Kori Schake

Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where she leads work on national security, US foreign policy, great-power competition, and civil-military relations.

American Resilience Depends on Defending Civic Rather Than Hereditary Institutions

The American inheritance is civic rather than hereditary, and its durability depends on institutions that are defended rather than merely celebrated. Karl Rove warned that treating American identity as a matter of ancestry reverses the Declaration’s anti-aristocratic premise, while Kori Schake and Jane Harman argued that political pressure on the military and failures of constitutional restraint put democratic norms at risk. Their shared case was that American resilience is a historical record, not a guarantee.

The Aspen InstituteJul 17, 20269 min read