Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.
Hermann Hesse

By Azra Isakovic

Wednesday, February 10

Good morning

Welcome to Your Wednesday Briefing

Books

Top 5 Books: February 2021 by Krisztina Csortea | International Affairs
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism | Princeton University Press
Solzhenitsyn – Solzenitsyn and the Engine of History  Robert D. Kaplan | The New Criterion

Must-Reads

US/France – France Sees an Existential Threat From U.S. Campuses  Norimitsu Onishi | NYT
Netherlands – The next stage of Dutch populism? | International Politics & Society
Health/Digital – Coronavirus accelerates contactless travel, raising privacy concerns, Mari Eccles | Politico
Digital – Digital reckoning? The Biden administration and prospects for greater transatlantic alignment on digital competition, Miranda Lutz and Max van Thun | Global Counsel
Digital/Europe – Referees don’t win games: Europe and the digital great game, José I. Torreblanca | ECFR
Digital/Russia – Russia is trying to set the rules for the Internet. The UN saw through the ruse, David Ignatius | The Washington Post
Germany/Russia – Dead-end pragmatism: Germany’s Russia strategy after Merkel, Gustav Gressel | ECFR
France – France’s Vanishing Center, Patrick Chamorel | American Purpose
EU –  Lessons from the battleground: EU strategic autonomy after the ‘vaccine wars’, Ricardo Borges de Castro | European Policy Centre
Belarus – Why the Belarusian Revolution Has Stalled, Ryhor Astapenia | Chatham House
Japan – Taiwan Looms Over Japan’s Security Concerns  Brad Glosserman | Japan Times
China – From China Fantasy to China Nightmare  Ian Easton | Taipei Times
George Schultz – George Schultz Understood Money Was Power  Hal Brands | Bloomberg
U.S. Foreign Policy –  When Is U.S. Foreign Policy Strongest?  Robert Kaplan | Time
Biden/Middle East – Measuring Biden’s First Middle East Moves  George Friedman | Geopolitical Futures

Research & Analysis

Cheap Talk- China’s Central Bank Still Struggles to Speak to Markets | CSIS
Myanmar –  Myanmar’s generals recoup: The recurrence of military-defined “disciplined democracy”, Bart Gaens | FIIA PDF

Podcasts

Covid, saison 3 (2/4) – Restrictions sanitaires : les limites de l’acceptation sociale | France Culture