HCSS is very proud to have Jack Thompson join our team as a Senior Strategic Analyst. Before joining HCSS, he was Head of the Global Security Team at the Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich and Lecturer at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, an MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a BA from the University of St. Thomas. He is author of Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, 2019).
I am thrilled to begin working at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. From a personal perspective, it is a pleasure to be living in a pleasant, vibrant city and a fascinating country. I am already beginning to feel at home here. However, on a professional level, I feel a real sense of urgency about the state of the international order – especially when it comes to the transatlantic relationship.
Much of my concern is about the United States. In most respects, Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been terrible for US-European ties. Yet there are also more fundamental problems with which both sides have barely begun to grapple. The United States needs to begin thinking about how it can develop an effective grand strategy in an era of gradual decline and growing competition with illiberal competitors. Meanwhile, Europe must begin developing a version of strategic autonomy that will balance its need for a more robust and independent role in world affairs with a continued need for a close and constructive relationship with its American partners.
At the end of the day, I am an optimist – there is far more that binds Europeans and American than divides them, both in terms of interests and values. Highlighting these commonalities, and proposing concrete policies to bolster them, will be the focus of much of my work at the HCSS. I can’t wait to get started.
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