End of an era? US economic policy challenges: implications for America's Asia-Pacific strategy
Channel: ANU TV
Date: 06/10/2011

Throughout history economic strength has been a defining quality of great powers, underpinning their ambitions, influence, diplomatic endeavours and military strength. Do changing power relativities within the Asia-Pacific Region and the impact of ongoing financial instability herald possible strategic change? In this National Security College Public Seminar, Mr Mark Thirlwell and Dr Thomas G. Mahnken will address the economic policy challenges confronting the United States and assess their implications for its Asia-Pacific strategy.

Mr Mark Thirlwell is the Director of the International Economy program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Mark has been an economist in the Bank of England's international division; he also spent some time in the Bank's UK structural economic analysis division. He subsequently joined JP Morgan as a vice president in the economic research department. Before joining the Lowy Institute, Mark was senior economist at the Australian Export Finance and Insurance Corporation from 1999 to 2003.

Dr Thomas G. Mahnken is currently Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography and National Security at the U.S. Naval War College and a Visiting Scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr Mahnken served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning from 2006-2009. He was the primary author of the 2008 National Defense Strategy and contributing author of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review.