The Three-Body Problem and International Relations

An introduction to key concepts in international relations and strategy through the interstellar narratives of Cixin Liu’s Hugo Award–winning trilogy

Science fiction has long examined social, political, and moral issues through imagined worlds. This book uses Chinese author Cixin Liu’s award-winning trilogy as a teaching tool to illustrate complex theories of international relations. Comprising the novels The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End, the trilogy has been recognized for the ways in which, over a galactic scale of time and space, the stories explore how civilizations see each other and engage in strategic conflict. 

In this book, leading scholars draw on key moments from the trilogy to help demonstrate complex concepts such as deterrence, diplomacy, negotiation, competition, agency, game theory, colonialism, and feminist theory, as well as multiple levels of military strategy. By linking these stories to global politics and strategy, both on Earth and in space, “The Three-Body Problem” and International Relations offers an engaging, accessible introduction to concepts humans currently grapple with in the realms of global politics, foreign policy, and strategy.

James Wesley Hutto is associate professor of strategy and security studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.

Wendy N. Whitman Cobb, professor of strategy and security studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, is coauthor of Space Policy for the Twenty-First Century