Few concepts evoke the twentieth century’s record of war, genocide, repression, and extremism more powerfully than the idea of totalitarianism. Today, studies of the subject are usually confined to discussions of Europe’s collapse in World War II or to comparisons between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In Race and the Totalitarian Century, Vaughn Rasberry parts ways with both proponents and detractors of these normative conceptions in order to tell the strikingly different story of how black American writers manipulated the geopolitical rhetoric of their time.

During World War II and the Cold War, the United States government conscripted African Americans into the fight against Nazism and Stalinism. An array of black writers, however, deflected the appeals of liberalism and its antitotalitarian propaganda in the service of decolonization. Richard Wright, W. E. B. Du Bois, Shirley Graham, C. L. R. James, John A. Williams, and others remained skeptical that totalitarian servitude and democratic liberty stood in stark opposition. Their skepticism allowed them to formulate an independent perspective that reimagined the antifascist, anticommunist narrative through the lens of racial injustice, with the United States as a tyrannical force in the Third World but also as an ironic agent of Asian and African independence.

Bringing a new interpretation to events such as the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956, Rasberry’s bird’s-eye view of black culture and politics offers an alternative history of the totalitarian century.

The Russia-Ukraine war is a multifaceted beast. It ranges from fighting on the ground to high diplomacy, from domestic anti-war protests to international weapon supplies, from justification through sham referenda to coercion via economic sabotage, and from operational misdirection to covering up war crimes. There are close connections between these facets: the collapse of a front leads to the discovery of mass graves; the delivery of weapon systems depends on Zelensky’s appeal to the international community; sham referenda followed by annexation enable accusations of unwillingly mobilized soldiers who refuse to defend the motherland. The volume sheds light on the Russia-Ukraine war, exploring this multitude of facets and their interconnections. Bringing together the expertise of our colleagues at the Netherlands Defense Academy (NLDA) allows us to adopt a distinctively interdisciplinary approach, offering uniquely comprehensive and timely reflections on this armed conflict. The 27 chapters in this volume are centered around five themes. The first section covers historical and contemporary narratives, intelligence, digital technologies, and communication strategies. The second provides in-depth analyses of the operational aspects of the war, including warfighting on land, at sea, in the air, as well as in the space and cyber domains. The third section on international involvement covers topics such as sanctions, burden sharing, arms support and implications of the war on international institutions and the world order. The fourth provides analyses of the normative framework that applies to the Russia-Ukraine war. Finally, the fifth section deals with the way armed forces can transform their organizations and learn from this war, and concludes with questions on how and when the Russia-Ukriane war might end.

In the 21st century, governments around the globe are faced with the question on how to tackle new migratory mobilities. Governments increasingly become aware of irregular immigration and are forced to re-negotiate the dilemma of open but secure borders. Rethinking Authority in China’s Border Regime: Regulating the Irregular investigates the Chinese government’s response to this phenomenon. Hence, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the Chinese border regime. It explores the regulatory framework of border mobility in China by analysing laws, institutions, and discourses as part of an ethnographic border regime analysis. It argues that the Chinese state deliberately creates ‘zones of exception’ along its border. In these zones, local governments function as ‘scalar managers’ that establish cross-border relations to facilitate cross-border mobility and create local migration systems that build on their own notion of legality by issuing locally valid border documents. The book presents an empirically rich story of how border politics are implemented and theoretically contributes to debates on territoriality and sovereignty as well as to the question of how authority is exerted through border management. Empirically, the analysis builds on two case studies at the Sino-Myanmar and Sino-North Korean borders to illustrate how local practices are embedded in multiscalar mobility regulation including regional organizations such as the Greater Mekong Subregion and the Greater Tumen Initiative.

As the rest of the world worries about what a future might look like under Chinese supremacy, Edward Luttwak worries about China’s own future prospects. Applying the logic of strategy for which he is well known, Luttwak argues that the most populous nation on Earth—and its second largest economy—may be headed for a fall.

For any country whose rising strength cannot go unnoticed, the universal logic of strategy allows only military or economic growth. But China is pursuing both goals simultaneously. Its military buildup and assertive foreign policy have already stirred up resistance among its neighbors, just three of whom—India, Japan, and Vietnam—together exceed China in population and wealth. Unless China’s leaders check their own ambitions, a host of countries, which are already forming tacit military coalitions, will start to impose economic restrictions as well.

Chinese leaders will find it difficult to choose between pursuing economic prosperity and increasing China’s military strength. Such a change would be hard to explain to public opinion. Moreover, Chinese leaders would have to end their reliance on ancient strategic texts such as Sun Tzu’s Art of War. While these guides might have helped in diplomatic and military conflicts within China itself, their tactics—such as deliberately provoking crises to force negotiations—turned China’s neighbors into foes. To avoid arousing the world’s enmity further, Luttwak advises, Chinese leaders would be wise to pursue a more sustainable course of economic growth combined with increasing military and diplomatic restraint.

While we know a great deal about the benefits of regional integration, there is a knowledge gap when it comes to areas with weak, dysfunctional, or nonexistent regional fabric in political and economic life. Further, deliberate “un-regioning,” applied by actors external as well as internal to a region, has also gone unnoticed despite its increasingly sophisticated modern application by Russia in its peripheries.

This volume helps us understand what Anna Ohanyan calls “fractured regions” and their consequences for contemporary global security. Ohanyan introduces a theory of regional fracture to explain how and why regions come apart, consolidate dysfunctional ties within the region, and foster weak states. Russia Abroad specifically examines how Russia employs regional fracture as a strategy to keep states on its periphery in Eurasia and the Middle East weak and in Russia's orbit. It argues that the level of regional maturity in Russia’s vast vicinities is an important determinant of Russian foreign policy in the emergent multipolar world order.

Many of these fractured regions become global security threats because weak states are more likely to be hubs of transnational crime, havens for militants, or sites of protracted conflict. The regional fracture theory is offered as a fresh perspective about the post-American world and a way to broaden international relations scholarship on comparative regionalism.

Understanding Russia’s grand strategy can help U.S. decisionmakers assess the depth and nature of potential conflicts between Russia and the United States and avoid strategic surprise by better-anticipating Moscow’s actions and reactions. The authors of this report review Russia’s declared grand strategy, evaluate the extent to which Russian behavior is consistent with stated strategy, and outline implications for the United States.