This Issues in National Security Lecture took place on January 28, 2025. The views presented by the faculty or other guest speakers do not reflect official positions of the Naval War College, DON or DOD.
Synopsis:
This lecture starts with the geopolitical cards dealt to the United States, Russia, and China. While the United States and its partners and allies are attempting to maintain a maritime global order to foster trade, China and Russia are great continental powers increasingly fixated on dominating territory. These differences have precipitated a Second Cold War. The second section will examine the views of those on both sides, who oversaw the end of the last Cold War, to explain how the democracies won without fighting a hot war. The final section will suggest some possible ways forward based on the geopolitical hand that the United States holds, the potential strategies that such a hand can support, and the strategies that proved most fruitful the last time around.
Speaker bio:
Sarah C.M. Paine, the College's William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy, has published Wars for Asia, 1911-1949, Japanese Empire, and with Bruce A. Elleman, Modern China: Continuity and Change 1644 to the Present and five co-edited books on naval operations. The Economist just featured her in its annual special issue, “The World Ahead 2025.”