New Books in World Affairs

An in-depth account of why countries' treacherous foreign policies often have harmless origins, how this predicament shapes international politics, and what to do about it.The increasing unpredictability of state behavior in recent world politics is a surprising development. The uncertainty that results intensifies conflict and stymies trust. In Volatile States in International Politics (Oxford UP, 2022), Eleonora Mattiacci offers the first account of this issue that investigates which states have been volatile and why. Leveraging statistical techniques and archival data in a probing analysis of rivals and allies since the end of World War II, she rejects attempts at dismissing volatility as reflecting mercurial leaders or intractable issues. Instead, Mattiacci explains that a state acts in a volatile manner when its clashing domestic interests leverage power to achieve their goals on the international arena. In demonstrating states' potential for volatile behaviors, she asks us to reconsider how much we really know about change and instability in international politics. When properly understood, she shows, volatile behavior can become less confusing for observers and potentially less dangerous. This book offers novel, evidence-based tools to cope with volatility in the global arena. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

“Irrationality rules” in war, Michael Mann writes in his magisterial 2023 book, On Wars (Yale UP, 2023), a history that begins with the Roman Republic and ancient China and works its way through the world wars of the 20th century and up to present times. Mann is a Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. His irrationality thesis, which posits that many wars are the product of miscalculations by over-confident rulers with little regard for their own people, offers an insightful and persuasive challenge to the Realist school on war, which stresses a rational aspect to the designs of war-making states. Then, too, Mann notes, wars can be driven by religious convictions and by a lust for revenge. Our conversation touches on the conflict in Israel-Palestine reignited by the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians in October, 2023 as well as on the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war launched by Vladimir Putin in February, 2022.Veteran journalist Paul Starobin is a former Moscow bureau chief for Business Week and a former contributing editor of The Atlantic. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications. His latest book, Putin’s Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia (Columbia Global Reports) will be published in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Patrick Weil, author of The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson (Harvard University Press, 2023). Weil discusses the beginnings of a book published in 1960 by Ambassador William C. Bullitt, who wrote on the mental health of President Woodrow Wilson with the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Delving into archival research, Weil found that Bullitt and Freud saw Wilson as a neurotic obsessed with his father, whom he both deeply loved and hated, and that the image of his father was later projected into other characters who first were his friends and later his enemies. Bullitt and Freud also found that Wilson had an unconscious bisexual desire that drove his love-hate relationships. Finally, the conversation offers some reflections on the difficulties presidential systems have in screening mentally unfit candidates for their positions and getting rid of them when they seem unable to fulfill their duties.International Horizons is a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly expertise to bear on our understanding of international issues. John Torpey, the host of the podcast and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, holds conversations with prominent scholars and figures in state-of-the-art international issues in our weekly episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

More than twenty years ago, 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan set into motion a hugely consequential shift in America’s foreign policy: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the American public. War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine (New Press, 2023), by the journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon, exposes how this happened, and what its consequences are, from military and civilian casualties to drained resources at home.From Iraq through Afghanistan and Syria and on to little-known deployments in a range of countries around the globe, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these forays remain off the radar of average Americans. Compliant journalists add to the smokescreen by providing narrow coverage of military engagements and by repeating the military’s talking points. Meanwhile, the increased use of high technology, air power, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians who die. Back at home, Solomon argues, the cloak of invisibility masks massive Pentagon budgets that receive bipartisan approval even as policy makers struggle to fund the domestic agenda.Necessary, timely, and unflinching, War Made Invisible is an eloquent moral call for counting the true costs of war.Jeff Bachman is an associate professor at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

