Thomas Wright
Director - Center on the United States and Europe
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Project on International Order and Strategy
Thomas Wright is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. He is also a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He is the author of “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” which was published by Yale University Press in May 2017. His second book, "Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order," will be published by St Martin's Press in 2021. Wright also works on U.S. foreign policy, great power competition, the European Union, Brexit, and economic interdependence.
Wright has a doctorate from Georgetown University, a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge University, and a bachelor's and master's from University College Dublin. He has also held a pre-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University. He was previously executive director of studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a lecturer at the University of Chicago's Harris School for Public Policy.
Thomas Wright is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. He is also a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He is the author of “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” which was published by Yale University Press in May 2017. His second book, “Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order,” will be published by St Martin’s Press in 2021. Wright also works on U.S. foreign policy, great power competition, the European Union, Brexit, and economic interdependence.
Wright has a doctorate from Georgetown University, a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge University, and a bachelor’s and master’s from University College Dublin. He has also held a pre-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University. He was previously executive director of studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Harris School for Public Policy.
Aftershocks is both a riveting journalistic account of one of the strangest years on record and a comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s ongoing impact on the foundational institutions and ideas that have shaped the modern world. This is the first crisis in decades without a glimmer of American leadership and it shows—there has been no international cooperation on a quintessential global challenge. Every country has followed its own path — nationalizing supplies, shutting their borders, and largely ignoring the rest of the world. The international order the United States constructed seven decades ago is in tatters, and the world is adrift.
The Biden administration has a pretty good idea of what it wants from Europe, which is to go along with their China policy. They are less clear about what they type of Europe they want. Ultimately, if Biden wants a Europe that competes with China he will have to change how the US thinks about the EU, strategic autonomy, burden sharing, and trade.
The whole ‘Global Britain’ model doesn’t reflect the more protectionist, nationalistic world we’re living in ... becoming a global free trader in 2016 is a bit like turning into a communist in 1989. It’s bad timing.
The free world is ready to move on ... The autocrats are mourning one of their own [President Donald Trump].
