The End of the Frozen Cold War?
Vladimer Papava2009
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Abstract
not the world is standing on the verge of a new Cold War. Almost no one is asking a question of what if the 20 th century Cold War was never finished but, rather, was just "frozen" and what we are witnessing now is the process of melting. To the extent that on both sides of the Cold War are the same countries as in the last century, and the reasons and driving forces of the conflict -as well as the Kremlin's action stylehave never changed, one may conclude that what we see now is not a new Cold War but, rather, the resumption of the old Cold War. It is quite probable that the old story may happen again and the West's softness towards Russia may lead to the "refreezing" of the Cold War and the sacrifice of Georgia for an imaginary peace in Europe and the whole world.
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The End of the Frozen Cold War? Comment by
After the Russian incursion into Georgia many analysts ask questions of whether or not the world is standing on the verge of a new Cold War. Almost no one is asking a question of what if the 20 th century Cold War was never finished but, rather, was just "frozen" and what we are witnessing now is the process of melting. To the extent that on both sides of the Cold War are the same countries as in the last century, and the reasons and driving forces of the conflict-as well as the Kremlin's action style-have never changed, one may conclude that what we see now is not a new Cold War but, rather, the resumption of the old Cold War. It is quite probable that the old story may happen again and the West's softness towards Russia may lead to the "refreezing" of the Cold War and the sacrifice of Georgia for an imaginary peace in Europe and the whole world.
Is there a new Cold War?
During the Cold war the world was divided into two, the US led the West, and the Soviet Union was the source of communism for the international arena. Ever since the Berlin Wall and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed, the White House and Kremlin have struggled to substitute their Cold War opposition with a new form of affiliation. The relationship between the two countries is still important today due to their nuclear capacities, resources, global influence and powers. It is interesting to analyse their relationship since the end of the Cold War in order to see whether we can classify it as a new type of Cold war or no war at all.
A Year Since the Return of History: A New Cold War?
Transatlantic Policy Quarterly
The last one year proved itself to be a very tough year, and it brought many new challenges for the international relations. Among these new challenges, the most striking one is probably the Russia’s unleashing a war of aggression on Ukraine. As Russia’s invasion stepped up on the 24 February 2022, many Western experts and policymakers predicted that the Ukrainian armed forces wouldn’t be able to defend Kyiv, and that it would fall to the invaders before the month ended. Nonetheless, the government and people of Ukraine are still fighting, and you can see evidence of this everywhere you walk in Kyiv thanks to the flag of free Ukraine flying from rooftops.
The Cold War Is Dead! Long Live the Cold War!
IR Theory, Historical Analogy, and Major Power War, 2018
Journalistic references to a "new Cold War" or "Cold War 2.0" 1 in the aftermath of the Russian annexation of Crimea and its political-military interference in eastern Ukraine since February-March 2014 are misleading. Instead, the post-Cold War era best resembles a mix of the pre-World War I and interwar periods-particularly following the disaggregation of the Soviet Empire-more so than the Cold War in which the global constellation of powers had been dominated by the US and Soviet Union. 2 This is not to argue that the Cold War-which directly or indirectly killed an estimated 20-25 million people in interstate conflicts and as much as seventy-six million deaths if one included innerstate "genocide" and "democide" in the period 1947-1987 3 in what can be considered a quasi-global war that was fought by surrogate forces primarily in semi-peripheral and peripheral regions-was not dangerous. In fact, the Cold War almost exploded into a nuclear conflict during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during NATO's Able Archer Exercises, as discussed in this book, and on several other occasions despite the belief that mutual assured destruction (MAD)-what was also called the "delicate balance of terror" 4-would prevent a nuclear war. Yet, in contemporary circumstances, it is no longer as certain (as it at least appeared to be during the Cold War) that nuclear weaponry possessed by major (or by emerging regional) powers will necessarily serve as a deterrent against other nuclear powers. CHAPTER 1
Consequences of a New Cold War
Survival, 2015
The Ukraine crisis poses vexing policy challenges for Washington. President Barack Obama has sought to strike a balance between the imperative of responding to Russian actions and the equally important need to avoid an all-out confrontation with Moscow. As he put it in July 2014, 'it's not a new Cold War … [It] is a very specific issue related to Russia's unwillingness to recognise that Ukraine can chart its own path.' 1 The problem is that the administration's balancing act cannot last long. As the deterioration of conditions in Ukraine in recent weeks has demonstrated, forces beyond the president's control are pushing him toward the very new Cold War that he wants to avoid. He will eventually face a choice between that outcome, which would be hugely dangerous and costly, and negotiations on a revised regional order in Europe, which might hurt him politically but would be far better for the United States and for the world. He should move toward the negotiated outcome now.
