A New Cold War?

Assessing the Current US-Russia Relationship

Nicholas Ross Smith

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030206758
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Gouvernement américain

This book examines the contention that current US-Russia relations have descended into a 'New Cold War'. It examines four key dimensions of the original Cold War, the structural, the ideological, the psychological, and the technological, and argues that the current US-Russia relationship bears little resemblance to the Cold War. Presently, the international system is transitioning towards multipolarity, with Russia a declining power, while current ideological differences and threat perceptions are neither as rigid nor as bleak as they once were. Ultimately, when the four dimensions of analysis are weighed in unison, this work argues that the claim of a New Cold War is a hyperbolic assessment of US-Russia relations.

© The Author(s) 2020

Nicholas Ross SmithA New Cold War?https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20675-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Nicholas Ross Smith¹

(1)

University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, China

Nicholas Ross Smith

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The introduction starts with an observation that characterizing the current cooling of the US-Russia relationship as a ‘New Cold War’ has become extremely popular in both mainstream media and academia in recent years. However, it is noted that few theoretically-informed comparisons exist between the Cold War and the current state of the US-Russia relationship. This book aims to rectify that. An overview of what the Cold War was is given, identifying four key dimensions: the structural, the ideological, the psychological, and the technological.

Keywords

Cold WarNew Cold WarChapter outlines

End Abstract

A fascination with characterizing the current relationship between the United States of America (US) and the Russian Federation as something akin to a New Cold War, or a Cold War II, has emerged in both the mainstream media (Legvold, 2014; Osnos, Remnick, & Yaffa, 2017; Shuster, 2014; Stavridis, 2016) and academic literature (Black & Johns, 2016; Kalb, 2015; Legvold, 2016). This is, in part, because ‘sensationalist’ analogizing has long been a popular tactic of argumentation in both journalism and academia, but also because the US-Russia relationship has indeed been experiencing a notable cooling since the early 2000s, a cooling which has accelerated over the past five years. The current state of the relationship is alarming, for a number of reasons. First, the US and Russia have clashed over a number of international crises, ranging from the crisis in Ukraine, to the civil war in Syria, to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The Ukraine crisis has led to tit-for-tat sanctions between Russia and the US, while in Syria something of a proxy war has emerged between Russia and the US, with both backing alternative sides in the ongoing civil war. Second, Russia’s ambitious modernization of its military, scheduled to be completed in 2020, is raising fears in Europe and the US, especially regarding its purported nuclear weapon advancements. Related to this, the military projection currently occurring in Eastern Europe between NATO and Russia has reached levels not seen since the Cold War. Last, Russia has been accused of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election by utilizing an array of tactics—monetary support, intelligence sharing, and cyber weapons—to help Donald Trump’s campaign. As more revelations emerge from the Mueller investigation, the US’s trust of Russia is reaching new lows.

Consequently, few are confident that the US-Russia relationship can be mended in the short term and many are predicting the potential for further cooling, even to the point of potential military confrontation (Fisher, 2015). Indeed, the US-Russia relationship has been on an exponentially worsening trajectory over the past five to ten years, which portends further issues in the coming years. However, to what extent this current ebb warrants a characterization of being a New Cold War is highly contentious. Importantly, proper theoretically-based comparisons between the Cold War and the current US-Russia relationship have been scarce. This book aims to remedy that by utilizing a new version of neoclassical realism (NCR), called Type III NCR, to drive a theoretically-informed comparison. It will argue that despite significant cooling of the US-Russia relationship, with the potential for further cooling, calling it a New Cold War betrays the reality of the current situation. To make this argument, the book identifies four theoretically-informed key dimensions of the original Cold War: the structural dimension; the psychological dimension; the ideological dimension; and the technological dimension. The Cold War became a contest of global significance because the underpinning geopolitical structure allowed it along with the presence of clear ideological differences and strong threat perceptions on both sides, while the technological dimension—especially the nuclear weapons arms race—significantly affected how international politics was conducted at that time. However, this book will develop an argument that when the criteria are applied to the current relationship, key differences emerge. Structurally, the world is transitioning toward multipolarity (with a period of US-China bipolarity likely) with Russia very much a declining power, while the ideological differences are nowhere near as stark or rigid and the threat perceptions are not as bleak, and the technological aspect has shifted the type of competition to new frontiers, especially cyberspace. Indeed, the potential for a New Cold War of global significance remains, but the source of this will not be the US-Russia relationship but rather, potentially, the Sino-US relationship.

