Can the West Outgrow Its Enemies? (Claire Berlinski, Aug 11, 2026, The Cosmopolitan Globalist)
Our economic statecraft, argues Dalibor Roháč, is not strengthening us. To the contrary, on both sides of the Atlantic, the West is preparing for great-power competition by steadily weakening the qualities that once made it formidable: its open markets, technological dynamism, attractiveness to talent, scientific excellence, and its ability to build almost anything at tolerable cost. It is responding to the threat by becoming more like the closed, dirigiste systems it is trying to defeat—protectionist, suspicious of foreigners, preoccupied with national self-sufficiency, and increasingly willing to subordinate markets and institutions to executive power.
In his new book, Unshackled: How Economic Growth Can Defeat the World’s Dictators, Dalibor argues that this isn’t strategic realism. It’s strategic self-sabotage.