Statecraft

An indispensable book on strategy – brilliantly grounded in first-hand experience and telling detail. [Statecraft is] blunt about the failures and structural defects in policy [and] thoughtful, serious and compelling – Rory Stewart, bestselling author of Politics on the EdgeJack Watling has rewritten Clausewitz for the modern world, using stories and taking lessons from Ukraine to Mali to Taiwan. Anyone interested in geopolitics should read it – Anne Applebaum, bestselling author of Autocracy, Inc

Through narrative and analysis, Statecraft explores the key factors that decide success or failure in resolving conflict or chaos. Jack Watling draws on his own stories to weave a narrative that gets underneath events – from Afghanistan to Ukraine – with which we might be familiar, but through this book, can better understand.Statecraft is an astonishing book, full of stories and details, drawn from Jack Watling’s unique experience from the front line in conflict zones all over the world. Through it, we are able to evaluate what determines success and failure, and how we might better prepare for an uncertain future.

Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London. He works closely with the British, Ukrainian and American military, and advises governments on security and strategy. He was formally a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington DC and is the author of Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Century. Originally a journalist he has contributed to Reuters, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy and the Guardian, among others.