Essays Archive

A depiction of the Battle of the Sound (1658), a naval battle fought between Sweden and the Dutch Republic, by an unknown artist.

essays

The early modern battle for Baltic supremacy

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Baltic Sea witnessed a series of epic struggles between powers seeking to dominate the region's waterways and those who wished to prise the..

Peter Haldén July 17, 2026

A postage stamp printed in China in 2014 celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CHINARE).

essays

Inside China’s great game for the Arctic

The People's Republic of China has long harboured ambitions in the High North, and now seeks to extend its influence by exploiting the effects of climate change and rifts within th..

George Magnus July 15, 2026

Jean Béraud's painting 'Paris, rue du Havre', c. 1882.

essays

Belle Époque Paris and the creation of French soft power

The Paris of the Belle Époque continues to fascinate, with its burgeoning commercial culture, everyday beauty and glittering department stores.

Marie Daouda July 14, 2026

A surgeon manipulates the controls of a robot that operates on a patient.

essays

Surgery and the limits of the robotic ideal

Robot-assisted surgery is already routine practice. But the dream of a machine operating alone underestimates the practical judgement, learned over decades, that makes a surgeon a ..

Aurélien Guéroult July 13, 2026

'Surrender of Lord Cornwallis' by John Trumbull.

essays

The Bourbon trap: military prowess is not a grand strategy

The United States risks the fate of Bourbon France, whose strategic brilliance in the American War of Independence masked a contradictory grand strategy that led to ruin.

Joshua Rovner July 8, 2026

'American Progress' (1872) by John Gast, a visual allegory of the concept of 'Manifest Destiny'. Credit: Akademie

essays

Why the two Americas diverged

A combination of blood, faith, character and luck drove development in North and South America at a staggeringly different pace, resulting in today's bifurcated hemisphere.

Anthony DePalma July 3, 2026

Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) holds a religious assembly in the Ibadat Khana (House of Worship) in Fatehpur Sikri, attended by Muslim scholars and Jesuit missionaries.

essays

The worlds that Islam made

Throughout its history, Islam has been a motor of change and transformation, a protean force defined as much by its variety and adaptability to lived experience as by struggles ove..

Shiraz Maher July 1, 2026

A Punch cartoon on the blockade of the South's ports by the North during the American Civil War.

essays

Abraham Lincoln’s war on King Cotton

Secessionists in America's South were convinced that Britain's mills could not survive without their cotton. They had not reckoned with how adaptable an economy under strain can be..

Duncan Weldon June 26, 2026

Map of Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea region.

essays

The transformation of Finland’s Baltic Sea strategy

Since joining NATO, Helsinki has been forced to rethink its approach to the Baltic. A previous emphasis on economic integration has been replaced by a readiness for hybrid warfare ..

Tuomas Forsberg June 25, 2026