I have finished a very insightful and provocative history book. It is called “The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History (2026)” by Odd Arne Westad. Westad is a professor of history and global affairs at Yale University.

Westad compares current world affairs and Great Powers with the situation before 1914, when the World War I started.The more I think about current world affairs, the more I worry about a possible Coming Storm, that maybe lead to a war that is much worse than the World War I. In that sense, this book is far from a pleasant reading. But it is worth to read this historian’s warnings and his hopes.

His conclusion presents “a comprehensive case for peace through selective compromise, affective deterrence, and deep reasoning about the motives of all parties involved.”

Westad said “If there are lessons form history, now it is the time when we need to heed them, so that we do not end up in another Great Power war because of the fatal combinations of jingoism, fear, fatalism, and sheer stupidity that set off the for the major war of the twenties century.”

Yes, there are many to learn form our history.