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Whenever the pace of change in the world feels dizzying—be it from the whims of strongman rulers or advances in artificial intelligence—I think about Michael Beckley’s argument that, actually, “historical churn has slowed dramatically.” As he wrote last year, “For the first time in centuries, no country is rising fast enough to overturn the global balance.” His essay unpacks why “the rapid ascents that once defined modern geopolitics have yielded to sclerosis,” but he also warns that the age of stagnation “may prove no less violent” than the preceding era of rising powers. 

Until next week,

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