Timothy W. Crawford's new book artfully analyzes the past and future performance of wedge strategy in great power politics.

Associate Professor Timothy Crawford's The Power to Divide: Wedge Strategies in Great Power Competition, examines the use of wedge strategies, a form of divisive statecraft designed to isolate adversaries from allies and potential supporters to gain key advantages. 

For policymakers today facing threats to power from great power competitors, Crawford argues that a deeper historical and theoretical grasp of the role of these wedge strategies in alliance politics and grand strategy is necessary. Crawford drives home the contemporary relevance of the analysis with a survey of China's potential to use such strategies to divide India from the US, and the United States' potential to use them to forestall a China-Russia alliance, and closes with a review of key theoretical insights for policy.