If States Are Black Boxes, Then What’s Up With Transatlantic Relations?

We typically assume that the international system is made up of states, which we say function as black boxes in pursuit of their physical security and power. In this model, foreign policy does not change, even when domestic politics and priorities evolve. Why then has the transatlantic relationship run hot and cold over the past decade? Special Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris for Europe, Eurasia, Multilateral Affairs, and Democracy, Dr. Robin S Brooks, will discuss the important and changing roles of security, values, transactionalism, and multilateralism in the United States’ relationships with our allies and partners, particularly in Central Europe and the Balkans, and how these fluctuations affect regional and global security.

Dr. Robin S. Brooks was previously the Director for Central Europe and the Balkans at the National Security Council. Her prior assignments as a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department have included Director of the Office for Multilateral Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassies in Serbia and Bulgaria, Chief of Staff to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and positions at the U.S. Embassies in Russia, Turkey, and the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Dr. Brooks holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and as the State Department’s Davis Fellow has served as adjunct faculty at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She also helped develop and teaches in a master’s program on Pathologies of the Contemporary State at Sofia University in Bulgaria.