A Measure Short of War A Brief History of Great Power Subversion

A fast-paced, gripping history of meddling, manipulation, and skulduggery among great power rivals

In 2016, the United States was stunned by evidence of Russian meddling in the US presidential elections. But it shouldn't have been. Subversion--domestic interference to undermine or manipulate a rival--is as old as statecraft itself. The basic idea would have been familiar to Sun Tzu, Thucydides, Elizabeth I, or Bismarck. Russia's operation was just the latest episode, and there will be more to come.

It came as a surprise in 2016 because the sole superpower had fallen asleep at the wheel. But what's really new? Have we entered a new age of vulnerability? To answer these questions, and to protect ourselves against future subversion, we need a clear-eyed understanding of what it is and how it works.

In A Measure Short of War, Jill Kastner and William C. Wohlforth provide just that, taking the reader on a compelling ride through the history of subversion, exploring two thousand years of mischief and manipulation to illustrate subversion's allure, its operational possibilities, and the means for fighting back against it. With vivid examples from the ancient world, the great-power rivalries of the 19th century, epic Cold War struggles, and more, A Measure Short of War shows how prior technological revolutions opened up new avenues for subversion, and how some democracies have been fatally weakened by foreign subverters while others have artfully defended themselves--and their democratic principles.

A primer on the history of subversive statecraft in great power rivalry, A Measure Short of War will leave readers smarter about foreign meddling, more prepared to debate national responses, and better able to navigate between the twin temptations of insouciance and overreaction.

Jill Kastner is a London-based independent scholar and visiting fellow in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. She received her master's in Soviet studies and doctorate in history from Harvard University, where she was a Krupp Foundation Fellow. She has written about Cold War crises in Berlin and the Middle East and contributed to The Nation and Foreign Affairs. She most recently served as executive editor of Hope and History: A Memoir of Tumultuous Times, by Ambassador William vanden Heuvel (2019).

William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. He received his doctorate in political science from Yale University and before coming to Dartmouth taught at Georgetown University and Princeton University. He has held fellowships at the Institute of Strategic Studies at Yale, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and the Hoover Institution. His most recent books are America Abroad: The United States' Global Role in the 21st Century (Oxford, 2018), with coauthor Stephen G. Brooks, and History of International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy in the 20th Century (2020), co-edited with Anatoly V. Torkunov and Boris F. Martynov.

Foreword
Chapter 1: Subversion 101
Chapter 2: The Ancient World
Chapter 3: Early Modern Europe
Chapter 4: 19th Century
Chapter 5: 20th Century
Chapter 6: The Gathering Storm: 1989 and Beyond
Chapter 7: The Return of Great Power Subversion
Chapter 8: Explaining the Pattern
Conclusion