The rearms of the new cold war

The clashes between great powers are no longer between capitalism and communism as during the cold war, but rather economic, commercial, technological and military energy in the same economic system and a changing geopolitical framework that questions the multilateral system.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
29 June 2022 Wednesday 21:55
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The rearms of the new cold war

The clashes between great powers are no longer between capitalism and communism as during the cold war, but rather economic, commercial, technological and military energy in the same economic system and a changing geopolitical framework that questions the multilateral system.

The bipolarity of the cold war in which the US and the USSR set the rules of the international game has been replaced by a multipolar world with four global powers (the US, China, Russia and the European Union) with different capacities , and the rise of intermediate states (such as India, Pakistan, Brazil, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, among others and with very different capacities).

The US has a deep internal crisis that is leading it to withdraw its international presence (now delayed due to the war in Ukraine). China is a rising economic, technological, commercial and military power that challenges the power that the US has had in the 20th century. For its part, Russia is an energy power, aggressively trying to regain some of the international weight that the former Soviet Union had.

The European Union faces internal difficulties: Brexit; disputes between states with authoritarian and democratic governments, the rise of far-right parties and movements; and the differences between the members to manage the refugee crisis, the purchases of Russian gas and the construction of a joint security and defense system.

The danger of nuclear war from an escalation, which seemed to have been in the background since the end of the cold war (1989), has been reborn with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The increasing destructive capacity of conventional weapons and the development of small or tactical nuclear weapons means that the line between them is less visible and easier to cross. (1)

In circles of civil and military experts, a debate has been taking place for a decade about whether, due to all these circumstances, we are facing a new cold war or whether the characteristics of the confrontations between great powers in the international system are not comparable. The war in Ukraine has accelerated this controversy.

During the four decades after the Second World War there was a systemic confrontation between two visions of the world and ways of organizing the State, the economy and society. The Western world, led by the US with Western Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia as front-line allies, embodied the liberal capitalist system in economy, parliamentary democracy as political organization, and first-generation civil and human rights as symbol of individual freedom.

For its part, the USSR was structured from 1917 around a communist economic system (or that aspired to be according to its classic authors) centralized in the State. The pillar of politics was the (single) Communist Party, and economic and social rights (theoretically provided by the State) came first. Despite having nuclear weapons, China did not yet have economic and political capabilities with global reach.

The US and the USSR projected their models worldwide, limiting and deteriorating their adversary's positions. Initially this confrontation was fought in Europe, particularly around Germany, occupied by the victorious powers of World War II, and Italy, Greece and France, where the communist parties were strengthened during the resistance to Nazism and fascism.

The clash delegated to third parties (with possible military interventions) between the US and the USSR spread to Africa, Asia and Latin America due to the crisis of the European imperial system and a chain of anti-colonial nationalist wars (from Vietnam and Algeria to Angola, Mozambique and Cuba).

In this context, the cold war was generated: a confrontation without the direct use of force between the parties, but waging diplomatic struggles, delegating the war to allies in the post-colonial world, where they supported or conspired against political, military and anti-communist allies or governments. anti-capitalists through funds, weapons and espionage.

This competition led to the creation in 1949 of the North Atlantic Organization (NATO), and in 1955 the Warsaw Pact, and to the disproportionate and diversified growth of conventional, chemical-bacteriological and nuclear arsenals. Thus the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) was born. According to the favorable strategists, with nuclear weapons, peace between the two great powers was guaranteed: neither side would launch an attack with nuclear weapons because the response, and an escalation, would lead to the mutually assured destruction of both.

A corollary of this argument is used in the current crisis in Ukraine: the US and NATO allies have indicated that they will not go to war for that country to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia that could lead to a third world war with use of nuclear weapons. For its part, Moscow regularly lets it be known that it could use them if it considers itself to be in “existential danger”.

