The State of U.S. Power: Perceptions Across the Globe

csis.org - by Kathleen H. Hicks, Ernest Z. Bower, Heather A. Conley, Jennifer G. Cooke, Andrew C. Kuchins, Carl Meacham, Richard M. Rossow - April 8, 2014

In December 2013, the Pew Research Center released data suggesting that Americans’ views of U.S. power and prestige abroad had reached a 40-year low. That poll came in the wake of the first releases of National Security Agency (NSA) documents by Edward Snowden and the August 2013 Syria crisis and amid heated battles in Washington over the federal budget. More recently, controversy over the adequacy of defense funding in the President’s FY2015 Budget Request and Russia’s annexation of Crimea have renewed concern about how the United States is perceived beyond its borders.

Kathleen Hicks, senior vice president, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and International Security Program director at CSIS, recently sat down with some of CSIS’s most prominent regional scholars to discuss foreign views of the United States and practical steps we can take to improve U.S. standing in the world. Joining her were Ernest Bower, senior adviser and Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies; Heather Conley, senior fellow and director, Europe Program; Jennifer Cooke, director, Africa Program; Andrew Kuchins, senior fellow and director, Russia and Eurasia Program; Carl Meacham, director, Americas Program; and Richard Rossow, senior fellow and Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies.

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