Despite the predictions of some of the best minds of the past five hundred years, religion remains. In fact, from the rise of Islamic extremism to American evangelism, the twenty-first century is seeing a religious renaissance.
With the expansions of NATO and the EU infringing on what Russia would consider its strategic depth— Nordic and Balkan nations— the West would be wise to expect a pushback.
From Tsar Alexander II to Putin, Russia’s leading ideology and relationship to Europe has swung between extremes. One constant, however, has remained throughout history: an overriding concern for the geopolitical.
Traditional geopolitical solutions (accommodation or military containment) are unlikely to work with Putin’s Russia. Instead the West should pursue a unified geo-economic strategy.
If Western states see a new era of great power competition taking shape, this is a conclusion Moscow reached some time ago. The Russian leadership has already been preparing for such a competition for a decade with its military history playing an important role in its preparations.
While the Islamic State’s savvy media presence may have overshadowed that of al-Qaeda over the past decade, the efforts of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operating in war-torn Yemen show the group remains a long-term threat.
France, like all countries, is haunted by events and mistakes of times past. These ghosts will guide modern policy until they are overridden and laid to rest.
There are clear pitfalls in writing the first draft of history but that doesn’t mean that historians should shy away from the challenges of doing so.
This year at Engelsberg Ideas we’ve published analysis and observations from leading thinkers and writers. Here are some of our favourite pieces.
Wine has been enriching the human experience since the beginnings of civilisation. From ancient Jordan or a wedding at Cana to 1960s Cambridge or South Africa, wine remains a constant throughout history.
As Jesuit missionaries spread further across the globe, the order’s founder wanted to ensure that its members remained connected. The result of this was an unparalleled network of knowledge which superseded religious tensions.
The US once enjoyed the esteemed position of being the ‘city on the hill’, a beacon of hope and an example to the rest of the world. Post-9/11, however, the superpower’s conduct in the Middle East has left its reputation tarnished.
Sir Halford Mackinder believed that major showdowns in international affairs of the 20th century would revolve over control of the Eurasian continent and its maritime approaches. His thesis is worth revisiting in light of the US-China rivalry today.
Germany’s drive for dominance unleashed the great black tornado of the First World War. Only a global coalition, including the US, could hold Eurasia in balance.
The Second World War showed that the difficulties of blunting Eurasian challenges early could be severe—but that the price of rolling them back later could be far worse
An authoritarian, expansionist Soviet Union represented the heartland threat Mackinder had long foreseen. But ironically, his insights birthed a strategy for containing that threat—and building the liberal international order we know today.
In many ways, Xi Jinping’s China is a state like no other. But its ambitions for global supremacy are but a new twist on a familiar problem – and are eliciting a familiar response from the rest of the world.
While Christianity may strive to sing in a single voice, no one modern denomination ought to claim a monopoly on the truth. The region’s history is in fact far more eclectic.
Humanity has come quite some way in the past 200,000 years but are we really anything more than primates with a few million more neurons than our closest relatives?
Fortresses, border walls and guard towers – today’s excessively guarded age is on a global scale far exceeding famous past efforts including that of Roman Emperor Hadrian and the Great Wall of China. Often unremarked on, these fascinating structures tell us a story of changing global power struggles and political might.
Peering into the hearts and minds those living four thousand years ago is an impossible task. However, when it comes to the worship of the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, it seems clear to be, quite literally, a labour of love and fear.
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