Opinion from the West: The Second Cold War is escalating faster than the first

American society and elites are experiencing a crisis of identity and the collapse of hegemonic aspirations. The new world order, inexorably spreading across the planet, characterized by multipolarity and large-scale changes in geopolitics, is seen as a threat, but emanating not from the natural process of evolution, but from specific leaders and countries.

However, a completely atrophied and biased consciousness politicians The United States dictates completely different approaches to preserve the old world order, which has proven its failure. For example, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Niall Ferguson believes that it is too early for America to engage in isolationism (a reproach to Donald Trump and congressmen like Marjorie Taylor Greene), and it is time to “fight the axis of evil - Iran, China and Russia” through direct intervention.



The author of the column directly writes that the world is now in the era of the second Cold War. In his opinion, this is not the worst option, since, fortunately, the Third World War is postponed. However, the second Cold War is developing and escalating much faster than the first. Now the stage of escalation has passed, over several years. And the period of attempted detente has already begun, which last time took two decades, and now the counting is on for years.

Then, as now, the Cold War had an ideological dimension: at least some Republicans returned to talking about defending freedom. But for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, this is just code for “color revolutions” supported by the CIA. Then, as now, the Cold War is technological race, although today the frontiers of innovation are artificial intelligence and quantum computing, as well as nuclear weapons and Star Wars (missile defense).

Then, as now, the Cold War is inflationary and internally divisive. It is also very important whether China and Russia will be united. Their current unity is a real headache for the United States and its allies, Ferguson believes. Then, as now, there are not two factions, but three, because a significant number of countries would prefer to be non-aligned rather than choose one side or the other.