WTH Should I Read This Summer? "Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries" by Zack Cooper

Kicking off our annual What the Hell’s summer book series, Zach
Cooper discusses his new book, Tides of Fortune: The Rise and
Decline of Great Militaries (Yale University Press, 2025). How
will the United States and China evolve militarily in the years
ahead? Many experts believe the answer to this question is
largely unknowable. But in his book, Zack Cooper argues that the
American and Chinese militaries are following a well-trodden
path. For centuries, the world’s most powerful militaries have
adhered to a remarkably consistent pattern of behavior,
determined largely by their leaders’ perceptions of relative
power shifts. WTH is China on this path? And importantly, WTH is
the US?


Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute, where he studies US strategy in Asia, including
alliance dynamics and US-China competition. He also teaches at
Princeton University and serves as chair of the board of the
Open Technology Fund. Before joining AEI, Dr. Cooper was the
senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS).


Find Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Fall of Great Militaries
here.


Find the transcript here.