The Next Cold War?

Question

After recent outpourings of garbage from the dictator Putin, the switching off of gas to some of his neighbours and just yesterday, that incident between Georgia and that Russian fighter aircraft, it begs the question, is the next Cold War around the corner.

If we look back to last year there was the incident with that ex-Russian agent-turned-journalist, who was poisoned in a London hotel. Russia is talking about a new rocket 'defence' system against the West. It seems the old tensions and tit-for-tat rhetoric are returning.

Or has the Cold War never gone away?

Answer 1

Well the cold war certainly went away under Yeltsin.

However it may be on its way back. Russia feels it has lost too much ground in the last 20 years. The Warsaw pact and Comecon have broken up, the Soviet Union has broken up, and to make it worse Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Georgia etc are now firmly in the western sphere of influence.

Putin hails from the communist era, and his instincts are to behave in an agressive and dictatorial manner.

Russia is in some ways more powerful than before. Its economy is far more efficient than the old USSR, its energy production means that it can hold much of europe to ranson, by raising gas prices, or even withholding it. They have already stsrted using this tactic.

In addition Russia is trying to intimidate its immediate neighbours such as Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Estonia and Moldova, russian aircraft are buzzing on the boundaries of British airspace, and they are trying to claim a huge portion of the north pole for themselves.

They are also supporting rogue regimes like Iran with their nuclear programme, and propping up fellow dictators in Belarus.

The wiping out of critics of Putin both within and outside Russia are well documented.

So yes, i believe that there are a lot of indicators that could leave us beleiving there could be a new cold war!

Answer 2

The cold war happened because Russia was in position to challenged the US and spread Communism, not because they weren't nice guys. They are no longer spreading Communism and do not have the power to challenged the US. However they still have a lot of nuclear weapons which will remain a potential threat if they get into irresponsible hands.

Answer 3

I think we are seeing international politics progress. Before WW2 European countries colonized the world. After WW2 the great powers were the USA and USSR who had defeated the Germans and Japanese. They called it in international relations a "Bipolar" world with two powers opposite each other. Then with the fall of the USSR in 1990 we have an anonmalous situation with one overwhelming military and economic power. However is power monopoly is changing as other nations such as China, India, Iran, the Islamic Countries and Russia this American monopoly of force and supremacy. The turbulence in the world is just it readjusting itself into multiple power centers.

Answer 4

Iran does not have something to threaten us with. they don't have a nuclear weapon and are 10 years far off from getting one in the event that all of them started staggering now. Iran has had 9 suprise inspection interior the final 12 months, and has pasted all of them with flying hues. The media and the Bush administration won't permit you recognize issues like the reality.

Answer 5

Ah, all of Russia's politics is corrupt anyway.
I mean, a prime minister AND a president?
And are there no traffic laws anymore?!
And the Cold War never ended. It just was postponed.

Answer 6

And then there are those shirtless pics of Putin this past week. Sure glad Brezhnev did not do that.

Answer 7

it is a matter of terminology.. and geography.

If you live in the West then it may have seemed like the war was not 'hot' or faught with actual live bullets, however, this is just an illusion.

During the 19th Century, there were about 30 wars and conflicts. Since 1945 there have been a lot more.

The Western democracies and the Soviet Union discussed the progress of World War II and the nature of the postwar settlement at conferences in Tehran (1943), Yalta (February 1945), and Potsdam (July-August 1945). After the war, disputes between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, particularly over the Soviet takeover of East European states, led Winston Churchill to warn in 1946 that an "iron curtain" was descending through the middle of Europe. For his part, Joseph Stalin deepened the estrangement between the United States and the Soviet Union when he asserted in 1946 that World War II was an unavoidable and inevitable consequence of "capitalist imperialism" and implied that such a war might reoccur.

The Cold War was a period of East-West competition, tension, and conflict may have fell short of full-scale war between the two super powers. However, it was not as cold as many seem to thiunk, as there were real wars, sometimes called "proxy wars" because they were fought by Soviet allies rather than the USSR itself -- along with competition for influence in the Third World, and a major superpower arms race.

In fact there have been more 'Proxy wars' since 1945, than at any other time in history. The first proxy war in the Cold War was the Greek Civil War, in which the Western-allied Greek government was nearly overthrown by Communist rebels with limited direct aid from Soviet client states in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. The Greek Communists managed to seize most of Greece, but a strong government counterattack forced them back. The Western Allies eventually won, due largely to an ideological split between Stalin and Tito. Though previously allied to the rebels, Tito closed Yugoslavia's borders to ELAS partisans when, despite the nonexistence of Soviet aid to the rebels, Greek Communists sided with Stalin. Albania followed Tito's suit shortly thereafter. With no way to get aid, the rebellion collapsed.

In the Korean War the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China aided the Communists in North Korea and China against the United Nations forces led by the United States, but the Soviet Union did not enter the war directly. China however did enter the war directly and sent millions of its troops in 1950 preventing the U.N. coalition from defeating the communist government of the north.

In the Vietnam War the Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam and the Viet Minh with training, logistics and materiel but unlike the United States Armed Forces they fought the war through their proxies and did not enter the conflict directly.

During most of the Angolan Civil War after independence in 1975 the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc supported the Marxist government of the MPLA with money, logistics, and weapons, while the Cuban Armed Forces were sent to fight alongside the Angolan Army. The United States cooperated with the Apartheid regime of South Africa in sending support to the largest anti-communist rebel group, UNITA. The MPLA government in Angola was also sending aid and support to antiApartheid groups in South Africa and the independence movement in South West Africa (present day Namibia, which led the South African government to support UNITA with guns and money, and eventually with thousands of troops from the South African National Defence Force.

During the Mozambique civil war, the communist government of Mozambique supported the rebellion against the racist, white minority led government of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In response the Rhodesian government organized and than funded an anti-communist rebel group called RENAMO (Mozambique National Resistance). After Rhodesia collapsed and became Zimbabwe in 1980, South Africa took over supporting RENAMO. In 1991 the South African government began reforms at ending Apartheid and also ending its involvement in armed conflict elsewhere. Later that year both South African and Cuban troops withdrew from Angola and in 1992 RENAMO and the government of Mozambique signed a peace accord. UNITA continued to fight the freely elected government of Angola, eventually losing its support from all of its former allies (including the United States and South Africa).

The war between the mujahadeen and the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a classic asymmetric war. The aid given by the U.S. to the mujahadeen during the war was only covert at the tactical level.

During the Lebanese Civil War Syria supported the Maronite Christian dominated Lebanese Front with arms and troops, while interestingly enough Syria's enemy Israel supported the Lebanese Front by providing them with arms, tanks and money. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) supported the Lebanese National Movement (NLM).

Its not a new idea, - The classic example is the great German civil war, namely the 30 Years' War of 1618-48. The Catholic and Protestant Germans, with roughly equal strength, battered each other through two generations because France sneakily shifted resources to whichever side seemed likely to fold. I have contended for years that the United States ultimately has adopted the perpetual-warfare doctrine - that so well served Cardinal Richelieu and made France the master of Europe for a century - in the Middle East, to ensure cheap oil. The soviet union does the same in Africa - to ensure cheap minerials and food, and China does the same in southern Asia - to remove cheap labour, and keep its export industury alive.