Cold War 2.0: Why Current Crisis is Far More Dangerous Than 20th Century's Long Twilight Struggle
Note by Fazal Rahman Excellent analysis of the current international situation by Lieutenant-General Evgeny Buzhinsky, who knows what he is talking about, especially in the military aspects. However, many assistants of US and NATO proxy war, like the Poles, the Balts, the Czechs, which he talks about, will have no relevance, in case the Anal Character (Freudian term for extreme irrational stubbornness) US imperialism, with which almost all the US leaders have been infected throughout history, somehow changes its self-damaging and world-damaging policies and actions in the current hot war in Ukraine. This proxy war is not a cold war. It is a rapidly escalating hot war, which Ukrainian puppet, Zelensky, has been trying to escalate into the Third World War, endangering the survival of human and most other species. He should be tried for plotting this most dangerous crime against humanity and nature in some international court. Churchill’s speech about Iron Curtain only gained prominence in the West and its clients elsewhere. In its essence, it was nonsensical. Stalin understood the political economy, mass psychology, policies and actions of the US and Western imperialisms better than most other Soviet and Russian leaders. Gorbachev and Yeltsin understood these less than any others, and ruined the USSR and socialism there and internationally. The current crisis and war in Ukraine is one of the numerous results of that Grand Betrayal. End of note
Frozen and Freezing Conflicts in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus: Implications for Regional Security
article, 2017
The paper focuses on the process of frozen or freezing conflicts in the post-Soviet area and how they influence regional security in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus. The key argument advanced is that the almost three-year-long war in eastern Ukraine (Donbas) will become another frozen conflict in the post-Soviet space. The reasons for this are the lack of agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the future of the region and Russia’s support for the Donbas administration. The main consequences of those conflicts are destabilization, devastation and militarization of Eastern Europe. Russia has experience leveraging conflicts of this type and using them to further its foreign and security policy aims. Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine are affected by the problem of frozen conflicts, which influence their internal political, economic and social situation
A Cold Peace? Western-Russian Relations in Light of the Ukraine Crisis
2014
In light of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilization of Ukraine, West-Russia relations have so dramatically deteriorated that talk of a new Cold War has become routine. NAtO’s role in Europe is again in the spotlight, with experts and policymakers pondering whether the Alliance needs to go back to its historical roots and re-calibrate itself as an instrument of defence from and containment of Russia. At the same time, cooperation between Russia and the West has not collapsed altogether, with the two still able to coordinate on issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme. Clearly, tensions over Ukraine are so strong that the risk of a breakdown in relations cannot be ruled out. Against this disturbing backdrop, the Center on the United states and Europe (CUsE) at the brookings Institution in Washington and the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) of Rome organized an international conference to discuss ways by which Russia and the West can contain tensions, manage competition, a...
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A New Cold War? Reflections of a Russian Diplomat
International Journal, 1994
has the world entered into a new cold war
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Avoiding a New Cold War: The World Needs a Wind of Change
The Diplomat, 2018
On the one hand, neither Russia, nor the West, claim that they want a repetition of the Cold War. On the other, in analyzing the tone and rhetoric used by both sides, it seems that they are talking themselves into such a scenario, because renaming this confrontation as hybrid war or gibridnaya voyna does not change its nature.
New Cold War: NATO – Russia Rivalry
The Cold War rivalries between United States of America and Soviet Union after the Second World War till 1991 had divided the entire world into two blocs with extreme hostilities against each other on ideological lines. America and its allies formed NATO defence bloc to protect and promote liberal-democratic ideology. while Soviet Union and its allies formed Warsaw Pact defence bloc to promote and protect communist-socialist ideology. These organizations started countering each other to fulfill their interests and animosities all over the world. This generated arms race and development of nuclear weapons of mass destructions by them which could destroy the entire world. Russian Leader Gorbachev's reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika led to the end of Communist rule and abolition of Warsaw Pact in 1991. There was reduction in Cold War animosity. Measures were adopted for disarmament of nuclear weapons. People all over the world felt relief and hoped that the Cold War had ended but it emerged again between America and Russia within a few years. America did not dissolve NATO. Both America and Russia started new interventions and rivalries cropped up. The recent deployment of NATO forces and missiles in Eastern European countries have led to the emergence of New Cold War. This New Cold War is not based on Ideological fight. It is totally a fight for power and hegemony. The present paper tries to study and explore the dimensions of new Cold War and its impact.
