The message of CNN national security analyst Jim Sciutto’s latest book The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War is crystal clear: the world has entered a new age of Great Power competition, in some ways reminiscent of the Cold War, and in others not. This time, rather than a competition between the United States and Soviet Union coated in the veneer of rival ideologies, today’s competition is a more baldly self-interested contest for strategic influence in which the United States and its allies face off against a hostile Russia and China, revisionist powers attempting to claim their lost influence and motivated by historic grievance over the loss of territory (Ukraine and Taiwan respectively) which both states believe to be theirs by right.
It is this sense of grievance that has caused Russia and China to turn their military’s attentions to both of these states – in the case of Russia’s designs on Ukraine, becoming an all-out war. This war remains ongoing, and per Sciutto’s argument, Russia under Vladimir Putin’s leadership may very well be content, if not with absolute victory, then with the balkanization of Ukraine into NATO-aligned and Russia-aligned regions. In many ways, Russia’s war in Ukraine is a litmus test for China in evaluating what hurdles it might face in reclaiming Taiwan. This is one of Sciutto’s most insightful observations, as it reveals the stakes of the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war for other regions of the world as Great Power competition returns.
Sciutto, additionally, ensures that he does not overlook “Middle Powers” and their roles as proxies. One of the most significant examples is that of North Korea. Though The Return of Great Powers was written a few months before the recent Russia-North Korea pact, Sciutto discusses the buildup to this alliance. Russia, short of European satellite states due to NATO expansion (the most recent member being Finland, uncomfortable with Russia’s presence on its doorstep) has turned its attention to two other significant regions: Asia (both Northeast Asia and Central Asia), and the Middle East.
Within the separate context of the Middle East, Sciutto does not fail to address the manner in which the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has become a proxy war for Middle Powers such as Iran, which serves as a Russian proxy even as Iran maintains its own proxy in the form of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Sciutto, refreshingly, dispenses with the distracting and irrelevant rhetoric among the public that frames the Israel-Hamas conflict in terms of whether Israel’s government is following the Just War principle of Jus in Bello or unfairly targeting Palestinian Arab civilians, instead making clear the strategic imperative that the United States maintains in backing Israel, with the conflict serving indirectly as a battlefield for a much larger competition between the United States and Russia.
One observation worthy of remark, which sporadically weaves its way in and out of Sciutto’s book, is that in the anecdotes Sciutto shares throughout, he often runs up against distrust from groups and individuals both within the United States and within various European countries to whom he attempts to articulate his insights; in part, this is due to his background in government. However, this is even more so due to his role as a newsroom anchor for a mainstream television news station. One of the more frustrating aspects of Jim Sciutto’s book is that he fails to contextualize this atmosphere of distrust in a broader context, as it is revealing as to public attitudes toward government and media. These public attitudes, in turn, may have an adverse impact on the public’s – or its elected representatives’ – willingness to support their respective countries’ efforts against an increasingly hostile and militarily aggressive Russia and China. In a worst case scenario, these attitudes of public skepticism may be exploited by rival powers seeking to gain an advantage. Unfortunately, this concern falls outside the scope of Sciutto’s book.
Another insight Sciutto provides has to do with the structure of both the societies and the military forces of both the “West” and the new Russia-China axis. Westerners, Sciutto suggests, benefit from the strength of democracy and the variety of thought it allows to flourish; meanwhile, Russia and China face a risk of stagnation from the formalized nature of their thought. Militarily, Sciutto argues, the scenario is the reverse; The military forces of European states operating under the authority of NATO perform exercises in a rigid and formalized manner, perhaps excessively so; meanwhile, the forces of Russia are significantly more erratic and less predictable in their military exercises, thus creating a greater sense of threat. The strategic and policy implications of these dynamics should not go ignored.
The strengths of Sciutto’s book are many, including insightful direct quotes on the return of great power politics from current and former government officials such as former Homeland Security Secretary and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, CIA director Bill Burns, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and the leaders of several countries (such as Estonia) impacted by Russian aggression. It is also worthy of commendation that Sciutto, remembering his responsibility as a journalist, does not focus solely on an “elite” perspective, but also paints a picture of the experiences of civilians in Ukraine whose lives have been upended by the 2022-ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. Most importantly, Sciutto distills complex ideas rooted in the Realist school of International Relations theory into terms that are digestible and comprehensible for a non-formally-trained audience.
However, Sciutto, while addressing the issue of Taiwan in relation to China, does not devote nearly as much air time to this region as he does to European states and how they are managing the threat from Russia. Sciutto also provides several leads on intriguing lines of argument that are never picked up on, most notably the popular-elite divide in worldview, and how this divide is ripe for exploitation by revisionist Great Powers such as Russia or China seeking to run influence campaigns affecting rival states. In spite of these flaws, Sciutto’s Return of Great Powers is worth a glance for its analysis of a world that faces the revival of ambition by aggrieved, budding Great Powers seeking to restore what their leaders believe is their rightful place in the world.
