Book Talk | A. Wess Mitchell: ‘Great Power Diplomacy’

In Great Power Diplomacy, American historian and diplomat A. Wess Mitchell recounts the forgotten story of how history’s most legendary empires have used diplomacy as a tool of grand strategy to outwit, outmaneuver and outlast militarily superior opponents.

Diplomacy of this kind has become a lost art in recent years as Western elites embraced the illusion that globalization and the spread of democracy would create a borderless world where nations would live in harmony and war would be abolished from the human story.

But, as Great Power Diplomacy reveals, we will need to rediscover the secrets of skillful statecraft as the world enters an unstable new era in which continent-sized great powers compete for territory, resources, and prestige. By recalling diplomacy’s rich past, we can equip ourselves for a more dangerous future.

A. Wess Mitchell is a historian and diplomat. He served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and is the author of The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton). He is cofounder and principal at The Marathon Initiative, a think tank that focuses on U.S. diplomatic, military, and economic strategies.