The constant research, manufacture and positioning of new weapons was accompanied by direct arms control negotiations and the creation of confidence measures (for example, giving advance notice of the modernization and deployment of arsenals and movements of forces) in the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The objective was to avoid a nuclear confrontation due to mistake and misunderstanding. In his recent Nuclear folly, a new history of the Cuban missile crisis, researcher Serhii Plokhy reveals, analyzing declassified material, that in 1962 the US and Russia were about to use nuclear weapons due to errors of perception and misinformation, despite the fact that President John F. Kennedy and Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev kept open channels of communication.2 In the war in Ukraine those channels are closed.

The end of the USSR began with Moscow's decision to invade Afghanistan in 1978 to support its allies in that country. For the US, this was the opportunity to wear down its adversary by financing radical Islamist guerrillas, which led Moscow, defeated, to withdraw in 1989. In addition, the rearmament promoted since 1981 by the Ronald Reagan administration accelerated the economic erosion of the Soviet regime.

After the end of the cold war (1989) and the disintegration of the USSR (1991), a decline in military spending by the great powers began and a propitious climate for negotiating agreements on long, medium and short-range nuclear weapons, and anti-missile missiles. But in the last decade the relationship between Washington and Moscow has deteriorated, the military budgets of the US, China and Russia have increased along with the modernization of their arsenals, and most of the agreements are at high risk.

Between the cold war and the current situation there are notable differences. First, all current powers operate within the framework of the capitalist economic system. China and Russia promote state capitalism with private actors acting in close connection with the central government.

In the cold war there were no economic links between the adversaries. Each operated their market with their allies. Now the interrelation is very strong between them and with the rest of the world. In 2020, US direct investment in China reached $123.9 billion. At the same time, last October, China controlled 1,065 billion dollars of US sovereign debt (3.68% of the total). While there is a US dependency on China, on the other hand the stability of the dollar is critical for Beijing.

In May 2021, the Financial Times reported that while the Joe Biden administration was ordering an investigation into whether the Covid-19 virus could be due to China's negligence, Goldman Sachs and other US and European financial firms were making strong investments and alliances with operators from that country taking advantage of the flexibility for foreign investments promoted by the Chinese government.

Politically, the USSR presented itself as a power that embodied the revolutionary agenda of Marxism. However, its legitimacy as a model of emancipation against capitalism failed: it was not attractive to anyone, and Moscow's relationship with its allies was based on military coercion (against members of the Warsaw Pact) or the weakness of its partners ( Cuba).

Currently, Russia has abandoned the ideology and is linked through the arms trade, the sale of oil and gas, and with interventions to consolidate itself geopolitically against the US, to have access to resources or to recover the Soviet zone of influence. . Those are his roles in Syria violently supporting Bashar al-Assad and supporting various African governments with Russian mercenaries, in addition to the alliance with Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the invasion of Ukraine where he has promoted the insurgency in the east since 2014.

For its part, the United States presents itself as the leader of democracy, but on numerous occasions it has practiced military interventions and political conspiracy, in addition to having used economic and multilateral system pressures, to overthrow governments considered hostile or to support allies. .

Since the three powers (four, if the European Union is also considered) operate in the same economic system, confrontations over security and defense issues impact the global system. Economic, technological, commercial and financial wars affect both those who launch and those who receive the offensive.

The sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia impact both parties. And Moscow benefits: the price of gas and oil and the prices of consumer goods and inflation in the world have risen. This generates social unrest, riots and political crises from Peru to Sri Lanka. In addition, it reduces the chances of victory for the Democratic Party in the next US elections.

