The contours of a new and dangerous era are in place. The world has gone from a chilly peace to a new cold war.
Cold war 2.0 has rhymes from version 1.0, yet the origin stories emphasise the differences.
The 20th century cold war was bred by victory and failure, a child of war and depression; ideology was its heart as two secular religions—communism and democracy—fought Europe’s last ‘religious’ war.
The new cold war carries less ideological baggage, born from decades of peace in Europe and Asia and a wonderful period of economic and scientific achievement.
Version 2.0 draws on the successes of globalisation in the post-cold war space, a golden age. But that warmth has faded and turned icy as it veers away from borderless optimism to revive the contest of great powers.
These are the elements of cold war 2.0:
1. The United States versus China: the two superpowers face off in the contest of the century. The balance between cooperation and competition will keep them from crashing into conflict.
2. Multipolarity: Cold war 1.0 saw the non-aligned nations standing as far as possible from the bipolar divide, seeking individual benefits from the Soviet Union and the US. Today, everyone must dance. The non-aligned option flowers as many shades of multi-alignment. Nations choose where they stand on each issue, and keep making fresh choices. In the multipolar dance, China and the US must court, not demand, commitment.
3. Indo-Pacific: The central balance of international power this century will be set in the Indo-Pacific. Australia’s Defence Strategic Review declares: ‘The Indo-Pacific is the most important geostrategic region in the world’. The National Defence Strategy judges that the global competition is ‘sharpest and most consequential in the Indo-Pacific’.
4. Economics: The world’s top two economies wrestle and wrangle, even as they work together in an economic relationship that is huge, entrenched and multifaceted. Washington says the main challenge it faces is ‘competition in an age of interdependence’. This economic intimacy is a vital difference between 1.0 and 2.0.
5. De-risking: The vogue word is ‘decoupling’, but that bumps hard against what globalisation delivers. Derisking is limited deglobalisation. Washington’s ‘small yard and high fence’ approach walls off vital industries, science and minerals to China. This will draw supply chains closer, applying the cold war test to trade policy and business regulation. Geoeconomics will turn mercantilist and protectionist.
6. Technology race: China has the foundations to be the world’s technology superpower in major and emerging technologies. ASPI’s critical technology tracker identified China as the leading country in 57 of 64 technologies, spanning defence, space, energy, the environment, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotics, cyber, computing, advanced materials and quantum. The US and its allies face an extraordinary tech challenge.
7. Cyber-attacks and artificial intelligence: The cyber domain is where the cold war rages every day. The grey zone battlefield is a constant, pervasive digital conflict of theft, espionage, malware, disinformation and fakes. Artificial intelligence is the revolution that will remake much. The realm ‘of minds and machines’ is the arms race of 2.0. The US aims to build norms on responsible military use of AI and autonomy, seeing control negotiations with Beijing on AI just as it does on nuclear weapons.
8. Nuclear: The nuclear threat is more complex and less predictable. Russia revives the nightmare, repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The structural change is China’s build-up. Beijing is on track to amass 1,000 nuclear warheads, up from around 200 in 2019. The US Defence Department describes ‘a new nuclear age’ of rapidly modernizing and expanding nuclear arsenals, ‘an unprecedented mix of multiple revisionist nuclear challengers who are uninterested in arms control or risk reduction’, openly threatening to employ nuclear weapons to achieve their aims.
9. Space: Space is a military operational domain. Satellites revolutionised intelligence and warfighting, allowing every inch of earth to be watchable and targetable. The moon will matter in 2.0 just as it did in 1.0. The race is on between China, Russia and the US to put men and women on the moon.
10. Russia: Putin’s Russia is dangerous, yet dependent on China. The ‘vassal’ label has some truth. The ‘no limits partnership’ is just short of a conventional alliance—the limit is what China decides. Russia was a principal in 1.0; in 2.0 it is a partner.
11. Democracy versus autocracy: Ideology doesn’t drive 2.0 as it did 1.0, yet this is still a key division that defines the struggle over power and principles. China wants to make the world safe for autocracies, to privilege power over rules. US President Joe Biden says the world is at an ‘inflection point’ in a clash between democracy and autocracy.
12. War: In 1.0, the proxy wars were in Asia. Now the US-China proxy war is in Europe.
Cold war 2.0 shares the same purpose as version 1.0: keep the superpower contest cool enough to avoid Armageddon. The new competition must seek balance, find understandings, build confidence and develop guardrails.