The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict

A FINANCIAL TIMES ECONOMICS BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Compulsively readable... An essential course in geopolitical self-help' - Adam Tooze

'Full of fresh - and often surprising - ideas' - Niall Ferguson

'Extraordinary... One of those rare books that defines the terms of our conversation about our times' - Michael Ignatieff


We thought connecting the world would bring lasting peace. Instead, it is driving us apart.

In the three decades since the end of the Cold War, global leaders have been working to create a connected world. They've integrated the world's economy, transport and communications, breaking down borders in the hope of making war impossible. In doing so, they unwittingly created a formidable arsenal of weapons for new kinds of warfare.

Troublingly, we are now seeing rising conflict at every level, from individuals on social media all the way up to full-blown war in eastern Europe. The past decade has seen a new antagonism between the US, Russia and China; an inability to co-operate on global issues such as climate change and pandemic response; and a breakdown in the distinction between war and peace, as the theatre of conflict expands to include sanctions, cyberwar and the pressures of large migrant flows.

A leading authority on international relations, Mark Leonard lays out the ways that globalization has broken its fundamental promise to make our world safer and more prosperous, and explores how we might wrest a more hopeful future from an age of unpeace.

1139841227
The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict

A FINANCIAL TIMES ECONOMICS BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Compulsively readable... An essential course in geopolitical self-help' - Adam Tooze

'Full of fresh - and often surprising - ideas' - Niall Ferguson

'Extraordinary... One of those rare books that defines the terms of our conversation about our times' - Michael Ignatieff


We thought connecting the world would bring lasting peace. Instead, it is driving us apart.

In the three decades since the end of the Cold War, global leaders have been working to create a connected world. They've integrated the world's economy, transport and communications, breaking down borders in the hope of making war impossible. In doing so, they unwittingly created a formidable arsenal of weapons for new kinds of warfare.

Troublingly, we are now seeing rising conflict at every level, from individuals on social media all the way up to full-blown war in eastern Europe. The past decade has seen a new antagonism between the US, Russia and China; an inability to co-operate on global issues such as climate change and pandemic response; and a breakdown in the distinction between war and peace, as the theatre of conflict expands to include sanctions, cyberwar and the pressures of large migrant flows.

A leading authority on international relations, Mark Leonard lays out the ways that globalization has broken its fundamental promise to make our world safer and more prosperous, and explores how we might wrest a more hopeful future from an age of unpeace.

14.65 In Stock
The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict

The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict

by Mark Leonard
The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict

The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict

by Mark Leonard

eBook

$14.65 

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Overview

A FINANCIAL TIMES ECONOMICS BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Compulsively readable... An essential course in geopolitical self-help' - Adam Tooze

'Full of fresh - and often surprising - ideas' - Niall Ferguson

'Extraordinary... One of those rare books that defines the terms of our conversation about our times' - Michael Ignatieff


We thought connecting the world would bring lasting peace. Instead, it is driving us apart.

In the three decades since the end of the Cold War, global leaders have been working to create a connected world. They've integrated the world's economy, transport and communications, breaking down borders in the hope of making war impossible. In doing so, they unwittingly created a formidable arsenal of weapons for new kinds of warfare.

Troublingly, we are now seeing rising conflict at every level, from individuals on social media all the way up to full-blown war in eastern Europe. The past decade has seen a new antagonism between the US, Russia and China; an inability to co-operate on global issues such as climate change and pandemic response; and a breakdown in the distinction between war and peace, as the theatre of conflict expands to include sanctions, cyberwar and the pressures of large migrant flows.

A leading authority on international relations, Mark Leonard lays out the ways that globalization has broken its fundamental promise to make our world safer and more prosperous, and explores how we might wrest a more hopeful future from an age of unpeace.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781473590434
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Limited
Publication date: 09/02/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 677 KB

About the Author

Mark Leonard is the Director and Co-Founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a council of 300 European leaders including serving and former presidents, prime ministers, economics and foreign ministers, and the author of Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (2005) and What Does China Think? (2008). He lives in London and Berlin.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Connectivity Conundrum 1

Unwar and unpeace 3

There and back again 7

Opportunity, reasons and weapons 9

Great reset 15

Part 1 The Opportunity

Chapter 1 The Great Convergence 21

Sense Time and Facebook 26

Imitation and competition 42

The connectivity-security dilemma 45

Part 2 The Reasons

Chapter 2 Connected Man: how society became divided by envy 53

Integration and segregation 56

Empathy and envy 62

Automation and the loss of control 66

Chapter 3 National Cultures of Unpeace: the politics of taking back control 73

Mobilized minorities and threatened majorities 75

Humiliation and powerlessness 77

Cultures of peace vs. cultures of unpeace 81

Chapter 4 The Geopolitics of Connectivity: why countries compete rather than work together 83

Interdependence and conflict 85

Low-cost conflict 88

The grievance factory 92

The end of order 95

Part 3 Weapons and Warriors

Chapter 5 An Anatomy of Unpeace: how globalization was turned into a weapon 99

Economic warfare 102

Infrastructure competition 109

Weaponizing the digital world 113

Weapons of mass migration 119

Lawfare 124

The ties that break 129

Chapter 6 The New Topography of Power 130

How networks unite and divide the world 133

Vie rules of networks 134

The chessboard and the web 137

The seven habits of highly effective connectivity warriors 139

Winners, losers and thinkers 141

Chapter 7 Empires of Connectivity 143

Washington: gatekeeper power 147

Beijing: relational power 150

Brussels: rule-maker 157

The fourth world 160

Conclusion: Disarming Connectivity: a manifesto 169

Therapy for the age of unpeace 171

An intervention 181

Acknowledgements 185

Endnotes 193

Index 217

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