A leading historian’s guide to great-power competition, as told through America’s successes and failures in the Cold War
The United States is entering an era of great-power competition with China and Russia. Such global struggles happen in a geopolitical twilight, between the sunshine of peace and the darkness of war. In this innovative and illuminating book, Hal Brands, a leading historian and former Pentagon adviser, argues that America should look to the history of the Cold War for lessons in how to succeed in great-power rivalry today. Although the threat posed by authoritarian powers is growing, America’s muscle memory for dealing with dangerous foes has atrophied in the thirty years since the Cold War ended. In long-term competitions where the diplomatic jockeying is intense and the threat of violence is omnipresent, the United States will need all the historical insight it can get. Exploring how America won a previous twilight struggle is the starting point for determining how America can successfully prosecute another high-stakes rivalry today.
Reviews and Comments
Brands points out that the surest way to defeat an enemy is to know them well, to address your own weaknesses, and to use asymmetric advantages to weaken your rival at low cost. Although the United States made plenty of mistakes during the Cold War, enough Americans became proficient enough at these skills to force the Soviet Union to collapse. Will we do it again?
“Lessons from the Last Cold War: Review of ‘The Twilight Struggle'” | Mike Watson, The Washington Free Beacon, January 23, 2022
The Cold War isn’t a perfect analog to today’s situation. But “put simply, the Cold War is the only history of sustained competition that America has,” Brands writes. “To prevent policymakers from using that history badly, scholars must help them use it well.”
What the US should learn from Cold War history | Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Axios, January 25. 2022
