Alden is the Ross Distinguished Visiting Professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, and the Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Failure to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy (2016). His first book, The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11 (2008), was a finalist for the Lukas Book Prize for narrative nonfiction.  He has directed several CFR-sponsored independent task forces, including the 2018 report The Work Ahead: Machines, Skills, and U.S. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century and the 2011 report U.S. Trade Policy. He was previously Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times and is currently a columnist for Foreign Policy.