Are Demographics Destiny? Population Shifts and their Impact on Foreign Policy, National Identity, and Competition
The United States, and the entire world, are facing major demographic changes in the coming decades that will profoundly affect American citizens. This seminar will discuss three major trends: Aging in the U.S., international migration pressures, and global population trends affecting international security. Each trend raises major policy concerns – how to be fair to different generations while still financing health care and retirement for the aging? How to preserve America’s way of life and identity in the face of a rapidly growing immigrant population? And how to maintain America’s influence, military readiness and prosperity in the face of a global shift in economic growth to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), combined with rapildy growing populations in unstable states? This Socratic roundtable will introduce the data and estimates behind these trends, discuss possible policy responses, and consider the historical experience of periods of similar demographic change.
Moderators: Clive Crook, senior editor, The Atlantic, columnist, National Journal, and commentator, the Financial Times, and Jack A. Goldstone, Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University School of Public Policy
This seminar was held over three days, October 22-24, at the Aspen Institute’s Wye River Conference Center in Queenstown, MD. The seminar was offered to Congressional staffers and a limited number of the public. Click here to learn more about Senate Socrates seminars.
