CONFLICTED CC: Emma Ashford – The Collapse of America's Unipolar Moment
Oct 22, 2025
Emma Ashford, a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and author focusing on U.S. foreign policy, shares her insights on the shifting global landscape. She discusses the decline of America's unipolar moment, likening it to imperial overreach and asserting it stems from both psychological factors and policy decisions. Emma outlines four competing camps in U.S. foreign policy and argues for a realist approach to navigate the challenges of a multipolar world. She emphasizes the need for strategic retrenchment, especially in the Middle East, to refocus on competition in Asia.
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Glasgow To Washington Shaped Her Lens
- Emma Ashford describes her path from Glasgow to Washington as shaping her outsider perspective.
- She studied in the U.S., specialized in Russia, then moved into Washington policy work.
Surplus Power Drove Post‑Cold War Ambition
- The U.S. unipolar moment after the Cold War created a rare concentration of power that tempted policymakers to pursue transformational goals.
- Emma Ashford argues this surplus of power explains the turn to ambitious global primacy rather than mere security preservation.
Psychology Beat Bureaucracy In Choosing Primacy
- Bureaucratic incentives mattered but psychological factors dominated the choice for primacy.
- Ashford highlights temptation to use unchecked power to lock in a liberal order as the core driver.
