Event Date: October 5, 2016 - 1:30pm to 3:00pm
Location: FSS 4006, 120 University Private

Presented by CIPS and Fulbright Canada

Stéfanie von Hlatky is part of the 2016 CIPS Thematic Series

American Defence Policy: Why Allies Followed Obama But Won’t Follow the Next President

Despite his stated intention of ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Barack Obama’s two terms were remarkably war intensive. Sometimes in the lead, sometimes not, the US was successful in obtaining allied support for most military engagements. This presentation explains why allies were so keen to follow Obama’s lead, by assessing threats, security environments, alliance ties, financial resources, military capabilities, ideology, as well as the skills of key political leaders up to now. The second part of the presentation further examines the contours of the Obama Doctrine and offers a comparative analysis with the stated foreign and defense policy objectives of the two Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, focusing on the importance of alliances, deterrence and nuclear weapons, as well as military engagements abroad, as points of comparison.

Stéfanie von Hlatky is an assistant professor of political studies at Queen’s University and the Director of the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy (CIDP). She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Université de Montréal in 2010, where she was also Executive Director for the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies. She’s held positions at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Dartmouth College’s Dickey Center for International Understanding, the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich and was a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the University of Southern California’s Centre for Public Diplomacy. She has published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, International Journal, European Security, Asian Security, as well as the Journal of Transatlantic Studies and has a book with Oxford University Press entitled American Allies in Times of War: The Great Asymmetry (2013). She has also published two edited volumes: The Future of US Extended Deterrence (co-edited with Andreas Wenger) with Georgetown University Press (2015) and Going to War? Trends in Military Interventions (co-edited with H. Christian Breede) with McGill-Queen’s University Press (2016). Stéfanie von Hlatky is the founder of Women in International Security-Canada and current Chair of the Board. She has received grants and awards from NATO, the Canadian Department of National Defence, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Research and Innovation and Fulbright Canada.

*Please note: Photos and/or video recordings of this event may be posted on the CIPS website, newsletter and/or social media accounts. This event is free and in English.