The Eurasian Century

My first post for 2025 is a Q&A with Professor Hal Brands on his new book, The Eurasian Century. His book explores the events and people of the first Eurasian Century, and the contours of the second.

We often think of the modern era as the age of American power. In reality, we’re living in a long, violent Eurasian century. Since the early 1900s, Eurasia has been the cockpit of global rivalry. Hal Brands, The Eurasian Century

Recently, I had the opportunity to read an advance reading copy of Professor Hal Brands’ fabulous new book, The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World. Professor Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is also a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.

Professor Brands is also the author or editor of multiple books, all of which I can thoroughly recommend. He is one of the few people I know who is both prolific in their writings, but also produces extraordinarily high quality analysis and policy recommendations in all his work. Some of his more recent books include The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today (2022), and Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China (with Michael Beckley, 2022). He was the editor of the new version of Makers of Modern Strategy, The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age (2023), and editor of a 2024 book on the war in Ukraine, War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World.

Given this background, Professor Brands is very well placed to conduct an examination of the precursors to contemporary geopolitics, and offer recommendations to modern policy makers on dealing with the threats posed by the axis of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Early in his book, he writes that “Eurasia is the fulcrum of world order: A country or group of countries that dominates its vital regions would have unmatched resources, wealth and global reach. If an aggressive autocracy or alliance of autocracies became preeminent within Eurasia, it could fundamentally reshape world order and coerce its rivals around the globe”.

Throughout the book, Professor Brands explores over a century of history in which nations have struggled to dominate Eurasia - or at least large parts of it. The First and Second World Wars, and the Cold War, are all part of what Professor Brands describes as the first Eurasian century, and each of these key world events are reviewed in the book.

Professor Brands also examines the work of geographers and geopolitical theorists such as Halford Mackinder, Rudolph Kjellen, Friedrich Ratzel, Karl Haushofer, Nicholas Spykman, and Alfred Thayer Mahan. This review of the theoretical underpinnings of modern geopolitics and the importance of the Eurasian landmass is one of the highlights of the book.

It is such an interesting book, and one that has significant relevance to contemporary geopolitics. Professor Brands’ analysis provides insights that should help light the way for modern politicians in the West who appear to be struggling with the pace of change in technology, and the growing threat and alignment of techno-totalitarian powers.

To provide more insight into the book, I recently posed several questions to Professor Brands. You can read his answers below.

1. Your book explores historical theorists of geopolitics such as Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman. Why are these figures relevant to 21st century geopolitics and the strategic competition between America and China?

These guys are relevant because they provide us with the right mental map for understanding all of the great conflicts of the last century--and for the emerging conflicts of this century, as well. Mackinder and Spykman were among the great geopolitical thinkers of the early 20th century. I'm simplifying a bit here, but they basically explained why Eurasia--the supercontinent where most of the world's people, economic power, and military resources are located--would be the central shatterzone in global politics.

They outlined how aggressive powers would try to conquer Eurasia's vital regions and use them as platforms for global expansion--and how worldwide coalitions, made up of onshore and offshore nations, would try to hold them back. That's a pretty good template for understanding World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. It's a good model, also, for understanding our current situation--in which the US and its allies are facing off against an axis of Eurasian autocracies that are trying to dominate their regions and dramatically shift the global balance of power. Like it or not, we're still living in Mackinder's world.

2. You write that "the world's expansionist states are banding together, for self-protection and strategic profit." While the shared interest of China, Russia, Iran and NK in rolling back the American order might predate 2022, how much has the conflict in Ukraine provided the environment for an acceleration of authoritarian alignment and confrontation with the west?

Ukraine put the process of autocratic alignment into turbodrive. Yes, the convergence among the autocratic states runs deep: Are are ruled by illiberal regimes that feel existentially threatened in a world led by a democratic superpower. All see the United States as the primary barrier to the achievement of their neo-imperial dreams. If you're Iran, for instance, you can't rule the Persian Gulf without kicking the US out of the region.

Same goes for China in the Western Pacific. But Ukraine has been incredibly catalytic, because it has forced Vladimir Putin to seek more support from his illiberal friends--North Korean troops, Iranian arms, Chinese computer chips--as he grows more isolated from the West.

And now these relationships are paying real dividends: The bad guys are building an arsenal of autocracy that is shifting the military balance in multiple regions. So even after the Ukraine war ends, these relationships won't.

3. Late in the book, you write that "a generation ago, leading experts believed great power war was 'literally unthinkable'. Today, a return of history's horrors is all too plausible." Is the current generation of western politicians able to conceptualise the magnitude of the threat, and if so, do they have the communication and organisational skills to mobilise to deter a 21st century great power war.

Yes and no. Don't get me wrong--there were smart, serious people in the Biden administration who understood how dangerous the world is getting. I'm sure there are folks in the Trump administration who understand the same thing. But I think it still strikes many people, including many members of our political class, as absurd--even insane--to suggest that America and China could find themselves in a high-intensity shooting war. Or that a war that starts in the Western Pacific could spread into other regions around the globe.

We certainly aren't acting like we understand the danger: If we did, we wouldn't be trending toward a one-war military in a three-theater world. The success of the US-led international order since 1945 has simply made it hard for us to imagine that the horrors that haunted earlier generations could return today.

4. Your book is released just a few days before the inauguration of the 2nd Trump administration. How well do you think his administration understands the challenges you outline in your book?

I spend more time thinking and worrying about this than any other subject. I want to be fair to Trump and the people around him: I think it is very likely that this administration will pursue strong, necessary policies in a variety of areas. If Trump rolls back Iran's nuclear program and its power in the Middle East, if he hikes defense spending, if he pushes the allies--hard--to do the same, all of those things would leave the free world better positioned for the hard fights ahead.

But with Trump, there's also the possibility that he will spend his time brawling with allies over tariffs or host-nation payments, or that his administration will simply be a conflicted, disorganized mess. People who don't like Trump's policies might be tempted to root for that outcome, but that would be a mistake.

The US and its friends need Trump to be a successful foreign policy president if we are all to get through the dangerous years ahead.

*******

This is not a long book, but it is a very good one. It is an important work that should not just be on bookshelves and bedside tables of modern politicians, policy makers and strategists; it needs to be read and pondered by these folks. Beyond politicians and strategic decision-makers in the national security and business communities, this is a book that should be read by the broader citizenry of Western nations. It is a highly accessible book, and provides the background and insights that all of us require to understand the challenges our nations will face in the coming decades.

The shape of the century ahead will be influenced by the historical foundations of the first Eurasian century. Hal Brands’ book is an exemplary account of this period in world history. But more importantly, it is a superb assessment of the hard decisions that American and other western politicians will be faced with in the coming years, and how they might develop and execute the best strategies to successfully navigate the second Eurasian Century.

The Eurasian Century is published by W.W. Norton and Company and will be released on 14 January 2025.