To mark the official launch of the new book U.S. Strategy in the Asian Century by Asia Program director Abraham M. Denmark, the Wilson Center hosted a series of discussions on the book’s main findings and arguments with some leading scholars and former officials. They discussed the nature of U.S.-China competition, the role that allies and partners can have in U.S. strategies to compete with China and reform the liberal international order, and implications of these dynamics for U.S. military posture and nuclear deterrence.

• Robert S. Litwak is senior vice president and director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Litwak is also a consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He served on the National Security Council staff as director for nonproliferation in the first Clinton administration. He was an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Oxford University. Dr. Litwak is author of Rogue States and U.S Foreign Policy, Outlier States, and most recently, Preventing North Korea’s Nuclear Breakout, Iran’s Nuclear Chess, and Deterring Nuclear Terrorism. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
• Kelly Magsamen, Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, she served as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs and performed the duties of assistant secretary of defense. Prior to her tenure at the Pentagon, Magsamen served on the National Security Council (NSC) staff for two presidents and four national security advisers. As special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning from 2012 to 2014, she was responsible for long-term planning and helped craft the 2015 U.S. National Security Strategy. From 2011 to 2012, she served as senior adviser for Middle East reform during the height of the Arab Spring. As NSC director for Iran from 2008 to 2011, she was responsible for coordinating U.S. policy on Iran.
• Ashley J. Tellis holds the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. While on assignment to the U.S. Department of State as senior adviser to the undersecretary of State for political affairs, he was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India. Previously he was commissioned into the Foreign Service and served as senior adviser to the ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. He also served on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to President George W. Bush and senior director for strategic planning and Southwest Asia. Prior to his government service, Tellis was senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and professor of policy analysis at the RAND Graduate School.

The book is available for pre-order on Amazon and Columbia University Press.

Follow Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia Program, on Twitter @AbeDenmark.