Essays Archive

An artist's concept of a hybrid ground and space-based laser weapon destroying enemy satellites.

essays

The new struggle for space

Recent developments represent a return to the intensifying great power competition in the cosmos towards the end of the Cold War.

Aaron Bateman December 17, 2024

A caricature of the Terror during the French Revolution.

essays

The French Revolution and the making of the Counter-Enlightenment

Three exiled French thinkers shaped the Counter-Enlightenment by turning personal upheaval and revolutionary disillusionment into a powerful intellectual response that redefined co..

Gerald Warner December 12, 2024

An opposition fighter steps on a broken bust of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus, 8 December 2024.

essays

Syria’s rebels won the war – can they win the peace?

Having stormed to victory in Syria, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani now confronts the daunting task of winning the peace, as the rebel leader seeks to rebuild a shattered country and prove ..

Shiraz Maher December 9, 2024

A statue of Alexander Stephens in the US Congress.

essays

The rift that doomed the Confederacy

As vice president of the Confederate States of America, Alexander Stephens grappled with his opposition to secession and his fierce hatred of executive tyranny – especially that of..

Katherine Bayford December 6, 2024

The Siege of Sevastopol by Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager (1814-1879).

essays

Russia’s long war with the maritime powers

Economic warfare has repeatedly hindered Russia's centuries-long maritime ambitions, revealing how financial leverage, sanctions and strategic trade controls can often dismantle im..

Andrew Lambert December 3, 2024

A 16th century print dramatising the invention of book printing.

essays

How the Print Revolution created a market of ideas

The internet and social media have created a faster, broader-based market of ideas. Like our early-modern predecessors, who grappled with similar pressures in the aftermath of the ..

Eloise Davies November 28, 2024

A helicopter is pushed off the overcrowded deck of the aircarft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) off the coast of South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon.

essays

1975, the year that made the modern world

A fateful year for the international order, three crucial events took place in 1975 that define superpower competition today.

Damian Valdez November 26, 2024

Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili speaks to a crowd, days before the most recent elections.

essays

Will Georgia’s geopolitical hedging pay off?

The Georgian Dream party's retreat from democracy may eventually end up being a lose-lose strategy for the whole country.

Thomas de Waal November 21, 2024

Sean Connery as Captain Ramius in 'The Hunt for Red October', 1990.

essays

Fiction for a future war

Forty years after The Hunt for Red October redefined military fiction, the genre continues to explore the impact of technological innovation on warfare, building on a long traditio..

Mick Ryan November 19, 2024