**AN ECONOMIST AND THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022** 'Essential and definitive' - CATHERINE BELTON, author of PUTIN'S PEOPLE We are in a new era. Since the beginning of the millennium, when Vladimir Putin took power in Russia, authoritarian leaders have come to dominate global politics. Self-styled strongmen have risen to power in Moscow, Beijing, Delhi, Brasilia, Budapest, Ankara, Riyadh and Washington. How and why did this new style of strongman leadership arrive? How likely is it to lead to war or economic collapse? And what forces are in place not only to keep these strongmen in check but to reverse the trend? Everywhere they go, these leaders encourage a cult of personality. They are nationalists and social conservatives, with little tolerance for minorities, dissent or the interests of foreigners. At home, they claim to stand up for ordinary people against globalist elites; abroad, they posture as the embodiments of their nations. And they are not just operating in authoritarian political systems but have begun to emerge in the heartlands of liberal democracy. From Putin, Trump and Bolsonaro to Erdogan, Xi and Modi , The Age of the Strongman provides the first truly global treatment of the new nationalism and offers a bold new paradigm for understanding our world. 'When it comes to making sense of today's world, Gideon Rachman is in a league of his own' - Ivan Krastev, co-author of The Light that Failed

Provocative, illuminating, and based on a lifetime of research, The Lost Peace is a penetrating look at the misjudgments that caused enormous strife and suffering during a most critical period in history: from the closing months of World War II through the early years of the Cold War. The men who led the world—principally Churchill, Stalin, de Gaulle, Mao, Truman, Syngman Rhee, and Kim Il Sung—executed astonishingly unwise actions that propelled the nuclear arms race. The decisions of these great men, for better and often for worse, had profound consequences for the following decades, influencing relations and conflicts in China, Korea, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the globe. Robert Dallek’s striking reinterpretation of the postwar years, The Lost Peace is a cautionary tale that considers what might have been done differently to avoid the tumult of the mid-twentieth century and the grave difficulties that plagued strong and weak nations alike in a time of fear, mistrust, and uncertainty.

Robert Kagan, the New York Times bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, reaffirms the importance of United States’s global leadership in this timely and important book. Upon its initial publication, The World America Made became one of the most talked about political books of the year, influencing Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address and shaping the thought of both the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns. In these incisive and engaging pages, Kagan responds to those who anticipate—or even long for—a post-American world order by showing what a decline in America’s influence would truly mean for the United States and the rest of the world, as the vital institutions, economies, and ideals currently supported by American power wane or disappear. As Kagan notes, it has happened before: one need only to consider the consequences of the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I. This book is a powerful warning that America need not and dare not decline by committing preemptive superpower suicide.

American diplomacy is in shambles, but beneath the daily chaos is an erosion of the postwar order that is even more dangerous.America emerged from the catastrophe of World War II convinced that global engagement and leadership were essential to prevent another global conflict and further economic devastation. That choice was not inevitable, but its success proved monumental. It brought decades of great power peace, underpinned the rise in global prosperity, and defined what it meant to be an American in the eyes of the rest of the world for generations. It was an historic achievement.Now, America has abdicated this vital leadership role. The Empty Throne is an inside portrait of the greatest lurch in US foreign policy since the decision to retreat back into Fortress America after World War I. The whipsawing of US policy has upended all that America's postwar leadership created-strong security alliances, free and open markets, an unquestioned commitment to democracy and human rights. Impulsive, theatrical, ill-informed, backward-looking, bullying, and reckless are the qualities that the American president brings to the table, when he shows up at all. The world has had to absorb the spectacle of an America unmaking the world it made, and the consequences will be with us for years to come.--Publisher's description

"The Empire and the Five Kings is a cri de coeur that draws upon lessons from history and the eternal touchstones of human culture to reveal the stakes facing the West as America retreats from its leadership role, a process that did not begin with Donald Trump's presidency and is not likely to end with him. The crisis is one whose roots can be found as far back as antiquity and whose resolution will require the West to find a new way forward if its principles and values are to survive."--Jacket flap.

With the end of the Cold War came not the end of history, but the end of America's sense of its strategic purpose in the world. Then, after a decade of drift, the US was violently dragged back into international conflict. Its armed forces responded magnificently but its leaders' objectives were substantially flawed. We fought the wrong war—twice—for reasons that were opaque, and few American citizens understood the cause for which their sons and daughters were fighting and dying. War is a poor substitute for strategic vision, and decisions made in the heat of imminent conflict are often limited by the emotions of the moment. In Don't Wait for the Next War , Wesley K. Clark, a retired four-star general of the US army and former Democratic candidate for president, presents a compelling argument for continued American global leadership and the basis on which it can succeed—a new American strategy. America needs both new power and deeper perspective. The platform for American leadership is to use America's energy resources to spark sustainable economic growth, building new strength to deal with pressing domestic issues like the deficit as well as the longer term challenges to US security—terrorism, cyber threats, the next financial crisis, China's rising power, and climate change. Such a strategy is not only achievable but essential, and it is urgently needed. This is the true test of American leadership for the next two decades, but it must start now, so America has the power and vision to deal with the acute crises that will inevitably come—in the Mideast, Europe, or Asia.

A political strategist and pollster recounts his contributions to the agendas of five high-profile heads of state, and describes his participation in the establishment of international policies and working relationships between candidates and their constituencies.

Sun Tzu, author of 'The Art of War', believed that the acme of leadership consists in figuring out how to subdue the enemy with the least amount of fighting--a fact that America's Founders also understood, and practiced with astonishing success. For it to work, however, a people must possess both the ability and the willingness to use all available instruments of power in peace as much as in war. US foreign policy has increasingly neglected the instruments of civilian power and become overly dependent on lethal solutions to conflict. The steep rise in unconventional conflict has increased the need for diplomatic and other non-hard power tools of statecraft. The United States can no longer afford to sit on the proverbial three-legged national security stool ("military, diplomacy, development"), where one leg is a lot longer than either of the other two, almost forgetting altogether the fourth leg--information, especially strategic communication and public diplomacy. The United States isn't so much becoming militarized as DE civilianized. According to Sun Tzu, self-knowledge is as important as knowledge of one's enemy: "if you know neither yourself nor the enemy, you will succumb in every battle." Alarmingly, the United States is deficient on both counts. And though we can stand to lose a few battles, the stakes of losing the war itself in this age of nuclear proliferation are too high to contemplate.