1.1 What Was the Original Cold War?

Despite near unanimity among scholars that the period of US-Soviet relations ranging from the early post-Second World War setting up until the collapse of the Soviet Union is best termed the ‘Cold War,’ much debate exists as to what the Cold War actually was. There are some scholars—especially historians—who emphasize the ideological nature of the Cold War (Hopf, 2012; Mueller, 1993; Westad, 2007). For John Gaddis (2006, p. 7), ideology was key because “both the United States and the Soviet Union had been born in revolution. Both embraced ideologies with global aspirations: what worked at home, their leaders assumed, would also do so for the rest of the world.” Other scholars—especially ‘realist’ International Relationists—stress the importance of the structure of the international system for enabling a Cold War to emerge (Cox, 1984; Rapkin, Thompson, & Christopherson, 1979; Waltz, 1979). For Kenneth Waltz (1988, p. 628), writing in 1988, the Cold War was “firmly rooted in the structure of postwar international politics, and will last as long as that structure endures.” Another branch of scholarship—especially undertaken by cognitivist Political Scientists—argues that there was a psychological aspect of the Cold War (Gamson & Modigliani, 1971; Larson, 1988; Wohlforth, 1993). For Urie Bronfenbrenner (1961, p. 46), the Cold War was, in essence, the product of a mirror image of distorted perceptions on both sides: a “mirror image in a twisted glass.” A further, albeit smaller, group of scholars examine the importance of technology to the Cold War (Adas, 2015; Harrison, 2003; Stites, 1988). For Odd Arne Westad (2000, p. 553), because technological advancement was an important component of the two ideologies at the heart of the Cold War and manifested itself in numerous technological races (especially nuclear weapons), “the interplay between technology, politics, and social development forms one of the most useful prisms through which to view the East-West conflict.”

This book does not aim to provide a definitive answer to the question ‘What was the original Cold War?’ In fact, it is argued that pursuing a hard and fast answer to this question is a fool’s errand because, in reality, international political outcomes like the Cold War are a product of multiple variables interacting together. To this end, it is argued that looking at the four aspects of the Cold War identified above—all of which had undeniable importance in shaping the particular nature of the Cold War—as an interconnected set of dimensions is a constructive way to shed new light on the Cold War and how the current US-Russia relationship compares to it.

1.2 Outline of the Book

In order to compare the Cold War with the current US-Russia relationship, this book looks broadly at two specific medium-to-longer-term time periods in its comparison. For the Cold War, it examines the initial 15 years of the Cold War, from its ostensible beginning in 1947 to the onset of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. For the contemporary US-Russia relationship, it examines the 15 years that have passed since Russia and the US disagreed over the war in Iraq up until the current cooling over issues such as Ukraine, Syria, and North Korea. Thus, each chapter, save for Chap. 2, will examine both periods. Of course, such a comparison is not without limitations, especially as the Cold War lasted much longer than this initial 15-year period while also changing significantly in its scope and nature in the 1970s and 1980s. However, given that the aim of this book is to produce a crude comparison in order to derive policy-relevant insights, such limitations are seen as acceptable.

Chapter 2 is dedicated to generating a framework to compare the US-Soviet relationship during the Cold War with the contemporary US-Russia relationship. First, a discussion on the evolution of NCR and the emergence of Type III NCR to explain international political outcomes is offered. Building on this, a Type III NCR framework is developed which identifies four key dimensions to international politics: the structural dimension, which represents the independent variable; the psychological dimension, which represents an intervening process; the ideological dimension, which represents the intervening variable; and the technological dimension, which is a component of the dependent variable. It is argued that using a multi-dimensional Type III NCR framework can add insight into comparing international political outcomes from different periods.

Chapter 3 outlines the underpinning structural nature of the Cold War, arguing that the bipolar international system (and accompanying bipolarization) which emerged at the end of the Second World War was crucial to the development of the Cold War because it helped engender an ob...