Will US foreign and defence policy change in Central and South-Eastern Europe under Joe Biden’s presidency?

President Trump's foreign policy struck a radically different note to previous US administrations, with dramatic consequences in Central and South-East Europe. During his presidency the USA showed unprecedented warmth towards Russia, withdrew large numbers of troops from Germany and brokered an economic deal between Serbia and Kosovo, while threatening the strength and cohesion of NATO and the UN.

President-elect Joe Biden's attitudes to foreign policy and transnational organisations differs markedly to that of Donald Trump. How will his administration's security and defence priorities impact on the Central and South-East Europe region? Join us for an in-depth discussion of the security challenges and possibilities across the region presented by the USA's change of administration.

Wojciech Michnik is currently an assistant professor of International Relations and Security Studies at Jagiellonian University and contributing editor for the New Eastern Europe. He is a former Eisenhower Defense Fellow at NATO Defense College in Rome and Fulbright visiting scholar at Columbia University. In 2014 Mr. Michnik worked as a foreign and security policy analyst at the Department of Americas in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

Corina Rebegea is CEPA’s Director for Democratic Resilience, leading the center’s programming on the future of democratic governance and disinformation. Her expertise includes democracy and rule of law issues, good governance, and public sector leadership, as well as transatlantic security cooperation and Black Sea security.

Ivan Vejvoda is a Permanent Fellow and the Director of the “Europe’s futures” project at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria. He was Senior Vice President for Programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington D.C between 2010 and 2017. He joined GMF in 2003 to lead the Balkan Trust for Democracy, after serving in the Serbian government as senior advisor on foreign policy and European integration to Prime Ministers Zoran Djindjić and Zoran Živković.

Christopher Coker is Director of LSE IDEAS.

20:20 Visions: conversations on the future of democracy is a series of online discussions on current challenges to democracy faced by Central and Eastern Europe, hosted by LSE IDEAS and the Ratiu Forum.

Event hashtag: #2020Visions

LSE IDEAS is LSE's foreign policy think tank. We connect academic knowledge of diplomacy and strategy with the people who use it.