By Robbin Laird
Over the course of 2026, I am completing a series of interconnected books that examine what I believe represents a fundamental inflection point in modern history.
These works are not independent scholarly exercises but rather pieces of a larger analytical puzzle, each contributing to our understanding of what I term the Age of Chaos, a period characterized not by the breakdown of order per se, but by the transition from one global system to another, with the final destination far from clear.
The intellectual journey behind these books reflects more than four decades of work in strategic analysis, beginning with my studies under Zbigniew Brzezinski at Columbia University during the Cold War, continuing through the post-Soviet transition, and extending into our current era of profound transformation.
What distinguishes this body of work is its foundation in field research and engagement with military practitioners rather than Washington-based theoretical frameworks.
As General Patton observed, if everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking. My approach has been to challenge conventional wisdom by listening to those actually implementing change on the ground.
In this article, I want to share the analytical framework that connects these books and explain why I believe we are witnessing not merely a period of heightened tensions or cyclical instability, but a genuine systemic transformation that will define the coming decades.
In this five part series I will lay out my assessment of the evolving global system and the challenge of competitive coexistence which now faces the liberal democracies.
In my 2026 books, I have tried to make sense of a world in which the familiar reference points of the post–Second World War era have eroded without yet being replaced by a stable new order. Rather than assuming that we are living in a rules‑based “global order,” I argue that we are living in a contested global system whose basic organizing principles are up for grabs. The question of what that system will look like a decade from now is wide open, and it is this uncertainty that frames the arguments and case studies across my recent work.
To get at this problem, I have approached it from several directions: the global war in Ukraine, the evolving role of middle powers such as Australia and Brazil in relation to China, the transformation of Western militaries, the emergence of maritime autonomous systems, the leadership challenge of managing chaos rather than discrete crises, and the lived experience of institutions like the United States Marine Corps and Coast Guard as they try to adapt. Each of my 2026 books picks up one or more of these threads, but they are meant to be read as a connected exploration of the same underlying dynamics.
A central theme in my recent writing is that the “post‑war order” has effectively come to an end, even if many of its institutions and habits of thought remain. The rise of a multi‑polar authoritarian world, the return of large‑scale interstate war in Europe, and the assertive strategies of powers such as China and Russia have shattered the notion that the liberal order could be globalized on Western terms.
In myco-authored book on The Australian, Brazilian and Chinese Dynamic: An Inquiry into the Evolving Global Order, we examine this shift through the lens of middle powers navigating what we call “Global China.” Australia and Brazil face very different regional realities, but they share a common challenge: how to secure their national interests and values when major‑power competition is reshaping trade, technology, security partnerships, and the information space. The choices they make illuminate the broader strategic options available to states that are neither hegemons nor passive rule‑takers.
My work on The Global War in Ukraine: An Essay on the Changing Global Order and the companion volume The Global War in Ukraine, 2021–2025 treats the Ukraine conflict not simply as a regional war but as a crucible of this evolving system. Ukraine has become the focal point of a dispersed global contest involving sanctions, energy politics, information operations, armaments production, and alliance cohesion. It is “global” not because armies are fighting on every continent, but because the war’s consequences are being mediated through an interconnected system in which distant actors can shape outcomes without deploying divisions to the front.
Across these studies, I argue that we are no longer in an era defined primarily by discrete crises that can be solved and put behind us. Instead, we face what I call the “age of chaos,” in which overlapping disruptions in security, technology, economics, and domestic politics combine to create persistent turbulence. The very tools we rely upon, digital networks, global supply chains, AI‑enabled systems, both connect and destabilize the system.
In Mastering Chaos: Shaping a Way Ahead for Chaos Management, I develop this argument in organizational and leadership terms. Traditional crisis management assumes that leaders can isolate a problem, mobilize resources, and then return the system to a previous equilibrium. Chaos management begins from a different premise: that there may be no stable equilibrium to return to, and that leadership is about continuously shaping the environment rather than simply reacting to individual shocks.
This theme is taken further in Mastering Chaos: The Leadership Insights Trilogy, where I explore how leaders at different levels can cultivate the mindset, networks, and institutional flexibility required to operate in this environment. Here I connect strategic analysis with practical lessons from military and civilian organizations that have had to function under conditions of persistent uncertainty. The trilogy is meant as a bridge between my more strictly strategic books and those focused on organizational behavior and personal leadership.
