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 nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Previously, he was executive director of studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and senior researcher for the Princeton Project on National Security.
Wright works on U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, Donald Trump's worldview, the future of Europe, and Asian security. His book “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” was published by Yale University Press in May 2017.
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. Wright's writings have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Orbis, Survival, The Washington Quarterly, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, and The Washington Post, as well as a number of international newspapers and media outlets.
Affiliations:
Fulbright Commission, Ireland, vice chair and board member
International Politics Reviews, Palgrave Macmillan, editorial board
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 nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Previously, he was executive director of studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and senior researcher for the Princeton Project on National Security.
Wright works on U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, Donald Trump’s worldview, the future of Europe, and Asian security. His book “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” was published by Yale University Press in May 2017.
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. Wright’s writings have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Orbis, Survival, The Washington Quarterly, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, and The Washington Post, as well as a number of international newspapers and media outlets.
Affiliations:
Fulbright Commission, Ireland, vice chair and board member
International Politics Reviews, Palgrave Macmillan, editorial board
Yale University Press
No friends, no enemies? Trans-Atlantic relations after Trump’s Europe trip
On grand strategy: A conversation with John Lewis Gaddis
Ireland in Europe and the world: A conversation with Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar
Thomas Wright on Twitter
I love that the Irish finance minister, @Paschald, is writing thoughtful reviews of books by leading international… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— Tom Wright (@thomaswright08) Saturday, August 18, 2018
Maybe they took financial loans from Russians to finance real estate ventures or maybe they were compromised on a t… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— Tom Wright (@thomaswright08) Saturday, August 18, 2018
RT @EdwardGLuce: "Trump's politics is driven by betrayal. He lives by that narrative just as he will eventually die by it. The question is…— Tom Wright (@thomaswright08) Thursday, August 16, 2018
Everyone in the administration has to really reflect over the next week or two and ask themselves if they stand a better chance of constraining President Trump from within or from without.
Since 1987, Trump’s worldview has been motivated much more by anger toward allies and partners than enemies...This is because he sees alliance security commitments and free trade as existential threats to U.S. interests. He has never really been bothered about geopolitical stability, etc. so when he looks at Russia/[the] Soviet Union, he sees a country that the U.S. has no security commitments to and no trade with...By contrast, Japan, [South] Korea, Germany, etc. all tick the threat box. Add to the mix that ... he truly couldn’t care less about a Russian threat to Europe—other [people’s] business in his view. The net effect is he genuinely thinks allies and partners are a greater problem for U.S. interests than the Russians.
[President Trump] would much prefer to be in Singapore than in Quebec. ... He gets more annoyed with allies than enemies, and really doesn’t get on with the others at the G7. He is anti-free trade and allies, and pro-strongmen and authoritarian regimes.
For the first 500 days of the Trump administration, [G7 partners of the United States] generally were bent over backwards not to criticize President Trump. … There is a feeling I think over the last few months that that approach has not borne fruit.