The Return of the Great Powers

by Brendan Simms

From an acclaimed historian, a sweeping study of the past, present, and future of the Great Powers, revealing the new rules of global leadership

From the dawn of the modern era to the end of the Cold War, global history was defined by rivalries between great powers. In the West, this meant the struggle for supremacy in Europe and the Americas, while in the East, it encompassed those vying for control over the successor states to Genghis Khan’s empire. Between 1989 and the year 2000, great power rivalry temporarily gave way to globalization, with liberal democracy on the march and national chauvinism seemingly in retreat. But events of the past decade have made one thing abundantly The great powers are back.  

In The Return of the Great Powers, renowned historian Brendan Simms offers a new history of the rise, fall, and return of the Great Powers in our time. He shows that over the past ten years or so, the major global actors have already resumed making decisions based on geopolitical rather than global economic considerations. Delivering a clear-eyed reckoning with today’s most pressing geopolitical issues, from the Ukraine war to the future of American dominance, The Return of the Great Powers insists that we can only understand the future of the great powers by looking to the history that forged them.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction

480 pages, Hardcover

Published June 2, 2026

About the author

Brendan Peter Simms is Professor of the History of International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. Simms studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he was elected a scholar in history in 1986, before completing his doctoral dissertation, Anglo-Prussian relations, 1804-1806: The Napoleonic Threat, at Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Tim Blanning in 1993. A Fellow of Peterhouse, he lectures and leads seminars on international history since 1945

Reviews

[Xavier Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simms observes that there has been a return of "great power competition" (to use a term from the US 2017 National Security Strategy) in the past decade, following the post-Cold War era where it seemed like globalisation and full-scale interdependence between states was inevitable. Simms builds on prior literature such as Paul Kennedy's Rise and fall of the Great Powers, which argued that "power rested on an economic base and that powe rshifts were largely presaged by economic ones", the 'realist' John Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics which "identified military capacity, especially on land, as the key attribute", and others who point to more intangible factors like Joseph Nye's arguments for 'soft power' (ch 1). He examines and groups various countries and unions based on four criteria: Resources (whether the state has relative economic, demographic, military, raw material, etc. to sustain a Great Power position over time); Reach (is a state willing and/or able to exercise global or regional influence); Reputation (is a state perceived by itself or others as a Great Power); and Resilience (how much pain can the state's society and economy absorb over time).

Simms does not consider Japan, France, Germany, India, and the European Union great powers. For Japan, Simms acknowledges its strong economic base and resources, but notes its cultural and military restraints, its lack of desire (and that of its neighbours) for it to attain great power status, and its demographic crisis (ch 5). For France, while Macron has tried to position France as a "balancing power" among the European and global community, France has been hampered by "its propensity for domestic political turbulence" and, owing to its membership in the EU, it controls neither its border nor its currency (ch 6). For Germany, it is bogged down by its history, lacks military resources to behave as a great power, and also lacks resilience given how relatively new the Federal Republic is (ch 7). India's economy is projected by some to be the second largest in the world by 2050, but it faces internal difficulties ranging from poverty to nationalism, which makes it difficult for it to unite and achieve great power status (ch 8). The EU, while a regulatory giant, "does not possess an effective army[,] does not control its own borders[, and] does not exercise a single will in foreign affairs." (ch 9)

Simms then moves on to four countries he considers great powers: China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. China not only has military capabilities, but its technological capabilities are also growing (eg. Huawei network equipment was used to build the headquarters of the African Union, which "had been the subject of daily data breaches by PRC agents using that same equipment", or TikTok "be[ing] used to transfer data to the PRC"), and it "also enjoys considerable ideological reach across many parts of the world" via the relationships it has build with governments in the Global South. While it is unclear how stable China's domestic population is (eg. dissent and issues facing Chinese youth) or how China would react to a global event like Taiwan declaring independence, it is clear that it is presently a great power (ch 10).

Russia has military strength and has built up its soft power (eg. with cultural organisations like the Russian World Foundation and Russian House, as well as its claims to stand for Christianity and social conservatism finding support among MAGA Americans, German AfD, and the French National Rally movement). However, it today has fewer resources, less reach, and a poorer reputation compared to decades ago (due, eg., to the Ukraine war) (ch 11). The UK has a strong presence around the world, including the Indo-Pacific, Asia, and Europe, backed up by international agreements and military presence. It has nuclear weapons and a UN Security Council seat, and has also historically demonstrated resilience as a great power (ch 12). I wonder here if Simms is too optimistic about the UK, especially given the state of its post-Brexit economy and (relatedly) the instability in its leadership as seen by the number of Prime Ministers that have cycled through No. 10 in the past decade. Lastly, the USA enjoys military resources, unparalleled reach across the world, its "remarkable ability to shape the global commons" (from the UN to international institutions like the IMF to the two largest stock markets in the world, the NYSE and NASDAQ), and its control of the dollar – the principal global reserve currency (ch 13).

In the last two chapters, Simms speculates about the future of geopolitics. Simms opines that rather than a bipolar or the post-Cold War unipolar world, a multipolar order is a more probable outcome. If so, with trade being within rather than across 'orders', China may be cut off from Western markets and fall behind (ch 14). The future of Europe is largely dependent on how the Ukraine war concludes, which places its future in the hands of other actors – not just American actors, but also Asian states like whether China and North Korea will step up efforts to support Russia. The Russia issue is likely to influence European domestic politics as well (cf. "extreme right-wing governments reluctant to confront Russia or China.") South Asia, Simms opines, will be dominated by three major questions: whether India and Pakistan will go to war, whether China will attack India again, and whether India will join the Western camp. For the Indo-Pacific, the "principle 'swing region'" to watch is South-East Asia, which "contains a wealth of natural resources" and "the vital chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca" (ch 15).

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perceptive analysis of global geopolitics which really opened my eyes to trends and patterns I hadn't noticed before. Some people will not like this because it is a straightforward presentation of great power dynamics, so if you really want to be negative about the West this won't be for you. I understood China and Russia, and indeed France better after reading this book. A valuable contribution to world history in the 21st century.