Preventing WWIII: Avoiding Catastrophe during our Transition to Multipolarity

Review of "The Coming Storm" by Odd Arne Westad

Link to purchase The Coming Storm.

Cover image courtesy of The Economist.

“The world we are entering into will be a difficult place, with narrow margins for maneuver by all the Great Powers and by the countries trying to find their way among them. The only thing that is certain is that constellations of power will not remain what they were before and that new solutions will have to be found to keep coun tries secure and to prevent another world war. The task is how to manage the transition to multipolarity without creating the kind of spheres of influence for Great Powers that are based solely on might making right. On that ambition rests the future of world peace and of the generations to come.” — Arne Westad, The Coming Storm

The Silent Somme

In the swaths of tranquil land surrounding the French city of Somme, just under 100 miles north-east of Paris, are buried thousands of massacred men. A structure composed principally of local brick and Portland stone reaches skyward, presiding over the mourning of family members. The monument stands both as a reminder and a harbinger of death, its arches symbolizing the once-open, now-closed gates of a manmade inferno.

One hundred and ten years ago, during the scorching summer months of 1916, the Battle of the Somme took the lives of over a million service members from across Europe and the world; French soldiers drowned in pools of Indian, British, and Chinese blood at the direction of generals in far-off capitals. Tanks, armored vehicles monstrous in size and hideous in purpose, rolled through corpses for the first time in human history, the technological revolution that had transformed daily European life, enabling indiscriminate slaughter.

But the consequences of the Great War stretch far beyond the French countryside and past 1916. Not only did its conclusion in the Palace of Versailles produce the Second World War, but it also “destroyed,” as Arne Westad articulates, “a world where many people believed in progress and gradual advance and replaced it with a cynical and desperate world, in which nations and ideologies were natural and necessary enemies.”¹ The belief and optimism that had lifted millions out of poverty and enabled unprecedented levels of transnational communication evaporated. Nationalism and hatred festered.

The Coming Storm

In his new book, The Coming Storm, Odd Arne Westad argues that the suspicion, nationalism, and misguided military preparation of today are best understood in the context of WWI. And we are, just as the world was in 1914, on the brink of an unimaginable but preventable catastrophe.

“War in all of its forms is a terrible thing,” offers the Yale international historian, “But Great Power wars are more destructive than others because of their intensity and scale, because of the weapons used, and because of their tendency to spread.”² Despite, or perhaps precisely due to, their scale, we have largely lost sight of the devastation a conflict between great powers brings. Worldwide populist rhetoric employed by aspiring and established politicians, as well as growing misguided resentment of multinational institutions that have been a part of global conflict prevention for just under a century, is carrying us to the brink.

Westad grounds his appeal for restraint in our present reality; the hegemonic world order centered on Washington in post-Cold War diplomacy is dead. China’s meteoric rise, from a nation partly occupied by Japanese and European forces to a global superpower that has come to dominate the worldwide economy, is, of course, central to the historian’s analysis.

However, Beijing is not the only newcomer featured in Westad’s intricate analogy, and that is dismantling American hegemony. India and Russia, fellow nuclear-capable nations, also seek power. Outside of Asia, Brazil and Turkey have emerged as key regional players looking to wield greater global authority and shape their neighbors’ politics. Japan and the EU, two economic juggernauts, have likewise begun to supplement their economic influence with military strength. Despite being constitutionally barred from assembling a traditional military, Tokyo increased its defense spending by 9.7% to over 1.4% of GDP in 2025.³ As China ramps up its naval aggression, support for expanding Tokyo’s de facto military has strengthened. Japanese militarism is in no way unique. Across the world, nations are rearming and recruiting. A complex geopolitical landscape of shifting alliances and capricious strongmen has emerged in place of relative postwar stability.

Westad draws his strongest parallels between the United States and early twentieth-century Britain, at the height of its imperial strength. Like the United States today, Britain minted the world’s currency, had a large domestic market, easy access to natural resources, and favorable demographics.⁴ At the tail end of the Pax Britannica, the period of London’s hegemonic rule between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI, the Royal Navy continued to police the world’s waterways, just as the U.S. does today.

Despite what the MAGA movement may preach, “like Britain in the early twentieth century, the story of the US decline is only true in relative terms.”⁵ The United States, the center of global innovation, retains 15% of global GDP after a steep yet tolerable decline from its 40% at the conclusion of WWII. While the aging hegemon retains power, the speed of the decline in relative U.S. power has spread resentment directed towards establishment politicians.

