The Lost Peace

In his new book, Henrik Dahl–an acclaimed Danish author and Member of the European Parliament–takes aim at the West’s elites. He identifies four decisive failures: in our dealings with Russia, which we underestimated and misunderstood after the collapse of the Soviet Union; in the naïve belief that economic integration alone would deliver democracy in China; in the Middle East, where Western idealism has collided with the hard realities of political Islam; and in our failure to grasp energy as a geopolitical weapon, particularly in Europe. 

We won the Cold War—but we lost the peace.

HENRIK DAHL (b. 1960) is a Member of the European Parliament and a former member of the Danish Parliament for the Liberal Alliance, a Danish centre-right party (2015–2024). He holds a degree in sociology and has for many years worked as an author, commentator and public intellectual. Henrik Dahl lives in Copenhagen and Brussels.