Foreign Policy Forum - Discussion with Dr. Michael McDonald

A 21st CENTURY MARSHALL PLAN The Marshall Plan played a catalytic role in both accelerating the recovery of post-World War II Europe and ushering in the centricity of strong alliances within the Free World for almost a century under American leadership within a more altruistic, friendly, rules-based order that raised up whole societies and their communities into a more stable, healthy and optimistic world. Today, as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, communities and societies worldwide are struggling not only to thrive but also to grapple with new strategic and potentially existential threats that cannot be solved by state-sanctioned violence and self-centered economic policies alone - as 8.1 billion humans are collectively exceeding the carrying capacities of our increasingly fragile planet. In Dr. McDonald’s view, these threats are trending into polycrises within the United States, as well as globally. If we were to implement a 21st century Marshall Plan, what would it look like and what would determine its successes and failures in our own American society and the world? How would it work in a world that is trending toward more serious armed conflicts, with an oligarchy and associated autocrats commanding and controlling emerging crypto currencies, AI, social media and a space-based political economy, and in a time of rising geopolitical tensions, militaristic adventures and even potential collapse.