Atlanta, GA — A new book by global infrastructure strategist and financier Russell Duke argues that the most decisive battles of the 21st century are not fought with weapons, but with ports, power grids, digital networks, and capital. Infrastructure Wars: How Nations Build Power with Concrete and Steel delivers a timely and authoritative examination of how infrastructure has become the central instrument of geopolitical power.

Drawing on more than two decades advising governments and financing sovereign-scale infrastructure projects, Duke exposes the often-invisible systems that determine which nations lead and which become dependent. From ports and energy corridors to digital backbones and development finance, Infrastructure Wars shows how infrastructure investment quietly reshapes alliances, sovereignty, and global influence.

“Infrastructure is no longer just about development,” Duke writes. “It is about leverage.”

The book explores why countries accept long-term dependency in exchange for near-term growth, how global finance—rather than military force—redraws power balances, and why the next era of competition will be decided by who builds, who finances, and who controls critical systems. Through case studies spanning Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States, Russell Duke details a new form of “soft conquest” driven by construction, capital, and contracts.

Key themes include:

• How ports, energy grids, and digital networks become tools of geopolitical leverage
• China’s Belt and Road Initiative as strategy, not charity
• Western countermeasures and competing infrastructure agendas
• The hidden financial weapons of loans, guarantees, risk structures, and conditionality
• Why infrastructure now determines the future of nations

Russell Duke is the CEO of National Standard Finance LLC, a global infrastructure finance and advisory firm. He is widely regarded as one of the industry’s leading authorities on national infrastructure strategy and finance. Duke is also the author of The Infrastructure Bible, considered a foundational guide for policymakers and practitioners, as well as The End of the Petrodollar, A World Without Oil in U.S. Dollars, and The Global Tapestry.

With Infrastructure Wars, Duke brings together geopolitical analysis, financial insight, and real-world experience to explain how modern power is built—not seized. The book is written for policymakers, investors, business leaders, academics, and anyone seeking to understand the forces shaping the global order beneath the surface of headlines and diplomacy.

Infrastructure Wars: How Nations Build Power with Concrete and Steel is available now at book retailers and Amazon.

For more information, visit www.natstandard.com.