Jim Sciutto

CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto demonstrates how Donald Trump has disrupted the world order, and lays out just how difficult it will be to restore it.There’s no denying that Donald Trump has disrupted American politics. But what about his legacy around the globe? Trump’s election and subsequent foreign policy have changed the world order, but not for the better.From praising dictators to alienating allies, Trump has made chaos his calling card, and the world has suffered for it. Trump’s foreign policy is hurting the very people who have been on our side for more than seventy years, which leaves them, in turn, isolated and vulnerable without American support. Trump gives comfort to dictators, provides the Taliban with public relations coups, praises Kim Jong-un and their “love notes,” and admires and flatters Vladimir Putin. The White House’s revolving door of staff demonstrates that Trump has no real plan; all serious policymakers—and those who would be a check on his most destructive impulses—are jumping ship.Trump’s impact on the economy is no less disastrous. With every tweet he risks destabilizing world markets. He tells Americans they are winning on trade, while tarriffs have added to the cost of many goods. His reckless attacks on the Fed (“like a powerful golfer who can’t score”) have only made things worse.In World War Trump, Jim Sciutto considers the breadth of Trump’s calamitous legacy on the world stage and shows how his proclivity for chaos is creating a world which is more unstable, violent, and impoverished than it was before.

The essential new book by CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto, reporting from the front lines of political hotspots and warzones across the globe.The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dawned what Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History.” Three decades later, Jim Sciutto said on CNN’s air as the Ukraine war began, that we are living in a “1939 moment.” History never ended—it barely paused—and the global order as we have known it is now gone. Great powers are reinvigorated and determined to assert dominance on the world stage. And as it escalates, this new order will affect everyone across the globe. Peace has been shattered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but in reality, this affects every corner of our world—from Helsinki to Beijing, from Australia to the North Pole. This is a battle with many on the Arctic floor, in the oceans and across the skies, and in cyberspace.Sciutto argues that we are witnessing the return of great power conflict, “a definitive break between the post–Cold War era and an entirely new and uncertain one.” The world order that marked the last thirty years is shifting, and Sciutto details the realities of this new post– post–Cold War era, the increasingly aligned Russian and Chinese governments, and the flashpoint of a new, global nuclear arms race. With savvy, thorough reporting, he follows-up his 2019 bestseller, The Shadow Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America , which focused on the covert tactics of a hidden conflict. The Return of Great Powers is an analysis of a historic and visible shift in real time. And it poses a that as we consider uncertain outcomes, we ask whether the West and Russia and China can prevent a new World War.

CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent reveals the invisible fronts of twenty-first century warfare and identifies the ongoing battles being waged—often without the public’s full knowledge—from disinformation campaigns to advanced satellite weaponry.The United States is currently under attack from multiple adversaries—yet most Americans have no idea of the dangers threatening us. In this eye-opening book, military and intelligence expert and seasoned reporter Jim Sciutto traces the expanding web of attacks that together amount to an undeclared but deeply dangerous war on America. With in-depth reporting from Ukraine to the South China Sea, Cuba to the earth’s atmosphere, unprecedented access to America’s Space Command, and new information from inside the intelligence agencies tracking election interference, Sciutto draws on his deep knowledge, high-level contacts, and personal experience as a journalist and diplomat to paint the most comprehensive and vivid picture of a nation targeted by a new and disturbing brand of warfare. America is engaged in a Shadow War on multiple fronts, with multiple enemies. The practitioners include America’s most familiar Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. But unlike conventional warfare, these conflicts are conducted in the shadows, with no formal declaration and often use multiple sources, from influential businessmen and lawyers to hackers. And it is happening today. But America is adapting and fighting back. In The Shadow War, Sciutto introduces the dizzying array of soldiers, sailors, submariners and their commanders, space engineers, computer scientists, and civilians who are on the front lines of this new kind of forever war. Intensive and disturbing, this invaluable and important work opens our eyes and makes clear that future war is here.

In 2002 Jim Sciutto began filing in-depth reports on the Middle East for ABC News. Now, after nearly 100 assignments in Muslim countries, Sciutto brings back this disturbing the Al-Qaeda–inspired view of an evil America bent on destroying Islam has moved from the fringes to the mainstream. Today, a surprising number of America’s enemies are not wild-eyed fanatics, but moderates—often middle-class and well educated, frequently young, many motivated by political convictions more than religious belief.Sciutto profiles a cross-section of people in the Arab world, including a former Al-Qaeda jihadi turned electrician in Saudi Arabia, a Jordanian college student willing to risk his life by killing Americans in Baghdad, a Christian woman who supports Hezbollah in Lebanon, bitter pro-democracy advocates in Egypt who feel betrayed by the United States, and British-born Muslim terrorists living in London. The result is an alarming portrait of the depth and scope of anti-American sentiment.Opposing America has become the unifying rallying cry for a rapidly growing pan-Arab nationalist movement. Conspiracy theories abound as Muslims begin to feel they are targeted by America, their political autonomy sabotaged. The Iraq war has become one of the most powerful recruiting tools for enemies of the United States.Yet there is hope for America to turn the tide of hate. Sciutto talks with a young female student in Afghanistan who is cautiously optimistic that the United States will not fail her country in the rebuilding effort—and with a reformed jihadi in London who is finding ways to counsel young British Muslims away from their hatred of America. Democratic ideals are still held in high esteem, even as America’s perceived actions against Muslims are not.Against Us is an urgent wake-up call for all Americans—and in particular those charged with formulating U.S. foreign policy—to rebuild relations with the Arab world and restore confidence in American values.

From praising dictators to alienating allies, Trump made chaos his calling card. But four years into his administration, had his strategy caused more problems than it solved?Richard Nixon tried it first. Hoping to make communist bloc countries uneasy and thus unstable, Nixon let them think he was just crazy enough to nuke them. He called this “the madman theory.” Nearly half a century later, President Trump employed his own “madman theory,” sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.Trump praised Kim Jong-un and their “love notes,” admired and flattered Vladimir Putin, and gave a greenlight to Recep Tayyip Erdogan to invade Syria. Meanwhile, he attacked US institutions and officials, ignored his own advisors, and turned his back on US allies from Canada and Mexico to NATO to Ukraine to the Kurds at war with ISIS. Trump was willing to make the nation’s most sensitive and consequential decisions while often ignoring the best information and intelligence available to him. He continually caught the world off guard, but did it work?In The Madman Theory, Jim Sciutto showed how Trump's supporters assumed he had a strategy for long-term success – that he somehow played three-dimensional chess. Four years into Trump's presidency, it was clear his unpredictable focus on short-term headlines did in fact lead to predictably mediocre results in the short and long run. Trump’s foreign policy undermined American values and national security interests, while hurting allies who had been on our side for decades, leaving them isolated and vulnerable without American support. Meanwhile, Trump had comforted and emboldened our enemies. The White House’s revolving door of staff demonstrated that Trump had no real plan; all serious policymakers—and those who would be a check on his most destructive impulses—were exiled or jumped ship.Sciutto interviewed a wide swath of then-current and former administration officials to assemble the first comprehensive portrait of the impact of Trump’s erratic foreign policy. Smart, authoritative, and compelling, The Madman Theory is the definitive take on Trump’s calamitous legacy around the globe, showing how his proclivity for chaos was creating a world which was more unstable, violent, and impoverished than it had been before.