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Review: New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion and American’s
Struggle to Defend the West – David E. Sanger (Scribe)
“This is a book about a global shock that took Washington by surprise: the
revival of superpower conflict,” reads the introduction of
New Cold Wars, by
Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times journalist David E. Sanger.
From the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022, he writes,
there was a sense of certainty that the greatest byproduct of America’s
undeniable victory in the Cold War was something like a permanent era of
peace among the world’s nuclear superpowers.
Three years into Vladimir Putin’s three-day “special military operation” in
Ukraine, the effects of Russia’s continuing illegal and immoral invasion are
still reverberating around the world.
Putin’s use of military force to further his imperialistic ambitions in Europe
has led to a reordering that few international analysts would have thought
possible only a short while ago.
Putin’s “no limits” partnership with the People’s Republic of China has been
followed by his embrace of one of the most reclusive, internationally
sanctioned regimes in the world: the Russia–North Korea defence pact.
China has been supporting and enabling Russian aggression in Europe, while
exercising soft and hard power across the Indo-Pacific.
A centrepiece of modern Chinese power is one of the largest expansions in
military capability in modern history, including a massive boost to nuclear
weapons. Over recent years, China has increasingly used coercive power to
further its objectives.
Meanwhile, the ongoing Israel–Gaza conflict threatens to expand across the
Middle East.
All these conflicts have exposed rifts and driven wedges in international and
domestic political agendas.
Sanger’s work can easily be seen as a chronicle of how China and Russia have
emerged as revisionist powers, willing to use coercion and outright force to
change regional power dynamics and the global order. But at the real heart of
his fourth book is the reaction of the United States and the West to these
moves.
After four decades at the
New York Times, where his focus is on foreign
policy, Sanger is uniquely qualified to lay out his vision of the contemporary
international order. As he writes, “I travelled the world with five US
presidents – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden” and “heard […] from their
lips and those of their closest advisors.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