President Trump, capitalizing on internal outrage, has beguiled Americans with his rhetoric, demonizing immigrants and China. “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country,” pronounced Trump to a crowd of supporters during the 2016 primary. China has “taken our manufacturing jobs, they’ve taken our money, they’ve taken everything.”⁶

In the final decades of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, nationalism and jingoism, touted by a growing crop of politicians and monarchs, spread throughout Europe. Slavism, binding Russia to aspiring Balkan nation-states, chief among them Serbia; destructive French nationalism, constructed in opposition to their Eastern neighbor’s success; and German nationalism, employed by Wilhelm I to found the German Empire, created natural enemies.⁷

Foreigners were portrayed as responsible for growing inequality and domestic crises, mirroring Trump’s orations. After all, “It is easier to,” make speeches blaming “foreign powers than [it is] to deal with the root causes at home.”⁸ Raw, broad-based hatred for the citizens of other superpowers made war seem logical, even inevitable, to the masses and rulers alike. Without nationalism ingrained in the average European in the early years of the 20th century, the mass mobilization necessary for war may not have occurred.

Beginning in the late 1940’s, nationalism faded as a potent political force; geopolitics became a competition to protect and expand “nonnational and nonracial ideologies that celebrated capitalism or socialism, individualism or collectivism, rather than inherent qualities of origin or ethnicity.”⁹ The struggle between democracy and autocracy, over the very nature of the relationship between government and its citizens, occupied global attention.

Nationalism remained a potent force in the Global South, where 80 new countries freed themselves from the shackles of foreign domination to enjoy self-determination. However, in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere, wars were fought, and borders were drawn, dividing families not across distinct cultural traditions but ideological differences.

Today, “forms of nationalism are back as main drivers in international affairs.”¹⁰ In China, a nation occupying a strategic position similar to Germany's in 1914, the CCP is promoting a new national identity. While the vast East Asian domain abounds in 56 distinct ethnic groups, 55 of which comprise only 110 million of the country’s 1.3 billion residents, the Party has begun to emphasize “a countrywide sense of integration, identity, and unity.”¹¹

Drawing on thousands of years of history and tradition, of trade and perseverance, Xi is promoting a new “Chineseness” formulated in opposition to America and the West, a sense of self predicated on clothing the world with an unparalleled manufacturing capacity and a shrewd foreign policy. Most Chinese take pride in their country and relish their rise; in China’s cities, the quality of life has improved immensely as a result of innovation and intelligent urban development.

Advances in electrification and a move towards renewables, in recent decades, have only enhanced well-being.¹² Even accounting for state censorship and mass surveillance, now augmented by the same wave of domestic technological innovation, support for the authoritarian regime is vigorous.

Nationalism has the adverse consequence of creating a false sense of fatalism. Conflicting national identities, built in opposition to one another, convince leaders that conflict is imminent and that they themselves must act first to ensure victory; the explosive mixture of certainty of superiority and paranoia in 1914 was largely responsible for creating an environment in which war was acceptable.

One contemporary observer said of the German generals on the eve of WWI that they “were in the best of spirits…as they had long thought that militarily the moment was more favorable than it would ever be in the foreseeable future.”¹³ Since warfare was portrayed as inevitable, the question became not if but when the bloodshed would commence, pushing commanders to make rash decisions based on perceived weaknesses in the enemy. Leaders, blinded by their own competence, risk making similarly foolish decisions today.

But where and over what? While the impetus for the Great War was the murder of the Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand, tensions had already been brewing over the French loss of Alsace-Lorraine, a historically German-speaking territory, to Germany in 1871. Taiwan, in the 21st century, holds a position similar to that of the French territory in the 20th century. Control of the island, governed by the Republic of China, is “an essential part of [the CCP’s] political identity,” and is central to the nationalism the Party has cultivated.¹⁴

According to Beijing, “Taiwan belongs to (their) China and that foreigners (the United States) are keeping it from the mainland by compulsion and the threat of war.”¹⁵ In recent years, China has been expanding the scale and quantity of its military exercises or, more accurately, its provocations. The PLA is preparing a variety of options. One possible but unlikely approach is a full invasion, with missile strikes, landings, and amphibious operations.¹⁶ While in an ideal scenario for the aggressors, Taiwan could fall within two to three weeks, the operation’s unequivocality would invite intervention by the United States and regional partners. Alternatively, Xi could quarantine the island to choke its import-dependent economy and launch cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Even in the second scenario, Taiwan would almost certainly take military action in response to China’s blockade, thereby beginning a conflict that could escalate to involve Japan or South Korea. Casualties could number in the millions on dozens of fronts.

