Ramsay Lectures
Might Makes Right? The Past, Present and Future of the Great Powers and Challenges to the International Order
An exclusive lecture by Prof Brendan Simms
Prof Brendan Simms
The “rules-based” international system is under threat, both from within and without. However, this is not the first time it has faced challenges, or challengers. Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union ‒ great powers or would-be powers ‒ as well as others, have sought to disrupt or overthrow the world order based on free trade and, to some extent at least, liberal values. Now Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea confront the United States and its allies, who are grappling with the apparent fragility of the US’s commitment to world order and a much bigger role for neutrals and non-aligned.
For our sixth Ramsay Event for 2025, the Ramsay Centre is pleased to present an in-person lecture by Professor Brendan Simms who delivers an address titled: Might Makes Right? The Past, Present and Future of the Great Powers and Challenges to the International Order.
Professor Simms examines whether the future lies in a world determined by relations of power, in particular between the great powers, rather than rules or values. For example, should the EU pursue great power status? Is there still scope for the UK, Australia, Japan and other like-minded nations to carve out a space for themselves with or without American or European support?
Please join us for this compelling discussion exploring current challenges to the “rules-based” international system.
Prof Brendan Simms
Brendan Simms is Professor of the History of European International Relations and Director of the influential Centre for Geopolitics (CFG) at the University of Cambridge. He is renowned for his expert and nuanced historical understanding and perspective on the challenging public policy, defence, and national security issues of the day. The CFG’s roundtables, simulations and visitor programme and Simms’s work with the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy are highly regarded by analysts, and defence/national security stakeholders from across the globe. He writes extensively for the press and has authored numerous publications, including Europe, the struggle for supremacy, 1453 to the Preseent (Penguin Press, 2013); Britain’s Europe. A thousand years of conflict and cooperation (Penguin Press, 2016); (with Patrick Milton and Michael Axworthy) Towards a Westphalia for the Middle East (Hurst, 2018); (with Charlie Laderman), Donald Trump: The making of a world view (IB Taurus, 2017) and Hitler’s American Gamble. Pearl Harbor and the German March to Global War (Penguin Press, 2021); and (with Steven McGregor) The Silver Waterfall: How America Won the War in the Pacific at Midway (PublicAffairs, 2022). He is currently working on a book on the Great Powers today.
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