The Athenaeum invited Robert Kagan. For seven decades, American leadership has kept at bay the jungle of great power conflict, nationalism and tribalism, and spheres of influence. Drawing from his latest book, "The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World,” Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, will reflect on what comes next for the United States.

Robert Kagan is the Stephen & Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy in the foreign policy program at Brookings. He is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. A prolific writer, his newest book is “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World” (Knopf, 2018).  His previous book was The New York Times bestseller, “The World America Made” (Knopf, 2012).

For his writings, Politico Magazine named Kagan one of the “Politico 50” in 2016, the “thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2016.” His most recent pieces include “The Twilight of the Liberal World Order” in “Brookings Big Ideas for America” and “Backing into World War III” in Foreign Policy.

He served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.

He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and holds a doctorate in American history from American University.