Tag: Cold War Era

‘As Long as It Takes’: Biden Adds to Talk of a New Cold War

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President Biden and his national security team have contended since he took office that all the easy, tempting comparisons between this era and the Cold War are misleading, a vast oversimplification of a complex geopolitical moment. The differences are, indeed, stark: The United States never had the kind of technological and financial interdependence with its Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, that so complicates the increasingly bitter and dangerous downward spiral in the relationship with China. And Mr. Biden’s advisers often argue that Russia is not the Soviet Union. Yes,…

If Biden Wanted to Ease U.S.-China Tensions, Would Americans Let Him?

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As tensions between their countries mount, President Biden and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, have repeatedly pushed back on comparisons to the Cold War. But efforts to repair relations may run into a problem: public opinion. Polls show striking similarities between the hostility, pessimism and militarism in Americans’ views of the Soviet Union during the late 1940s run-up to the Cold War, and how they view China today. While the parallels remain limited and the contexts different, this could complicate attempts to avert a Cold War-like clash. The parallels In both…

Inconvenient Allies, Dangerous Enemies. What’s the U.S. to Do?

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Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon Music The New York Times Audio app includes podcasts, narrated articles from the newsroom and other publishers, as well as exclusive new shows — including this one — which we’re making available to readers for a limited time. Download the New York Times Audio app here. As authoritarian nations like China and Russia try to assert their power, President Biden has said the United States is fighting a global battle to save democracy. So why is…

China, Russia and the Risk of a New Cold War

Chin@Strategy

Edward Wong contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman,…

Review: “A Continent Erupts,” by Ronald H. Spector

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A CONTINENT ERUPTS: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955, by Ronald H. Spector Early on the morning of Sept. 2, 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur boarded the battleship U.S.S. Missouri to preside over the ceremony marking the Japanese surrender in World War II. Among the representatives of the nine Allied nations was a group of defeated colonial officials. Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival, who had surrendered Malaya to the Japanese, was there. So was General Philippe Leclerc, “a hero of the European war, who had been recently dispatched to…

We Are All Living in Vladimir Putin’s World Now

Chin@Strategy

Over the last two months, the Moscow-Beijing alliance has moved from hypothesis to reality, thanks to the shared goal of challenging American dominance. While Chinese elites are hardly excited about Russia’s reckless invasion of Ukraine (the Chinese hold dear their commitment to nonviolation of state sovereignty), there is no doubt they will stay on Moscow’s side. Look at how Beijing refused to officially describe Mr. Putin’s war as an invasion. President Xi Jinping may be the biggest beneficiary of the current crisis: America not only looks weak; it also now…

Vladimir Putin’s Clash of Civilizations

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Still, even the most successful scenario for his invasion of Ukraine — easy victory, no real insurgency, a pliant government installed — seems likely to undercut some of the interests he’s supposedly fighting to defend. NATO will still nearly encircle western Russia, more countries may join the alliance, European military spending will rise, more troops and material will end up in Eastern Europe. There will be a push for European energy independence, some attempt at long-term delinking from Russian pipelines and production. A reforged Russian empire will be poorer than…

How Republicans Can Replay the Reagan Era

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For a long time, longer than I’ve held this job, my advice to Republican politicians and policymakers has been consistent: It isn’t the 1970s or 1980s anymore. The ideas associated with Ronald Reagan’s ascent to power, forged in an era of Cold War and high crime rates, stagflation and sexual revolution, were responses to crises and challenges decades in the past, and the G.O.P. was doomed to cycles of failure until it devised an agenda more fitted to the times. The year 2021, though, is the first time a reasonable…

What Is Going on With China is Not a ‘Cold War’

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A new idea is gaining currency among some politicians and policymakers in Washington: The United States is in a Cold War with China. It’s a bad idea — bad on history, bad on politics, bad for our future. The Biden administration has wisely pushed back on the framing. But the president’s actions suggest that his strategy for dealing with China may indeed suffer from Cold War thinking, which locks our minds into the traditional two-dimensional chess model. Competition with China, though, is a three-dimensional game. And if we continue to…

China Could Have 1,000 Nuclear Warheads by 2030, Pentagon Says

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — China is continuing to strengthen its strategic nuclear arsenal and could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to a new Defense Department report released Wednesday. The Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China’s military might estimates that China could have 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027 and 1,000 three years later. In addition, it warns that China has “possibly already established a nascent nuclear triad with the development of a nuclear capable air-launched ballistic missile and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities.” Even with the…