The 2020 Sam Nunn-Bank of American Policy Forum will address the changing transatlantic landscape and the implications for managing great power relations. The forum will explore how preexisting conditions – proliferation of emerging technologies, BREXIT, migration, rising Chinese influence on the digital and tech agenda, internal political turbulence and transition, and other deep-seated trends – combine with more recent shocks presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and recent U.S. elections to challenge leadership and excite divisions across the post-Cold War transatlantic order. Amid this shifting strategic terrain, we will hone in on specific threats and opportunities for strategic stability and risk reduction. In the process, the 2020 Policy Forum will probe how key transatlantic players envision their prospects and seek to leverage instruments of statecraft accordingly. It will explore how the U.S., Russia, and Europe marshal preferred policy tools to confront painful trade-offs and advance their foreign policy objectives during this period of volatility, with an eye towards illuminating future areas of collaboration.
