IV. Unspoken assumptions, time lags and historical anamnesis

Abstract

The underlying structure, incentives and costs shaping international relations, state behaviour and the nature of power are profoundly different today to how they were in the past, in ways that are scarcely recognised and widely misunderstood. For much of history, world politics was marked by profound scarcity in resources, information and security. A series of historical revolutions has largely tamed this scarcity in ways few could have imagined. These revolutions, however, have generated new, potentially catastrophic challenges for the world – the problems of plenty.

In this Adelphi book, Francis J. Gavin argues that the institutions, practices, theories and policies that helped explain and largely tamed scarcity by generating massive prosperity, and which were sometimes used to justify punishing conquest, are often unsuitable for addressing the problems of plenty. Successful grand strategy in this new age of abundance requires new thinking. New conceptual lenses, innovative policies and processes, and transformed institutions will be essential for confronting and solving the problems of plenty, without undermining the expanding efforts against scarcity.

Notes

75 As Jonathan Kirshner suggests, ‘China would prove almost unimaginably hard to conquer’ and its survival does not depend upon ‘the military conquest of others’, many of whom have nuclear weapons or could develop them quickly if threatened. Nor is the survival of the ‘preternaturally secure United States’ threatened by China. Indeed, the only thing that could threaten their survival is if they went to war with each other. Jonathan Kirshner, ‘Addressing the China Challenge: Realisms Right and Wrong’, Los Angeles Review of Books, 2 October 2023, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/addressing-the-china-challenge-realisms-right-and-wrong/.

76 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Penguin Random House, 1989), p. 85.

77 ‘U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries’, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, 24 April 2023, https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison#:~:text=Defense%20spending%20accounts%20for%2012,of%20the%20annual%20federal%20budget.

78 Pavel Luzin and Alexandra Prokopenko, ‘Russia’s 2024 Budget Shows It’s Planning for a Long War in Ukraine’, 11 October 2023, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/90753.

79 Joll, ‘1914: The Unspoken Assumptions’, p. 6.

80 Jordan Schneider and Matthew Mittelsteadt, ‘The Key to Winning the Global AI Race’, Noema Magazine, 19 September 2023, https://www.noemamag.com/the-key-to-winning-the-global-ai-race/.

81 Veronica Anghel, ‘Anti-Virus Measures in European States Show the Weaknesses of Nation-States’, Medium, 23 April 2020, https://medium.com/freeman-spogli-institute-for-international-studies/anti-virus-measures-in-european-states-show-the-weaknesses-of-nation-states-101d21c0fac2.

82 Geoff Mann, ‘Treading Thin Air: Geoff Mann on Uncertainty and Climate Change’, London Review of Books, vol. 45, no. 17, 7 September 2023.