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The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty - The underlying structure, incentives and costs shaping international relations, state behaviour and the nature of power are profoundly different today to how they were in the past, in ways that are scarcely recognised and widely misunderstood. For much of history, world politics was marked by profound scarcity in resources, information and security. A series of historical revolutions has largely tamed this scarcity in ways few could have imagined. These revolutions, however, have generated new, potentially catastrophic challenges for the world – the problems of plenty.

Survival: February-March 2024 - In this issue:

• Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman highlight the pitfalls of grafting a Western manoeuvre-oriented approach to war onto the Russia–Ukraine conflict
• Irene Mia examines the chasm between Javier Milei’s dramatic rhetoric and the domestic and international obstacles he faces to changing Argentina’s foreign and economic policies
• Edoardo Campanella and John Haigh outline the necessity of meaningful dialogue between the West and China to prevent the internet’s fragmentation
• John Raine assesses the geopolitical trends that the Gaza war has set in motion and the issues they create for Ukraine’s defence against Russia
• And seven more thought-provoking pieces, as well as our regular Book Reviews and Noteworthy column.

The Military Balance 2024 - The Military Balance has been published since 1959. The 2024 edition provides an open-source assessment of the armed forces and equipment inventories of over 170 countries, with accompanying defence economics data. The 65th edition examines emerging lessons from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, details Chinese military activity around Taiwan, and identifies developments in uninhabited aerial vehicle exports. The accompanying wallchart spotlights the important issues around critical national infrastructure in the Euro-Atlantic.

Planning for Protraction: A Historically Informed Approach to Great-power War and Sino-US Competition - As Sino-US relations have deteriorated, concerns have grown in Washington over its ability to defeat China in a major conflict. A conflict between such peer competitors would likely become a protracted war of attrition drawing on all dimensions of national power, but this reality has yet to receive a sufficient degree of analytical attention.