For thousands of years, reparations have been used to secure the end of war and to alleviate its deleterious consequences. While human rights law establishes that victims have a right to reparations, reparations are not always feasible and are often difficult to deliver. In Reparations and War: Finding Balance in Repairing the Past (Oxford UP, 2023), Professor Luke Moffett used interviews with hundreds of victims, ex-combatants, government officials, and civil society actors from six post-conflict countries to examine the history, theoretical justifications, and practical challenges of implementing reparations after war. In his engaging interview with Lavinia Stan, Moffett draws on his own experience growing up in Northern Ireland to explain how reparations are related to transitional justice. Listen to him explaining what reparations can (and cannot do), how they can be politically manipulated, and how they achieve justice for the victims.Lavinia Stan is a professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Navigating through the intricate web of Middle Eastern geopolitics, few are better equipped to provide insights than Itamar Rabinovich in his compelling book, Middle Eastern Maze: Israel, The Arabs, and the Region 1948-2022 (Brookings Institution Press, 2023). In this update to his earlier work, The Lingering Conflict published by Brookings in 2012, Rabinovich delves deeper, and informs readers on the recent twists and turns of the Middle East conflict.With a storied career as both an academic historian and a diplomat — notably, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S and a peace negotiator with Syria — Rabinovich brings a unique blend of scholarly rigor and real-world experience. This allows him to place Arab-Israeli dynamics not just as a standalone issue but within the broader canvas of Middle Eastern regional and international politics.A significant highlight of the book is Rabinovich's attention to the evolving roles of regional powerhouses Iran and Turkey. However, his analysis doesn't stop there. The United States, being a global superpower with intricate ties to the Middle East, gets its due attention, especially its special relationship with Israel and the transitions in its Middle Eastern policy from the Trump era to the Biden administration.The book is timely and relevant, covering pivotal moments and shifts, such as: The groundbreaking Abraham Accords signified a fresh direction in Arab-Israeli relations. Russia’s decisive military intervention exacerbated the tumultuous Syrian civil war and its far-reaching implications. The rise and subsequent decline of the formidable Islamic State. The mounting tensions surrounding the Iranian nuclear ambitions. And lastly, Israel's own internal challenges marked by prolonged political instability. For those seeking a nuanced understanding of Middle Eastern geopolitics and the ever-evolving Arab-Israeli relationship, Middle Eastern Maze promises to be an instructive read, enriched by the author's unique vantage point at the intersection of history, diplomacy, and contemporary politics.Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at reneeg@vanleer.org.il. She's on Twitter @embracingwisdom. She blogs here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Kristin Surak, professor at the London School of Economics, about her new book, The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (Harvard University Press, 2023). The conversation starts with the contrast of Torpey’s The Invention of the Passport (Cambridge UP, 2018) and the “golden passport,” which reflects how, in the past three decades, many countries have opened avenues for the wealthy to buy passports and citizenship (aka “citizenship by investment”). Surak discusses the creation of this market and the reasons why some countries are opening these opportunities. Despite not necessarily being attractive citizenship destinations in themselves, there is a hierarchy of citizenships whereby some countries like Turkey can be a citizenship option for citizens with less attractive citizenships such as Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq. Finally, the author delves into the political economy of citizenship for small countries and how it has become a source of revenue for a number of struggling small countries.International Horizons is a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly expertise to bear on our understanding of international issues. John Torpey, the host of the podcast and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, holds conversations with prominent scholars and figures in state-of-the-art international issues in our weekly episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Proxy wars like those in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine have played major roles in military history. Historian Paul Rahe takes us back to one of the earliest yet most influential proxy wars in the West: Athens' invasions of Spartan-backed Sicily. Here, he discusses his most recent book, Sparta's Sicilian Proxy War (Encounter Books, 2023), the fifth in his series "The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta." Along the way, he explores the structure of ancient Sparta as compared with Athens and with modern America, and what lessons proxy wars in the ancient world can teach us about modern conflicts.Paul A. Rahe is the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College, and Professor of History. In addition to his series The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, his books include Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution, Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Political Theory under the English Republic, and Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville and the Modern Prospect.Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

From the 1850s until the mid-twentieth century, a period marked by global conflicts and anxiety about dwindling resources and closing opportunities after decades of expansion, the frontier became a mirror for historically and geographically specific hopes and fears. From Asia to Europe and the Americas, countries around the world engaged with new interpretations of empire and the deployment of science and technology to aid frontier development in extreme environments. Through a century of political turmoil and war, China nevertheless is the only nation to successfully navigate the twentieth century with its imperial territorial expanse largely intact.In Birth of the Geopolitical Age: Global Frontiers and the Making of Modern China (Stanford University Press, 2023), Dr. Shellen Xiao Wu demonstrates how global examples of frontier settlements refracted through China's unique history and informed the making of the modern Chinese state. Dr. Wu weaves a narrative that moves through time and space, the lives of individuals, and empires' rise and fall and rebirth, to show how the subsequent reshaping of Chinese geopolitical ambitions in the twentieth century, and the global transformation of frontiers into colonial laboratories, continues to reorder global power dynamics in East Asia and the wider world to this day.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

In March 2011, people in a coastal Japanese city stood atop a seawall watching the approach of the tsunami that would kill them. They believed—naively—that the huge concrete barrier would save them. Instead they perished, betrayed by the very thing built to protect them. Erratic weather, blistering drought, rising seas, and ecosystem collapse now affect every inch of the globe. Increasingly, we no longer look to stop climate change, choosing instead to adapt to it.Never have so many undertaken such a widespread, hurried attempt to remake the world. Predictably, our hubris has led to unintended—and sometimes disastrous—consequences. Academics call it maladaptation; in simple terms, it’s about solutions that backfire. Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature (Island Press, 2023) by Stephen Robert Miller tells us the stories behind these unintended consequences and about the fixes that can do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to the reengineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the artificial ribbon of water supporting both farms and urban centres in parched Arizona, Miller traces the histories of engineering marvels that were once deemed too smart and too big to fail. In each he takes us into the land and culture, seeking out locals and experts to better understand how complicated, grandiose schemes led instead to failure, and to find answers to the technologic holes we’ve dug ourselves into.Over the Seawall urges us to take a hard look at the fortifications we build and how they’ve fared in the past. It embraces humanity’s penchant for problem-solving, but argues that if we are to adapt successfully to climate change, we must recognize that working with nature is not surrender but the only way to assure a secure future.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs