The Biden administration has faced a challenging term in office. The withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the energy and living cost crisis, and the Israel-Hamas war all made Biden’s time in office rather difficult. In the last few months alone, America has witnessed once-in-a-lifetime events on a weekly basis – including the attempted assassination of the former President Donald Trump, and Biden’s decision not to run for the second term following mounting pressure on him to step aside. Following the Democratic National Convention, current Vice President, Kamala Harris, has been confirmed as the Democratic candidate for America’s top job.

Now that the candidates are confirmed many are wondering whether the former could unite their voters and respective parties? What are the prospects of the candidates to win, and how will their campaigns unfold? Are we going to witness another divisive campaign which will further polarise the US? Additionally, what are the potential foreign policy implications if either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris win the election, particularly regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas?

These are only some of the questions that we plan to address during our latest online discussion. The Henry Jackson Society is pleased to host experts to delve into these critical questions and more.

Photo Credit: Tim Coburn

Molly Ball is The Wall Street Journal’s senior political correspondent, covering campaigns, the White House, Congress, political personalities and policy debates across America.

She is also a frequent television and radio commentator and the author of “Pelosi,” a bestselling biography of the first woman Speaker of the House. Prior to joining the Journal, she covered U.S. politics for Time magazine, the Atlantic, Politico and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She has worked for newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Cambodia, as well as the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has received numerous awards for her political coverage, including the Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting.

She is a graduate of Yale University, a former Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan and once won $100,000 on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Molly grew up in Idaho and Colorado and lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband and three children.

Professor Michael Cox joined the International Relations Department at LSE in 2002, where, with Odd Arne Westad, he helped set up the Cold War Studies Centre in 2004, followed in 2008 by the establishment of LSE IDEAS. He has also held senior positions at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, The Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies in Canberra, LUISS Rome, and at the Catholic University of Milan where he is currently a Visiting Professor. He has also played a major role in the wider field of IR, serving as Chair of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), and on the National Committees of both the British International Studies Association (BISA) and the Irish Committee for International Affairs.

The author, editor and co-editor of several books in the field, his more recent publications include The Post-Cold War World: Turbulence and Change Since the Fall (2018), a centennial edition of John Maynard Keynes’s, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (2019), a reissue of E.H. Carr’s original 1945 volume, Nationalism and After (2021),  and Agonies of Empire: American Power from Clinton to Biden (2022). In 2022 he also brought out  Afghanistan: Long War – Forgotten Peace with LSE Press, followed a year later with another LSE Press  volume entitled Ukraine: Russia’s War and the Future of the Global Order.  He is currently completing a volume on the Sino-Russia relationship for Polity Press, entitled Comrades?

Danielle Pletka is a distinguished senior fellow at AEI, where she focuses on the Middle East, terrorism, and US foreign policy. Until January 2020, Ms. Pletka was the senior vice president of Foreign and Defence Policy Studies at AEI. She teaches US foreign policy toward the Middle East at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and is a political analyst for NBC News. Before joining AEI, Ms. Pletka was a senior professional staff member specializing in the Middle East and South Asia for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Dr Helena Ivanov is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. She recently completed a PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research focuses on the relationship between propaganda and violence against civilians. In her thesis, Helena examined the role propaganda played during the Yugoslav Wars and produced a model for studying propaganda which details the key phases, functions, discourses, and techniques of propaganda (the model itself is applicable to other contexts). Additionally, Helena also served as a Manager at the Centre for International Studies at the LSE.

Prior to her PhD, Helena completed an MPhil in Political Theory at the University of Oxford, and holds a BA in Politics from the University of Belgrade.

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