His thoughts on international relations come in his final book, Battling to the End (2009), a commentary on the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, written as a dialogue with the literary critic Benoît Chantre. There, Girard describes geopolitical conflict as the result of mimetic desire: “Everyone now knows that the looming conflict between the US and China, for example, has nothing to do with a ‘clash of civilisations’, despite what some might try to tell us. We always try to see differences where in fact there are none. In fact, the dispute is between two forms of capitalism that are becoming more and more similar,” Girard wrote. He understood the trade war as the result of similarity rather than difference and believed it could lead to a conflict that would wipe out the world. He called it the apocalypse.

It is not too far fetched to view the US as become more illiberal and China turning towards finance and technology. 

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