The New Cold War

Well, folks, it appears the Cold War is back on.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that fact is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But this is not your granddaddy’s Cold War in which the Soviet Union was a military match for the United States in terms of conventional forces and even at times far stronger in that category.

This time, Russia is far weaker militarily and economically.

In the video game Call of Duty, Russia is able to take over half of Europe and do serious damage to the United States (see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 3).

In the real world, the Russian military is getting bogged down in Ukraine while taking unsustainable losses, with the caveat that the Russians are making some progress in Southern Ukraine.

However, the real Cold War will not be against Russia—a power that can be economically destroyed if the free world keeps up the sanctions and ratchets up the pressure—but the People’s Republic of China.

Not only is China’s economy the second largest in the world after the United States, so many essential supply chains involve China in some vital capacity. This means that the free world can’t sanction China (at least right now) the same way it can sanction Russia.

In addition, China has far stronger state capacity than Russia does, not to mention far stronger control over its citizens than Putin does. Although Putin’s regime has transformed overnight from a Mafia state to a totalitarian regime, this was out of necessity to recover Putin’s gamble that went quite poorly. China, by contrast, starting when Chinese president Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, has chosen to transition from an authoritarian state to a totalitarian one.

An Explanation of Russia

Putin’s ambitions are clear as day.

He is looking to rebuild the old Russian Empire that existed in the days of the tsars. It is important to keep in mind that although Putin regards the fall of the USSR as a geopolitical catastrophe, he is no communist himself. Instead, he combines Russian nationalism, reactionary social values, and a goal of making Moscow a third Rome. This last objective is connected to the role that the Russian Orthodox Church plays in supporting Putin’s regime.

A core objective of Putin (and Russia’s political and security elites more broadly) is to contain and destroy Atlanticism. Atlanticism refers to the idea that Europe and the United States should work together closely for economic and security purposes. In practice, this means the Russian elite regard NATO as the number one threat.

To rebuild their empire, Russia’s elites seek to destroy the United States, NATO, and its allies in Asia.

Keep in mind the true elite in Russia are the intelligence agencies that do the Putin regime’s dirty work.

Putin appears to draw on ideas that sound like something the Nazis espoused. The idea that people have a biocosmic life force, which Lev Gumilyov, a Russian ethnographer and intellectual, proposed, is key. According to Putin’s interpretation of Gumilyov, Russia’s people have yet to reach their full potential, are young people (which is demonstrably false), and have been victimized by the West out of jealousy.

All of this put together demonstrates that Putin is looking to Make Russia Great Again—great again by reconquering its so-called rightful territories in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

An Explanation of China

China’s behavior demonstrates many of the telltale signs of a fascist state, albeit one with Chinese characteristics: an obsession with toughness (heavily connected with concerns around manliness), seemingly wild fluctuations between depicting itself as a victim who deserves vengeance and a rising power who people should fear, persecution of anyone who is not Han Chinese (see what is happening with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province in Northwest China), heavy clampdowns on dissent, women’s rights declining, and much more.

In addition, China is investing heavily in perhaps the largest infrastructure project in history, the Belt and Road Initiative. China’s goal is to fundamentally transform the global order in its favor, and unlike Russia, China has enough economic, diplomatic, and cultural power to back up its ambitions without relying just on nuclear weapons.

However, we have yet to see how China’s military performs against an opponent that can actually hit back.

The main reason China is not doing more to support Putin is that it doesn’t want to get bogged down in a war in Eastern Europe, at present of little interest to China. It is clear that President Xi supports Putin’s war into Ukraine but expected it to get done a lot faster.

Put it another way, President Xi basically told Putin, “We will support a conquest of Ukraine, but get it done quickly.”

Suffice to say, that is not what happened.

Between the two, China is vastly more powerful than Russia.

About the US Military

The United States Armed Forces have no trouble defeating opponents in conventional battles. No country can match the United States in conventional terms, especially when it comes to logistics.

The main problem is that Washington, DC, and the American people more broadly do not know how to use this potent weapon effectively. In addition, Americans have a low tolerance for casualties. The main reason we lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan was because the American government and American people decided it was not worth the effort—something for people in the comments to keep in mind.

Fifth Columnists in the Free World

Unfortunately, Putin’s skills as a KGB operative have come in handy when exploiting fifth columnists. Fifth columnists refers to people inside a country who are either sympathetic to the enemy or actively work for the enemy. See also traitor and quisling.

