So

how both of you, in your book, catalogue the history of falling powers acting aggressively, including germany in the early 19 hundreds and russia in the current moment. Could you take us through some of those examples and explain why they are so instructive to the current situation? Sure.

So, maybe the canonical example here would be germany on the eve of wor one. There have often been parallels drawn between the german uk relation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the sino american relationship to day. Interestingly, though, i think the parallel that's most worrying is the fact that germany was no longer a confident rising power at the time thae world, or one started. It was a power that understood that its capabilities, at least in relative terms, had piqued and were on the verge of decline. And so germany, really, over the course of a few decades after unification in 18 70, 71, became an economic heavy weight. And in europe. It became the foremost land power on the continent and started lopinga navy that was meant to rival a britons. And particularly after otto von bismarck left the scene, after the accession of cavlhelm the second, the german foreign policy began to evolve in a more aggressive directionand what happened in response was that germany found itself an if it created, or rather, it precipitated, the creation, first of an alliance between france and russia, and then of the triple entent involving britains as well. And by the the eve of world war one, largely in part, largely as a response to germany's own behavior, its as were increasingly arming themselves in ways that were going to make germany's military advantages disappear. And so both the french and the russians had major military modernization plans under way. The germans were particularly worried about the modernization of german russian railroads, that is, that would dramatically short in the mobilization time required to bring russian troops to the front. The royal navy ad made clear that it was not going to be surpassed by the german fleet. And in fact, germany had essentially lost the naval arms race by that point. And so there emerged more and more of a now or never mentality in berlin. T the kaiser, some of the military leaders and a few of the civilian leaders around him, began to worry that germany had only a few years left in which to achieve its goals, to achieve pre eminent status within europe and perhaps carve out some of the global gains that german leaders had aspired toand so it wasn't that germany sort of intentionally and explicitly resolved to start a global war over nothing. It was that, when the july crisis started in 19 14 with the assassination of franz ferdinand, germany was willing to run some pretty extreme risks. I it was knowingly willing to run the risk of a continental war with france and russia, and was willing to invade belgium, even though that meant a significant risk of a war with great britain, in large part because german policy makers feared that to morrow would not be better, that the germany strategic situation would deteriorate, it would find itself at the mercy of its enemies. And so it's a classic example of how a country that is already strong, as germany was, but has begun to pique, can make some really rash decisions based on a fear that to morrow will be worse than to day.