Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. From 2015 to 2016, he served as special assistant to the secretary of defense for strategic planning. He has consulted for a number of government agencies. At 39 years old, he has also published nine books on American foreign policy, including American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (2018), Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order (2016) and What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (2014). His latest book, co-authored with Michael Beckley, an associate professor at Tufts, is Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict With China. Brands spoke to The Wire about the new book, why he thinks that China is in decline and why that makes it a more dangerous adversary for the U.S.
Hal Bran