Many analysts may say the world is in a new Cold War, but it isn’t, writes Odd Arne Westad in his new book, The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict and Warnings from History. Westad, a renowned …
Articles by: "John West"
The mission of the US Central Intelligence Agency is extremely hazardous, writes Tim Weiner in his July 2025 book, The Mission: the CIA in the 21st century. Collecting intelligence runs many risks and can test …
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Iran would be more a national-security state than a theocracy, writes Vali R Nasr in his book Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History. Iran’s supreme leader does not see himself as …
The US dollar has been the world’s dominant currency for the past seven decades, having overtaken the pound sterling after World War II and Britain’s subsequent loss of most of its empire. The dollar’s dominance …
China would not be the superpower it seems, renowned historian Frank Dikotter argues in his book, China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower. The seemingly almighty Chinese Communist Party was virtually destroyed by chairman …
The Vietnam War has left deep social and political scars on the US psyche that still ache today. Pierre Asselin broadens our understanding through his recent book, Vietnam’s American War: A New History, which draws …
Whoever controls the production and processing of lithium, copper and other critical minerals could dominate the 21st century economy, much as producers of fossil fuels defined the 20th century, writes Ernest Scheyder in his book …
‘No two peoples are more alike than Americans and Chinese… masses and elites are united in the faith that theirs is a uniquely powerful nation that ought to throw its weight around if smaller countries …
We have left behind the hyperglobalisation of the 1990s, and since 2006 moved into the age of economic warfare, according to Edward Fishman in his book Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. …
Hostage diplomacy and arbitrary detention in secret prisons are among the most heinous facets of the Chinese party state’s governance. In Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom, an Australian journalist of Chinese extraction tells her …
The geopolitical rivalry between China and India poses an important threat to Asian and global security, even if it receives much less attention than that between China and the United States, argue Manjeet Pardesi, Sumit …
In the four decades before 2010, the United States maintained a policy of engagement with China, notwithstanding such fluctuations as the reaction to the Tiananmen Square massacre. China won over the US through generally reformist …