John West, Author at EconCurrents

Book Review: ‘Who Will Defend Europe? An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent’

By John West November 3, 2024opinionNo Comments

Despite frequent US calls to lift defence spending, most of NATO’s European members pocketed a ‘peace dividend’ in recent years by reducing their armed forces and defence industries. They imagined that war would never return to Europe and that, in any event, they could rely on the US to ensure their national security.

Both of these assumptions were illusory, as Keir Giles argues in a new book, Who Will Defend Europe? Giles is a senior fellow at Chatham House and Director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre. He has been a very active and prescient analyst of Russia, especially since the invasion of Ukraine, notably through his books Moscow Rules and Russia’s War on Everybody.

Europe, on the Brink Again

By John West October 6, 2024opinionNo Comments

“There is a dynamism about nineteenth-century Europe that far exceeds anything previously known. Europe vibrated with power as never before: with technical power, economic power, cultural power, intercontinental power.” — Norman Davis

Europe. (2024, September 24). In Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe.
Rob984, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Book Review: Autocracy, Inc by Anne Applebaum

By John West August 11, 2024opinion1 Comment

One of the most impressive aspects of the Ukraine war has been how over 40 countries, led by NATO, have rallied together to offer military, financial, and humanitarian support to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

But one of the most disturbing aspects has been how fellow autocratic regimes, notably China, Iran, and North Korea, have been providing substantial support to Russia. Without this support, Russia’s war efforts would have most likely collapsed quite some time ago. This is just one example of how modern autocracies are joining forces against their “common enemies”, the group of capitalist democracies and the rules-based world order, according to Anne Applebaum’s new book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.

From photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash.

Book Review: Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality

By John West June 23, 2024economicsNo Comments

Nobel-Prize-winning economist Sir Angus Deaton is deeply concerned about the darkening of American society and the increasing “deaths of despair,” factors that are driving populism and isolationism.

Angus Deaton, 2015, from Wikipedia, Bengt Nyman, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The China/Russia Axis

By John West June 2, 2024opinionNo Comments

While the West has greatly assisted Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, China has substantially supported Russia despite China’s professed strong attachment to the principle of national sovereignty. How can we understand the China/Russia axis? How solid is this partnership? What does the future hold?

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0

What happened to the Asian Century?

By John West May 19, 2024opinion2 Comments

The prospect of the 21st century becoming an ‘Asian Century” is fading from view. Rather than adapting to an Asian Century, the paramount challenge for the West is now learning to live with illiberal regimes and resisting illiberal forces within its own countries.

Shanghai, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.