As the U.S. enters what may well be later regarded as the Second Interwar Period, where discussion of a return to Great Power Competition has intensified, good histories need to make sense of why such wars come about and how they are fought. Furthermore, as the world wars of the Twentieth Century recede, it may make sense to treat them as episodes of a more massive conflagration, much as we tend to see The Thirty Years’ War as a whole, rather than a start-stop-start string of individual battles. Readers looking for such an offering should look elsewhere, for World at War fails to deliver.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
