Book Review: The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War

Jim Sciutto, who served as chief of staff to U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke in China from 2011 to 2013, and has been a National Security Analyst and Anchor for CNN since, wrote a book that if we took the lessons seriously, gives me optimism for the future, but since Donald Trump won the election, and we’re already seeing (if having easily predicted beforehand) the fruits of his presidency, I’m not so optimistic. If anything, the regular American, and human on the planet, likely doesn’t consider how precarious everything actually is and how close we could be to a shooting war between the three Great Powers, three nuclear powers. One wrong move, one miscommunication or lack thereof, and we’re thrust into something far worse to contemplate than both global wars we thought we had learned from 80 plus years prior. Sciutto’s 2024 book, The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next Great World War is deeply reported, well-considered, and a clarion call about the precarious precipice the world hinges upon. And the American people elected an absolute moronic madman at this moment of precariousness and uncertainty. It’s dismaying and disconcerting, to say the least. Sciutto and the sources he talked to, including Williams Burns, former CIA Director, Richard Moore, Chief of the Secret Intelligent Service of the United Kingdom (MI6), John Kelly, chief of staff during Trump’s first term, and Mark Milly, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the Trump and Biden administrations, made Sciutto actually feel rather optimistic about the future of the geopolitical dynamics of the Great Powers. But that was with the rather enormous caveat of whether Trump would achieve a second term or not. He did. Alas.

The book, which I consumed as an audiobook and thought Sciutto read exceedingly well with the right level of gravitas (not surprising since he’s an anchor!), is a harrowing look at the United States, Russia, and China, as they navigate amongst and against each other across land, sea, air, near-space, outer space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence, along with the multitudinous elephants in the room: thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons. What brought the “return of great powers” into stark relief was the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Which is to say, the U.S., Russia, and China were already jockeying around all of those aforementioned potential areas of conflict prior to that moment, but a great power like Russia initiating an unprovoked land invasion of a European nation and then dangling the threat of utilizing a tactical nuclear weapon, or battlefield nuke, only crystalized that the relative global peace since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 is almost certainly over.

Indeed, the most succinct way to put it is how Sciutto did: the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked the beginning not of a new global order, but of a global disorder. Alongside Russia’s belligerence, is the U.S.’s own abdication of its “great power” role and responsibility since the end of WWII, maintained through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, the previous world order for 80 years. Trump is the figurehead of that abdication, a figure who sides more with Vladimir Putin, the aggressor, than Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, the country invaded. A figure sure to give Putin everything he wants while quite literally mining Ukraine for what it has. A figure who finds more in common with Xi Jinping and his iron fist rule in China than with our closest, longest ally, Canada. A figure who sees nothing wrong with Xi Jinping’s atrocious treatment of the Uyghurs, even as he fills up modern day concentration camps. A figure who prefers receiving admiring letters from Kim Jong Un of North Korea and turns bellicose toward Panama over the Panama Canal and Denmark over Greenland. A figure who in his first term wanted to pull out of NATO, and in his second term, will likely try again. A figure whose administration is recklessly slashing agencies like that the United States Agency for International Development, which is how the U.S. projects soft power throughout the world, including vitally, the Global South. Indeed, he’s a figure who has no understanding of these great power dynamics, how NATO and USAID slot into them, and certainly, not someone who can at all be trusted with the vast power and responsibility that comes with presiding over our nuclear arsenal. The only thing he is sure of is his own assuredness and that is most certainly misplaced.

I went on a bit there because when you really start laying it all out, and that’s only scratching the surface, it is alarming that Americans have put themselves and the world in this situation, bolstered and elected a man to do so, and for what exactly? What do we gain out of it, as a people and a country? There are legitimate conversations to be had about America’s role in the world. I, for one, have long railed against America being the world’s police. But there is a way to go about scaling that back without cozying up to the world’s dictators, lambasting those fighting for freedom like Zelenskyy, and not cutting off aid to millions of people worldwide who depend upon it. Those people will die.