With a policy of strategic ambiguity, the U.S. has been able to deter a Chinese attack without allowing Taiwan to formally declare independence. The policy has allowed trans-Pacific relations to remain cordial up until around 2020, but ambiguity may no longer be enough to deter Xi from initiating an assault.¹⁷ The U.S. should protect Taiwan. After a swift triumph, China would “proceed to reorder East Asia to its liking,” exerting its control over trade routes and forcing nations into lopsided agreements.¹⁸ America’s moral standing would be left “in tatters.” To ensure that TSMC's factories, where 90% of the world’s most advanced chips are manufactured, remain within the Western sphere of influence, the U.S. needs to replace ambiguity with firm assurances.¹⁹

For Xi, time is of the essence. While the territory is almost entirely comprised of ethnic Chinese, 65% now identify solely as Taiwanese, with only 3% identifying as just Chinese.²⁰ Identification with the mainland is even weaker among the younger generations. Even if the PLA successfully overcomes the island’s defenses, it may struggle to integrate Taiwan’s population into its united citizenry.

The South China Sea is not the only area where tensions could give way to global conflict. The Korean Peninsula, the India-China border, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe also feature prominently in Westad’s analysis. But what makes Taiwan unique is its significance to both the CCP’s identity and the global economy. As the race to construct the most advanced artificial intelligence model intensifies, access to the island’s expertise is critical. The CCP, eager to absorb the last holdout Chinese territory as it tightens its grip on the northern autonomous regions, may soon run out of patience.

The Case for Peace

To avoid hostilities, the U.S. and China must improve communication, both through regular state summits and private conversations between senior officials. Respect must continue to be the basis for diplomacy; rhetorical points scored with voters at home should not come at the cost of healthy international partnerships. Organizations like the UN, where nations can work collaboratively to solve global crises, will be especially valuable in a multipolar world. Stronger international regulation of nuclear stockpiles will be key to preventing catastrophic conflict. As Westad concludes, “regional conflicts long left unresolved can be the powder kegs that set off a global conflagration.”²¹ Negotiation can save humanity from another Great Power war. Let us hope it is words, not missiles, that settle our 21st-century disputes.

1. Odd Arne Westad, The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2026), 3.

2. Westad, Coming Storm, 5.

3. Lim Hui Jie, "Japan's Global Defense Business May Be on the Cusp of a Big Breakout," CNBC, May 13, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/14/japan-defense-arms-exports-weapons-south-korea.html.

4. Westad, Coming Storm, 77.

5. Westad, Coming Storm, 77.

6. Nick Gass, "Trump: 'We Can't Continue to Allow China to Rape Our Country,'" Politico, May 2, 2016, https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/trump-china-rape-america-222689.

7. Westad, Coming Storm, 91-92.

8. Westad, Coming Storm, 79.

9. Westad, Coming Storm, 98.

10. Westad, Coming Storm, 98.

11. "There Are 56 Ethnicities in China—and 55 Are Getting Squashed," The Economist, March 9, 2026, https://www.economist.com/china/2026/03/09/there-are-56-ethnicities-in-china-and-55-are-getting-squashed.

12. Zhen Li et al., "Electrification and Residential Well-Being in China," Energy 294 (2024): 130685, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2024.130685.

13. Westad, Coming Storm, 148.

14. Westad, Coming Storm, 159.

15. Westad, Coming Storm, 160.

16. Westad, Coming Storm, 164.

17. Westad, Coming Storm, 166.

18. Westad, Coming Storm, 166.

19. Lin Jones and Sarah Krulikowski, "Taiwan—The Silicon Island," Executive Briefing on Trade (Washington, DC: U.S. International Trade Commission, February 2024), https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/ebot_silicon_island_taiwan_semiconductor.pdf.

20. Westad, Coming Storm, 163.

21. Westad, Coming Storm, 219.