“If we let things continue in the direction that they are taking now, I think it is more likely than not that we will end up in some kind of Great Power war within the foreseeable future.” — Arne Westad

This conversation was recorded before the invasion of Iran, which makes what you are about to hear even more chilling. In his new book, The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History, Yale historian Arne Westad warns that the structural parallels between our multipolar 2020s and the world before the First World War are too striking to ignore—and he names the Middle East as one of the flashpoints that could spark a much broader conflagration.
Arne Westad’s new book, The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History, argues that the structural parallels between our multipolar 2020s and the world before the First World War are “striking.” A dominant power withdrawing from the international system it created. Rising inequality and globalization backlash. New technologies that speed up time and shrink the window for decision-making. A rising Great Power—China—that, like Wilhelmine Germany, simply cannot stop growing. And a declining empire—Russia—that, like Austria-Hungary, has quarrels on every border and an alliance with the rising power next door.
The cast of characters, Westad warns, is also uncomfortably familiar. Trump is Joseph Chamberlain—the British conservative who turned his party against the free trade system it had championed. Putin’s Russia is Austria-Hungary: an empire in long-term decline that acted in 1914 because it believed Germany would back it up. And nuclear weapons? Before 1914, people wrote long books about how new military technologies made war unthinkable. We are taking refuge in that same bad logic today.
The difference, Westad insists, is that we know how 1914 ended. We have international institutions built to prevent it. And we still have time—but not much, he warns—to forge the kind of Great Power compromise that could pull us back from the brink. Whether we will is another question entirely. Especially given our current historical amnesia. So might Archduke Ferdinand be Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this time around? Stay tuned. It’s squeaky bum time once again in world history.

Five Takeaways
• We’re Living in a Pre-1914 Moment: Multipolar world, globalization backlash, inequality, disruptive technology. The structural parallels are “striking.”
• China Is the New Germany: A rising power that can’t stop growing, generating dissonance in an established system. It takes two to tango on compromise.
• Russia Is the New Austria-Hungary: A declining empire with border quarrels, allied to the rising power next door. Austria acted in 1914 because it believed Germany would back it up.
• Trump Is Joseph Chamberlain: The British conservative who turned his party against free trade. Chamberlain reshaped his party in ways no one foresaw—just like Trump.
• Nuclear Weapons May Not Save Us: Before 1914, people wrote books about how new weapons made war unthinkable. We are taking refuge in that same bad logic today.

About the Guest
Odd Arne Westad is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University, and author of The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History as well as The Cold War: A World History and The Global Cold War.

References
The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History by Odd Arne Westad: https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Storm-Conflict-Warnings-History/dp/1250410282
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction: The killing fields of France and Belgium
00:03:38 A multipolar world and the China-US rivalry
00:05:00 What 1914 looked like: globalization, inequality, backlash
00:07:36 Technology as vertigo: Philipp Blom and the speed of time
00:10:17 Terrorism, nihilism, and the cult of violence
00:12:25 The Edwardian gilded elite and rising inequality
00:14:04 What’s different this time: we know how 1914 ended
00:17:15 China as the new Germany, and how the Chinese see it
00:20:53 Is Trump Bismarck? Comparing leaders across eras
00:25:44 Putin as Austria-Hungary: an empire in decline
00:32:44 Where should we be looking? Taiwan, Iran, India, North Korea
00:36:11 How to avoid catastrophe 2.0
00:39:18 Can the left stop a war?