While at Gonville and Caius, he was a friend of future MI6 renegade agent Richard Tomlinson, whom he provided with a reference for his Kennedy Scholarship application.

At The Financial Times, Rachman writes on international politics, with a particular stress on American foreign policy, the European Union and geopolitics in Asia.

Rachman disagreed, writing, "I believe the political changes involved in joining the Euro carry enormous risks.

"[7] More recently, Rachman has argued in the FT that the EU must take a flexible and open approach to the political demands of their member states or face failure.

[13] Rachman pointed out that the Presidency of Donald Trump historic changes in foreign and domestic policies were inherited by the Biden administration, including opposition to free trade and competition with China.

It was published under the title Zero-Sum Future in the United States and translated into seven languages, including Chinese, German and Korean.

The New York Times newspaper praised the book as "perhaps the best one-volume account now available of the huge post-Communist spread of personal freedom and economic prosperity.

The book argues that 500 years of Western domination of global politics is coming to an end as the result of the rise of new powers in Asia.

British historian, Paul Kennedy, said – "This is truly one of those works you can say you wished our political leaders would read and ponder its great implications.