Anglo-American hegemonic transition, Safe Passage, was published by Harvard University Press (2017).

The Transition from British to American Hegemony

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) sponsored this talk entitled “The Transition from British to American Hegemony” by Dr. Kori Schake on Jan. 18, 2018.

LLNL-VIDEO-746821