The war in Ukraine has deepened the debate about whether it is possible to decouple the economies of China and Russia. The answer of the economist C. Fred Bergsten is negative. China, he believes, is too big and dynamic, and its economy is so intertwined with the West, that economic issues should be separated from those of security and values. The formula would be to apply "competitive and conditional cooperation" to Beijing. (3)

Other economists, such as Aaron Friedberg, believe that the US and its allies should prepare for a tough confrontation with China by increasing military capacity, trying to decouple their economies from that country, and fighting the Chinese Communist Party in the developing world. and, if possible, within China itself. (4)

This position coincides politically with analysts such as Elliot Abrams (controversial diplomat of the cold war, prosecuted for his illegal activities in Central America during the Reagan administration), who propose the rearmament of the US and its allies for a harsh confrontation with Russia: greater deployment of forces, increase in the military budget, more oil production and abandonment of the “green agenda”. (5)

Faced with the lack of freedoms of the Soviet system, during the cold war the US and its allies were able to present themselves as leaders of democracy and political liberalism. From the end of that period Professor Francis Fukuyama predicted that political and economic liberalism had triumphed over totalitarian ideologies (Nazism, fascism and communism). An "end of history" was beginning, an era of global liberalism, against which remnants of authoritarianism remained in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

In that post-totalitarian and liberal world, the US would be the only great hegemonic power, and Russia and China would be integrated into the system of free markets and democracy. But the diagnosis was wrong.

FIRST, the transition in Russia did not lead to Soviet power evolving toward democracy. Instead, officials of the Soviet regime took control of the state and key sectors of the economy. Former members of the Communist Party became new businessmen or politicians allied with them. The alliance was completed with regional politicians and the participation of the Russian Orthodox Christian Church and intellectuals who propose the rebirth of "Great Russia". (6)

SECOND, China joined the capitalist world market, but maintaining tight political control by an elite, developing a model of state-controlled privatization. It is an ongoing discussion which model the country has: state capitalism, authoritarian capitalism, hybrid economy.

THIRD, there has been a decline in democracy and its legitimation among broad sectors of global society. The impact of the neoliberal policies implemented since the 1980s produced more job insecurity and the weakening of public services. This accelerated disenchantment with democracy without provoking adherence to the communist or social democratic model. On the contrary, there is a rise of ultra-nationalist, anti-liberal and right-wing populisms that come to power using democratic electoral mechanisms to later wear down the democratic system.

FOURTH, the multilateral system, also called the rule-based or liberal order, that was created after World War II was associated with free markets and democracy. The disappointment of millions of citizens has had an impact on the multilateral system, which they perceive as something ineffective in guaranteeing peace in the world, distant or as an interference in the national essences contrary to the liberal agenda of feminism, environmentalism, human rights and equality.

China has increased its engagement with the United Nations in recent years, but along with Russia it insists that the US and its allies use the multilateral system (particularly the UN) for their goals. Moscow argues that in a multipolar world there must be another order, different from the one established at the end of World War II.

FIFTH, around 57 countries in a situation of institutional fragility (economic, political, social and environmental) (7) have the presence of various armed actors, illicit economies, lack of state control in part of the territory, conflictive fragmentation of identities and wars in almost 40 of them. These countries generate millions of refugees, they are part of the international circuits of organized crime, their elites have links with the financial and economic system of northern countries, and they are buyers and intermediaries of the legal and illegal arms market. The chances of the US, China and Russia waging cold war-like proxy confrontations in these complex countries are much more limited than decades ago.

Whether the war in Ukraine ends with a partition of the country, a total Russian victory or another result, the international system has suffered a blow that will generate great changes.

The multilateral system (and the regulations on human rights, humanitarian law and crimes against humanity) will be further weakened in the face of the harsh power politics of the great powers. The space for diplomacy, political dialogue and mediation will be restricted. Alliances between states will be more flexible, adapted to geopolitics and geoeconomics, beyond alignments around democracy or authoritarianism.

There will be a sustained increase in military spending and rearmament, and more states will see nuclear weapons as the best security. Possibly Sweden and Finland join NATO. Russia will deploy more weapons and troops in an offensive attitude towards countries of the Atlantic Alliance.

Confrontations over energy resources will be very powerful. The tension between the use of traditional energy sources (oil and coal, and the places from which they are extracted) and green technologies will increase. (8)

We will live in a new cold war, but in a much more complex and dangerous multipolar world than decades ago.

Mariano Aguirre is an associate fellow at Chatham House and coordinator of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's Latin American Inclusive Security Network.