These traitors don’t share a coherent ideology, unlike Stalinists or Soviet Communists. What connects them is a willingness to support a series of governments like Russia because they think it will help them burn down the current system and create utopia.

Basically, they are arsonists turning to this alliance of evil for supplies to start a conflagration.

The success of Brexit, the rise of populist parties across the world, the reemergence of the far left and far right, and, most catastrophically, the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States: all were made possible by Putin’s ability to exploit critical weaknesses in the free world.

Keep in mind that Putin may not have invented the pathologies that pervade the United States, like racism, but he did use them to his advantage.

What Needs to Be Done to Fight the Cold War Overseas

I have some recommendations on how to fight this Cold War, both at home and abroad.

I will start abroad.

The United States must not only expand NATO and ensure Europe is safe from Russian aggression, but the same must be done for East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the broader Pacific to counter China. This means building closer relationships with the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. We need to integrate these countries so that we can form a bulwark against China. Getting Singapore to get closer, however, may be quite difficult because it is the Switzerland of Southeast Asia.

On top of building closer relationships with our existing allies in the Pacific, it would be wise to start up military relationships with Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. None of these governments are particularly good, but all have long histories of hostilities with China, even before it became communist. More should be done to get closer with Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and especially India. Machiavelli of all people made the point that to fight a regional superpower, it is best to ally with its weaker neighbors.

But to pull this off, the United States Department of State urgently needs to be overhauled. Although it may have in part recovered from the Trump administration’s neglect and abuse, it is still nowhere near where it needs to be for the task at hand. The United States must do more to professionalize the diplomatic corps and make the appointment process less dependent on who happens to occupy the White House or control the Senate.

In addition, the intelligence apparatus of the United States needs to be overhauled. Decisions need to be made based on solid information and analysis, and if the United States is going to fight this new Cold War, we must enhance our ability to wage war in the shadows.

Everyone please take a deep breath, but I do support expanding the United States military with the condition of tight oversight. Specifically, I support expanding the United States Navy to ensure solid supply lines all over the world.

It is vital that supply chains be disentangled from China and Russia. This way, the free world will be much less vulnerable to economic warfare.

Fighting this Cold War means adopting the mantra “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for example, I am aware that Ukraine has serious problems with corruption (President Zelensky ran on an anti-corruption platform) and that many potential allies in the Cold War against Russia are anything but good people. The United States adopted this mindset when fighting communism, though in certain cases, it caused more problems than it solved.

For example, the United States backed the rule of the Somoza family in Nicaragua from 1937 until it was overthrown in 1979 by the Sandinistas, who rule Nicaragua today under the corrupt rule of Daniel Ortega. The last Somoza to rule Nicaragua, Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza, was not only incredibly corrupt (even by Central American standards), but he also alienated allies by stealing from them after a 1972 earthquake that devastated Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. Other US-backed dictatorships in Central America proved even more vicious and corrupt.

Another example of an ally causing more problems would be the leader of Cuba before Castro took over, Fulgencio Batista. He was not only incredibly corrupt, but his government worked with the Mob. Because the United States was only thinking of its pocketbooks, it did not take care to think about how its stooge’s actions would cause a massive thorn in its side that continues to this day.

When fighting “the enemy of my enemy,” it must be applied so that the ally in question does not cause more problems than it solves, like the last Somoza or Batista did.

How to Fight the Cold War at Home

The most important step to fighting the fifth columnists is to know who they are.

I am defining fifth columnists as those willing to ally with Russia or China to advance their goals.

They range from Democratic Socialists to the far right. But between these two groups, the far right is by far the bigger threat.

Because of how badly the far right has compromised so many law enforcement agencies, it may be wise to consider using the United States military or private military companies to wage war on it. Make no mistake—the far right is perhaps the most potent element of the fifth columnists. It must be treated as such.

Any Democrat who advocates for treating Russia’s “security concerns” with any degree of seriousness must be investigated. Any who advocate concern for Russian civilians inside Russia must be looked at with suspicion as well. Keep in mind that Russians for the most part are supportive of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

What is important to remember is that there will be arguments about how to contain Russia and China. The issue with Democratic Socialists and the far right (among other things) is that they are de facto siding with Putin.

But for crying out loud, please don’t target Russian Americans, Russian immigrants, or anyone who had the good sense to flee Russia. Anyone who is willing to pay absurdly high prices for airplane tickets or take the plunge of fleeing to Central Asia just to escape Russia is clearly no friend of the Kremlin. Same for anyone fleeing China and its oppressive regime.

What more do you all think must be done to fight this new Cold War?

Let me know in the comments.