One of the more personal projects in my 2026 portfolio is Listen to Lead: How Empathy and Better Conversations Transform Your Work and Life. At first glance, this might seem far removed from books on Ukraine, maritime autonomous systems, or military transformation, yet it springs from the same diagnosis of our times. In an age of chaos, institutions often default to bureaucratic defensiveness or technocratic language that obscures rather than clarifies what is at stake. Leaders can easily become disconnected from the lived experience of their people and partners.
In this book I argue that the foundational leadership skill is not the ability to dominate the conversation, but the capacity to listen in a way that allows new patterns to be recognized and new coalitions to be formed. Empathy is not sentimentality; it is an operational capability that enables better decisions under uncertainty. The kinds of adaptive organizations I describe in Mastering Chaos cannot function if their leaders treat communication as one‑way messaging rather than as a continuous, probing dialogue.
The link back to strategy is straightforward: states, militaries, and alliances are made up of people whose perceptions, fears, and aspirations shape how they react to systemic change. Whether one is dealing with Pacific allies recalibrating their China policies or Ukrainian commanders improvising under fire, genuine listening is a prerequisite for effective action.
Another thread running through my 2026 work is a long‑term examination of military transformation. For several decades I have followed how Western militaries, particularly the United States and its close allies, have tried to adapt to new technologies, new operational concepts, and new political constraints. The initial Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) literature of the 1990s promised precision warfare and information dominance, but the wars of the early twenty‑first century exposed both the potential and the limits of those ideas.
In Lessons in Military Transformation: From the RMA to the Drone Wars, I revisit this trajectory. The book traces how the early focus on network‑centric warfare evolved into today’s struggles to integrate unmanned systems, cyber operations, and space capabilities into coherent force structures and doctrines. I emphasize that transformation is not a linear technical process; it is a contested political and organizational struggle within and among services, governments, and industries.
My book Lessons from the Drone Wars zooms in on one important element of this broader transformation. Unmanned aerial systems have moved from niche tools to central instruments of both state and non‑state actors. Yet I argue that the truly significant change is not the hardware itself but the way drone warfare alters tempo, decision‑making, and the relationship between battlefield and home front. The drone wars also illustrate the diffusion of military power, as capabilities that once belonged only to advanced states become accessible to smaller actors.
While drones are now common in land warfare and in the air, the maritime domain is undergoing its own revolution. For a number of years, I have worked on maritime autonomous systems and what their spread implies for the redesign of naval operations. This is the focus of Lessons from the Drone Wars: Maritime Autonomous Systems and Maritime Operations.
In that book I stress that maritime autonomous systems are not simply “drones at sea.” They operate in a different physical environment, deal with unique sensing and communication challenges, and interact with legal regimes governing territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. As a result, they will reshape concepts of presence, deterrence, and sea control in ways that are distinct from land or air counterparts.
The integration of these systems requires navies to rethink how they compose task groups, how they manage command and control, and how they balance manned and unmanned platforms. It also requires new approaches to alliances and industrial collaboration, since data sharing and interoperability become central operational questions. This work links back to my broader concern with chaos management: navies must design forces that can absorb and exploit technological change without losing coherence.
No service better illustrates the challenges and possibilities of transformation in this environment than the United States Marine Corps. Over the past decade I have had the privilege of chronicling the USMC’s efforts to reshape itself for major‑power competition, distributed operations, and contested logistics.
In Building the Impact Force: Marine Corps Transformation in an Age of Chaos, I describe how the Corps is moving from a crisis‑response posture to one geared toward persistent competition in the so‑called gray zone. Rather than waiting offshore to respond to a discrete emergency, the Marine Corps is experimenting with forward, distributed formations that can shape the battlespace before open conflict breaks out. I use the term “impact force” to capture a conception of the Marines as a catalytic element within a broader kill‑web force structure.
The kill‑web idea stresses cross‑domain integration, linking sensors, shooters, and decision‑makers across services and allies rather than relying on neatly separated service “stovepipes.” In an age of chaos, an impact force must be able to impose uncertainty and friction on adversaries while reinforcing alliance cohesion. The Marine Corps’ experiments with new formations, concepts, and technologies provide a concrete example of how a legacy institution can wrestle with these demands.
If the Marine Corps illustrates transformation in a combat‑oriented force, the United States Coast Guard shows what adaptation looks like in a multi‑mission maritime security service. In Always Ready, Persistently Underresourced: The Modern United States Coast Guard Story, I examine how the Coast Guard has coped with expanding missions, aging platforms, and chronic funding shortfalls.
