“It’s no longer debatable that the United States and China, tacit allies during the last half of the last Cold War, are entering their own new cold war: Chinese President Xi Jinping has declared it, and a rare bipartisan consensus in the United States has accepted the challenge,” write Hal Brands and John Lewis Gaddis in Foreign Affairs Magazine.
Their article examines the historical US relationship with China and draws lessons from history about how to approach the current cold war — in light of the unknowns, uncertainties, and surprises that come with it.
“The study of history is the best compass we have in navigating the future,” they write.
“Our purpose here, then, is to show how the greatest unfought war of our time—the Soviet-American Cold War—as well as other prior struggles, might expand experience and enhance resilience in a Sino-American rivalry whose future, hot or cold, remains unclear,” they continue. “That history provides a framework within which to survive uncertainty, and possibly even thrive within it, whatever the rest of the twenty-first century throws our way.”
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Hal Brands is the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at The Johns Hopkins University – Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and AWC Principal at Johns Hopkins.
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The full article “The New Cold War: America, China, and the Echoes of History” appears in the Foreign Affairs November/December 2021 edition. Available online at Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-10-19/new-cold-war