LAUSR

Hall Gardner’s book, Crimea, Global Rivalry, and the Vengeance of History, deserves merit for its ability to ask the most important questions today concerning the future of European security in particular and of world security in general: Will the annexation of Crimea and the subsequent civil war in South-East Ukraine inaugurate a new era in international relations? Are we witnessing a Russian revanchist return? And, most importantly, will this lead to a major power confrontation of the like of the First and Second World Wars? From this point of view, Gardner tasks the book with a challenging, if not daunting, endeavour, for which he combines historical analogical analysis with its corollary, counterfactual analysis. In bridging the two, Gardner constructs an argument that avoids a direct answer and one which shifts between historical comparison, geopolitics and snippets of international relations theory. It is here that the book could have tied its theoretical narrative threads together more tightly, for it combines notions such as ‘preclusive imperialism’, ‘strategic leveraging’ and ‘balance of power’ without careful consideration of the individual set of assumptions underpinning each individual concept. Take, for example, the theorisation of strategic leveraging where two issues arise. First, there is its definition as ‘the means in which states mediate between their conflicting domestic and international interests, given their position in a larger geostrategic and political-economic nexus’ (p. 83), and second, its use. As presented, ‘strategic leveraging’ is no different to the logic of the bipolar balancing of the Cold War since it is designed to capture the efforts to ‘press third states into close political-economic accords and military alliances’ (p. 83). As employed, the concept barely features in the analysis, other than presenting contemporary international politics as a series of games of strategic leveraging against rivals. But how does Russia get to pick its rivals? On what grounds? With what options? Why now? And, what does history tell us? The book partly answers these questions. It explains Russia’s position today as the result of post-Cold War isolation and being ignored by other great powers. It posits Russia’s recent Ukrainian adventurism as historically immanent and enforced by a strong programme of military transformation. And it clarifies ongoing debates on historical similarities and dissimilarities by showing how the situation today and the decades immediately preceding it are more similar to the plight of Germany and its collapse after the First World War. Taken together, the book’s arguments offer a walk down the historical lane in the hope of casting light on future pathways. Seen from this angle, Gardner’s book is a welcome addition to the literature which offers plenty of food for thought.