Sea change: the new great game in the Arctic circle
Speaker
Join award-winning journalist and Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar as she discusses her latest book, Sea Change: The New Great Game in the Arctic.
In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires battled for primacy in Central Asia, in a multi-decade struggle that became known as ‘The Great Game’. The territorial lines drawn across Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet and India over this time defined the geopolitics and economics of the next century.
Today, there is a new Great Game being played not in Central Asia, or even in modern hot zones like Ukraine, Gaza, or the South China Seas, but rather in the frigid waters of the Arctic. Dominance in this region will be crucial to control of the entire Western hemisphere.
America, which has always been an Arctic nation, but only peripherally so, must now face the fact that Russia and China together are challenging its territorial primacy in the Western Hemisphere.
Can America wrest back enough maritime capacity and control to counter Beijing? What will happen if it can’t? These are two of the many crucial questions Sea Change strives to answer.
The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing.
Meet our speaker and chair
Rana Foroohar is the author of The Homecoming, one of Kirkus Reviews‘ ‘Best Books of the Year’ for 2023, Don’t Be Evil, which won a Porchlight Business Book Award, and Makers and Takers, shortlisted for the Financial Times McKinsey Book of the Year award in 2016. Currently the Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times and the global economic analyst for CNN, she previously served as the assistant managing editor and economic columnist at TIME and an economic and foreign affairs editor and foreign correspondent at Newsweek. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on the advisory board of the Open Markets Institute.
Chris Alden teaches International Relations at LSE. He is also Director of LSE IDEAS. He is a Research Associate with South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).
More about this event
The Department of International Relations at LSE is now in it's 99th year - one of the oldest as well as largest IR departments in the world, with a truly international reputation. Throughout 2027 we will celebrate our centenary with a series of events and initiatives involving faculty, students, alumni and the public. We are ranked 2nd in the UK and 5th in the world in the QS World University Ranking by Subject 2026 tables for Politics and International Studies. We are ranked No 1 in the UK for International Relations in the Guardian University Guide 2027 subject rankings.
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