The American Colossus

In this episode of GREAT POWER PODCAST, host Michael Sobolik interviews Sean Mirski about America's path to regional supremacy, how to understand China as a rising power, and the future of global stability.

Guest biography.

Sean A. Mirski is a lawyer, historian, and U.S. foreign policy scholar who has worked on national security issues across multiple U.S. presidential administrations.
A term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he currently practices national security, foreign relations, and appellate law at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, and is also a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He previously served in the U.S. Department of Defense under both Republican and Democratic administrations as Special Counsel to the General Counsel, where he earned the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Outstanding Achievement. He has written extensively on American history, international relations, law, and politics, including as author of We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus (PublicAffairs 2023), and as editor of the book Crux of Asia: China, India, and the Emerging Global Order (CEIP 2013). Earlier in his career, he clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Supreme Court and then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and served as a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30,” he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Chicago.

Resources from the conversation

Read Sean's new book, We May Dominate The World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus
Read Sean's op-ed in The Washington Post about the Monroe Doctrine
Read the transcript of the U.S.-China 2021 summit in Anchorage, AK