World War Three: Are We on the Brink?

Are we close to a new world war? This once-unthinkable question is now raised by leaders, soldiers, and intelligence chiefs—from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. In his new book, FT foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman explores this urgent threat. Rachman takes his title from a saying often attributed to Trotsky: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." The message is simple: conflict does not care whether we want to think about it. It will come to our door regardless. The world is in a dangerous place. Three nuclear-armed powers—the US, China, and Russia—are led by self-serving "strongmen" who promote nationalist "Great Again" politics. Democracy is retreating worldwide. Even stable democracies like the UK, France, and Germany face possible takeover by far-right parties friendly to Putin. Meanwhile, these strongmen are deliberately weakening the rules-based international order and its institutions—the UN, the WTO, and Nato—which are now weaker than ever.