Natasha Kuhrt also on @natashakuhrt.bsky.social

Now you can get my book about the lost peace after the Cold War in English. The political West won the Cold War in the years between 1989 and 1991. But in the decades that followed, peace was lost. The political elites failed to understand that Russia’s imperialist ambitions remained intact - even after Putin’s speech in Munich in 2007. They failed to understand what China’s strategic project was really about - even after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. They failed to understand the Middle East - even after the Muslim Brotherhood won the election in Egypt in 2012. And they failed to understand that energy policy is geostrategy - even after two energy crises in the 1970s and repeated warnings against Europe’s growing dependence on Russia. That is why the West, and Europe in particular, has ended up in the dangerous and fragile situation we find ourselves in today. The mistakes were not made because warnings were lacking. They were made because the belief in the map was so strong that no one believed the messengers who said the map did not reflect reality at all. The book is therefore first and foremost a critique of the way political elites think and make decisions. The book was published in Danish in October 2025. It received a long series of positive reviews — first in Denmark, and later also in Norway and Sweden. In April 2026, the newspaper Jyllands-Posten nominated it for the paper’s award for the best non-fiction book of the year.

Monday morning re-up. A superpower? (No) A great power? (No) A civilisation-state? (What?) I argue Russia is best thought of as a significant "middle power" - and would be a great deal happier if it could come to terms with this

U.S. forces eliminated multiple Iranian naval vessels, March 10, including 16 minelayers near the Strait of Hormuz.