The decline of the West is something that has long been prophesied. Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard University, the inaugural Marcus Bierich Distinguished Visitor, and an American Academy trustee, argues that symptoms of decline are all around: slowing economic growth, crushing debts, aging populations, anti-social behavior. What exactly is amiss with Western civilization? The answer, Ferguson argues, is that our institutions -- the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail -- are degenerating. Representative government, the free market, the rule of law, and civil society were once the four pillars of West European and North American societies. And to arrest the degeneration of the West's once dominant civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform.

Many have asked whether there is an identifiable Obama Doctrine – a set of unifying principles in President Obama’s foreign policy -- and whether Hillary Rodham Clinton left behind a distinctive legacy as Secretary of State. Harold Hongju Koh, who just returned to Yale Law School after more than three years as Legal Adviser to the U.S. State Department, argues that the answer to both questions is yes: the Obama-Clinton Doctrine of International Law as Smart Power. In his lecture, Professor Koh reviews the major U.S. foreign policy challenges of the last four years and previews those of the next four, detailing why a smart-power strategy is both necessary and prudent to maintain U.S. foreign policy leadership based on values.