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National defense is a fundamental and unavoidable responsibility. American foreign relations include both the articulation and formulation of policy to the water’s edge and the varied—from diplomatic to military, from economic to cultural—interactions between the United States and other nation-states and non-state actors around the world. For roughly the last twenty years, U.S. foreign policy has seemed more a land of disunity than community; today’s political climate appears to confirm this impression. Is this true? This lecture will explore the multiple meanings of community in American foreign relations at home and abroad in light of first principles, national priorities, and historical examples and will consider prospects for the future in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

Part of the Benson Center’s “Community or Disunity?” Series. This lecture series invites speakers, students, faculty, and community members to reflect upon questions related to the communities that we build and the challenges that may contribute to their disintegration.

Dr. Elizabeth Edwards Spalding is Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. She is the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism and the co-author of A Brief History of the Cold War. Her scholarly and popular articles and reviews have been published widely, including in Journal of Church and State, Orbis, Providence, Law & Liberty, and H-Diplo. She has taught on subjects ranging from U.S. foreign policy, national security, and international relations to presidential leadership and religion and politics at Pepperdine University, Claremont McKenna College, George Mason University, and Catholic University of America. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Spalding holds a PhD and an MA in international politics and political theory from the University of Virginia.