Cold War II
by Robert R. Ulin, August 10, 2024
Forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history. Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark… In the final choice, a soldier’s pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner’s chains. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953 Inaugural address, 20 Jan.
When we look back on history will we identify this time as the initial stage of Cold War II? The precise date may never be determined but what the world is experiencing today is reminiscent of what we experienced during the first cold war that started shortly after World War II and ended with the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1990.
The defining characteristic of the first Cold War was the policy of containment–containing the spread of communism. Cold war activities represented a combination of soft power and hard power actions between the major powers just short of great power (U.S. and Soviet) direct conflict. The war was “Cold” because the U.S. and Soviet Union did not directly engage in conflict with one another. But they aggressively used soft power against each other and fought a series of proxy wars through third parties where soldiers and civilians of other nations died on battlefields around the world.
Major power warfare is a combination of diplomatic, military, informational, and economic actions to influence a desired outcome. During the Cold War we employed several elements of soft and hard power. Soft power was employed through diplomacy, commerce, and information through the United States Information Service, Radio Free Europe, and American libraries located in several friendly countries abroad designed to tell the American Story and counter communist propaganda. Broadcasting functions, including Voice of America, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Europe (in Eastern Europe), Radio Free Asia, and Radio Liberty (in Russia and other areas of the former Soviet Union), were consolidated as an independent entity under a Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).[i]
Commercial attachés in American embassies promote American businesses to the countries to which they are posted while military officers assigned to offices of defense cooperation also in U.S. embassies support the sale of U.S. defense articles through the U. S. Foreign Military Sales program.
Examples of hard power are the promotion, support, and projection of military forces in support of national security objectives. The U.S. has agreements with host nations for the stationing of several hundred thousand of its armed forces. At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s there were over 400,000 military personnel stationed in Europe supporting our strategy of forward defense.[ii] The USSR likewise stationed forces in Eastern Europe. In addition, The U.S. and USSR projected power into the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world.
As recently as September 2023, there were over 168,000 active-duty U.S. troops serving overseas.[iii] Current deployments include U.S. Navy Carrier Task Forces in the Middle East, stationing of military aircraft abroad and deployment of Marine or Army forces in support of friendly foreign nations.
When we talk of Cold War, this does not mean that American forces are not fighting. For example, during the Cold war (1946-1990) American forces fought in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and Panama, among others. In Africa we supported forces fighting a guerilla war in Angola that was supported by the Cubans, and we supported the French who were fighting Soviet proxy forces in the Chadian civil war.
As nuclear weapons were being developed and deployed in the 1950s, the doctrine of mutual assured destruction became American nuclear policy where it was believed that any war could end in the complete destruction of the American and Soviet homelands. By the mid-1970s, the U.S., Great Britian, and France deployed thousands of nuclear weapons in Western Europe to counter the massive conventional forces arrayed against NATO. Eventually cooler heads prevailed, and the major powers (U.S. and USSR) engaged in a series of arms control agreements limiting and, in some cases, eliminating entire classes of nuclear weapons.
One could mark the start of Cold War II with the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, a war waged by the Russian Federation and Russian-backed separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula and in February 2022 Russia launched an invasion of the Ukraine that triggered a major crisis in eastern Europe.
Russia developed several bi-lateral agreements with China, Iran, and North Korea for materials, weapons, and ammunition to support their war efforts. In the meantime, Russian forces are engaged in Africa, Latin American, and Cuba to name a few to destabilize American power.
As of this writing, a major shooting war between Russia and NATO has been avoided but some incidents have come dangerously close to crossing the line as U.S and NATO supported Ukraine has attacked targets on Russian territory. Additionally, Russia has reportedly redeployed some nuclear weapons to Belarus and threatened the use of tactical nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory.
One wonders where the line is between a cold war and a hot war. What happens when a paranoid leader of a nuclear power decides to launch nuclear weapons to defend his country, eliminate his adversary, or simply punish the other side? History abounds with examples of erratic leaders who take risks that result in disastrous consequences.
So, are we currently in Cold War II? I would argue that we are. When one considers the countries aligned with and supporting Ukraine in the West and those supporting Russia in the East it’s easy to see that unforeseen circumstances could trigger a global conflict.
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agency
[ii] USA Facts, https://usafacts.org/articles/where-are-us-military-members-stationed-and-why/
[iii] Ibid