A Great Power War Is Coming

The implicit assumption behind a lot of recent rhetoric.

Photo by Arthur Savary on Unsplash

Avid readers of Drezner’s World may or may not be delighted to learn that as of today I will be a monthly columnist for World Politics Review. After leaving the Washington Post, I had been leery of writing a column — or, rather, the obligation of writing a column. Indeed, one of the charms of Drezner’s World has been the knowledge that I did not have to write anything on a schedule.

Still, there are advantages for writing a column — the editors are more meticulous and astringent at WPR than the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World, for example. [Hey!!—ed. You know it’s true.]

My inaugural column seems timely, given that in his second inaugural address, Trump promised that “The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.” Some of those promises are innocuous; “expands our territory” is not.

Why is Trump so obsessed with territorial expansion? Why are so many folks alike suddenly interested in securing sovereign control over territory when such control seems superfluous?

I have a very depressing answer: “Fear of a Great Power War Could Be Making One More Likely.” The link should work for everyone who wants to read it. [UPDATE: my initial link did not work but I have replaced it with this one, which should work.]

My thesis paragraph:

What is going on? There are some disturbing parallels between how great powers are behaving today and how they started behaving in the late 1930s. In both eras, the proliferation of economic sanctions and embargoes caused great powers to fear that they would be cut off from critical resources. Their reaction to that threat, in turn, helped to escalate great power conflict. The question today is whether history will repeat itself, or only rhyme.

And my conclusion:

For decades, the principal sources of great power peace have been clear: U.S. hegemony, commercial interdependence and nuclear deterrence. But really, there was a fourth pillar as well: whether elites in these countries were seriously contemplating the mechanics of a sustained great power war. For much of the post-Cold War era, that was inconceivable.

In 2025, U.S. hegemony looks wobbly, and great powers are falling all over themselves to reject interdependence unless it favors them asymmetrically. Increasingly, elites in the U.S. and China seem to be conceiving of how a war between the two countries would play out. Which means we may be about to test whether the last pillar of great power peace—the logic of mutually assured destruction—remains compelling or not.

Read the whole thing — and I do hope that my concerns wind up looking hyperbolic in a few years.