The End of the Cold War on the Cold War?
Diplomatic History, 1993
Although one should not judge a book by its back cover, it is noteworthy that this volume, which received the 1993 Robert H. Ferrell Book Award, carries generous blurbs by leading revisionist scholars. But Leffler's account is quite different from standard revisionism, and, while mind reading is not my profession, I suspect that it will be acceptable to many orthodox and postrevisionist scholars. * Leffler stresses economic factors and American * I would like to thank James McAllister for comments. 'After this was in draft, my attention was called to Gaddis's favorable review of Leffler:
TOWARD NEW COLD WAR
In the contemporary era, one of the US government strategies is to prevent Russia could rise to the status of major global or even regional power. In practice, the US government wants to avoid facing the future of a reinvigorated Russia. On Russia, it is important to note that its strategic objectives are: 1) to defend itself from the threat to their territory represented by the United States and with NATO forces; and, 2) achieving world power status lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. To defend against the threat to their territory represented by the United States and the NATO forces, the military strategy of Russia provides for the resetting of the Army and Navy with the use of conventional and nuclear weapons in response to an attack on the country. The worsening economic situation resulting from Russia's price drop of oil and the economic strangulation resulting of sanctions imposed by the US and European Union may radicalize the conflict with the United States making the Russian government decides on preventive military intervention in Ukraine that could further strengthen the power of Vladimir Putin in charge of Russia mobilizing the nation against foreign enemies. By contrast, the United States and NATO forces should act extending the siege of Russia starting a new Cold War.
OLD OR NEW COLD WAR? IS THE NEW COLD WAR A CONTINUATION OF THE OLD?
CICERO FOUNDATION GREAT DEBATE PAPER No. 14/07, 2014
We frequently can hear opinions about the start of “a new Cold War.” A peculiarity of the resumed Cold War is that it takes place in a globalized world. Because of the globalization the economies of the West (especially Europe’s economy, not so much that of the USA) and Russia are intertwined. Russia is the main exporter of oil and natural gas to many European countries, for which Moscow receives important revenues. On the other hand is Russia’s large market very attractive for Western investors. In retaliation to the economic sanctions, imposed by the Western countries against Russia after the events in Ukraine, Moscow introduced in its turn sanctions and closed the Russian market for agricultural products produced in the EU member states. “The new Cold War” a continuation of the “Old.”
Frozen conflicts and its influence on NATO and EU membership E1
Russia's World View and NATO Expansion: a Fertile Soil for Frozen Conflicts The last decades the world has seen an increasing amount of conflicts in the vicinity of Russia as this state has re-emerged as a (major regional) power. Conflicts for example have broken out and continued in Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Ukraine; in all these conflicts Russia has been involved in either active or covert fashion. These conflicts have been conducted by Russia under the guise of protecting the rights of ethnic Russians and in the defence of self-determination (Arbatova 2010). 'The main question however remains what lies at the root of these conflicts', is it merely coincidence, is Russia really protecting its fellow Russians across the border or are there deeper and more strategic causes visible underneath? In this essay I will argue for the last. The many conflicts have their roots in the Russian view on international affairs: this is dominated by a geopolitical and realist view in which it as a great Power has special rights; furthermore it feels threatened by the ongoing eastward expansion of Western influence and NATO especially. Having gone through a deeply traumatic experience with the fall of the Soviet Union it has resurged itself as a great player, it will use any means to protect its interests especially in its own sphere of influence. This essay is divided into three sections: first the divergent world views of Russia and Western powers will be discussed, in section two we will address the experience of NATO expansion and Russian resurgence, section three will show how frozen conflicts are used strategically. Russia vs the West: Divergent perspectives on world affairs Relations between Russia and the Western powers like the EU and US have been deteriorating for the last decade; one major cause for this fact is a different perspective on international affairs: the West is seeing things more through the lenses of idealism and Liberalism, Russia's view is better characterized Realist and geopolitical (Wolff 2015). While the West is busy spreading the norms of democracy, reliability and cooperation alongside emphasizing trade relations and the spread of respecting human rights. There is a firm belief that through cooperation and coordination a safer and better world can be built. This idea is dominated by
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