Book Review: ‘The Coming Storm’
by Mark Franke
If you want to get depressed or even a tad frightened, read “The Coming Storm: Power, Conflicts, and Warnings from History” (Henry Holt and Company 2026, 219 pages plus notes, $21 hardcover at Amazon) by Yale professor Odd Arne Westad. The book is an analysis of great power politics in the 21st century and reads like enchiridion on why wars are nearly impossible to prevent. His concluding chapter may be entitled “The Case for Peace” but I didn’t take much comfort from it.
Westad begins with a diplomatic history lesson of the years prior to 1914. Nationalism was the motivating factor for the first time in European history as the nation-state was seen as the ideal, subject only to opposition from other nation-states. Each nation tended to see its destiny as thwarted by one or more of the others. This was particularly true, but not exclusively, for Germany as it was the newest of the great powers. Russia, France, Austria-Hungary and even Japan viewed themselves as entitled to membership in this not so exclusive club. And then there was Great Britain at the top, with the largest empire and the most powerful fleet keeping its imperial trade lines open.
Westad continues with a rehearsal of America’s decline from its status as the only world superpower in 1991 to just one of many great powers today. His list of causes includes unnecessary wars, uncertain strategic priorities, and domestic social and economic decline. Meanwhile, nationalism is on the rise across the globe leaving an unsettled strategic map. The effect of the rapid advance in technology is unknown and disruptive. Inter-nation suspicion is the operative guideline. We are long past the Ronald Reagan “trust but verify” days.
So who are America’s rivals? China is the most powerful and most incentivized challenger to U.S. hegemony. Russia and India are near the top of the great power wannabes with Turkey, the European Union, Brazil and Japan chafing under a second team status.
But it is China that demands and receives priority attention from US strategic thinkers. It has come out of the turbulent Mao years (think Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward), with the Chinese Communist Party reasserting its control while allowing limited free enterprise to promote open trade and positive capital flows. Nevertheless the CCP has strengthened itself as a top-down, corporatist state with highly centralized planning.
China has its negatives too. Its era of economic hyper growth is over, it has a high level of governmental debt, its population is declining and the Communist Party is deeply suspicious of China’s flirtation with limited free enterprise. It has its internal problems with the Uyghurs and Tibet, and the external threat from India along its southern border.
Much of the book characterizes each of the current great powers in terms of their strengths and perceived threats in both geopolitical and economic terms. The potential for conflict seems to be everywhere, war being avoided only due to complacency in each capital that the others are not planning to strike first. But doubt remains…
What I found most disturbing was Westad’s assertion that today’s international environment is quite similar to that of 1914, and we all know how that turned out. He makes a compelling case, carefully constructed by comparing the major actors today with those of 1914. For example he argues that China’s situation today is effectively identical to Imperial Germany’s prior to World War I. Both nations struggled with a tension between hubris and fear, their conceit at being a world superpower tempered with a fear that they weren’t. This tension can erupt in a bad way at the worst time.
He also compares today’s Russia to 1914 Austria-Hungary, both large empires but with more powerful neighbors as putative allies. Austria-Hungary pulled Germany into war, elevating a Balkan dispute into a pan-Europe war. Will today’s Russia achieve the same end with support of its Chinese ally?
The situations are not identical even though both represent eras of great power competition. What makes our day more frightening is the speed of change in technology and the massive amount of information (and disinformation) available. This presents to Wested two problems for 21st great powers: a fear of falling behind the others and a fear of not acting fast enough when a crisis arises.
Westad suggests four points of geopolitical conflict that could trigger a great power war: China and Taiwan, China and the Koreas, China and Southeast Asia, and China and India. While China’s involvement jumps out, Westad notes that the global hot spot has moved to Asia. The Balkans are still troublesome but that region no longer has the powder keg attribute it did in 1914. East Asia does. And its potential for drawing the US into a shooting war is significant. Think of our treaty obligations with South Korea and Taiwan, and our evolving relationship with India.
The U.S.-China competitive relationship does appear to be the driving force behind much of this uncertainty. Yet one cannot ignore the other putative and real great powers, all of whom see roles for themselves. The concern here is that these nations will view any given situation as a zero-sum game, much like the Europeans of 1914 viewed things. This is a particular concern with U.S.-China interactions. An “I can’t win unless you lose” mentality closes the door on compromise, Wenstad’s essential component of successful great power diplomacy.
Westad’s description of our world today is apt: multipolar. Will China accept that? Will Russia? More importantly, will the U.S.? There are those in our nation who believe America must stay atop the world as the single great power, seeing this as the only way to preserve national security and world peace. There is also a naïve assumption that great power war is unthinkable given nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction
Westad’s writing is what I would call dense due to his rapid fire of facts in support of or in rejection of previous assertions. Even though it is a short book, it took an investment of time to follow Westad’s train of thought. It was an informative read yet troubling when one looks at the geopolitics through Westad’s lens. Between the simplistic complacency among the world powers that world war can’t happen and the increasing information overload reducing the decision cycle to real-time reaction, the prognosis is not encouraging.
Peace depends, says Dr. Westad, on the great powers’ recognizing their narrow margins for maneuver and finding new ways to adapt to this multipolar world. Let’s hope our statesmen can rise to the occasion.
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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