THE NEW COLD WAR

CHANGING CONTEXT AND SHIFTING CONTOURS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

- Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra

The new Cold War also known as Cold War 2.0 is characterized by simmering tensions, breach of international norms, proxy wars and an arms race between the US on the one hand and major powers such as China and North Korea in the Indo-Pacific, Iran in West Asia and Russia in Eurasia on the other. For instance, Russia's assertion of sovereignty over Ukraine and prolonged war with the latter since February 2022 pushed the US towards an armament race with Russia and the American administration kept supplying updated arms and ammunitions to the Ukrainian regime in a bid to contain Russia. In the post-Cold War era, neither the world emerged completely unipolar, nor did any world society become firmly established. On the contrary, a large grey area emerged where states moved from the pro-US foreign policy or clear anti-US or restricted foreign policy to a more independent foreign policy. While China is the key challenger to the US power and the most important player in the new Cold War, many other regional powers challenged American predominance in different parts of the globe and maintained friendly relations with China. Primarily, the US began to face challenges from rising and revisionist China, assertive Russia and from recurring threat of Iran's nuclear ambitions. While many experts define the American arms race and rising tensions with China as the new Cold War, others define it as the tensions and arms competition arising from the sharing objective of multiple regional players challenging the American hegemony.

Changing Dynamics

While the Cold War referred to power competition and arms race between two superpowers the US and the USSR, the new Cold War involves multiple players such as China, Russia and Iran who seek to defy American hegemony and cooperate with one another to challenge the power position of the US.