Elizabeth Buchanan

1 month ago | foreignaffairs.com | Michael Albertus |Jason Bordoff |MEGHAN L. O’SULLIVAN |Elizabeth Buchanan

Since the mid-twentieth century, the power dynamics and system of alliances that made up the postwar global order provided a strong check on campaigns to conquer and acquire territory—an otherwise enduring feature of human history. But rather than marking a definitive break from the aggression of the past, this era of relative restraint now seems to have been merely a brief deviation from the historical pattern.

1 month ago | foreignaffairs.com | Michael Albertus |Jason Bordoff |MEGHAN L. O’SULLIVAN |Elizabeth Buchanan

Since the mid-twentieth century, the power dynamics and system of alliances that made up the postwar global order provided a strong check on campaigns to conquer and acquire territory—an otherwise enduring feature of human history. But rather than marking a definitive break from the aggression of the past, this era of relative restraint now seems to have been merely a brief deviation from the historical pattern.