President Boren speaks with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft Monday in the Molly Shi Ballroom. They discussed challenges the U.S. is facing and possible solutions. Will Byrne/The Daily

This generation of American students is facing as great a challenge, if not greater, than that of other generations, OU President David Boren said Monday night at a dinner featuring two former national security advisers.

Gen. Brent Snowcroft served as a national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush in addition to a 29-year military career. Zbigniew Brzezinski served as national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter and is the author of several books on foreign policy, as well as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 for his role in the normalization of U.S.-China relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security of the United States.

The former advisers’ dialogue began with an opening question from Boren about the general state of the U.S. in relationship to other nations. They also discussed whether the U.S. remains the world’s sole superpower, given the rise of China and other nations.

Snowcroft offered a historical perspective.

“At the end of World War II we were economically standing alone,” Snowcroft said. “World War II actually built the American economy into a giant and it destroyed everyone else’s.”

Snowcroft said we thus stagnated and our industries were overcome in innovation and raw output, and with the end of the Cold War, the U.S. felt little need to focus upon foreign policy assuming that democracy had won, as suggested by the book “The End of History.”

“Do I think we’re in decline? No, but we have got to get our act together,” Snowcroft said. “We can no longer lead the world the way we tried. ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ or ‘Join us or get out of the way.’ We are still the only country in the world that can galvanize mankind on behalf of the great adventure.”

Brzezinski added a moral component, saying America committed some fundamental errors at the end of the Cold War.

“I think at home we became increasingly focused on self-gratification and consumption, defining the good life purely by material goods,” Brzezinski said.

Brzezinski also said America became intoxicated with its own sense of power to some degree.

“We embarked on a foreign policy around our needs and indifferent to the needs of other countries, which has had the effect of isolating us from the world and illegitimizing America’s world role,” Brzezinski said. “As a consequence, I think we’re in deep trouble and it’s no surprise that there’s so much talk now about America’s decline.”