The Coast Guard must police fisheries, respond to disasters, interdict narcotics, protect critical infrastructure, and operate alongside the Navy and allied partners in contested waters. Yet it routinely does so with fewer ships, aircraft, and people than its task list would suggest. The phrase “always ready, persistently underresourced” captures the paradox of an organization that is indispensable to national and allied security but often treated as an afterthought in strategic debates.
By looking at the Coast Guard’s experience, we gain insight into the broader problem of how democracies fund and value the institutions that safeguard the maritime commons. It also highlights the human dimension of transformation: sailors and officers working under demanding conditions, improvising solutions, and maintaining professional pride despite structural constraints.
Several of my books address a theme that has become increasingly urgent as the global system destabilizes: readiness. In Fight Tonight Force: Combat Readiness at the Speed of Relevance, I argue that the traditional metrics and processes by which we assess readiness are inadequate for an age of rapidly shifting threats and technologies.
The phrase “fight tonight” is often associated with forward‑deployed forces in places like the Korean Peninsula, but I use it more broadly as a test of whether our forces can respond effectively under real‑world conditions, not idealized PowerPoint scenarios. Readiness is not only about the number of platforms or units, but about integration, training, logistics resilience, and the ability to adapt under pressure.
This book ties together insights from Ukraine, Indo‑Pacific exercises, and my work with the Marine Corps and Coast Guard to argue that readiness must be understood as a dynamic property of a force embedded in a complex system. A “fight tonight force” must be able to operate at the speed of relevance, meaning it can sense, decide, and act fast enough to matter in the unfolding situation rather than simply meeting bureaucratic reporting requirements.
Returning to the international system level, The Australian, Brazilian and Chinese Dynamic explores what it means for middle powers to operate alongside a rising and globalized China. Australia has confronted the strategic consequences of economic dependence on China combined with alliance commitments to the United States. Brazil, in a different hemisphere, faces its own questions about Chinese investment, technology partnerships, and political influence.
By comparing these cases, the book sheds light on the options available to states that cannot dictate the shape of the global system but also refuse to be mere objects of great‑power competition. It also connects back to my leadership and chaos‑management work by underscoring the importance of building adaptive national strategies that combine economic resilience, defense modernization, and diplomatic agility. The choices of middle powers will help determine whether the emerging system tilts toward renewed bloc confrontation, fragmented spheres of influence, or a more pluralistic set of arrangements.
So where does all of this leave us?
Across these books, my conclusion is that we are living through the closing phase of one global system and the contested birth of another.
The end of the post‑war order has produced an age of chaos characterized by multi‑polar authoritarianism, technological disruption, and the erosion of old certainties.
Yet it has also opened space for innovation, in strategy, in organizational design, and in leadership practice.
The war in Ukraine, the trajectories of Australia and Brazil in relation to China, the transformation of the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard, the spread of drones and maritime autonomous systems, and the struggle to build truly ready forces are not separate stories.
They are different vantage points on the same underlying question: how do democracies and their partners shape a viable way ahead in a system that no longer obeys the rules we grew up with?
In closing, my 2026 books should be read less as definitive answers than as probes into this question.
They invite debate about what kind of global system we are moving toward, how our institutions must change to navigate it, and what forms of leadership, strategic, organizational, and personal, will be needed to master chaos rather than be mastered by it.
My 2026 Books
Global Order and Strategic Transformation
- The Global War in Ukraine: An Essay on the Changing Global Order
- The Global War in Ukraine 2021-2025
- The Australian, Brazilian and Chinese Dynamic: An Inquiry into the Evolving Global Order (co-authored)
Chaos Management and Leadership
- Mastering Chaos: Shaping a Way Ahead for Chaos Management
- Mastering Chaos: The Leadership Insights Trilogy
- Listen to Lead: How Empathy and Better Conversations Transform Your Work and Life
Military Transformation and Operations
- Lessons in Military Transformation: From the RMA to the Drone Wars
- Lessons from the Drone Wars: Maritime Autonomous Systems and Maritime Operations
The Evolution of Australian Defence
- Fight Tonight Force: Combat Readiness at the Speed of Relevance
Marine Corps Transformation
- Building the Impact Force: Marine Corps Transformation in an Age of Chaos
Coast Guard Analysis
- Always Ready, Persistently Underresourced: The Modern United States Coast Guard Story
Competitive Coexistence, the ‘Fight Tonight’ Force and Australia’s Growing Multipolar Predicament