However, let me back up. Despite Russia’s bellicosity in the past (Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014), it’s interesting how many people, both in governments around the world, including Ukraine, and the media, were skeptical that Russia would attack and invade Ukraine. This wasn’t a situation like U.S. intelligent services, due to political pressure, overcooking the weapons of mass destruction story in the build-up to the Iraq War in 2003. In this case, the U.S. could just look at the satellite footage of the Russian military amassing on Ukraine’s border! They also had intercepted communication to back up what they were seeing. Rhetorically, as Sciutto noted, Putin had also been making moves inside Russia to rewrite Russian history to justify the invasion of Ukraine, i.e., that Ukraine has always been Russian, so it’s not a question of “sovereignty.” Of course, to Ukrainians, it absolutely is, which is why Russia (and the world) were shocked at how well Ukrainians were able to defend against the Russian invasion, and equally as surprised at how poorly the previously feared and vaunted Russian military performed. Maybe it’s only hindsight now that makes it laughable, but Putin thought he would take Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine, in 72 hours. We’re obviously more than three years after Russia initiated the war and Russia still hasn’t taken Kiev. Even more laughable is that Putin, who ostensibly said he invaded Ukraine partly out of agitation with NATO’s expansion, thought his invasion of Ukraine would weaken NATO, dividing it in its reaction. Instead, NATO reacted in a united, strong front, including admitting Finland and Sweden into NATO, longstanding neutral countries, in April 2023 and March 2024, respectively, and just recently, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz reaffirmed Germany’s commitment to Ukraine by telling Zelenskyy, “Germany stands by your side – for as long as it takes.” If only we had a current U.S. President who believed similarly. In my humble opinion, there is no acceptable situation other than Russia pulling its forces out of Ukraine. “Giving” Russia any Ukrainian territory is unacceptable as a means of “peace.” We could have peace today the moment Russian forces leave Ukraine. But Putin won’t do that. The meat grinder goes on, and yet our leaders blame Zelenskyy.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine also heightened the potential for great power conflict because of what it could portend for Taiwan. Like with Ukraine, China wants Taiwan to be part of China. Taiwan does not want to be part of China. The U.S. maintains that it will defend Taiwan, should China attack, albeit it’s not exactly formalized in the way NATO’s Article 5 outlines it for members of NATO. This is rather intentional: the U.S.-Taiwan-China relationship is referred to as “strategic ambiguity.” Basically, it’s a deterrent so China doesn’t actually invade because they won’t know what we will do in response while also ensuring (for domestic purposes mostly) that the U.S. doesn’t overcommit. As president, however, Biden rather unambiguously ended that posture, saying the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense. All of that said, it’s worth grounding ourselves. Just as the world had been overestimating Russia’s ability to exert force and influence beyond its borders, the world has also overestimated China’s “unyielding ascent.” Their economy was never going to keep going up, and in some measures, their success has been overinflated. That said, there is also the fear that a weakened Russia and a weakened China could also be dangerous. True enough. One of the scariest possibilities (however likely is a different question) Sciutto mentioned was that China would preemptively attack U.S. forces in the South China Sea to ensure a successful invasion of Taiwan. With Trump back in office, though, one has to wonder if Xi Jinping sees Taiwan as more ripe for the taking. Taiwan, of course, isn’t hedging everything on the U.S. coming to its defense; they’re preparing, not only because of what Russia did to Ukraine, but because they can’t be certain the U.S. will come to its defense.

Sciutto’s book and reporting elucidates how a modern war is and will be fought through the lens of the Russian-Ukraine war: as a mix of 20th century and 21st century tactics. Trench warfare and an infantry, alongside drones and electronic warfare. What has been particularly important to Ukraine’s success is a mix of the shoulder-mounted anti-tank Javelin missile and the use of drones. Because of this war, Sciutto said Ukraine’s military is now bigger than Britain’s and most notably, battle-tested. Unfortunately, the reason Putin’s forces can last in this war is because they have a mass of people and Putin doesn’t care about putting them through the aforementioned meat grinder. There’s no political cost to doing so for an authoritarian country.

While I’m always going to look at a John Kelly with skepticism — he did ultimately believe in the Trump agenda by and large, after all (and I also found him silly to say the biggest threat in the world is not all this, but … opioid trafficking) — he did make a good point to Sciutto that when we talk about America’s role in the world, we too often look to the military as the solution rather than utilizing the State Department and/or the U.S. Treasury. The military cannot always be the solution. One of the better things the U.S. did from a communications standpoint was stave off any potential use of a battlefield nuke by Russia when Russia started insinuating its use in 2022. We (the U.S. and NATO) could not allow even a tactical nuke (made scarier by the fact that unlike a city-destroying nuclear weapon, a tactical nuclear weapon is easier to conceal and move about) to be utilized without a response. Before it got to that point, though, the U.S. used a pressure campaign, which resulted in China and India, two countries closer and supportive of Putin and Russia, to forcefully denounce any such use. Russia then backed off.

Nuclear weapons are what threads the conflicts of the previous century and this century together. However war is happening, whether it’s bringing back trench warfare and an infantry, or going into near-space and using uncrewed drones, cyberspace and artificial intelligence, the throughline is that nuclear weapons are still in the conversation. The U.S. has a little more than 5,000 nuclear weapons; Russia has nearly 6,000; and China has about 500, with a goal of having 1,500 by 2035. What Russia’s invasion did, and the reigniting of great power conflict, is not only likely ensure a new nuclear arms race — China’s goal by definition is that — but it also means the “middle power” countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and so on also start looking at the nuclear option. Whether you’re talking about maintaining a country’s stockpile, expanding it, or developing it, the situation for the world is always going to be one of danger, if the great powers make one wrong mistake. That’s all it takes to have a “momentous” (to paraphrase Sciutto) and calamitous entry into a new global war. No thank you, please. Sciutto, from talking to his sources, said the way to avoid such mistakes, echoing President Kennedy’s own lessons he took from WWI and WWII during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to avert that nuclear catastrophe, is to ensure open lines of communication and respecting “red lines.” All it takes is one miscommunication, or lack thereof, to go down a road nobody in the world wants.

From a variety of standpoints — militarily, historically, politically, and certainly, thinking about the present moment and the immediate future — Sciutto’s book was endlessly fascinating and frightening. Again, if we hadn’t elected Trump to a second term, I would feel as optimistic as Sciutto and his sources did, save the potential “Trump wild card.” Instead, since we have now played that card, I’m absolutely erring more on the side of highly concerned about this new global disorder stewarded by the ultimate chaos agent. Because in reality, even if the Democrats regain power four years from now, it doesn’t matter for the rest of the world: they can’t keep doing this back-and-forth game amidst the great power conflict. Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Taiwan, the Balkans, and certainly, I believe, Ukraine, among others, must secure their own futures without the U.S.’s guaranteed steady leadership.